To Whomever Found My Body

To Whomever Found My Body,

I do apologise for the right state I must seem. Hopefully what is left of me is still presentable in an open casket. Doubtful though, considering I have no family and even fewer friends. Please do open the windows if my decomposition has befouled the room and I deeply apologise for being such an inconvenience. God willing the newspapers soaked up most of me.

I leave it all to you of course (except if it is you Mrs. Macready my solicitor knows about the silverware). It is not much: the flat, some furnishings and half a pittance at the bank. Simply show this to Mr. Easton. You'll find his offices in Southampton. He is aware of my peculiar arrangements, but the gentleman did not much care for this "eccentricity." He begrudgingly agreed in the end as there will be payment.

All I ask in return is to be acknowledged. For you to simply read this and know I existed. I shall not bore you with my life's entirety but like the news I intend do give you the highlights of my being. The moments I, at least, deemed memorable.

My youth was of the standard middling sort. Father and mother were doting parents yet thoroughly conservative in the classic, narrow-minded fashion. This led to my eventual ostracisation, I'm afraid. You see I never knew of want and therefore knew nothing of the injustices of the world, but the War changed all that. 

All things became rationed as Jerry tried to strangle the life from our noble isle. They found us an obstinate people and an annoying enemy. I, like so many of my countrymen, immediately felt a sense of duty and went to work. Playing our part in making Fritz regret ever stepping across his borders. Our men went off to war leaving the factories unmanned, and the land untilled. Suddenly they needed and somewhat resentfully gave us purpose in a man's international dispute. Women who were once relegated to a life of service for her husband and family were now called upon to produce the bombs and also the aircraft which would carry them to the enemy. We were at the frontline of the Home Front and proud of it.

I joined the Inland Waterways transporting coal, cereals and whatever Whitehall required of us along the canals which crisscrossed the nation. Those of a derogatory disposition called us "Idle Woman" based on the initials of the service we represented, but we cheerfully adopted this moniker as went about our business of aiding our homeland. Their disdain only fuelled our desires to help Britain. How proud I was of my calloused hands and tired bones as I slipped into a well-earned coma at night. I was contributing, knocking Hitler about in my own miniscule way.

Then the Land Army called in '42 and I answered. Britain needed food and the woman of our nation would help to provide it. I tilled, furrowed, planted and harvested like any man. Not with the skill of a seasoned farmer like Mr. Finch but he had great faith in us. Tenaciously I improved. My furrows straightened and not just because I had something to prove but because our people depended upon it. "A straighter furrow means a better harvest," Mr. Finch used to say.

It was in 1943 which I first saw the injustices perpetrated against those of colour. Miss Amelia King wished to join us in the fields but was denied as authorities in Essex believed no one would have her on their farm. How wrong they were. The outcry was incredible. Newspapers and MPs joined to give her a voice. Across the nation there was such a clamour that Winston himself heard and acknowledged Amelia's right to serve her people as an equal.

In October of that year she joined us in Hampshire. How amazed we were to have her but she didn't care for our adulation or apologies. She stated flatly, "sorry doesn't plant wheat," and so we got on with it. I admired her deeply. Here was not just a woman but one of colour wishing to do her duty, but denied that fundamental right because of her sex and putative inferior race. And yet whatever hurt she might have felt she didn't show. She was as British as any of us. Her coloured lip just as stiff as my own. I was honoured to call her bunkmate, friend and countryman and it was because of her that I could never again keep quiet in the face of injustice. Those were thrilling days and looking back some of the happiest of my life.

How liberating it was to see our efforts bear fruit all in the aid of liberty. Conservatives might have seen this as only temporary but I saw it as the future of my gender. I embraced the good, the freedom, the voice it gave me as I no longer was simply a woman, but now a woman who could choose a destiny, albeit still a hard one.

Then the War ended and we were politely expected to go back to being mummies and wives but my particular dog refused to hunt. Now I would chart my own course even if it evoked the ire of society and mother and father.

I worked, the dear Lord knows how hard. The skills I attained during the War meant little after the soldiers came home. I didn't begrudge them. They had earned their right to return home to a family and a job through a baptism of bullets and shrapnel. I took whatever jobs I could find even those with a traditional flavour. I filed for brokers and solicitors but my derriere remained determinedly unpinched but also frequently unemployed.

In the late '40s the migrations started. People from all over the Empire were invited to stay in the "Mother County" because of the labour shortage. Once here though the discrimination started. The "foreigners" were not welcome in "British" neighbourhoods. Housing for those of West Indian decent was double the price. I invited as many as I could to stay in my modest flat on the outskirts of London. The landlords and neighbours treated us poorly and had us evicted more than once, but we simply started over, again and again.

Father disowned me for having a thoroughly "un-British" spirit as he named it. "How could you shame your family so?" he would ask in a contemptible whisper. I might as well have been goose-stepping. Ironically it was that same indomitable and dogged spirit of British stubbornness he required of me which spurred me on to help wherever I could. We did it during the War, why would I stop now?

Amelia sent me a letter in 1963 wherein she reminisced on those heady days at the farm. It reminded me of the joy and freedom those times afforded me and I decided that would be our own course. My friends and I scrounged and scrounged until the farm was ours. We now owned a little piece of solitude in Hampshire. There was no danger of eviction and the soil gave us the right to be ourselves. The neighbours still grumbled but now we couldn't hear them. Our new home became a haven for those who suffered at the hands of discrimination. The land flourished and so did our community. We helped new feet to find a firm footing before setting off to make our country greater through their own hard work and determination.

Old age sought me out as it eventually does, but it does not blend well with stubborn pride. I began to shun others as I did not wish them to see me weak. The more wilful my pride the more isolated I became. I could no longer walk and trembled terribly when I ate. They told me it did not matter but I cared about what they thought of me.

Eventually my pig-headed dignity made me leave them altogether and I retired to the Southampton. They often came to visit but my tenacious need not to be seen weak kept them at arm's length until they no longer visited at all, but left me a thoughtful knock and a warm meal on the step.

"There's not much women can't do," one of the many propaganda films told us during the War. I believe we proved that and I've tried to live up those words ever since. The War inadvertently brought other freedoms not just against tyranny but also contributing to my gender no longer simply being a reproductive factory. One which needed only to speak when asked. I was a single, fractional, voice in a divisive world, but adversity made us many and our clamour helped to change future destinies. It was special to have been a part of the "Greatest Generation." I am honoured but I am also glad that you need not live through such times. That I believe did make us "great." Our pugnacious fight to give others an opportunity to not have to live through or die by, such devastation.

And yet my wilful pride led to my own incarceration. It was a good life and I'm proud to have called it my own. We are nearing the end and traditionally I need to tackle regrets now. I would change only the end. My misplaced obstinacy robbed me of my joy. As a senior I should have enjoyed the world through the youth of others. I could have been a guide, a font of wisdom but I chose solitude. My determination became my curse. A curse which I allowed to dog me into my grave.

Your time is precious and I taken enough it. How bored your stinging eyes must be but it was good of you to stay until the end. My apologies for the one-sidedness of our "tête-a-tête" but I'm sure you understand as I am permanently out of sorts.

Yours faithfully only in death, I suppose,

Agatha Littlebrook.