Child from Home (35 page)

One night after we had gone to bed, we were running in and out of the girls' bedroom and having pillow fights when Mrs Harris shouted up the stairs, ‘If you don't get into bed and settle down this minute there will be serious trouble.' For a time we kept quiet but then we started messing about again. ‘I won't tell you again. If there's another peep out of you I'll send Mr Harris up!' she shouted from the foot of the stairs. However, as we were in a silly mood, the running about and giggling soon resumed and the next minute there was the sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs. We shot into our own rooms and Jimmy was just going to shut the door when the belt clattered round the edge of it. The brass buckle caught him above the eye and cut his eyebrow, which started to bleed profusely. Mr Harris became really upset. He said ‘Ah'm so sorry, lad. Ah don't like belting yer but Ellen meks me do it. Ah only meant it as a warning and didn't expect anyone to be be'ind t' door.' He dressed Jimmy's eyebrow and gave us all a sweet to suck on but Mrs Harris said, ‘It serves him right. They had plenty of warnings!' The next day Jimmy had a black eye but at school he told Mr Fox that he had walked into a door without looking. He liked Mr Harris and didn't want to get him into any trouble.

Not long afterwards the good hidings and belittling comments started again. Mrs Harris, a real martinet, was forever finding fault with us and she was becoming more touchy and irritable by the day. She would fly into terrifying rages and lay into us. We were not her children and our noise and high-spirited behaviour seemed to get on her nerves. Maybe that was the reason why she would not let us bring our school pals to the house. I don't think she disliked them but if they were in the house she wouldn't be able to hit us.

Later that month Ducky went home to Newcastle and we never saw him again. We were not sorry to see him go. I had never liked him or he me as he was slimy and lazy (and crafty with it) and the dislike was mutual. He had an oily, sly nature, he sucked up to Mrs Harris no end and we had learned not to trust him or to let him in on our little secrets as he was forever telling tales. Tommy Robson, a scruffy ten-year-old lad with a ratlike face who came from Gateshead, took his place. He had sweaty feet and wore strange-looking boots, which he said were fancy American boots that his Mam had got from a charity sale. He became known as Geordie Robson at school and I don't remember much about him except that he was a tough lad with a good pair of fists who knew how to use them. He had no problem in dealing with the school bullies and it didn't take him long to sort out a lad called Harris who was always in trouble for fighting. After being belted by Mrs Harris he didn't stay long.

On Easter Sunday the bells of St Mary's pealed out joyfully on the warm spring air as white blackthorn blossom adorned the hedgerows. The same day the twelve great bells of York Minster rang out and were broadcast to the nation. It was 25 April and only that week Winston Churchill had proclaimed to the House of Commons that, ‘The church bells can now be rung on Sundays and on other special days to summon worshippers to church.'

Harry, and several other local boys and girls of about the same age – who had all been baptised – gathered at the parish church where the petals of the daffodils in the graveyard were now brown and papery. Over the past few weeks they had been attending the Confirmation classes conducted by the vicar. Having ‘come to years of discretion', the Reverend Donald now considered them fit to be brought before the bishop. Before they entered, little knots of mothers and guardians straightened ties, combed hair and fussed with the girls' dresses. Harry, who was to celebrate his fifteenth birthday four days later, felt a little self-conscious in his smart new suit.

The group was expected to have learnt the Creed, the Ten Commandments and great chunks of the Book of Common Prayer by heart. Harry gave his responses in a cracked voice that revealed the onset of puberty. Our little gang went along to see him confirmed and we watched as he knelt at the altar rail to take the bread and the wine at his first Holy Communion. I thought all that God-eating stuff seemed a bit vampirish and weird. The Misses Law and Barker, inordinately proud of their saintly-looking boy with the golden-halo, were beaming from ear to ear. Gran and Renee had come down from Middlesbrough, but they seemed to be rather quiet and sad. Neither my Mam or Aunt Hilda had come and Gran said, ‘Your Mam is still working at the Red Cross Centre and Aunt Hilda is still in the ATS where she is a medical orderly and can't get leave very easily.'

In May, Mrs Harris complained to the parish council – mind you, she complained about everything from the postman to the state of the roads – stating that she could not tolerate poor Dot's slow wits and dilatory ways any longer, adding, ‘I want her removed from the house. She is neither use nor ornament and is the instigator of much of the trouble with the others.'

When Renee visited again I overheard her saying to Harry, ‘What children need is stability, not punishment and rejection. Sometimes the problem is not the child but the family that they are put with. They should not be made to feel unloved and unwanted. Not that I can find fault with Mr Harris; he is a really nice man but he should stand up to his wife more. She gets her own way far too much and I think her nasty, spiteful ways really upset him.' So, Mrs Horn made arrangements for Dot to be billeted with Mrs Brown, the school dinner lady, who lived on North Lane. She was a very reserved and quiet ‘Grandma' type of lady who wore her hair flat to her head and tied in a bun at the back, and she always seemed to be wearing a crossover pinny whenever we saw her. Dot was delighted on learning that she was getting away from Mrs Harris at last and she gladly made the move into her new billet.

We were becoming more adventurous and roaming further afield. At that time of the year the white curds of the elderflowers were just starting to form and tall white candles of blossom stood on the horse chestnut trees. Down by the river the weeping willows dipped their green fronds in the water and the cloying smell of wild garlic was overpowering. The white-flowered plants were growing in profusion under the alder trees as I slashed at the stinging nettles with a stick, making sure that I always had some dock leaves handy to neutralise any stings. We searched for the little green bugs that made the frothy cuckoo spit on the plants. Apparently it had a foul taste, so the birds left them alone. We squashed the crawling grubs between our thumb and forefinger and called the large, green adult bugs ‘froghoppers'. The Home Guard had fastened a rope round a thick overhanging branch of a willow tree to enable them to swing across to the far bank during their exercises, and we made good use of it. We played down there for hours on end, occasionally seeing a flash of red and blue as a kingfisher skimmed along above the surface of the water.

In school assembly Miss Curry informed us that in North Africa the last of the Axis forces had surrendered and that the ‘Dambusters' raid had taken place. The bravery and stirring deeds of the bomber crews captured the public's imagination and their story was told in a major film.

In perfumed June, when Jimmy's Mam came to visit him, there was a right to-do. It seems that Aunt Hilda had saved up her leave entitlement from the army so that she could spend some time with her son and, knowing that she could not be put up at the Harris household, she said, ‘I would like to take Jimmy back to Middlesbrough with me for a few days holiday. It will be a nice change for him.' But the words were scarcely out of her mouth before Mrs Harris flew into a rage, showing her true colours to her for the first time. She shouted, ‘Yes you can take him, but if you do, don't bother to bring him back!'

Hilda, determined to have Jimmy with her, stuck to her guns, and going upstairs she packed his case and brought it down to the kitchen. Mrs Harris did not want him to go as Jimmy had been with her from the start and the argument became violent. She threw his case out onto the lawn by the back door and bundled Jimmy and his Mam down the steps and slammed the door shut in their faces. We were in tears as we peered through the kitchen window watching the furore. Poor Jimmy was scrabbling around on his hands and knees gathering up his things and putting them back into the small case; luckily the weather was good and the lawn was dry. Hilda, taken aback at first, became very angry, unable to believe that ‘the old dragon' had been so intransigent. We ran out onto Usher Lane and watched them until they reached the end of the road where Jimmy had a last look back and waved goodbye. They then had to catch the bus into York and the train home. I was very upset and cried; Jimmy and I were very close and had not been apart for over two years. We had gone everywhere together.

In the days that followed it felt strange going to school without Jimmy and Dot, and shortly afterwards two of the little girls that had been with us at Sutherland Lodge and Grove House came to stay in their stead. Sylvia and Nancy Robson were sisters and they had been at The Settlement in 1939. Sylvia was my age and was in Miss Rutter's group with me, but Nancy was only six and was in the same group as George at the infant school.

The gangly Mr Fox wore grey slacks and a tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows when he took us for cricket practice in the summer months. Seeing scratches on a boy's hands he accused him of robbing birds' nests and, when he admitted it, he gave him a good thrashing with the cane. This reminded me of what Mr Harris had told Jimmy, ‘If yer gonna get caned, rub a bit of raw onion on yer 'ands and it'll deaden t'pain.' Anybody who larked about got a crack on the neck from Mr Fox's swagger stick and the persistent troublemakers and bullies were made to clean out the pavilion. The pretty, slender-waisted and nubile Miss Rutter took the girls on to another part of the field to play rounders, and as she ran around in her short, pleated skirt several of the older lads seemed to suddenly lose concentration and got themselves bowled out.

As the green of late spring became the gold of high summer, cow parsley grew tall on the verges and we saw ever more Lancaster bombers flying low over the village after taking off from East Moor, where the Canadians were being trained in their use. Gran came through again saying, ‘I have had another letter from your Uncle John.' He was now in Campo 73 at Carpi, a small town in northern Italy not far from Modena.

‘I'm glad to hear the Red Cross parcels are getting through to the boys,' Mrs Harris said, pretending to be concerned. ‘Don't you have something to do with raising money for them?'

‘Yes, I go round the houses collecting the contributions to the Red Cross Penny-a-Week Fund every week in all weathers. They are doing a grand job for the boys in the prison camps who really look forward to receiving them.'

Just before we broke up for the summer holidays Miss Curry updated us on the war situation: Allied forces had invaded Sicily; 150,000 men had landed on 10 July and were moving steadily forward; General Montgomery was leading the Eighth Army, known as the ‘Desert Rats' after the long-legged rodent called the Jerboa, and the American General Patton was in command of the US 7th Army.

I missed Jimmy very much and when Gran came again I cried and pleaded with her to take me home. When Mrs Harris left the room I said to her, ‘I hate it here and Mrs Harris is always hitting us. Can't I come home with you?' ‘Don't be silly now. I'm sure it's not that bad,' she replied, just as Mrs Harris came back into the room and we were sent upstairs to play while they talked. When we came down nothing more was said. Mrs Harris must have convinced Gran that she did not hit us and we noticed that the belts and cane were missing from their usual prominent place.

Gran then turned to me and said, ‘Jimmy is staying with Aunt Ruby while his Mam sorts out her discharge. He sends you his love as do your Mam and Dad. Keep your chin up and be good boys.' She did not stay long as she had to catch the Darlington train, and on arrival there she would have to hope that she was not too late to catch the connecting train to Middlesbrough. It would be a long tedious journey for her with the windows painted over and the blinds down, and she would not arrive home until well after midnight. Luckily she enjoyed knitting, which helped to pass the time. She told us that, ‘Sometimes the trains are so packed with servicemen that they lay on the luggage racks.'

During the summer break we heard on the news that Mussolini had fallen out of favour and had been dismissed from office by the king of Italy bringing an end to the Italian fascist government. We knew it was good news but it did not really affect us and, as it was another lovely summer, we roamed far and wide in the local countryside. Pink-flowered spikes of rosebay willowherb grew tall on the grass verges as large white trumpets of bindweed were fully open in the hedgerows. The days were hot, and golden sunlight danced on the surface of Widd's pond as we tried to catch the newts, the silvery-looking diving beetles, the pond-skaters and the waterboatmen that skittered across the surface. On leaving the field we always jumped the drainage ditch and Nancy Robson, who had bobbed, mousy hair, and wore wire-rimmed glasses, thought she could do the same and fell in. She was covered in mud and when we got back Mrs Harris dumped her unceremoniously in a bath of cold water with all her clothes on. She got a good slap on the legs and was sent to bed for the rest of the day and we got an earful for letting her do it.

The summers seemed to last forever in those days. When Gran came to visit us again, she told us that, ‘Aunt Hilda is out of the army and has got herself a job in the steelworks. Renee is still driving the overhead crane at Cargo Fleet Steel Rolling Mill and Archie is serving his apprenticeship as a steel plater in the Britannia Bridgeyard.' The steelworks were now involved in the manufacture of landing craft and amphibious vessels for the planned invasion of Europe, but the workers had been sworn to secrecy.