Summary Good Night Mr Tom

GOODNIGHT MISTER TOM

Author:  Michelle Magorian

(She wanted to be an actress,but published her first book ‘Goodnight Mister Tom’ which won the Guardian Award.    She then published further books.  She lives in Petersfield.  (Brittish)).

1. MEETING

• Thomas Oakly was asked by the Billeting Officer if he would take William Beech under his roof.
• It was compulsory to take a child but usually you could choose the child.
• Willie’s mother insisted him to be placed with a religious person or someone close to a church.  That is why Tom was asked to take him rather than choose a child.
• The reason for the children being taken from their homes and placed elsewhere was due to the war being imminent (“close”).
• Willie was a shy, thin and sick looking, pale with limp sandy hair and dull grey eyes.
• Tom was well into his sixties, healthy, robust, stockily-built (“strong”), with thick white hair.
• Willie saw Tom as a towering giant with skin like coarse, wrinkled brown paper and a voice like thunder.
• There were more children taken to the village hall to be placed with other people.  All were bewildered.
• Willie only had an old brown bag with a few belongings in with him.
• The cottage had a small garden and the other window looked out onto the graveyard.
• The room contained books, chairs and a nice fireplace.
• Tom first gave Willie food (bread and bacon) and tea.
• Tom saw a nasty wound on Willie’s shin.  His arms also hurt.  His mom was the one hurting him since she said he was wicked. She even said to him most moms treat their children worse.
• Willie slept in the attic which served as his room. He climbs up to it with an old wooden ladder.  This is the first time in his life that Willie has his own room.
• Willie believed war was punishment from God for people’s sins since his mom told him so.
• Willie came from London.
• Willie was eight years old.
• Willie met a teacher Mrs Hartridge in the graveyard.  Her husband is a soldier.
• Willie’s teacher in London was Mr Barnett, who yelled the whole time and hit the children over the knuckles.  Willie dreaded school in London.
• Willie liked the old oak tree in the graveyard and sat on Elizabeth Thatcher’s grave.  He also tried cleaning an old forgotten grave when he saw a squirrel in the tree.
• Tom had a dog,Sammy, a black and white collie.Initially Willie was scared since his mom told him that dogs are dangerous and carry deadly diseases.
• Willie was so scared that he will get a hiding that he vomited, but Tom only held him and did not even scold. He put a blanket over him.
• Tom’s wife Rachel died when she was still young together with their young baby boy.  He never had the opportunity to even christen the baby.  Rachel liked painting and Tom still had some of her brushes.
• Tom slept in his own bedroom with a four poster bed and a thick quilt.Sammy’s bed was a round basket on the flour

Billeting = the activity of assigning soldiers or others to accommodation that is not normally used by them

Range = fireplace

2. LITTLE WEIRWORLD

• Tom taught Willie to hold out his hand with his palm up to indicate to Sammy that he won’t harm him.  Then he can tickle the dog’s chest.  Also that when Sammy licks him it says he likes him and he makes Sammy happy.
• Willie asked why the dog sniffs and Tom explained this is how he learns and explores and knows who is friendly and who not.
• Willie wanted to help Tom by carrying his bag on the way to town
• Willie was amazed at the thatched (grass) roofs of the cottages in town.
• In town they met:

• Mrs Fletcher, plump, middle-aged with greying auburn hair.  Very nosy. She has boys. She did not take in any of children.  Tom asked her to knot a jersey for Willie.  Her neighbour is Madge.
• Mrs Butcher: took in two children, girls.
• Mrs Heniley, had three kids that kept running away – homesick
• Ivor, the owner of the cows who provides milk, and his wife Roe.They have a six year old daughter, Lucy.        

• They were putting black material in the windows, supposedly so that the aeroplanes won’t see them to throw bombs.
• The town they live in is Little Weirworld
• The fire is made with coke
• In Willie’s bag there was: small towel, piece of soap, toothbrush, old Bible, letter addressed to ‘whom it may concern’
• His mom wrote that he is a boy full of sin and she even packed a belt to hit him with.  She also said she is a widow and does not have the money to visit Willie.  She also said he only has the one set of clothes that he is wearing.
• Tom said to Willie that he will never hit him with a belt (with a silver buckle).  He does not want to hit children and never has and if he has to it will be with his hands.
• Willie’s mother had sewn his vest to his pants, which meant that for the whole winter he would not bath.  Tom cut this and made him wash.
• Tom saw that Willie’s body was full of bruises, where his mom hit him.
• Tom gave Willie an old night shirt and warm socks.
• Willie dried Sammy with an old towel.
• Tom handed Willie ginger cake – the first time in his life he had cake.
• Willie was introduced to a pouffe – a round cushiony type of seat.
• Tom told Willie the story of Noah’s ark.
• Willie had a chamber-pot so that he did not need to go to the toilet at night.
• Willie did not even know he could get into the bed, he was used to sleeping under the bed on the floor. Sammy also got on the bed and Willie cried of happiness.
• Tom had a large black wooden paint-box in his lap, with flowers on.  It had pots with paints in it and Willie looked lovingly at it.

3.  SATURDAY MORNING

• During the night Willie vomited and then crawled in under the bed.  Willie also urinated in his bed.
• Willie did not want to go without socks since he did not want anyone to see the ‘marks of his sins’
• Willie told Tom that he can’t read or write
• Willie asked Tom to just write on his mother’s postcard that he is happy and safe.
• Willie could not believe that Tom did not tell him he was bad because he wetted his bed.
• Willie was born on 7 Sept 1930
• Willie could not read since at school in London he was called Sillie Sissie Willie and he had no friends there.  Because he could not read he was also not allowed to work with paint.
• The toilet of Tom’s house is a small outhouse.
• Tom had a large carthorse, Dobbs
• The village had a doctor, Doctor Oswald Little. His wife is Nancy, who smoked cigarettes.  The doctor said that Willie was vomiting due to malnutrition.  His stomach was not used to good and proper food.  He needs to eat clean broth (“a type of soup”) and milk for a start.  Also Virol and Cod Liver Oil.  He also said the wounds had to be washed in salt water and treated with witch-hazel..
• The villagers were building bomb shelters and Tom decided that with Willie to take care of maybe he should also do it.
• Tom showed Willie the school.  Small,red-bricked house with a tiled roof.  Had a playground and a field.
• There was a crowd at Mrs Fletcher since she had one of the few wirelesses (“radios”) in the town and everyone wanted to hear the news
• Due to the looming war everyone was also supposed to wear gas-mask boxes
• He also met Mr and Mrs Bird
• He met a young boy in the Post Office that was writing to his mother using a magnifying glass and writing in very small letters.The boy was wiry,tanned and had dark curly hair.  He was taller than Willie.  
• In the store the store owners, Mr and Mrs Miller, first thought Willie would steal but Tom protected him.  Mrs Miller was very fat.
• Mrs Miller gave him an apple.
• Mr Charlie Ruddles, wearin an A.R.P. uniform, was the self-appointed guardian checking that everyone was wearing gas-masks.

ARP is short for Air Raid Precautions

4. EQUIPPED

• Willie slept in the back of the cart on the way to town
• Dobbs was left at the blacksmith (to put new protection on the hoofs)
• Tom allowed Willie to select one comic and one sweet at the newsagent’s shop.  This was the first time in Willie’s life that he could choose something.  He chose a strawberry lolly in black and white striped paper and his comic – his first ever comic.
• Tom promised to read the comic to him after the Bible.
• At the newsagent’s shop there were two placards reading ‘Poland invaded’ and ‘Turn your wireless low. Remember someone might be on duty.’
• Tom usually bought himself tobacco from a yellow tin.
• Tom had been living alone for 40 years before Willie moved in.
• Willie remembered the train station where he arrived the previous day.  Now there were young soldiers ready to leave for war.
• Willie did not want to be left alone, even to look at toys.
• The draper’s store (selling materials) was next to the toy store.  It is owned by Mr Hoakly, a smartly dressed middle-aged man with a new set of false teeth. Tom allowed Willie to select two colours for his pants, that Mrs Fletcher would make.  He selected green and navy.  He loved red but his mom used to say it is a sinful colour.
• Everywhere they went they heard organ music from Sandy Macpherson on the BBC radio.  It irritated Tom.
• Tom also bought Willie boots, leather boots to be softened up with linseed oil.
• Men were reporting for duty at the Fire Station next to the Town Hall.
• Willie was fascinated by the shop with the paint brushes and paint, but was only allowed to look through the window at it.  
• Tom remembered how Rachel loved this shop.  Rachel was Tom’s wife who passed away long ago.  She loved the smell and fell of paint and felt she could paint the sky for her whole life since it kept on changing.  Willie was making imaginary pictures on the window with the brush he saw in the window.
• Tom also made Willie join the library. The librarian is Miss Emilia Thorne, tall,thin angular, with auburn hair who wore glasses around her neck.  Here Willie could select three books and Miss Thorne assisted him whilst Tom went elsewhere. He selected two with pictures and one Mr Tom could read to him.  She selected Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories.
• Tom started wearing a gas mask, with Willie also wearing one.  The librarian could not believe it.  (Tom was known as a secluded difficult man.)
• Mr Tom promised to help Willie and to teach him to read.
• Mr Tom looked at a radio and wondered if he should buy one that runs on batteries. He then also remembered to buy number 8 batteries for the torch.
• Tom went into the artist shop or the first time in fourty years.  It seemed to be the same, down to the doorbell.
• Willie got his first pyjamas and Tom again explained to him that beds are not only for dead people, but he could sleep in it.
• MrTom had no electricity in his cottage
• Willie wanted Mr Tom to read him Noah’s ark from the Bible (again).
• Mr Tom explained and put Willie at ease and said its okay if he wets the bed, it now had a plastic over it, since it takes time to get used to a new place.
• Mrs Fletcher came to visit that evening.
• They had the blacks in front of the windows whilst the lights were on to try and hide the lights from the sky.  The idea was that it would make it more difficult to spot the town and buildings from the sky should there we enemy aeroplanes or troops coming.

5. CHAMBERLAIN ANNOUNCES

• From Willie’s room’s window he can see a road, the graveyard, the big Grange, Mrs Hartridge’s home and a stream and woods where the kids like to play.
• The next morning Willie was helping Tom dig a trench for the Anderson
• There are two teachers at school:  Mrs Hartridge for the younger ones and Mr Bush for the older ones.  Mr Bush is also the headmaster.
• The small river flows to The Grange.  It is popular with the children of the village.
• Mrs Fletcher had given old clothes from her son David for Willie to wear.
• The vicar is Mr Peters, and they had three daughters
• Willie helped prepare the church for sermon by putting hymn books out.  He was scared since the books were red and his mom said red was an evil colour.
• Willie hated Sundays and church because his mom usually gave him a hiding afterwards. His mom said she and God hated him when he was bad and she made him out to be bad often.
• Nancy Little accompanied by the doctor arrived at church. She was wearing pants and Willie was shocked. He thought this was sin, but no one even looked worried.
• Miss Thorne and her sister Miss May also came to church.
• Tom wanted to give Willie a balaclava for his birthday on Thursday.  Mrs Fletcher was knitting it.
• There was a radio or wireless in the church.
• The Barnes family owns the biggest farm in the area, Hillbrook Farm.  They had three boys and two girls, and also two of the evacuee children – a boy and a girl.
• Willie lah’ed the hymns since he did not know the words, but he enjoyed it.
• The organ was played by Mr Bush, the headmaster.
• Mr Chamberlain was the Prime Minister of England and he lived in 10 Downing Street.
• That morning England declared war against Germany for taking in Poland.
• This did not mean that there was no school and the vicar asked of everyone to carry on with their jobs.
• Volunteers and A.R.P. workers reported to the village hall.
• Women and children were to meet at the school the next morning to assist with care and education of evacuees.
• Lucy kept on trying to make friends with Willie.  
• Tom asked Willie to go and put the kettle on in the cottage whilst he was still talking to the vicar.  Mr Fletcher joined them for coffee.
• Willie’s mother never allowed him to play and on Sunday’s he had to sit with the Bible in front of him.  He was called a sissie since he never played and was not allowed to get his clothes dirty.
• Willie never played since his mother did not allow him to get his clothes dirty, his body was also too bruised and painful to play, and he did not know how to play.
• They ate potatoes and meat stew for lunch before getting to work.
• Mr Fletcher’s sons are called Michael and Edward, the younger of the two.  They also had two younger brothers.
• They were digging trenches with the Fletcher’s. Willie squirmed at worms but although they called him a ‘townie’ no one was treating him badly.
• The younger son, George, came and asked for some of the worms in the soil.  They put it in a tin.
• When Willie did not want to get his jersey off Tom protected him by saying he had a temperature and it is better to sweat it out.
• They dug all day at the trench and then built the Anderson shelter in the back yard, with the help of the Fletchers.
• It was basically a stainless steel chamber with a hole as entrance on the top and an exit where they could escape from.
• They put stainless steel chamber in the hole and then Willie covered it with soil whilst Tom left for a meeting in the village hall.
• Willie enjoyed the work, he enjoyed the smell of the soil and getting dirty.
• He was joined at dusk by the curly-haired boy he had seen at the Post Office.

Anderson is a stainless steel shelter put underground to protect people.  Many people had one during the war.

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