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Just before we came in sight of the bridge they jerked to a stop and as I billowed out from them like a balloon about to take off I wrenched my hands free. Then I, too, came to a halt on the sight of two lads no, lads is not the right word, young men can only describe them. It was these two young men who had halted Don and Ronnie. They were surveying us from a rise just off the road. They were both dressed in grey flannels and sports coats and wound around their necks were long scarves.

To wear woollen scarves in the height of summer seemed ridiculous, yet they did not look ridiculous; in fact I thought it was we three who must be appearing ridiculous for they both were looking at us through narrowed lids in a scrutinizing, weighing-up fashion, as if we were some oddities that they could not really make out. But I felt no feeling of resentment that they should look at us in this manner, rather my feeling was one of interest, for in a peculiar way the taller of the two seemed to be known to me. His face was pale; what colour his eyes were I could not see from this distance, I only knew they were bright and dark. His hair was brown and had a slight wave in it, and his body was thin, very thin, and he was as tall as Don.

When we had passed them Don spoke.

"They make me sick," he said, sneering.

I turned my eyes swiftly to our Ronnie as he endorsed this in much the same tone.

"Who are they?" I asked.

"Cissies," replied Don, 'from Brampton Hill. They're still at school and they wear them scarves to let you know it. I would like to swing them by their scarves, I would that. "

"You mean college?" I said, with a spark of interest.

"Call it what you like it's still school, and these are die types that get the jobs with the money. My God!" he spat into the gutter, and I closed my eyes for a moment and gave a little shiver.

Ronnie, sensing my feelings, put it cheerfully now, "Ah well, let's live for the night. Away to the social and the high life of Fellburn."

He laughed and was about to link my arm when he thought better of it, thinking that whatever he did Don would do the same.

Ten minutes later I was standing at the school-room door being greeted by Father Ellis.

"Christine! Well, well." His eyes looked me over.

"A new dress. Did... did your mother make it?"

"Yes, Father." I was feeling now slightly embarrassed, for he had not lowered his voice and it had attracted the attention of most of the lads standing just within the doorway. They were buttoning and unbuttoning their coats. Among the eyes that were looking at me were those of Ted Farrel. Ted had been 'a big boy' at school when I had just left the infants, and I had always liked the look of him, and seeing him now close by and not with the width of the church between us, where I glimpsed him on a Sunday, I found that my opinion hadn't changed.

I turned my face away from the eyes and looked at the school clock. It said twenty-five past seven. The social would go on until half past ten. Three hours of enchantment lay before me. At half past nine I was back home standing in the kitchen looking with desperate eyes at my mother. Ronnie was standing with downcast head.

The sleeve of his jacket was hanging off and he was bleeding from the nose and a cut on the chin.

"What ... what in the name of God's happened?" asked Dad.

Mam had said nothing, and I burst out crying and ran upstairs. In a few minutes she was with me and she pulled me up from the bed where I had flung myself and helped me off with my dress. She never spoke until she had folded the dress and put it away in the bottom drawer.

Then drawing me down on to the side of the bed she took my hand in hers and said quietly, "Tell me about it, lass."

With my eyes cast down and my head moving from side to side I muttered, "It was Don, he didn't want me to dance with anybody else. A boy called Ted Ted Farrel asked me and Don said if if I danced with him again he would ..."

"Go on," said my mother.

"He he would make him so's his mother wouldn't know him."

"What did Ronnie do?" asked my mother.

"Did he know of this?"

"He he ..." I found I couldn't say that Ronnie, too, had warned me not to dance with Ted Farrel. How could I explain to her the grip on my arm as we went stumbling round the room, and him whispering, "Now look, I'm tellin' you, our Christine. Don't you encourage Ted Farrel, for he's got a name. He's no good, and there'll only be trouble."

"Where did they fight?"

"I - I dont know, I think it was near the boiler house. I saw Ted go out with two pals and then Don said to our Ronnie, " Come on"."

"Where was Father Ellis in all this ?"

"In the whist. Somebody told him and he came out and stopped them, and Oh, Mam!" I fell on her neck, 'every body was looking at me, as if as if. "

"There, there. Look look at me."

When I raised my eyes she said, "Do you like Don, even a little bit?"

"No, Mam. No ... no!"

She drew in a deep breath, then exclaimed, "Thank God for that. I knew you didn't as a hairn, but girls change you know, and often in their teens they ... well, they ..."

"I could never like Don, I - I'm afraid of him, Mam."

Her eyes tightened on mine and she said sternly, "Don't be afraid of him, that's what he wants. Don is not a good boy, Christine. There's something, I dont know what it is, but there's something I can't fathom about him."

I knew what she meant, and when she said next, "You must keep out of his way as much as possible," I didn't reply but asked myself somewhat wildly how I could do that, living almost in the same house with him?

Sensing my feelings, my mother said, "I know, lass, it's going to be difficult." Then she added, "And we dont want any open rift if we can help it. Aunt Phyllis is a funny customer,

I remember the day I left Mrs. Turnbull's. It was a day in October, nineteen-thirty-eight, shortly after Hitler overran Czechoslovakia. I knew about this from Dad's talk, for I did not read the papers. He had been very concerned about this man called Hitler, but now, seemingly, the man had got what he wanted and everything would settle down.

Anyway they had stopped digging trenches in the London parks.

Mollie, on the other hand, took a great interest in the newspapers and gave me her verdict, day by day, on the headlines. I knew that she was disappointed there wasn't going to be a war. A war for Mollie meant excitement and all the lads in uniform.

She was talking, this particular morning, in whispers and with some regret about the latest news, saying, "Eeh! by, me ma had some fun in the last war. She keeps me in stitches sometimes with the things she did. And she had some chances an' all. She was a bloomin' fool not to snap one of 'ems up, sergeants and the like. And then she had to go and marry me da. That was a case of must. By, I've learned something'.

If there was another war no bloody tatie peelin' private would get me, I can tell you. I mayn't be a Greta Garbo but I've got me head screwed on the right way. By, I have. Me ma's taught me a lesson, and the squad she's got. "

"Wouldn't you marry a pitman?"

"Pitman? Not me. No bloody fear. Pitman!"

I looked at her out of the side of my eye and said with a little laugh,

"I thought you liked our Ronnie?"

She gave me a sly look back, dug me in the ribs and said, "Likin's one thing, marryin's another. If he won the pools now, I'd have him the morrer."

We both burst out laughing, then covered our laughter I know, and she would try the patience of a saint, but she's got a lot on her plate.

She's a very unhappy woman, so we dont want to make things worse for her. Just you keep him at arm's length, and whatever you do dont let him see you're afraid of him. "

We looked at each other in the flickering candle-light, then her hands came out and cupped my face, and as she stared at me her eyes grew very soft, and bending forward she kissed me on the mouth. This was a very unusual gesture. I kissed her every night before going to bed and also before going out in the morning, but it was on the side of her cheek, and when she kissed me it was on my cheek, but this was a special kind of kiss and in that moment I felt that I must always be good and never, never do anything that would hurt her.

I remember the day I left Mrs. Tumbull's. It was a day in October, nineteen-thirty-eight, shortly after Hitler overran Czechoslovakia. I knew about this from Dad's talk, for I did not read the papers. He had been very concerned about this man called Hitler, but now, seemingly, the man had got what he wanted and everything would settle down.

Anyway they had stopped digging trenches in the London parks.

Mollie, on the other hand, took a great interest in the newspapers and gave me her verdict, day by day, on the headlines. I knew that she was disappointed there wasn't going to be a war. A war for Mollie meant excitement and all the lads in uniform.

She was talking, this particular morning, in whispers and with some regret about the latest news, saying, "Eeh! by, me ma had some fun in the last war. She keeps me in stitches sometimes with the things she did. And she had some chances an' all. She was a bloomin' fool not to snap one of 'ems up, sergeants and the like. And then she had to go and marry me da. That was a case of must. By, I've learned something'.

If there was another war no bloody tatie peelin' private would get me, I can tell you. I mayn't be a Greta Garbo but I've got me head screwed on the right way. By, I have. Me ma's taught me a lesson, and the squad she's got. "

"Wouldn't you marry a pitman?"

"Pitman? Not me. No bloody fear. Pitman!"

I looked at her out of the side of my eye and said with a little laugh,

"I thought you liked our Ronnie?"

She gave me a sly look back, dug me in the ribs and said, "Likin's one thing, marryin's another. If he won the pools now, I'd have him the morrer."

We both burst out laughing, then covered our laughter hurriedly as we heard Mrs. Turnbull coming out of the other shop. I remember I turned from a shelf to look at her and my mouth fell into a gape, for behind her stood Dad. He came straight towards me, his cap moving nervously between his hands, and said, "I've been talking to Mrs. Tumbull' he nodded his head back at her 'you'll have to come home, lass, your mother's taken bad."

I said nothing, I did not even apologize to Mrs. Tumbull for my hasty exit, but, running out to the back, I grabbed up my coat and hat and joined Dad in the shop. And there, Mollie, before Mrs. Turnbull could speak, asked, "Will you becomin'back?"

It was my dad who answered.

"I dont think so, lass, not yet. Me wife's very ill, she'll be in bed for some time."

Mrs. Turnbull moved with us towards the door, where she said, "I'm very sorry, very sorry indeed, Mr. Winter." And turning to me she finished, "Your situation's waiting for you when you can come back, I'll see to that."

"Thank you," I said, and hurried into the street. And there gabbled my questions at Dad: What was the matter? When did it happen? How did it happen? What was it? She was all right when I left this morning.

Apparently my Aunt Phyllis had sent someone to the allotment for him, and when he got back he found my mother in bed she had knocked on the wall for Aunt Phyllis. Aunt Phyllis had already sent for the doctor.

"But what's wrong?" I asked.

Dad moved his head quickly in a shaking movement as if trying to throw something off, then exclaimed, "It's her stomach, there's something wrong with her stomach."

I ran before him up the hill, and burst into the front room, to be greeted by Aunt Phyllis with the command, "Be quiet! control yourself."

When I stood by the bedside looking down at my mother, she seemed so much older that it could have been ten years since I last saw her instead of three hours. She did not speak but patted my hand twice; then my Aunt Phyllis moved me out of the room and followed me through to the kitchen, and there she said, "Now you'll have to get your hand in. And not before time an' all. She'll have to be looked after. She should go to a hospital. But then she always thought she knew best.

Now come along and get your things off and finish this washing.

She was in the middle of it and it's a heavy one. "

As if in a dream, I took off my hat and coat and put on an apron. When I look back it seems I never took that apron off.

After two weeks in bed my mother seemed brighter and talked of getting up, but she did not get up, not for many weeks. Every night before I went to bed she would pat me on the hand and say, "The morrow I must put my best foot forward, I can't lie here for ever."

But in the morning she was always very tired again.

Dad hardly ever left the house except to sign on and go to the allotment, and he would help me with the work, but was no good with the cooking, though he would offer advice, saying, "Your ma did it like this." Yet no matter how hard I tried to follow the way Mam did it I always seemed to use twice as much stuff, and the result would be nowhere near as nice as when she had made it.

The money did not go so far either, and this was worrying us all.

Although my money was not coming in. Dad could get no more from the unemployment exchange because Ronnie was still working; and then, too, we not only missed my mother's few shillings, but all the odds and ends she brought down from Mrs. Dun-ant's.

Every day Aunt Phyllis came in and washed my mother and made her bed, and sometimes my mother would say, "Oh, Phyllis, you shouldn't trouble, I can manage on my own." But she never told her not to come.

And, moreover, every day my Aunt Phyllis told me in some way how badly I was managing.

One day when she was passing through the kitchen as I was dishing up the dinner she cast her eyes down on the cabbage which was a bit watery, and said, "If you give that a shove it'll float away."

To her astonishment, and to mine also, our Ronnie, who was standing by the hearth, turned on her, exclaiming, "Leave her alone. Aunt Phyllis, she's not me mam and she's doing her best."