Netherwood (7 page)

T
he industrial town of Netherwood had once been a pretty village, back in the halcyon days of its rural past when no one knew the riches that lay underneath the fields and hedgerows. Then there had been simply a scattered handful of farms and cottages set in the lush and gently undulating pastureland of Lord Hoyland’s estates. And still, here and there in the Netherwood of today, were vestiges of the village of centuries gone by. Steadman’s Farm – the only working farm left in the area – dated back to the sixteenth century, and its long, low farmhouse with stone mullioned windows stood as a reminder that Netherwood had once existed for something other than coal. From the farm a lane led directly to Bluebell Wood, an ancient and beautiful beech wood which every May donned its glad rags, just as it had done for hundreds of years. But little else remained of Netherwood’s verdant past; the march of industrial progress cared nothing for aesthetics.

Like other villages in the coalfields, Netherwood had grown with the speed of an American frontier town. From 1850, when the railway came to Barnsley, prospectors began buying up land and sinking shafts, frantic to maximise their share of the riches. There was an urgent, desperate quality to these
early explorations, a fear that the coal boom wouldn’t last – and indeed not all of the mineshafts struck gold. Abandoned pit workings became as much a feature of the local landscape as the working collieries. But enough of them succeeded to establish Barnsley and its environs as the coal capital of the county – and the ships, trains and factories of the British Empire were hungry for more.

So Netherwood village, five miles from Barnsley and sitting atop one of the longest and widest seams in the coal-rich county, had grown so spectacularly swiftly in size and significance that some of its older inhabitants still remembered a time when you could hang your washing outside to dry without it ever turning black, and when the view from Harley Hill was more green than grey. The Netherwood of their memory had just one main street; it was still there now, but it was longer, busier and had a new name – Victoria Street – and it had been joined by many others. There was also a railway station, a brickworks, an old flour mill – though this was disused now – and three public houses: the Hare and Hounds, the Hoyland Arms and the Cross Keys. There was a new branch of the Co-operative Society and two thriving places of worship: St Peter’s for those with a taste for High Church and the Methodist chapel for those who saw popery in a brass candlestick. Soon these would be joined by a third; the Primitive Methodists, who until now had been without a proper meeting place, were awaiting completion of a fine new chapel on the corner of Tinker Lane. Its unblemished stone stood out among the blackened buildings around it.

Eve Williams, hurrying through the town on this Wednesday morning, paused by the new building, struck by its size and the progress that had been made in so short a time. She and Arthur, hereditary Methodists, dutifully marched their children to the chapel on the other side of town every Sunday morning without ever considering the whys and wherefores. Now here
was this brand new barn of a building, big enough for three hundred worshippers and intended for those for whom John Wesley no longer cut the mustard. Eve wondered what she was missing. If God was up there listening, could he possibly care what building you stood in while you sent up your prayers? She thought she might have a look inside when it was finished, mind. See what they had by way of heating. Never mind theological differences, a warm chapel would fill the pews. She smiled and pressed on before the cold morning had a chance to take hold in her bones.

By the time Eve had set out for Grangely, a wintery, watery sun was making a half-hearted attempt to warm things up, but there was no real strength in it and its efforts were thwarted anyway by the habitual grey ceiling of chimney smoke created by the burning hearths of every dwelling in town. Eve had mourned the comfort of her kitchen the moment she left it, which she had done as soon as she had been able. Seth and Eliza had been hurried off with indecent haste, each of them bristling with indignation at the stern warnings dinned into them about behaving themselves after school until she was able to come home. Ellen, the little one, had been left next door with Lilly Pickering, whose brood – seven of them now, with the new baby boy – was of the size where one more hardly mattered. Ellen was only just turned one but she was an independent little soul, as happy to wave her mother off as she would be to see her again. She had walked at ten months, being in too much of a hurry to wait any longer, and had bowled into Lilly’s already overcrowded kitchen this morning with the purpose and authority of a natural leader. Lilly looked wan and exhausted – nothing new there, thought Eve, who had felt a stab of guilt at having
asked the favour. She had handed over a batch of parkin along with her daughter, partly as an apology for the additional burden and partly to be sure that Ellen would be given something to eat. Lilly’s children always looked famished – ‘like little streaks o’ whitewash,’ said Arthur – and Lilly herself appeared almost concave, drooping inside her shabby clothes as if she barely had the strength to support their weight.

Eve had said a swift goodbye before her conscience got the better of her. Far from regretting her impulse to go to Grangely, she was now full of fire for the scheme and she set off at a brisk pace, efficiently side stepping puddles as she hurried on to keep her clogs dry for the long walk. The streets of Netherwood were quiet this morning; most of the shopkeepers hadn’t opened up yet and there was still a Sunday feel to the town.

She cut through Draper’s Lane from West Street, then turned right into Victoria Street, but she was already leaving Netherwood and walking south along Sheffield Road before she saw another living soul. Then, like an answer to a prayer she hadn’t thought of uttering, the massive, unmistakable bulk of Solomon Windross suddenly emerged from a junction several yards ahead of her, driving his pony and cart out of town. Eve broke into a run, hitching up her skirts in both hands.

‘Solomon!’ she shouted. ‘Sol, stop!’

The old man was hard of hearing at the best of times but above the rattle of his cart and the steady clop of his horse’s hooves on the road, he was as good as deaf. It was only when Eve drew level with him, red-faced and running perilously close to the wheels of the cart, that Solomon pulled on the reins with his big hands. Bessie, his black mare, stopped obligingly, as if trotting or standing were all the same to her. She gazed ahead passively and awaited further instruction. Solomon nodded at Eve, as if nothing were more normal on a Wednesday morning than for her to be running away from home at full tilt.

‘Now then,’ he said.

His stately bearing and his vast cloud of white whiskers gave Solomon the appearance of a civic dignitary – a mayor perhaps, or a magistrate – but rag and bone was his trade, although Eve noticed that today his cart was entirely empty of its usual motley cargo.

‘Any chance of a ride?’ she said breathlessly. She clutched her side to ease the stitch brought on by her sudden sprint. ‘I need to get to Grangely.’

Solomon, who never did anything for nothing, considered Eve’s request. She knew him well.

‘Two steak-and-kidney puddin’s,’ she said.

Solomon considered further, then said, ‘Two steak-and-kidney puddin’s an’ an apple crumble.’

Eve laughed. ‘Go on then, but no errands on the way, mind. I want a straight run for that price.’

Solomon heaved his bulk fractionally to the right and Eve clambered up beside him on to the wooden seat. He smelled of tobacco, which Eve found quite pleasant, and unwashed undergarments, which she didn’t. He flicked Bessie’s reins, and the old mare resumed her steady trot. Eve tried to put a little distance between herself and Solomon but his rump left so little space on the seat that it was impossible. Never mind, she thought. Rather Solomon’s horse than shanks’s pony.

‘So, where’re you off to?’ she asked. Solomon’s rag-and-bone rounds were always Monday and Friday, regular as the church clock.

‘Grangely,’ he said.

Eve shot him a hard look. ‘You mean, you were going to Grangely anyway?’

‘Aye,’ said Solomon.

‘Well, you crafty old sod,’ she said. ‘You never said.’

Solomon was indignant. ‘Tha never asked,’ he said.

Eve harrumphed with annoyance and folded her arms. Two
steak puddings and an apple crumble for a journey he was making anyway. The cheek of it. He could bring her home again as well for that.

‘Why are you goin’, then?’ she said, suddenly. She had a horrible feeling she might know the answer.

Solomon, who in general cared very little what anyone thought of him, looked distinctly uncomfortable now. He made no reply.

‘If I catch you pillagin’,’ said Eve grimly, wagging a finger at the old man’s stony profile, ‘the deal’s off. No puddin’s, no crumble. And I want a ride home an’ all, so I shall see what you’re cartin’ off.’

‘Bit o’ business is all I’m after,’ said Solomon grumpily. ‘Way I see it, if folk dunt ’ave a roof, they dunt need all them goods and chattels. I’ll be doing ’em a favour.’

‘Oh aye, Saint Solomon,’ said Eve. ‘Well, just you be sure to pay good money for owt you take. They’ve got precious little without you robbin’ ’em as well.’

Solomon Windross scowled but held his peace. If it wasn’t for those puddings, he thought to himself, he’d stop the cart and chuck her out.

No matter how inured a person was to the grim realities of the industrialised north, the squalor of Grangely was in a class of its own. Like a slap in the face or a blow to the stomach, it had the power to stop you in your tracks. Squatting at the bottom of a wind-whipped valley between Sheffield and Doncaster, in the shadows cast by its towering headstocks, it was a living monument to the legacy of greed over humanity. The mineshaft, one of the deepest in England, was the nucleus of the town and from every street the colliery dominated the view. Radiating outwards, just beyond all the workings and
the pit yard, a thousand ill-built dwellings were packed tightly in dense rows, separated by the open middens which ran between them. When the wind blew, you could smell Grangely before you saw it. In dry weather, it was a dustbowl: in rain, a quagmire.

‘It’s a rough ’ole, in’t it?’

Solomon, master of the pithy understatement, sucked his teeth thoughtfully as they looked down at the town. They had stopped on the crags, a chain of south-facing hills outside the town, and from here they could see lines of people in the streets below, small and eerily silent at this distance, and behind them a collection of empty carts and drays sent by well-wishers, waiting to be loaded with the contents of the houses. It was a sorrowful sight and Solomon, having brought Bessie to a halt, was uncertain how to proceed; he felt awkward now that he could see how things were. His intentions – which had never been entirely honourable – now began to seem downright wicked.

‘There’s none rougher,’ said Eve, although in fact it struck her that Grangely looked strangely peaceful. With the pit workings inactive, the coal wagons empty and immobile on their tracks, and all the chimneys free of smoke, the blanket of pollution above the village had cleared and from their vantage point Eve could see all the way beyond Sheffield to the Derbyshire hills. In all the years she’d lived in Grangely, it was a view that she had never seen before. It made her want to weep, and she might have done were it not for the fact that suddenly behind them a column of policemen, some on foot and some on horse back, hoved into view.

‘Good God,’ said Eve quietly. She watched as the uniformed men drew closer. There were perhaps a hundred and fifty of them – nothing like the four hundred Clem had predicted, but still a forbidding sight, those on foot marching in two columns behind the mounted police. The men’s faces were shuttered,
unreadable. How must they feel, wondered Eve, charged as they were with the devil’s work? They filed past the cart, paying no attention to Eve and Solomon, and began their descent into the village. The pale faces of the crowds below turned to face the approaching policemen and Eve knew, then, that she had been right to follow her instinct and come here this morning. But for the grace of God, it could be her down there, waiting for her possessions to be flung like rubbish into the street. She may have only sympathy to offer, but she had plenty of it.