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LIFE, DUTY ,HONOUR AND SERVICE (1) |
| Written by stephen west | |
| Monday, 01 September 2008 | |
It was 1940. Britain was at war with Germany. The German war machine was well oiled, well supplied and super efficient. "Blitzkrieg", the indiscriminate, blanket bombing of enemy targets, perfected in the service of Franco during the Spanish Civil War had been used so effectively against Poland and Czechoslovakia, and was now turned on England. Old Father Thames, so long a symbol of England in song, story and mythology, turned traitor. On any clear moonlit night the silver ribbon of the wide meandering river shone bright as a neon arrow directing the German bombers straight to the heart of London.
Dorothy Mary Butler was not only motherless since the age of eight, she was also virtually orphaned as her father worked away and visited rarely. She had been lodged with some distant relatives who resented her presence and abused her willing gratitude. There was another Dorothy in the household, so she became "Mary", which stayed with her all her life. Although she was working full-time as a clerk in a grocery store, Mary was also expected to fetch and carry day and night for the family with whom she lived. Bring up the coals, polish the step, launder the sheets. Cinderella. The building in which they resided was a bank situated at the bottom of Ludgate Hill where Mary's wicked aunt was concierge. Ludgate Hill climbs just two hundred metres to the doors of St. Paul's Cathedral, one of London's finest landmarks, and a prime target for the German bombers. A direct hit on St. Paul's would have been a massive blow to the morale of Londoners as they endured the relentless bombing. Night after night the air was filled with the dreadful sound of roaring planes followed by the screeching of a thousand falling bombs and the chattering response of anti-aircraft guns. The noise of explosions and cackling fires was interspersed with the screams of victims trapped in the rubble and the urgent bells of fire engines and ambulances whose crews battled valiantly to save life. Every major building had a "fire-watch" team, and this bank at the bottom of Ludgate Hill was no exception. And Mary Butler was a part of that team. Imagine the scene. Here is a young girl short of her eighteenth birthday scrambling around, in the black-out, on the sixth floor of a building which stands directly in the path of every bomber that Hitler ever sent. The sky is filled with smoke and flame and a cacophony of fearful sounds, and Mary Butler has been told to do her duty. An incendiary device landed on the bank one night: came to rest on a ledge supporting the guttering on the fifth floor. Mary saw it, and without a second thought she scrambled out of a small window, clung on by her finger-tips, and, stretching out her leg, she kicked the bomb away from the building and watched it splutter uselessly on some waste ground below. The bank was saved from fire and still stands today, a Victorian Gothic monstrosity in red and white brick, now housing the prestige offices of several architects and solicitors upstairs and a sandwich bar and bistro downstairs. Many years later Mary discovered that, for every occasion she stood duty, she should have received a gratuity. She was never paid a penny. Her wicked aunt, as concierge was also the fire-watch record keeper and the falsified accounts (extant) show that Mary's money, and credit for her valour, went to some other member of the family who, during every air-raid, actually cowered in the cellar. Shortly after the encounter with the fire-bomb, already an unsung hero, Mary joined The Wrens (Women's Royal Naval Service) and served in communications at Rossneath and in Bloody Orkney. A few years later an honourable discharge, (she was profoundly deaf in one ear), wedded to a tar who was on detail to de-fuse mines protecting Scapa Flow, a couple of kids, and Mary was set to grow old and fade away. Not! The honour, the discipline and the life-changing experience of total war had a profound effect on Mary and she joined the Royal British Legion, vowing to serve and assist those who had been injured, incapacitated or disabled during their service to Britain. So every November would see her out shaking her collection tin, and the rest of the year calling on sick and needy ex-servicemen, and women, reading newspaper and books to the short-sighted, delivering hampers of food at Christmas, visiting hospitals and helping the bewildered through the maze of social security paperwork to assist them to obtain their rightful dues. Non-stop for over sixty years this voluntary work continued, and in the meantime Mary brought up two children, kept a house, qualified first as a librarian and later, after separating from her husband, as a primary teacher. She was also a pianist, a dancer, and one hell of a singer of torch songs, could belt ‘em out with the best. She spoke French fluently, (but chose not to). She was an English lady, who spoke English, and she knew her Shakespeare, Milton, Blake and Donne, and Robert Frost and Dorothy Parker. She loved to travel. Europe, USA, China, West Afria. After she retired from teaching Mary flew supersonic in Concord, went up in a hot air balloon, toured the sights of her beloved London in a helicopter, cruised on the QE2........ Then went to Poland to visit the extermination camp built by the Nazis at Auschwitz, "Just to remind myself what we were fighting against" she explains. When she was seventy Mary underwent two very serious operations. She then went totally deaf, and her eye-sight started to fail. She had to give up driving when she was eighty two. People ask her, "When are you going to let the Legion do something for you?" She replies, "When I am in need of help I will ask for it. At the moment I am still in a position to help others." Although born into poverty and privation she was a lifelong and passionate champion for the welfare and status of ex-servicemen. This all happened just the way I told it. Mary is my mother. She died just three months ago. We agreed about religion. We agreed to differ totally on politics and sociology. It was usually her choice when we agreed upon on music, or movies. I am so very proud of her and her achievements! Copyright 2008 stephen west |
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