Vera's Valour by Anne Holman Page A

“I have my cows to worry about - and if the weather holds for the corn to be cut.”
    Vera knew farmer’s jobs, feeding the nation, was vital war work, so she didn’t make any comment about the terrors the fighting soldiers faced. She just said, “I just pray every day for Geoff to return home safely.”
    “Expect you do, Mrs Parkingon. Now do you want my lad to start delivering milk to the cottage again?”
    “Yes please - and I’ll need an extra half pint.”
    The farmer touched the rim of his cap, and winked at her. “Aye, I can see that.”
    Vera chuckled and drove off towards Lynn.
    * * *
    When she arrived at the British Restaurant in Lynn she parked the car and strode into the building.
    Confronted by a gawky woman, dressed in a white overall and her hair covered turban style, who yelled at her, “Can’t you read? We don’t open till twelve o’clock.”
    Vera was taken aback.
    Seeing Vera was not backing out of the door, the dinner lady approached and put her long nose inches away from Vera’s. “Didn’t you hear me,” she said, “we are not open. Wait outside.”
    Vera giggled. She was being ordered out of her British Restaurant! The first restaurant she had started over a year ago when it was no more than a hall, with a kitchen attached, that she had had to turn into a mass feeding centre.
    Seeing the woman’s face becoming furious with her, Vera said hastily, “Don’t panic. I work here – I’m the local supervisor of British Restaurants.”
    The woman looked her up and down sceptically, “Oh yes?”
    “Yes. My name is Mrs Vera Parkington.”
    It obviously didn’t ring a bell with the hostile woman who still seemed determined to throw her out of the building.
    A voice from afar called, “Mabel. Come and give me a hand carrying this basin.”
    “Coming,” shouted back the overall clad woman, “but I’m just shooing out an early customer whose come in and doesn’t want to leave.”
    “Ok. I’ll deal with them.”
    Moments later, Margaret Smallwood appeared, and shrieked, “Vera! Is it really you back at last?” as she rushed in the hall to greet her boss.
    Vera was soon ushered into the kitchen and receiving smiles all round from the dinner ladies. There was elderly Gladys, still doing volunteer war work although in her late seventies. Young Sally, who was now a competent cook and teaching even younger, Mary. And Margaret herself, who Vera had known at school as a bossy individual, but because she had become an unmarried mother, her career had been changed to cookery – which she soon learned, and had become very competent at organizing the restaurant meals after Vera left.
    Crowding around her, all the girls wanted to know what she’d been up to.
    Vera put her hand over her eyes and sighed, “You wouldn’t believe all I’ve been through. I went to France.”
    “Whatever for?” said Gladys, straightening her cook’s cap.
    Vera replied, “I had to get a message to Geoff.”
    Mary piped up, “Couldn’t you have sent it by post?”
    “No, the Germans wouldn’t have delivered it.”
    There was a shocked silence.
    Margaret asked, “You mean you went over there?”
    “Yes,” said Vera, “I did.”
    Stunned into silence for a moment or two, then the girls looked aghast. Then they bombarded Vera with questions.
    “Did you see Geoff Parkington?”
    “Briefly.“
    “Ahh! How is he?”
    Vera’s husband was known and liked by them all when he was the supervisor of the British Restaurants, as a cover for his Top Secret war work preparing the floating docks for D-Day. Vera had taken over his job as supervisor when he married her. She smiled thinking of him and momentarily hoping he was still OK.
    “He was fine. But we all had to keep our heads down all the time – with the Gestapo around.”
    Sally’s eyes almost popped out of her head. “You mean the enemy was there?”
    Vera laughed, “Surely you know they took over France, and our Tommies had to shove ’em out on