Excerpt: From the Home Front

15th September 1943

Trudy Gowans
I have decided to leave employment at the bus company. My loyalty to my family is more important – and as Dad is short-handed in the bakery, it makes sense for me to help there where I can.

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Surely it was an insult the to programme to lie?

Trudy looked down at the word's she'd written in her notebook, in two minds about it. She had never written such a blatant lie in her journals before, but it didn't feel right telling strangers something that she had never told her own family.

Wouldn't the project be happier with no data than false data?

She stood and went over to the modest fire burning in the grate. Slowly, and with grim satisfaction, she burnt the paper and the letter from the bus company so that she could at least hide her reason for being fired from the rest of the world.

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Dinner time was awkward that night as the five of them sat in the dark and poky dining room and picked at their meals. Edith, the eldest sister, fussed around with serving up the food. The two female lodgers who both worked in the bakery below stared fixedly at their plates, clearly wishing to be somewhere else, and Trudy sat poking her mashed potato with a fork as her father berated her.

David Gowans was a tall man with no bulk at all. He did have a face that could burn impressivley red when roused, though, and he was in fine form tonight. He ranted, with some satisfaction, he shovelled the food down with three times the gutso of anyone else at the table. “Fired?! Trudy – how could you be so stupid? Jobs aren’t ten a penny – d'you expect me to let you work in the bakery? - Got another thing coming – we’re fully staffed, aren’t we girls?”

He asked this of the lodgers at the table, who all nodded without making eye contact.

Trudy glared across the table at her father, who swiped at the last of his gravy with stale unsold bread from the day and shoved it into his mouth.

She wondered what had happened to the carefree man from her childhood who had taught them all to be happy and hardworking regardless of their situation in life. He had a huge acting talent, but had never had the ability to pursue it, and so he had tried to run the bakery and look after his family with the enthusiasm he had for acting. He had never been a petty angry man like this before, railing against family rebellion as he was. Perhaps that was the price he’d paid for loosing three sons, a son-in-law and all of the happiness and love that had been in his wife’s soul along with it.

“That’s not true Dad,” she snapped. “A few weeks ago you were insisting Edith couldn’t leave the bakery you were so desperate for her help!”

“That was *different*,” he raged. “When you have got married, had children, been widowed, and earned the respect of your family, *then* you will be entitled to any kindness I choose to give to you. Until then you will stop behaving so childishly and either beg to be allowed back at the bus company or find another job.”

Trudy held her mouth open in shock at the very unfairness of it all. No one was looking at her, every head, except her father’s, was bowed with pity for her. Only Edith quickly glanced at her with sympathy.

Trudy Gowans
I don’t know what to say, other than that my life seems to have tipped upside down lately. I know it’s selfish to be so unhappy when there are people who have lost far more than me, but all I can think of is what *I’ve* lost - the love of my life. Sometimes I can’t even get out of bed in the morning and Edith has to force me to get up, dressing me like a child, because father would be even more furious if I didn’t at least look like I wanted to work.
I spend my days wandering the streets aimlessly, no matter what the weather is like. Yesterday I got sunburnt and didn’t even notice until Edith gasped at my skin this morning. She tries to get me to talk, which I ignore. She tried to get me a job in the factory too, but I refused.