‘I’m afraid we have to,’ one of them said, leading him off down the stairs. ‘We’re just obeying orders.’
My brother didn’t say a word, and he wasn’t allowed to take anything with him. My mother was inconsolable, and I could hear Miss Higgins frantically ringing her bell downstairs, probably trying to find out what all the fuss was about.
I just sat there eating my toast, completely stunned by this drama that was happening over breakfast.
Mum followed the officers downstairs, and I ran to the window and watched as they pushed Raymond into the back of the police car and drove away. A few neighbours had come out of their houses to see what was going on too, and they all stood there staring. Mum came upstairs sobbing.
‘I can’t believe this has happened,’ she cried.
The following evening after school I called at my friend Diana’s house as usual. Her father answered the door.
‘I’m sorry, Irene,’ he said. ‘You won’t be able to play with Diana any more or come round to our house.’
‘But why?’ I asked. ‘She’s my best friend.’
‘You’d better ask your mother,’ he told me.
I went home in floods of tears to Mum.
‘Diana’s dad says I’m not allowed to be her friend any more,’ I sobbed. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘He probably heard about what happened to Raymond,’ she said. ‘A lot of people don’t agree with your brother’s views about the war.’
‘But what do you mean?’ I asked. ‘What’s that got to do with Diana’s dad?’
‘He probably thinks that Raymond’s a coward for not wanting to fight the Nazis,’ she explained. ‘Perhaps his family had a bad time in their country, which is why they came over here.’
I was devastated that I’d lost my best friend. I couldn’t understand what difference the war and my brother’s beliefs made to whom I could and couldn’t play with.
But it wasn’t just a one-off. Word soon spread among our neighbours that Raymond had been taken off by the police, and after that a lot of people wouldn’t talk to Mum or me. They’d see us in the street, put their head down and walk straight past us. There was a huge stigma attached to being a conscientious objector, or a ‘conchie’ as they were nicknamed. A lot of people associated it with being a coward, but in fact most conscientious objectors were motivated by religious reasons.
Raymond had to appear in front of a tribunal that would decide whether to give him an exemption, dismiss his application and send him to fight, or make him do non-combatant work. A week later we received a letter from him.
The tribunal decided that I should be sent to work in the Pioneer Corps where they have given me the task of digging up roads. It’s hard labour and the days are long but at least I have stuck to my principles and I’m not involved in any way with the taking of lives. I’m stationed at a barracks in Lincolnshire and ironically most of my fellow conscientious objectors are extremely religious so they are slightly bemused at being billeted with an atheist like me who is constantly questioning their beliefs.
Mum was relieved that he was all right, although she was annoyed by the type of work Raymond was doing.
‘What a waste of his talents,’ she sighed. ‘He’s far too clever to be digging up roads.’
His superiors must have realised that too, as soon Raymond wrote to us again to say that he had been transferred to the Army Service Corps, where he was given the job of drawing maps. Part of his role eventually involved helping to plan the D-Day landings, which he justified by saying it was about saving lives rather than taking them.
Despite the war, daily life at home went on as normally as possible. By the time I was ten, however, Mum had run out of patience with Miss Higgins.
‘I can’t look after that woman for a second longer or I swear I will kill her,’ she told me.
But work in the orchestras was in short supply during the war as some theatres had been badly bombed and were forced to close. Things were going to be tight financially again, so we were forced to move back in with my grandparents.
The day before we left the house in Norbury, a government inspector came out to check all the Anderson shelters in the street. Mum and I watched as he tapped the mortar between the bricks. To our horror, it crumbled instantly and his finger went straight through it.
‘Shoddy workmanship,’ he sighed, shaking his head. ‘If a bomb had dropped on that thing it would have been curtains for you two.’
Mum and I stared at each other in shock.
‘I don’t believe it,’ she said. ‘To think we’ve been sleeping in there every night for nearly two years thinking that we were safe.’
By this time my grandparents had rented out their attic room to a ninety-year-old spinster called Miss Smythe, so Mum and I had to live on the much bigger and lighter second floor of the house. It felt like a palace compared with the poky, cramped attic. We had two bedrooms, and our own living-room and bathroom. Moving back to Battersea meant that I had to change schools to Honeywell Road Primary, but I still did my ballet lessons, which I absolutely loved.
One day Mum sat me down.
‘What you want to do when you grow up, Rene?’ she asked.
I knew my answer straight away, because since I was a little girl I’d only ever wanted to do one thing.
‘I want to be a ballet dancer,’ I said. ‘I want to be on the stage.’
A lot of other parents at that time might have just laughed or told me I would have to go out and get a proper job, be a teacher or a secretary, but Mum didn’t flinch.
‘All right, then,’ she said. ‘You’ll have to go to stage school if you’re really serious about doing that. Where would you like to go?’
‘Italia Conti,’ I said without hesitation.
It was the world’s oldest and most prestigious theatre arts training school, the one that the older girls at dance class always talked about. I didn’t ever think in a million years that Mum would be able to afford to send me to stage school, but to my surprise she didn’t question it.
‘Very well,’ she said. ‘I’ll contact Italia Conti and get some more information.’
Mum kept her promise and a few days later she told me what they had said.
‘It’s £20 a term,’ she told me.
My heart sank. That was a heck of a lot of money in those days, and I knew it was the end of my big dream. As a single mother who went from one job to the next as a violinist, there was no way she could afford expensive stage-school fees like that.
But in 1942 Mum made the biggest sacrifice of her life for me. She sat me down one day and took hold of my hands.
‘There’s something I need to tell you, Rene,’ she said. ‘I think I’ve found a solution to our problems. I’ve decided to join ENSA.’
ENSA stood for the Entertainments National Service Association, a group of performers who travelled around the world during the Second World War to entertain British troops and keep up morale. They had everything from singers, dancers and musicians to comedians, bird impersonators, contortionists and even roller skaters.
‘The pay is good, and having a regular wage is the only way that I can afford to put you through stage school,’ she said. ‘It means that I’ll be away from home for a while, but you can stay here with Papa and Gaga. They’re going to post me to Egypt, where I’ll perform as part of a quartet.’
It was a huge shock, and I couldn’t believe she was prepared to