It was in early February that the telegram came – at the heart of the harshest winter in living memory, the snow relentless, day after day, blocking roads, railways, cutting off villages. It found its way, that awful winter, into every corner of society, every life, old and young; there was no one unaffected. Coal, its stocks low after the war, struggled to get through to power stations, many of them shut for lack of fuel. Much of the fuel that was there was stockpiled, stuck for lack of functioning transport. The government was introducing draconian measures, restricting domestic consumption, cutting industrial supplies. Factories were being shut down, and unemployment followed. People were cold, and they were hungry, food also being held up by the same relentless lack of transport. It was a wretched time for a nation already exhausted and demoralised by six years of war.
Tom was making his way home through the driving sleet. He walked carefully, for tonight he was making a speech; it would never do if the speaker fell and broke his leg before he even got there. The speech was on a subject very dear to his heart: the shocking lack of hospital provision for wounded servicemen, and indeed care of any sort. He was looking forward to it, despite being terrified, for he had a far bigger audience than he was used to, including some dignitaries from the council, and two representatives of the board of Hilchester Hospital. The Hilchester Post was sending a reporter. It was a seriously important meeting and its success would be down to him. Then, as he rounded the corner, he saw the telegram boy on their doorstep, looking up and down the street, clearly about to leave again.
He waved at him, hurried forward as fast as he dared, took the yellow envelope, opened it with clumsy fearful fingers.
Dad ill. Pneumonia. Come when you can. Mother.
Helpless with fear, panic making him indecisive, he asked Laura what to do: should he go at once, or should he stay and give his speech, and go in the morning?
‘I just can’t tell how bad he is. I don’t want to let all these people down tonight, it’s so important. But he must be bad for Mother to send a telegram. Suppose he died and I wasn’t there? I’ll never get there anyway, tonight. Tell me what to do, Laura, please.’
And Laura, as always the embodiment of calm and common sense, told him not to go tonight. ‘There’s more snow forecast, none of the buses are running. You can go in the morning. We’ll send a telegram to your mother first thing, so she knows you’re coming.’
‘But she’ll be waiting for me, hoping I’ll come tonight. I need to make contact with her She’ll be so frightened and—’
‘She has the girls,’ said Laura, ‘she won’t be alone. And Arthur too, he lives in the village. He’ll be with her. Do you know anyone in the village with a telephone? Anyone at all.’
‘The vicar,’ said Tom. ‘But then he’d have to walk down to the cottage, and—’
‘If he has any goodness in him, which he most certainly should have, he will walk down to your parents’ cottage. It’s not exactly far. Now, let’s go to the phone box and ring him. He might even know how your father is.’
So Tom spoke to the vicar, who not only showed that he did have some goodness in him, and said of course he would go down to the Knelstons’ cottage, but added that he had called in that afternoon and Mr Knelston hadn’t seemed too bad, although obviously not at all well, and the doctor had been and was coming again in the morning. ‘Don’t think of coming tonight, Tom. It’s starting to snow really hard and none of the buses are running.’
‘There,’ said Laura when he passed this information on. ‘You see. Not so bad. Now, come on, you’re going to be late for your speech if you don’t get a move on.’
‘Laura I – I don’t know if—’
‘Tom,’ said Laura firmly. ‘I think I know what you were going to say and if I’m right, then you mustn’t even think it. Do you think your Mr Bevan would not give a speech he had promised, however worried he was about something else?’
Thus it was that Tom Knelston gave a speech of such passion, increased by his own distress, that the women in the audience were moved to tears, and even a few of the men blew their noses quite hard. ‘These men gave their youth, their health, their future, for this country and now they have been abandoned, it seems, many of them, despite the best efforts of the Disability Employment Act, left literally on the streets to beg. Some of them, you’ll have seen them, legless, with rubber tyres on their knees so they can shuffle along, and other poor souls, airmen, with their dreadfully burnt faces, so bad that people turn away from them, no hope of getting work ever. There is help out there, but not enough; not for many of them, with false legs or arms, nor with their chronic bronchitis caused by lungs damaged by shellfire. Nor with their permanent pain from bones improperly set in the field hospitals. They should be a top priority, yet they have been sent to the back of the queue, by the medical profession and the government, and it’s shocking that it should be our government, our Labour government, to whom we entrusted our hopes and our future. They should be ashamed, discarding these men like so much litter not fit for their consideration. Not the heroes they were, fighting so bravely and so selflessly.’
They heard him out in utter silence, and when he had finally finished, flushed, exhausted, close to tears himself, they rose and applauded. The reporter from the Hilchester Post, who had indeed come, rushed to speak to Tom to get further quotes and said he would make it his lead story that Saturday, and the two board members from the hospital, looking rather shamefaced, said they would do everything in their power to bring the plight of the soldiers to the attention of the regional board.
‘Now when – and please God it will be soon – Mr Bevan’s National Health Service comes in, we shall see a change, of course. They have promised rehabilitation services and not only to the war wounded, but those injured in industrial accidents. Then everyone will get the medical care they deserve,’ said Tom fervently. ‘But we have to be vigilant, we cannot afford to be complacent, to leave it to the government and the NHS. With the best will in the world, their efforts may not be enough – the problem is too great.’ The reporter made a note and resolved to make it an important feature of his article.
‘You were wonderful,’ said Laura when finally they got back to the flat. ‘Wonderful. I was so proud of you. Now, you must go straight to bed. I’ll bring you some cocoa to help you sleep – I’m afraid you’re going to have a terribly long and difficult day tomorrow.’
She shooed him off to bed, but in spite of the cocoa, Tom hardly slept; he felt exalted by what he had done that night, held the room in his hand, taken hold of its consciousness and moulded it to his will; it was heady, astonishing stuff, and he could hardly believe it had been possible. Then, as the adrenalin slowly left him, fear for his father and remorse that he had not at least tried to get to him that night took over.
It was also the first time his professional and his personal life had been in any kind of conflict. He had experienced a shot of regret, swiftly crushed but there nonetheless, that he might miss the chance to make his mark if he set off for West Hilton. He was to look back on that night, down the years, recognising it as a kind of watershed.
‘Mummy! Mummy, come up here quickly, please. Look, look –’