Nothing But Bad Times: Chapter Twelve, Part Two
It was May 15 1940, and in Stephenson Way, Corby, Nellie received the letter from her mother, spurring her on in a moving last message to her daughter. Nellie did gather some strength from it. Her mother had been in this situation seven times, twice with her parents, twice with her husbands, and thrice with Lizzie, Catherine and Patrick. She knew what it was like to feel pain, to go into hell with only one option: keep going until you reach the other side.
Nellie's faith seemed to pay off. She was told that she could take Michael back home, as long as he took his medicine. I have a picture of Michael in the hospital bed, he is just a child. Nellie and Harry must have been so worried about him, it is of course, natural instinct to be so. Therefore, so it was that Michael came back home again, to the relief of the entire family. However, there was still a war on. On the evening of May 23 1940, a Nazi Luftwaffe plane dropped a bomb that scored a direct hit on the house three doors down from the Russell family. The children, Michael included, were terrified, and screamed the place down. At this time also, Nellie was heavily pregnant with another child, Francis. His birth was brought on early by the panic of the nights hiding in the air raid shelter, a shelter that Harry had built himself. Francis was born in mid June. Just days later, little Michael died suddenly. He was supposed to be recovering well from his fall. I do not have his death certificate but I have an inclination he may have died from something like swelling of the brain, or fluid on the brain. Nonetheless, it ripped through Nellie and Harry like shrapnel. They were devastated. The whole family grieved like they had never grieved before. Nellie became depressed and poor newborn Francis hadn't got a clue what was going on at all. Things just hit rock bottom for the Russell's. And for Nellie, there was further bad news from Scotland. Her auntie Elizabeth had died. Another one of Mary Ann's siblings had passed on. She, along with her brother Joseph, were the only surviving children of Bernard and Eliza. Elizabeth died on October 19 1940, in Carfin. She is buried in St Patrick's, New Stevenston.
As the nights become colder and the days shorter, Nellie was losing hope. She would read her mother's letter over and over again, she nearly wore out the pencil lines! In a moment of completely being overwhelmed whilst reading this letter, I noticed that on the last page of the letter (it was 4 pages long) I saw a dark spot about five lines from the bottom. I turned to my gran and I said “That could well be where one of your mum's tears landed”. My gran simply said “could be. My mammy had a hard life”. And it was to get harder still.
The bombing of Corby once every other week meant that the Russell's had to take cover in their back garden shelter. Nellie and her children rushed into the shelter as soon as the sirens sounded, Harry did not move. He preferred to stay indoors and smoke his pipe!!! A true Brit if ever there was one! The Nazi's scored a few direct hits on Corby, but not many. Yet, the family had not yet really recovered from Michael's death, and more heartache was to follow. Baby Francis started to develop a cold, and after spending several nights in the air raid shelters, he easily and quickly caught a cold. Just a few months old, he almost didn't stand a chance. He quickly caught pneumonia, and died on December 11 1940. This is where I arrive at the bit I have long struggled with. I cannot put this into words, but I notice that when the topic of Michael and Francis' deaths comes up, the mood suddenly changes. My gran always looks to the floor and as she thinks about what she saw back then (she was eight), you can tell she is waiting for someone to change the subject. Words like heartache and devastation belittle the tragedy that Nellie and Harry faced. In just six months, Nellie had buried two of her baby boys. Francis died early in the morning in his mother's shaking arms, and what happened next comes directly from my granny. The family were so grief stricken that the afternoon after Francis' burial, Nellie really did hit rock bottom. She struggled with her crutches, hopped away and found a field, on which she fell to the ground and wept uncontrollably. Harry found her after he followed in the family car, and the whole family sat in the field and cried their eyes out all day. This was raw grief, in it's naked and cruellest of forms. Nellie looked up to the sky and shouted at the top of her voice. Shouting the names of her two sons. Shouting “No, no, no!” That day in the field has haunted the family ever since. My gran and her siblings who were alive at the time, never forgot it. After these few lines, I myself am in tears. I just cannot imagine this loss. The children are referred to as “poor wee Michael and Francie”. They are buried together in “the old” cemetery, Corby. How can I possibly describe it? How on earth does somebody even attempt to go on after such consecutive tragedies? Well, upsetting as it is, it wasn't over yet...
Copyright © Matthew Reay, 2008
