From one mother to another: ‘Junior’ and the war

The letters from my mother became a weekly routine for her, and some of the more excited letters were like this one where she divulges news of her first pregnancy. It is interesting, perhaps, to note that this was in the days before there was any way of telling the gender of an unborn child and until the actual birth it was all a nice, tantalising mystery…

20^th September 1939

Darlingest little Mummy, all this cramping of spaces is for economy because of the air mail rates and the rise in food prices, which makes it impossible for me to spend money on letters this week, and I want to put several in one envelope. So please forgive the short rations [short rations, my eye!  This letter alone would have gone eight normal pages, and the next two another seven, so rations weren’t all that short at all!]. I have been dying to write this letter for a week, but was so anxious not to lead you astray for a second time that I only wrote by ordinary mail last week so as not to give the show away too soon.  The time has now definitely arrived for you to invest in another lottery ticket because this time Junior is definitely on the way, and round about next May you will doubtless be a proud Grandmother.  Dr Tannahill says May 9^th or 10^th is the first possible date of arrival, and it may be any time during the fortnight after that, so don’t get flustered if you don’t win the first lottery, because there is time enough for the next one [Not far out, as it happened — the date was in fact the 16^th]. By golly I’m pleased, and so is Eric, despite Hitler and the awful way my tummy behaves in the mornings. I’m not good for much, and am getting a woman for half a day each week to clean the house and will just keep it dusted and tidy because Dr T. says I’m not to do any scrubbing or laundering. I shall be terribly glad when Gerry arrives – not because I want her to work while I lie on the couch, but because she will cheer us so nicely. Eric still works appallingly long hours and comes home tired, and I find myself being very dull for him just now despite my best efforts. I hope it will soon pass, so that I can cheer him on a bit because he is having such a difficult time. He has got rid of his fool of a foreman, which simplifies matters but doubles his own work and the Office of Works is trying to speed things up more than ever, with the result that Eric is on the job from morn till night trying to keep costs down and production up, and it is quite a difficult task.  His whole future depends on his success with this work, so I have to back him up and cheer him along as much as I can, even if my stomach is hanging by a thread in the meantime. What a life. We are both fine and grand apart from these things and so far the war isn’t worrying us very much. It seems a bit remote to me because I only hear about it on the radio, which is very calm about it. It is upsetting to hear news of loss of lives and shipping, but now that the first upheaval is over and we can sit cosily behind our darkened windows, everything seems peaceful enough. I refuse to be jittery about air raids until I have been shown a few samples and, even so, I shall be safe enough in this building, which is of five storeys and built of stout stone, not bricks. Being on the ground floor is a good thing because even if the building was hit, it is doubtful if the lower floors would be damaged in such a tall building. So really, we are very safe, and you are not to worry at all, because we aren’t worrying and doubtless everything will be all right in the end. I listen sometimes to the German stations broadcasting in English and really they are a stupid lot of nonsense. They spend their whole time hurling frightful and childish insults at our government, and praising the Pure and Truthfulness of German Propaganda. Then they say how cruel the English blockade is because it is warring against women and children. No mention of the 600 women and children killed when Germans bombed an evacuation train in Poland, and certainly no mention of the “Athenia” and the hundreds of lives lost there. They said Churchill sank that ship so as to rile America into joining the war. Har har. Well that’s enough of that dreary subject.

To return to the subject of Junior. Eric wants a boy but I don’t care which it is, but we have decided, subject to the parties concerned that it shall be either Richard or Ruth, and I am writing to Richard next thing to ask him if he will be a godfather. It is early days yet for these plans, but who cares about that and it may give Richard some fun thinking about it. The rest of the Godparents can be thought about when we know what sort it is. I feel so pleased with myself and I do hope you are pleased too. I am hoping that it will mean enough to you to make up for lots of things which is why I have been looking forward so much to the time when I can present you with a robust and virtuous grandchild. You will probably understand what I am driving at, so I won’t dwell on it. 

Jane’s letters became more sparse around 1942, and from this point on there were only four letters during the next six months. It is my opinion that the Australian family, being now rather spread out and having to share letters, most of them did not find their way back to Jane’s mother for safe-keeping. Of course we know that quite a number of letters did not reach Australia at all, either lost at sea or elsewhere. This is a shame, as they have thus far managed to give us a very firm idea of life in Jane’s world. But this is not quite the end of things yet! There are a couple of letters from other people, and in the middle of all this, Jane discovers that she might be pregnant again, and the family plans the move to Edinburgh! The actual move itself is not the subject of a letter, as it was last time, but we can easily pick up the threads.

The same applied to Jane’s letters for the rest of the war, and there were lot of letters missing.  The birth of her second child, Gillian, happened on December 30 1942, and her third, Phillippa, on August 2 1944.  Neither of these pregnancies were announced, or rather the letters containing the announcements did not survive, but there was plenty of news about the children as they grew up.

Did your mother have a feeling about what sex you would be? Do you have any stories about what your mother experienced during her pregnancy? Share them below.