The Ripponden War

The Ripponden Wars

Chapter 1

I can’t really remember my time in the war.  I mean I was evacuated for almost all of it but it is all a blur now. At the time it was so significant. I kept a diary. I must have thought that I would look back on that time with fondness, look back on my teenage years as being fun and exciting. But I really just wanted my family. I recently found my diary in the attic.  I started reading and it all came back to me. I still read it now and again to remind me. I don’t want my teenage years to be a dark hole in my memory.  I want to talk of them with confidence that I am actually talking the truth. I had so many good times that I don’t want them to be overridden by the bad. I want to remember, I want to remember……….

I put one conscious step onto the pedal of my new bike. The pink handles were a stark contrast to the bleak, black streets of London. I’m not sure why I got the bike. Mum had given me it as a present. It was weird. She had given me it and said “now go enjoy it because its nearly time now” I was confused. ‘Time for what? I pushed down and felt the bike move. Suddenly I wasn’t Dotty Hopkins, 12 year old city girl, I was Dorothy Honour, Olympic cyclist. I turned left and braked sharply. I turned right and did a full 360 turn, I turned left and went straight ahead. Then I was flying through the air as free as a bird. BANG! I had been shot out of the sky! I hit the hard concrete and fell out of my fantasy world. I had travelled a few tentative pedals forward and tripped over a tin can. I wasn’t an athlete or a bird. I was just Dotty.

I examined the damage on my knee. There was a deep cut and it was flecked with black gravel. It started to trickle down my shin and it started to seep into my socks. It was blossoming outwards like ripples on water. It was captivating.  My mother’s cries bought me back to earth with a bang. I felt a sharp pain pierce through my body. My knee felt like it was on fire. I couldn’t stop the tears that were coming hot and fast down my face. I tried to stop them. I wasn’t the crying kind . I didn’t cry. Ever. When Dad left for war I didn’t cry, when grandmamma died I didn’t cry. I showed no emotion.

“Dotty! Are you okay sweetie?” My mother ran towards me and picked my frail frame up in her arms. She carried me into our house and laid me on the sofa. She left to make me a cup of tea and I felt a rustle underneath my body. I reached behind me and found a scrumpled letter that read:

Mrs Hopkins

Thank you for taking part in the evacuation service, your child will be in safe hands we promise. Your child’s train will come on the 24th April at 7 am precisely. Please don’t be late. I hope you know how much safer your child will be now.

Thank you again

The British Evacuation Headquarters

I had been holding back the tears but know they just flooded out. How could she? Evacuation! I know it’s a bloody war but why does she have to send me away? I don’t want to leave her alone. I don’t want her to leave me!

She came back in and I just stared at her. Her usual motherly smile fell into a upset expression as she saw the letter in my hand. “ I was going to tell you..”

“ When Mum, when were you going to tell me, I leave TOMORROW!”

Her face dropped. She collapsed onto the sofa and held her head in her hands.  She sighed

“I didn’t know how to. There wasn’t a right time. I knew you would find out anyway. It isn’t safe for you anymore here. I want you to be safe. I don’t want you to die.”

I could see the pain in her face. Her eyes were glazed over and her face creasing. She started to tug at her hair nervously. I could tell I was wanted to leave.

The next day I woke early. The sun rose and trickled through the curtains. It seemed wrong. Today shouldn’t be boiling; it should be raining and grim. But instead it’s the nicest day it’s been in a while. Ironic.  I packed my bag and brushed my hair. I pulled it into a ponytail and sipped my tea. I slipped into my best dress. You had to look good see, otherwise you wouldn’t get picked. It was almost like a slave auction. My mother had even given me some makeup. I never touched it. I was a tomboy. I didn’t mind wearing a dress now and again but I drew the line at makeup. I walked down the stairs and I saw my mum waiting. I felt a sudden pang at my heartstrings when I realised that might be the last time I ever saw her at the bottom waiting for me.  

She took me in her arms and ruffled my hair. Doing the routine spit wash she shoved me out the door and quickly followed making sure to lock the door behind her.

As we started the long cold walk to the station I realised it was these little things I was going to miss. The way my mother used to tuck me in bed and read me a book. The way she would sing me to sleep. My mother had obsessive compulsive disorder. She would sit there at night and I could hear her organising her desk. I never saw a spice rack without each bottle of spice neatly labelled and arranged in alphabetical order. I would wake up and my room would be immaculate. I used to think it was the fairies but it turns out when mum can’t sleep she comes in and tidies my room.  I realised that I would miss my father, his child like smile, his twinkling eyes and his uncharacteristically low voice.  I would miss the way him and mother would sit by the old piano and bang out a classic sea shanty, painfully out of tune but apparently I just sat there and clapped along gleefully.

I suddenly stopped. My mother looked at me questioningly. I didn’t want to go! I didn’t want to leave her.

“ Dotty, what’s wrong dear?” I hugged her close and inhaled her sweet flowery scent.

“I don’t want to go live with some random family in the country! I want to live here with you and dad and I don’t want Hitler to bomb us! I just want everything back to how it used to be!”

I saw the tears appear in my mother’s eyes like molten silver.

“I know dear, and so do I , oh how I do but it can’t be. As your Grandma once told me ‘When life gives you a hundred reasons to cry, show life that you have a thousand reasons to smile.’ We can’t worry for what has happened just show them that we will always come out of it smiling.”

Her words were echoing in my head all the way to the station and before I knew it I could see the train that was to take me away from life as I knew it.