Leaving the cinema, Madge said to Vera, ‘I don’t know about you but I thought the film was very disappointing. I was really looking forward to seeing it too.’
Vera laughed. ‘I think you’ve just become used to a very high standard of entertainment since coming to London, and this evening simply wasn’t up to scratch!’
The pair giggled as they made their way back to Baker Street.
The evening looked to be ending on a low note until the VADs were stunned into silence when details of the ‘big day’ were suddenly revealed. They had just forty-eight hours to get themselves sorted, and then they’d be off. The surprise announcement left Madge in a bit of a pickle and because her mind was turning over at such speed, instead of going to bed she joined a group of VADs who reconvened for a cup of tea at the nearby Moo Cow Milk Bar. Once she was there she found she couldn’t relax so she stayed for just fifteen minutes before turning in for the night, and lay awake worrying about how to solve what had suddenly become a very big problem. Madge had promised Mum that she would spend an hour or two saying goodbye to Ruby Toon, her favourite cousin, and the daughter of Dad’s sister.
‘It’s important,’ Mum had said, ‘because we spent many happy summers with that side of the family when your father was alive. You must make time for all your family.’
Madge eventually fell into a fitful sleep, and dreamed about a faraway land that felt so different from anything she had ever encountered.
On Saturday morning, the usually chatty atmosphere at breakfast was replaced with a sense of urgency as the reality of what was soon to take place began to sink in. But Madge had more immediate worries and phoned Ruby shortly after 7 a.m. Those warnings about security were very much on Madge’s mind as she thought about the best way to make Ruby understand the urgency of the request at such short notice without revealing the reason.
They had become very close, however, during the many happy years they had spent on those family holidays and Ruby knew her cousin well enough to instantly detect the strain in her voice.
‘Hello, Ruby, do you fancy a drink in the Paxton Arms around lunchtime?’ asked Madge.
‘That’s an invitation out of the blue,’ laughed Ruby, ‘but the answer is no because the Paxton is closed and so are many other places in Anerley after being hit by a doodlebug a couple of days ago.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Madge. ‘Is there anywhere else we could meet?’
‘The damage is terrible,’ said Ruby, ‘but how about going to see a film? Maybe in Bromley?’
They arranged to meet at 1 p.m. and once the phone call ended a relieved Madge happily waited until her bank opened so she could withdraw £5 before popping off on another shopping spree that turned out to be a disappointment. Toiletries had become increasingly difficult to find and she had run out of clothing coupons.
‘This is terrible,’ Madge told Ruby, as she viewed a scene of utter devastation after arriving in Anerley by bus. Gentle summer sunshine cast shadows on roofless houses and shops without windows that were yet to be boarded up because the damage was so recent.
As they ate an early lunch, Ruby asked how Auntie Lily had coped without Uncle Charles and Madge told her, with great pride, how Mum had tried so hard to make sure that Doris and Doreen had a happy life. ‘She really is a wonderful woman. I’m so proud of my mum.’
They talked and talked in the little cafe where they enjoyed sandwiches and tea before heading off to the pictures to watch Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier in The Divorce of Lady X. As they walked to the bus stop, Ruby couldn’t help giggling when Madge said that because of security reasons she wasn’t allowed to say when she was leaving.
‘You sound like somebody from the Secret Service!’ Ruby said. ‘I take it you can’t tell me where you’re going either then?’
‘I don’t even know myself,’ Madge admitted.
When they saw Madge’s bus coming round the corner Ruby threw her arms round her favourite cousin in a loving and emotional farewell.
‘Good luck, my darling Madge. You are just like Auntie Lily, you know – a very brave lady,’ she sobbed.
On the bus Madge glanced at her watch and saw that it was 8.45 p.m. I’ll reach Baker Street in plenty of time for roll call, she said to herself. But a bomb had landed close to St Thomas’s Hospital on the Lambeth side of the Thames opposite the Houses of Parliament. There were no casualties but it wasn’t the first time the hospital had been hit – twelve nurses had died in the Blitz of 1940 when it had been hit by a high-explosive bomb. The lengthy delay meant that for the first time in her days at Baker Street Madge missed the curfew that she had so meticulously observed. She found herself in trouble when her apologies and explanation for her lateness were not accepted. I’ll be pleased to be free of all these rules and regulations as of tomorrow, she thought. But then she felt those butterflies creep back into her stomach as she realised she had no idea what she was getting herself into and what life in India would actually be like.
Sunday 16 July 1944 would become a date etched in the minds of all the 250 VADs who had volunteered in response to the plea from Lord Louis Mountbatten. It was the day on which their five-thousand-mile journey to India would begin. For Madge it meant a 6.30 a.m. start and one last check of the cabin case she had so carefully packed and repacked just to be sure. Everything she would wear and need for the sea voyage
