Above the Harvest Moon (11 page)
‘Adam says so, does he?’ Her uncle nodded his head. ‘Well, we’ll soon see if Adam is right, won’t we? But I wouldn’t hold your breath.’
When, three days later, the General Strike began and workers in almost every industry laid down their tools and walked out, Hannah refrained from saying ‘I told you so’ to her uncle. Buses and trains stopped, factories were silent, docks deserted and offices empty. Britain’s workforce united.
Nine days later it was over. But not for the miners. As the rest of the country returned to work, Lord Londonderry, the Durham coal owner, vowed he would smash the pitmen’s union from top to bottom and he meant it. The miners were now on their own.
Hannah sat in Rose’s kitchen listening to Wilbur, Adam and Joe talk, and although she didn’t understand all that they were saying, she knew they would be fighting long and hard. She glanced at Naomi who was now the sole breadwinner in the house. She was listening with rapt attention to the menfolk. Then Hannah met Rose’s gaze. They stared at each other for a moment until Rose’s eyes dropped to the sock she was darning.
Hannah continued to look at Naomi’s mother for a second more and then she, too, lowered her gaze. What she’d read in that brief unguarded moment had shocked her. Surely Mrs Wood thought the miners were right to stand out against the pit owners? The lodges in every district of every coalfield were determined to raise money and they’d already organised fellowship dinners where the mining families were sure of a good meal while the men discussed ways and means of making ends meet. Adam had told her all sorts of things had been discussed - brass band concerts, athletic contests, dances, boxing matches, talent competitions, coconut shies. Practically everything you’d find at a fairground. And the weather was good now for May and they had the whole summer in front of them. It had been a shock when the other trade union leaders had welshed on the colliery workers, but it had strengthened the miners’ resolve, if anything. They were standing up for what was right, for their wives and bairns; couldn’t Naomi’s mam see that?
It was another half an hour before Adam stood up, holding out his hand to her as he said, ‘Fancy a walk, lass?’
She nodded, pulling on her coat and straw bonnet as they left the kitchen to a chorus of ‘Ta-rahs’ from Naomi and her mother and Joe. Mr Wood said nothing but he smiled at her.
There were still a few bairns playing outside in the street as they emerged from the back lane, several involved in a game of hopscotch with an old boot-polish tin, and a little group playing mothers and fathers with a real bare-bottomed baby who kept crawling away from his five-year-old ‘mother’, much to her very verbal annoyance. Hannah glanced down at the dribble-nosed infant who was demonstrating his considerable lung power in protest at being confined in one place. She knew his mam. Amy Stamp was only eighteen months older than her and she was already expecting again.The rest of the children were the baby’s young uncles and aunties. Amy’s mother had a bairn regular as clockwork every twelve months. Since Amy had wed and her husband had joined the family, there were well over twenty folk crammed in the two-up, two-down house.
She didn’t want to live like that.
The thought sprung into being and she acknowledged it had been at the back of her mind since the row with her uncle. She didn’t want to have one bairn after another as decreed by the Catholic church. She didn’t want a life forever fighting the thick mud from the back lanes and the dirt from the town’s filthy industrial chimneys either. No privacy, no time or energy to do anything but get by.
The thought sprung into being and she acknowledged it had been at the back of her mind since the row with her uncle. She didn’t want to have one bairn after another as decreed by the Catholic church. She didn’t want a life forever fighting the thick mud from the back lanes and the dirt from the town’s filthy industrial chimneys either. No privacy, no time or energy to do anything but get by.
‘Penny for ’em?’
Adam was peering at her. Shaking herself mentally, she forced a smile, taking his arm as she said, ‘It doesn’t matter.’ Adam wouldn’t understand. He was very much like his father in the way he saw things. She had heard him rib Joe when his brother had made everyone a cup of tea one day after Naomi’s mother had sprained her wrist. Adam would have expected Naomi or even her to do it.Women’s work was women’s work. Men brought in the wages, provided for their families and therefore didn’t lift a finger in the home.
She had mentioned the incident to him once they were alone, asking why he had teased Joe for helping his mother. ‘Helping Mam?’ he’d said in surprise. ‘That’s Naomi’s job.The trouble with Joe is he’s as soft as clarts and Naomi can be a lazy little madam when she wants to be.’ End of conversation. No matter that Naomi worked hard at the jam factory and brought in a wage too.
The May evening wasn’t cold but Hannah shivered. Adam put his hand over the one she had through his arm and said, ‘Come on, we’ll walk up Newcastle Road and cut through Grange Park Avenue to the back of the cricket ground. They’ve got a couple of benches where we can sit and it’s out of the wind.’
The further they walked, the more open it became. They were in the outskirts of Southwick now and there were some very nice houses with a garden at the front and rear to be seen. They came to the spot Adam had spoken of, which was a small park area with rows of elm trees bordering it. It had been a fine day and the sky was still blue, the clouds snowy white. The scent of May blossom from the trees in the park drifted in the air and the wind had died down to a breath, the area being sheltered. Hannah wondered how many other lassies Adam had sat with here as he put his arm round her and drew her against him. And then he kissed her and it didn’t matter.
There weren’t many people about, just a young family at one end of the park and another couple like themselves sitting on a bench some twenty yards away. When Adam raised his head, he settled her into the crook of his arm. ‘The strike won’t last for ever, you know that, don’t you?’ he said softly. ‘And once I’m earning again we can go to the pictures or dancing at the Pally.’
Hannah nodded. She didn’t care where she went as long as she was with Adam. They sat for a minute or two watching the father of the young family kicking a ball with his son, who couldn’t have been more than four or five, while his wife sat watching with a little baby on her knee. The man was in a suit and they looked well-to-do.
‘Do you ever think about leaving the pit and moving away, perhaps down south?’ She hadn’t meant to say it, it had just popped out as she watched the young husband.
‘What?’
‘Well, all this with the strike and everything and the pit being so dangerous, I just wondered if you’d thought about doing something else.’
Adam stared at her as though she was talking double Dutch. ‘I’m a miner.’
‘I know. I just wondered . . .’
He smiled. ‘You’re a funny little thing at times, you know that?’ And then his voice grew husky as he murmured,‘But bonny, so bonny. Aw, Hannah, you’ve no idea what you do to me.There’s not a lass in the country can hold a candle to you. I’m the luckiest man alive.’
She melted when he said things like this. He kissed her again but when his hand slid under her coat and cupped her breast, she drew back quickly. ‘Don’t. Someone’ll see.’
She watched his white even teeth drag at his lower lip for a moment, then his right shoulder moved upwards in a gesture that held irritation.‘We’ve been seeing each other over eight weeks now and I’m not made of wood.’
‘I know.’ She didn’t mind him touching her on the rare occasions they were alone, once or twice in his mam’s kitchen when everyone else had gone to bed and another time when he’d walked her home and stood in the darkness of the back alley. At least not much. At first it had just been a light touch on the outside of her clothes but the last time he’d tried to lift her jumper and his hands had been hard and insistent. She knew it was wrong. Her mam hadn’t told her much about the birds and the bees when she had started her monthlies two years ago, but she had been very clear that one thing led to another and that
that
had to be avoided at all costs. Quite what
that
entailed she wasn’t sure, but she knew it could lead to the worst fate that could befall a lass, that of having a baby without being wed.
that
had to be avoided at all costs. Quite what
that
entailed she wasn’t sure, but she knew it could lead to the worst fate that could befall a lass, that of having a baby without being wed.
‘I’m not going to do anything to hurt you.You know that, don’t you?’ Adam’s face had softened when he saw her distress.‘But I’ve been used to—’ He stopped, waving his hand as he said, ‘It doesn’t matter. But I know a thing or two. You wouldn’t have to worry, that’s what I’m saying.’
She stared at him in silence, then moved her lips one over the other before she said, ‘I’m sorry.’ She didn’t want them to quarrel.
‘Aye, well, we’d better be getting back.’ And then, as she still looked at him with a troubled face, he smiled, drawing her into his arms again but this time just kissing the tip of her nose. ‘Don’t worry, I know you’re a nice lass. I wouldn’t be walking out with you otherwise, would I? We’ll take it slow if that’s what you want, all right?’ He kissed her again, warmly.
Relieved, she kissed him back, and then as he drew her to her feet, she said again, but without really knowing why, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’ll be better once the strike’s over,’ he said, as though that had a bearing on the situation. ‘And you’ll love the Pally, they have some right good bands there on a Saturday night. By, some of the lads’ eyes’ll pop out of their heads when I walk in with you on my arm.’
Her smile was more natural now. He was himself again. Everything was all right.
‘Aye, once the strike’s over we’ll paint the town red, lass. That’ll show ’em.’
She wasn’t sure who it would show but she laughed anyway and they went home arm in arm.
Chapter 8
Over the next weeks it became clear there was going to be no easy resolution to the lockout. And a lockout was what it was, in spite of most of the miners calling it a strike, maybe because that way it seemed as though they were in charge, as if it was the working man taking the action instead of the employers. Gradually it became commonplace to see miners fixing roofs and cleaning chimneys and grooming dogs or ponies, or digging gardens.
Adam and his father decided to try their hand at a spot of painting and decorating and went knocking on doors in Fulwell and Roker and the more well-to-do part of Southwick, but as they were competing with many other miners, jobs were few and far between. Joe had a little more success collecting fish and vegetable scraps from the market and from people’s bins which he sold to folk who kept hens or pigs.The four younger children thought it was great fun to go out with shovels and buckets and follow the carthorses, picking up their manure, which they sold to the big houses on the outskirts of town for their gardens. As the strike dragged on into August, it was clear to Hannah that without Jake Fletcher’s help in the way of the sacks of food he brought to the house each week the Woods would have been in dire straits.
It was this very thing that caused the first serious disagreement between Hannah and Adam late one Sunday evening at the beginning of September, a disagreement which was to have repercussions neither of them could have dreamt of. It had been a fine day and Hannah had joined the Wood family for a picnic on the beach.At least that was the way everyone referred to the hours spent picking winkles and looking for crabs and sea coal.The week before,Adam and his father and brother had earned a few shillings fetching sand from the beach, washing it in buckets and selling it to a local builder. This source of income had been short-lived. The builder had told them kindly there was only so much sand he could use and he wouldn’t be needing any more for a week or two. But the three men had noticed women and children foraging for anything the tide left behind. Hence the Sunday outing.
It was close to sunset when they walked home to Wayman Street through the hot dusty streets. People were sitting on their doorsteps or gossiping over their backyard in the dying sunshine, the smell of the privies overpowering in some places due to the heatwave they’d been enjoying the last weeks.
Hannah and Adam trailed behind the others, who walked ahead in a small group, Joe and his father carrying the five-year-old twins, Matthew and Robert, on their backs. Rose was holding a bucket full of winkles and Naomi one containing a few crabs, while Stephen and Peter were pulling the wooden packing case on wheels Mr Wood had made to transport the sea coal and seaweed which would be dried out and used on the range fire. No one glancing at the family group would have guessed the growing desperation within its ranks. The summer was all but over, autumn was upon them and winter loomed round the corner with its ice and snow and raw winds. They were weeks behind with the rent, the twins had ringworm and impetigo and no matter what their mother tried she hadn’t been able to get rid of the infections, and all the family were pale and washed-out looking.
As Hannah and Adam turned the corner into Wayman Street, they saw the others approaching the tall dark figure of Jake Fletcher who had obviously been waiting outside the house for their return. Adam swore under his breath. ‘What’s he doing here? Come to gloat.’ He swore again, a base oath, and Hannah blinked against it.‘Why me da doesn’t tell him to stuff his charity where the sun don’t shine, I don’t know.’
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