Down an English Lane Read Free Page A

see some poor little kid only getting one.’
    ‘Mmm…good point,’ agreed Patience. ‘But we’ll be circulating, won’t we, to make sure there’s fair play? And I suggest we don’t put the cakes out until the sandwiches have gone.’ She laughed. ‘That’s what my mother used to say when I was a little girl. “Bread and butter first, Patience, and then you can have your cake.” And I’ve never forgotten it.’
    ‘And you’ve never let us forget it either, Tim and me and little Johnny,’ said Audrey, with a sly grin at her.
    ‘No; children don’t change much over the years,’ said Patience, smiling, ‘nor do mothers’ words of wisdom… Now, girls, I’ll leave you to get on with that little job, and I’ll go and help Mrs Hollins and Mrs Spooner with the big jugs of orange squash. And there are some little sausage rolls that Mrs Campion has made. I think it would be a good idea to hand those round, then we can make sure that nobody takes more than one… Oh help! They’re beginning to arrive already, and we did say not till half past three…’

    It was early for a teaparty – too soon after dinner, some had said – but it was necessary because the hall would need to be cleared afterwards and the chairs re-arranged ready for the evening concert. And whether the children had eaten a mid-day dinner or not, they all tucked in with gusto to the delectable treats on offer. The sandwiches and tiny sausage rolls, each one no more than a good mouthful, were soon demolished, and then it was time for the cakes to be handed round. Mouth-watering offerings, home-baked by the members of the Women’s Institute and the women of the St Bartholomew’s congregation: jam tarts; fairy cakes; iced buns decorated in white and blue, with a red cherry in the middle; chocolate clusters; and almond tarts and moist gingerbread for the children with a more sophisticated taste.
    Maisie, going round from table to table, handing out cakes – ‘Just one each at first’ – was viewing the scene with great interest. The grown-up helpers were pretty much the same, plus one or two new ones, as she remembered from her early days in Middlebeck. Mrs Muriel Hollins, with her co-workers – her minions, as they were often referred to – Mrs Jessie Campion and Mrs Ivy Spooner were very much in evidence. At the start of the war they had been stalwart members of the WVS, as well as the WI, whose job it had been to organise the evacuation scheme in their town. They appeared very little different now, some six yearslater. Mrs Hollins was just a shade plumper, maybe, and certainly a shade bossier; although she was jovial today, rather than her usual bossy self, determined that the children should have a whale of a time.
    ‘Now then, tuck in and enjoy yourselves, boys and girls,’ she boomed at them. ‘Isn’t this fun? And how smart you all look today. I can see a lot of mothers have been busy on their sewing machines.’ Suddenly, she burst into song, to the amusement of many of the children who started to giggle behind their hands.
    ‘Red, white and blue; what does it mean to you?
    Surely you’re proud; shout it aloud, Britons awake…’
    But her rich contralto voice was really quite a joy to listen to. Maisie knew that Muriel Hollins, also, would be singing a solo at the concert that evening.
    There was, indeed, an abundance of red, white and blue in the church hall, not only in the Union Jacks and the bunting and streamers strung across the room, but in the clothes of all the children and a goodly number of the adults. Maisie knew that her mother’s draper’s shop had run out of the special red, white and blue ribbon which they had ordered for the occasion. It now adorned the heads of the girls, both the big and the little ones, setting off all kinds of hairstyles: plaits and pony tails,bobbing ringlets and straight short hair finished off with a fringe.
    There had been a run, as well, on the red-and-white, and blue-and-white