Synopsis
This is the story of a family in the industrial heartland of Britain whose life is profoundly altered by an event of war, and of the others that play a part in the lives of the members of the family, and who share a common goal of survival in dangerous times.
The scene opens as across the city the air-raid warning sounds and Ted and June take their two young sons, Peter and Richard, into the Anderson shelter. The parents make the children as comfortable as possible in the damp, dimly lit, interior of this place. Just one of the many routine hardships of life in wartime.
As the bombs are heard exploding in the distance, June sees signs that her husband is disturbed by this. She knows that he still suffers from the shell shock that was the cause of his recent discharge from the Royal Navy; a subject Ted won't talk about.
Contemplation is banished by the terrifying noise of an aircraft overhead, and then the shattering sound of an explosion close by. This time the bombs have hit the adjacent terrace of houses, not the usual industrial target. In the aftermath of the massive explosion Ted leaves the shelter to investigate the damage, and this leads to an encounter that will change all their lives.
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In the night sky above the grimy city the light of a pale moon flickered between gaps in the scudding clouds. The noise of the siren on the roof of the police station had wound up from deep throaty groan to a full banshee pitch that penetrated the murky evening air. The sound rolled over the smoking chimneys and slated roofs in its path. And down it travelled into the contiguous blocks of small terraced houses, built in the early part of the century and before to amass great reservoirs of available labour, and through the myriad small workshops and manufactories; grim symbols of the great industrial power of Britain now the target of a determined destroyer.
Those now reached by the warning of yet another air-raid were people caught up in another European conflict, the second in only 22 years, for the 1914–1918 tragedy was well within the recollection of most. Here was a society that, for the most part, had small knowledge of the details of the war in which it was now embroiled. At the outbreak of war in September 1939, the main preoccupation of those inhabiting the industrial heartland of the nation was survival. There was little interest in, and even indifference to, the foreigners with incomprehensible ways, who inhabited those lands beyond the great divide that was the English Channel. In Neville Chamberlain’s words: ‘people of whom before Munich we knew nothing.’ Poland and Czechoslovakia were too remote for consideration of the sacrifice made of those nations on the altar of appeasement.
In spite of the great national wealth their labours had generated for Britain, in the years following the 1914–18 war and the much heralded promises made at the end of that war, the lives of most who lived in these isles were still hard, and for too many the poverty was grinding and unrelieved. For now, though, the hot-blooded ideals of socialism that had steadily gained the interest of the masses during the thirties seemed to have cooled. Attention was diverted to the dangers of a foe without, and, for now, arch socialists and men of the people were working cheek by jowl with the patricians. For the inhabitants of the city that evening within earshot of the pervasive wail of the siren, as for millions of others in this land hemmed in and alone, theirs was a resistance steeled by the known threat of a renewed, awesomely powerful Germany, just across the English Channel, and the prospect of imminent invasion. An enemy that in a very short time had demonstrated its terrible ability to strike into their very homes in a manner never before experienced by the civilian population of Britain.
Down in the streets there was only the smallest quickening of activity to be observed in response to the air-raid warning. For many it was during their evening back from work, or during the early hours of the night shift. For most it meant a rude disturbance and a reluctant trip to a chilly air-raid shelter. It was an observed fact that for the vast majority of people fear never played much of a part in their reaction to a bombing raid. The resultant of such hammerings by the airborne enemy was, rather, recalcitrance.
Among the inhabitants of the city that night were the members of a family of which, from this point, there is a story to tell, a tale of people in this part of industrial England during and soon after the war, not exceptional, but illustrative of many during those momentous years.
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