The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society Part 5

I've just appropriated my music critic's opera tickets. Covent Garden at eight. Will you?

Yours, Mark From Juliet to Mark

Dear Mark,

Tonight?

Juliet From Mark to Juliet

Yes!

M.

From Juliet to Mark

Wonderful! I feel sorry for your critic, though. Those tickets are scarce as hens' teeth.

Juliet From Mark to Juliet

He'll make do with standing room. He can write about the uplifting effect of opera on the poor, etc., etc. I'll pick you up at seven.

M.

From Juliet to Eben Mr Eben Ramsey Les Pommiers Calais Lane St Martin's, Guernsey

3rd March 1946 March 1946

Dear Mr Ramsey,

It was so kind of you to write to me about your experiences during the Occupation. At the war's end, I, too, promised myself that I wouldn't talk about it any more. I had talked and lived war for six years, and I was longing to pay attention to something-anything-else. But that is like wis.h.i.+ng I were someone else. The war is now the story of our lives, and there's no denying it; I was glad to hear about your grandson Eli returning to you. Does he live with you or with his parents? Did you receive no news of him at all during the Occupation? Did all the Guernsey children return at once? What a celebration, if they did!

I don't mean to inundate you with questions, but I have a few more, if you're in an answering frame of mind. I know you were at the roast-pig dinner that led to the founding of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society-but how did Mrs Maugery come to have the pig in the first place? How does one hide a pig?

Elizabeth McKenna was brave that night! She truly has grace under pressure, a quality that fills me with hopeless admiration. I know you and the other members of the Society must worry as the months pa.s.s without word, but you mustn't give up hope. Friends tell me that Europe is like a hive broken open, teeming with thousands upon thousands of displaced people, all trying to get home. A dear old friend of mine, who was shot down in Burma in 1943, reappeared in Australia last month-not in the best of shape, but alive and intending to remain so.

Thank you for your letter.

Yours sincerely, Juliet Ashton From Clovis Fossey to faliet 4th March 1946 March 1946

Dear Miss,

At first, I did not want to go to any book meetings. Myfarm is a lot of work, and I did not want to spend my time reading about people who never were, doing things they never did.

Then in 1942 I started to court the Widow Hubert When we'd go for a walk, she'd march a few steps ahead of me on the path and never let me take her arm. She let Ralph Murchey take her arm, so I knew I was failing in my suit Ralph, he's a bragger when he drinks, and he said to all in the tavern, 'Women like poetry. A soft word in their ears and they melt a grease spot on the gra.s.s.' That's no way to talk about a lady, and I knew right then he didn't want the Widow Hubert for her own self, the way I did. He wanted only her grazing land for his cows. So I thought, If it's rhymes the Widow Hubert wants, I will find me some.

I went to see Mr Fox in his bookshop and asked for some love poetry. He didn't have many books left by that time-people bought them to burn, and when he finally caught on, he closed his shop for good-so he gave me some fellow named Catullus. He was a Roman. Do you know the kind of things he said in verse? I knew I couldn't say those words to a nice lady.

He did hanker after one woman, Lesbia, who spurned him after taking him into her bed. I don't wonder she did so-he did not like it when she petted her downy little sparrow. Jealous of a little bird, he was. He went home and took up his pen to write of his anguish at seeing her cuddle the little birdy to her bosom. He took it hard, and he never liked women after that and wrote mean poems about them. He was a right one too. Do you want to see a poem he wrote when a fallen woman charged him for her favours-poor la.s.s. I will copy it out for you.

Is that battered strumpet in her senses, who asks me for a thousand sesterces?

That girl with the nasty nose?

Ye kinsmen to whom the care of the girl belongs, Call together friends and physicians; the girl is insane.

She thinks she is pretty.

Those are love tokens? I told my friend Eben I never saw such spiteful stuff He said to me I had just not read the right poets. He took me into his cottage and lent me a little book of his own. It was the poetry of Wilfred Owen. He was an officer in the First World War, and he knew what was what and called it by its right name. I was there, too, at Pa.s.schendaele, and I knew what he knew, but I could never put it into words for myself.

Well, after that, I thought there might be something to this poetry after all. I began to go to meetings, and I'm glad I did, else how would I have read the works of William Wordsworth-he would have stayed unknown to me. I learnt many of his poems by heart.

Anyway, I did win the hand of the Widow Hubert-my Nancy. I got her to go for a walk along the cliffs one evening, and I said, 'Lookie there, Nancy. The gentleness of Heaven broods o'er the sea-Listen, the mighty Being is awake.' She let me kiss her. She is now my wife.

Yours truly, Clovis Fossey

P. S. Mrs Maugery lent me a book last week. It's called The Oxford Book of Modern Verse, 1892-1935 The Oxford Book of Modern Verse, 1892-1935. They let a man named Yeats make the choosings. They shouldn't have. Who is he-and what does he know about verse?

I hunted all through that book for poems by Wilfred Owen or Siegfried Sa.s.soon. There weren't any-not one, And do you know why not? Because this Mr Yeats said-he said, 'I deliberately chose NOT to include any poems from World War 1. I have a distaste for them. Pa.s.sive suffering is not a theme for poetry.'

Pa.s.sive Suffering? Pa.s.sive Suffering! I could have hit him. What ailed the man? Lieutenant Owen, he wrote a line, 'What pa.s.sing-bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns.' What's pa.s.sive about that, I'd like to know? That's exacdy how they do die. I saw it with my own eyes, and I say to h.e.l.l with Mr Yeats.

From Eben to Juliet 10th March 1946 March 1946

Dear Miss Ashton,

Thank you for your letter and your kind questions about my grandson, Eli. He is the child of my daughter, Jane. Jane and her newborn baby died in hospital on the day that the Germans bombed us, the 28th of June, 1940. Eli's father was killed in North Africa in 1942, so I have Eli in my keeping now. of June, 1940. Eli's father was killed in North Africa in 1942, so I have Eli in my keeping now.

Eli left Guernsey on the 20th of June along with the thousands of babies and schoolchildren who were evacuated to England. We knew the Germans were coming and Jane worried for his safety here. The doctor would not let Jane sail with the children, the baby's birth being so close. of June along with the thousands of babies and schoolchildren who were evacuated to England. We knew the Germans were coming and Jane worried for his safety here. The doctor would not let Jane sail with the children, the baby's birth being so close.

We did not have any news of the children for six months. Then I got a postcard from the Red Cross, saying Eli was well, but not where he was situated-we never knew what towns our children were in, though we prayed not in a big city. An even longer time pa.s.sed before I could send him a card in return, but I was of two minds about that I dreaded telling him that his mother and the baby had died. I hated to think of my boy reading those cold words on the back of a postcard. But I had to do it And then a second time, after I got word about his father.

Eli did not come back until the war was over-and diey did send all the children home at once. That was a day! More wonderful even than when the British soldiers came to liberate Guernsey. Eli, he was the first boy down the gangway-he'd grown long legs in five years-and I don't think I could have stopped hugging him, if Isola hadn't pushed me a bit so she could hug him herself.

I bless G.o.d that he was boarded with a forming family in Yorks.h.i.+re. They were very good to him. Eli gave me a letter they had written to me-it was full of all the things I had missed. They told of his schooling, how he helped on the farm, how he tried to be steadfast when he got my postcards.

He fishes with me and helps me tend my cow and garden, but carving wood is what he likes best-Dawsey and I are teaching him how to do it. He fas.h.i.+oned a fine snake from a bit of broken fence last week, though it's my guess that the bit of broken fence was really a rafter from Dawsey's barn. Dawsey just smiled when I asked him about it, but spare wood is hard to find on the island now, as we had to cut down most of the trees-banisters and furniture, too-for firewood when there was no more coal or paraffin left. Eli and I are planting trees on my land now, but it is going to take a long time for them to grow-and we do all miss the leaves and shade.

I will tell you now about our roast pig. The Germans were fussy over farm animals. Pigs and cows were kept strict count of. Guernsey was to feed the German troops stationed here and in France. We ourselves could have what was left, if there was any.

How the Germans did fuss about book-keeping. They kept track of every gallon we milked, weighed the cream, recorded every sack of flour. They left the chickens alone for a while. But when feed and sc.r.a.ps became so scarce they ordered us to kill off the older chickens, so the good layers could have enough feed to keep on laying eggs.

We fishermen had to give them the largest share of our catch. They would meet our boats in the harbour to portion out their share. Early in the Occupation, a good many Islanders escaped to England in fis.h.i.+ng boats-some drowned, but some made it So the Germans made a new rule, any person who had a family member in England would not be allowed in a fis.h.i.+ng boat-they were afraid we'd try to escape. Since Eli was somewhere in England, I had to lend out my boat I went to work in one of Mr Privot's greenhouses, and after a time, I got so I could tend the plants well. But goodness, how I did miss my boat and the sea.

The Germans were especially fretful about meat because they didn't want any to go to the Black Market instead of feeding their own soldiers. If your sow had a litter, the German Agricultural Officer would come to your farm, count the piglets, give you a birth certificate for each one, and mark his record book. If a pig died a natural death, you told the AO and out he'd come again, look at the dead body, and give you a death certificate.

They would make surprise visits to your farm, and your number of living pigs had better tally with their number of living pigs. One pig less and you were fined, one time more and you could be arrested and sent to jail in St Peter Port If too many pigs went missing, the Germans thought you were selling on the Black Market, and you were sent to a labour camp in Germany. With the Germans you never knew which way they'd blow-they were a moody people. In the beginning, though, it was easy to fool the Agricultural Officer and keep a secret live pig for your own use. This is how Mrs Maugery came to have hers.

Will Thisbee had a sickly pig who died. The AO came out and wrote a certificate saying the pig was truly dead and left Will alone to bury the poor animal. But Will didn't-he raced off through the wood with the little body and gave it to Mrs Maugery. She hid her own healthy pig and called the AO saying, 'Come quickly, my pig has died.'

The AO came out straight away and, seeing the pig with its toes turned up, never knew it was the same pig he'd seen earlier that morning. He inscribed his dead-animal book with one more dead pig.

Mrs Maugery took the same carca.s.s over to another friend, and he pulled the same trick the next day. We could do this till the pig turned rank. The Germans caught on finally and began to tattoo each pig and cow at birth, so there was no more dead-animal swapping. But Mrs Maugery, with a live, hidden, fat and healthy pig, needed only Dawsey to come to kill it quietly. It had to be done quietly because there was a German battery by her farm, and it would not do for the soldiers to hear the pig's death squeal and come running.

Pigs have always been drawn to Dawsey-he could come into a yard, and they would rush up to him and have their backs scratched. They'd make racket for anyone else-squealing and snuffling and plunging about But Dawsey, he could soothe them and he knew just the right spot under their chins to slip his knife in quick. There wasn't time for the pigs to squeal; they'd just slide quietly on to the ground. I told Dawsey they only looked up once in surprise, but he said no, pigs were bright enough to know betrayal when they met it, and I wasn't to whitewash matters.

Mrs Maugery's pig made us a fine dinner-there were onions and potatoes to fill out the roast. We had almost forgotten what it felt like to have full stomachs, but it came back to us. With the curtains closed against the sight of the German battery, and food and friends at the table, we could make believe that none of it had happened.

You are right to call Elizabeth brave. She is that, and always was. She came from London to Guernsey as a little girl with her mother and Sir Ambrose Ivers. She met my Jane her first summer here, when they were both ten, and they were ever staunch to one another since then.

When Elizabeth came back in the spring of 1940 to close up Sir Ambrose's house, she stayed longer than was safe, because she wanted to stand by Jane. My girl had been feeling poorly since her husband John went to England to sign up-that was in December 1939-and she had a difficult time holding on to the baby till her time came. Dr Martin ordered her to bed, so Elizabeth stayed on to keep her company and play with Eli. Nothing Eli liked more than to play with Elizabeth. They were a threat to the furniture, but it was good to hear them laugh. I went over once to collect the two of them for supper and when I stepped in, there they were-sprawled on a pile of pillows at the foot of the staircase. They had polished Sir Ambrose's fine oak banister and come sailing down three floors!

It was Elizabeth who did what was needed to get Eli on the evacuation s.h.i.+p. We Islanders were given only one day's notice when the s.h.i.+ps were coming from England to take the children away. Elizabeth worked like a whirligig, was.h.i.+ng and sewing Eli's clothes and helping him to understand why he could not take his pet rabbit with him. When we set out for the school, Jane had to turn away so as not to show Eli a tearful face at parting, so Elizabeth took him by the hand and said it was good weather for a sea voyage.

Even after that, Elizabeth wouldn't leave Guernsey when everyone else was trying to get away. 'No,' she said. 'I'll wait for Jane's baby to come, and, when she's fattened up enough, then she and Jane and I will go to London. Then we'll find out where Eli is and go and get him.' For all her winning ways, Elizabeth was wilful. She'd stick out that jaw of hers and you could see it wasn't any use arguing with her about leaving. Not even when we could all see the smoke coming from Cherbourg, where the French were burning up their fuel tanks, so the Germans couldn't have them. But, no matter, Elizabeth wouldn't go without Jane and the baby. I think Sir Ambrose had told her he and one of his yachting friends could sail right into St Peter Port and take them off Guernsey before the Germans came. To tell the truth, I was glad she did not leave us. She was with me at the hospital when Jane and her new baby died. She sat by Jane, holding on hard to her hand.

After Jane died, Elizabeth and me, we stood in the hallway, numb and staring out of the window. It was then we saw seven German planes come in low over the harbour. They were just on one of the reconnaissance flights, we thought-but then they began dropping bombs-they tumbled from the sky like sticks. We didn't speak, but I know what we were thinking-thank G.o.d Eli was safely away.

Elizabeth stood by Jane and me in the bad rime, and afterwards. I was not able to stand by Elizabeth, so I thank G.o.d her daughter Kit is safe and with us, and I pray for Elizabeth to come home soon.

I was glad to hear of your friend who was found in Australia. I hope you will correspond with me and Dawsey again, as he enjoys hearing from you as much as I do myself.

Yours sincerely, Eben Ramsey From Daiosey to Juliet 12th March 1946 March 1946

Dear Miss Ashton,

I am glad you liked the white lilacs.

I will tell you about Mrs Dilwyn's soap. Around about the middle of the Occupation, soap became scarce; families were only allowed one tablet per person a month. It was made of some kind of French clay and lay like a dead thing in the washtub. It made no lather-you just had to scrub and hope it worked.

Being clean was hard work, and we had all got used to being more or less dirty, along with our clothes. We were allowed a tiny bit of soap powder for dishes and clothes, but it was a laughable amount; no bubbles there either. Some of the ladies felt it keenly, and Mrs Dilwyn was one of those. Before the war, she had bought her dresses in Paris, and those fancy clothes went to ruins faster than the plain kind.

One day, Mr Scope's pig died of milk fever. Because no one dared eat it, Mr Scope offered me the carca.s.s. I remembered my mother making soap from fat, so I thought I could try it It came out looking like frozen dishwater and smelling worse. So I melted it all down and started again. Hooker, who had come over to help, suggested paprika for colour and cinnamon for scent Mrs Maugery let us have some of each, and we put it in the mix.

When the soap had hardened enough, we cut it into circles with Mrs Maugery's biscuit cutter. I wrapped the soap in cheesecloth, Elizabeth tied bows of red yarn, and we gave it as presents to all the ladies at the Society's next meeting. For a week or two, anyway, we looked like respectable people.

I am working several days a week now at the quarry, as well as at the port Isola thought I looked tired and mixed up a balm for aching muscles-it's called Angel Fingers. Isola has a cough syrup called Devil's Suck and I pray I'll never need it.

Yesterday, Mrs Maugery and Kit came over for supper, and we took a blanket down to the beach afterwards to watch the moon rise. Kit loves doing that, but she always falls asleep before it is fully risen, and I carry her home. She is certain she'll be able to stay awake all night as soon as she's five.

Do you know much about children? I don't, and although I am learning, I think I am a slow learner. It was much easier before Kit learnt to talk, but it was not so much fun. I try to answer her questions, but I am usually behindhand and she has moved on to a new question before I can answer the first Also, I don't know enough to please her. I don't know what a mongoose looks like.

I like getting your letters, but I often feel I don't have any news worth telling, so it is good to answer your rhetorical questions.

Yours, Dawsey Adams From Adelaide Addison to Juliet 12th March 1946 March 1946

Dear Miss Ashton,