A WOMAN'S DAY
By H. G. L1 ALL
AT present there are six in the family, the parents, two school children of opposite sex, an elderly friend who makes her home with us, and a neighbour's boy who is here until certain _family troubles are solved. The so-called head of the house is an active invalid, who would be much less trouble if he were more active or more of an invalid; for he is constantly taking on jobs beyond his strength and having to call for his wife to come to his aid, and if she does not drop whatever she is doing and come at once he is hurt and angry. Nowadays she has to do everything about the house, cleaning, cooking, washing. The other parent urges her to send more to the laundry, but she says they take so long in returning the things and she has no longer got the reserve of garments and household linen to tide her over the long waiting period; also, they are so hard on things, and it is difficult now to replace; so she does the washing and the ironing. One of her phobias is a horror of damp clothes; so everything she washes she irons 'as well as airs, which means that she is on her feet a lot. One way or another she is on her feet all day long, and nature might have been kinder to her in the matter of those indispensable members, for only by frequent visits to a chiropodist is she able to keep going at all. Fortunately, she is really very strong, but each summer she has a long spell of hay fever in its most virulent form. She has endured years of painful injections to bring about a cure, but with no lasting benefit.
Part of the family income is derived from garden produce, and al' day at frequent intervals she has to run up the garden to cut lettuces for customers, or dig up plants or weigh out tomatoes. She keeps all the garden accounts, and of course the domestic accounts, and on Sunday forenoons manages to give the children half an hour to help them tidy up their accounts, a time of much wrangling and raking of memories over missing pennies. She also keeps the accounts and does the typing for another business which
the other parent runs. He used to employ a full-time secretary. He also writes a little, which means more typing for her. She does some vague sort of war-work as well, which entails long conversations on the 'phone, the typing of notices and occasional meetings with other housewives. One member of the family is from home, to whom she finds time to send frequent letters and parcels.
The nearest shopping centre is five miles away. Several times a week she tears off on her cycle to catch a train to take her there, and if it happens to be late she catches it, for she seems to be congenitally incapable of starting out in time. If she fails to catch it she whirls round on her tracks and shoots off in the opposite direction to catch a 'bus. Then there is a rush to get the shopping done, to visit the public library for reading for four people of widely different tastes and then back, sometimes only ten minutes ahead of her schoolboy son, who comes home for lunch and has twenty minutes in which to eat it. Her average time of rising is 7.15, and of retiring, midnight. She does not sit much, not always for her meals, in fact, but takes them on the run. If she sits down in the evening for a little she promptly goes to sleep. This annoys her husband, who likes to talk and feels she ought to be in a condition to listen to him. He has a tendency to orate, and it jars him when he has achieved a particularly telling point to discover that she has been quite unconscious of what he. has been saying.
She was not brought up to do domestic work. Her people were artistic. Before the war she had fairly adequate help in the home and the children had a nurse. The other parent declares that the' still need one. He preaches the value of self-reliance in the young. and she agrees with him, but every day she has to see to it tha: they have their handkerchiefs, season tickets, money and so on. He says, let them think of these things for themselves, and they forget and are landed in a hole the jolt will do them good. But she cannot bear to think of their ever having a jolt; even a little one; so she goes tearing after them down the garden path with some- thing they have forgotten. They, for their part, call her .a " fuss pot." Before the war she had a car. This made -shopping easy. She also used it to pop up to town to a concert or a theatre, or an art exhibition, or go off for a long week-end to look at cathedrals. She liked that. She used to read a good deal, and enjoyed playing the piano. Now a book takes her a long time to get through, and she counts herself lucky if she can get half an hour bt the piano. She has not had a holiday since 1938, and no prospect of another for heaven knows how long.
Does she think life is treating her hardly? If she does she never says so. In fact, she never looks as though she thought anything of the kind. When her husband in his relenting moments deplores her having to work so hard; she says that things will be easier when the children grow up. He can often be heard to say, with varying degrees of convict:on, that he is " fed up," but she has never been heard to say so, even in fun. The only thing she grumbles about is the amount of darning she has to do for herself. She is peculiarly hard on her stockings, war-time stockings are of poor quality, and she declares that every day there are holes, and big ones, to darn. It is the little things that often get one down, and in her'case the last straw is darning.
I have said nothing about the nursing she has to do for her invalid husband, or of her struggles over clothing coupons and to make food points meet and rations last the week. There would have been no point in writing about her at all, were I not convinced that there are thousands and thousands in the country to-day similarly placed. Their problems are different and varying in degree ; the spirit and the mind they bring to them will also vary ; but the average British housewife has carried a stupendous load during these war years, and it will be a savage injustice if nothing is done to ease it when peace comes.
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