Page 50
I will come up with a solution. Just give me a little more time.
I should also let you know that I have done some further investigation into the state of the shop’s accounts. The same day that the Board of Trade’s new instructions arrived, I went to see Mr. Manon at Whitmore’s. He confirmed my worst fears that our mother had not touched the business’s bank account in years.
I imagine that you can understand for yourself why that is a very dire thing indeed, and why I felt the need to figure out what our mother had been doing with the money. I believe, after a great deal of sorting out and organizing, that I may have something of an understanding. I found old copies of our mother’s post office savings book and, looking through it with the order book side by side, I believe I can point to deposits she made that match up to the income from orders completed every month or so.
I will be honest with you, Izzie, when I realized what our mother had been doing, I nearly began to cry out of frustration. However, crying never did anyone any good, and so I turned my mind to the most pressing matter at hand. The taxman. I have asked William to make inquires on our behalf with the Inland Revenue to find out whether our mother was delinquent on her taxes and whether we will be faced with paying any penalty. It is beyond William’s usual role as a solicitor, but I didn’t know whom else to turn to.
I know that you won’t like to hear that our mother might not have been the best with business matters, but I hope you will look past the fact that I am the one saying this and see that if these things are not addressed, it could be very bad for Mrs. Shelton’s Fashions indeed. However, that is what I am determined to do—address them—because you must have so many things on your mind. Leave everything with me.
I hope things are still going swimmingly at that training camp of yours. Whenever I see a barrage balloon flying over London, I think of you.
Yours,
Sylvia
14 February 1942
Dear Mr. Manon,
I realized that I neglected to ask you a rather important question upon our last visit. Would it be possible to ensure that my sister, Miss Isabelle Shelton, has full access to the account we spoke about? I should like her to be able to have all privileges of deposit and withdrawal.
Thank you again for your assistance.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Hugo Pearsall
Chapter Seventeen
Izzie checked her cable for a final time and then stood back from the barrage balloon.
“All right?” asked Alexandra from her station a few feet away.
“I think so,” she said, staring at the balloon. Mere days ago, she wouldn’t have been certain, but now…
“Start up winch!” came the call from Molly, a young Londoner who couldn’t have been more than twenty but who was now in charge, sitting inside the cab of the huge mechanical winch that controlled their balloon from the back of their lorry.
Izzie, Alexandra, and a third woman from their new unit named Grace snapped into action. Grace and Alexandra grabbed the lines tethering the huge balloon to the ground so Izzie could slip the metal hook off the net that spanned the width of the balloon. Their team of three raced to the other two sets of lines on their side of the balloon while, opposite them, Amelia, Nancy, and Lottie, who made up the rest of their unit, did the same. With the last hook released, Izzie could feel the balloon’s steel anchoring wires begin to tighten as it rose skyward.
Izzie, Alexandra, and Grace ducked and scurried off to a safe distance, and Amelia, Nancy, and Lottie came into sight as they rounded the balloon too.
“Engine ready!” shouted Molly.
The engines kicked into gear and began to churn, letting the balloon float out.
After a moment, Molly called, “Balloon flying thirty feet!”
“Stop winch!” shouted Corporal Tennyson, their instructor.
“Stop winch!” Molly repeated.
The balloon hovered in the air, safely anchored on all sides, and she and the other women of her unit all tracked the movement of the balloon in the wind.
Izzie felt triumph fizz up in her. They were supposed to wait for their assessment from Corporal Tennyson, but she knew they’d done a good job. After weeks of lectures on engineering, mechanics, safety, and meteorology not to mention practical classes on ropes, knots, and splicing, it was rewarding to finally have an ascent that had gone without incident.
She’d been shocked when she’d received her orders that she was to join a barrage balloon unit at RAF Titchfield for a ten-week training course. However, there was no arguing with a direct order. Not in the WAAF.
With her kit bag in her hand and Alexandra by her side, she’d boarded an open-backed vehicle driven by a fellow WAAF who had ferried them from Innsworth to the Hampshire base that was to be their temporary home during their additional training. As soon as they’d arrived, they’d been assigned to a modest hut with the rest of the girls in their unit, and then training had begun in earnest.
