The Sandbag Times Issue No:58

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Mrs Fox Goes To War The Chronicles of Little Hope 1939 - 1945 Villager of the month: George Cross George hadn’t realised that the vicar was quite so liberal... George Cross, SOE Agent extraordinaire, was known to be a master of disguise and sleight of hand and was a damned fine shot to boot. His signature fragrance was a unique brand of tobacco which lingered in the air long after he’d departed the covert scene of operations and it was rumoured that a single whiff of his peculiar shag was enough to strike fear into the very heart of any jerry coming across it. George was also rather adept at puffing out Morse code with his pipe, as it were, so to speak, hence his SOE handle ‘Three Nuns Shag’. George was the beloved beau of Penny Stamp, the postmistress of Little Hope, and it was truly a match made in heaven, they danced around one another’s affections like Fred and Ginger and managed - inadvertently - to cause havoc both abroad in occupied Europe and back home in Blighty. https://www.mrsfoxgoestowar. co.uk/george-cross | 36 www.sandbagtimes.co.uk
Mrs Fox Goes To War Hilda Ffinch The bird with all the answers Hilda Ffinch, Little Hope’s very own Agony Aunt (page 5 of the Little Hope Herald) was easily bored and terribly rich. She loved nothing better than taking on the problems of others and either sorting them out or claiming that she’d never heard of them if it all went tits up and they had to leave the district under cover of darkness having followed her sage advice. Dear Mrs Potter, The Little Hope Herald Saturday, 31st August 1940 Have you ever, in all the time you have lived in your little cottage on Donkey Trot Lane, found yourself being rudely swept out of the house and into your foxgloves by a tidal-wave of rain thundering down the chimney during a summer storm, or awoken on a winter’s morning to find your little sitting room knee deep in a snowdrift? No, of course you haven’t, nor are you likely to. You see the average chimney, such as your own, is not simply a vertical gateway to the skies – it bends a little on the way up in order to slow the passage of Mother nature’s unexpected bounty, allowing it to burn to a crisp before it has time to annoy you . Dear Mrs Ffinch, Mrs Alice Potter Cranberry Cottage Donkey Trot Lane Little Hope 25th August 1940 Whilst lying in bed the other night, I remembered that I hadn’t put the fireguard up and when I went downstairs to do so I suddenly had the most terrifying thought: Supposing a Jerry bomber is able to see down my chimney during the blackout and thus knows exactly where to drop his load? Many a century has passed, Mrs Potter, since we English sat cross-legged in a circle about a fire in the middle of our wattle and daub huts, eating roasted squirrel and watching the smoke disappear though a hole in the roof before idly picking our teeth with a handy bit of deer antler and popping out to defecate in the lupins. We are a civilised race, my dear, and our chimneys are the envy of the world – I myself have a couple of particularly impressive specimens, one of which is sufficiently cavernous as to allow a string quartet to enter without too much ado, light a few sparklers, bang out a bit of Beethoven and still give the Luftwaffe no inkling of their presence. Is this likely to be the case, and if so did I ought to desist from lighting a fire at night until the war is over? I’ve no burning desire to make myself and my little cottage a target! I’ve some excellent cabbages coming up and would dearly like to live to see them through to fruition. Yours, by candlelight, Alice Potter, Mrs. So light your fire of an evening, by all means, Mrs Potter, but do be sure to put your fireguard up as a stray coal may indeed set the whole house ablaze and will definitely enable Herr Goering’s demonic bats to pinpoint not only your little cottage but indeed the entire village. I’m sure that you don’t need me to tell you how unpopular you are likely to be in the vicinity on the back of that monumental faux pas! Good luck with the cabbages, dear, adhere to the above advice and you’ll probably outlive them. Yours, Hilda Ffinch, The Bird with All The Answers You can catch more of Mrs Fox and Friends at www.mrsfoxgoestowar.co.uk or on Twitter @mrslaviniafox www.sandbagtimes.co.uk 37 |
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The Sandbag Times Issue No:58

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