Norma Rogers Ch. 04

As I opened the front door of the house, a letter caught my eye; l scooped it up off the floor. The address on the envelope was in Jim's handwriting. He had finally reached his destination. I opened it with trembling hands.Was it Egypt, or somewhere further east?I quickly read through it, and one particular paragraph caught my eye. "I love you, my dear, and one of my favourite memories is that day when we took the time to visit the London Zoo. I'm remembering you standing in front of the Tiger's cage showing your lithe body just as catlike as the Tigers."Tigers, which means he is probably in India; good, that isn't a country that we hear much of on the news.Surprisingly, that had got through the censors. Just maybe the person doing the censoring was just like me, a person wondering where her lover was and when and if she would see him again.

Once we knew that I was carrying twins, the Station Officer decided that I should work in the office doing the administration work to take some of it from her shoulders. By then I didn't mind, and for about six weeks I helped with the paperwork until it was just too much for me, so in mid-July I took leave to stay home for the birth. The Station Officer and I had chatted about what to expect after the babies were born. By now, nurseries had been built and mothers of even young children were required to take part in war work. I had decided that once the babies were weaned, if I could get care for the babies I would return to some kind of war work. The Station Officer told me that she was going to ask for a deputy Station Officer and, if I would agree, she would submit my name for the appointment; I had no problem giving my assent.

I had written and told Mhairi that I was expecting twins, she wrote in return "A boy and a girl then, no wonder I was getting a mixed message."

Sure enough, on the 14th of August, 1941, John Thomas and Angela Mhairi Rogers came into the world at the Bromley Maternity Hospital, much to the joy of both their grandmothers who had been monitoring their progress for the last two weeks. John was the first, followed by Angela 32 minutes later. I was sorry for Mary who, in the absence of her mother in law, was feeding her family and her father in law along with a new baby, plus doing the smaller farm chores into the bargain. That feeling of sympathy increased after I left the hospital and went home with the babies. ThenIbecame the one they depended on. I was lucky that my Mum helped me a great deal with them. She had taken two drawers from a wardrobe, and they served as the twins' first beds, in which they were laid on pillows as mattresses. It was wartime, and we did what we had to do. They both slept in my room with me; Mum wasn't so kind to me that she was going to lose a lot of sleep. As she put it so succinctly, I was making the food, so the night job was all mine. Many nights, though, she would hear us and come to us to hold one of the babies while the other fed. This idyll, though, would soon be over when it came time for me to return to London and the Auxiliary Ambulance Service.

End of Part 4. To Be continued