Joe and the boys took up their position some yards from the gates in the middle of the dense mass. They stamped their feet and blew on their hands, and the ten minutes they had to wait before the gates were opened seemed longer than the whole journey from Shields.
Then the great iron gates were pulled back and the black human mass surged in and spread itself. Like streams of tar running over a great surface they flowed in all directions: to the boiler shops, the engine shops, the puddling mills, the blast furnaces, the carpenters’ shops, the fitting-out shops, the dry dock.
Presently, Joe bade goodbye to the two small boys, who were making for the dry dock; he himself, in the midst of a smaller flow of men, crossed over a railway siding where stood wagons filled with stone which had been brought there by the company’s own boats from the Yorkshire mines. This stone held the ore which would eventually be known as Cleveland iron. They passed the great blast furnaces. Here was the heart of the concern; here was where the stone, after being roasted, gave up its ore. It was here that it was fed into the blast furnace, together with coke and limestone, two essential additions, necessary to complete the manufacture of the iron, or pigs, as the iron bars were called. There was a special ore imported from Spain and Africa, again in the company’s own boats. This was a sulphur and phosphorus-free ore which did not need to be roasted as did the Cleveland ore.
The knowledge of the making of iron was known to every man in the yard. They were iron men, steel men; they talked of hardly anything else, for only by iron and steel could they eat. Once a man had worked in Palmer’s for some years he felt he would be no good for anything else; nor did he want to be. There were men who had started with the yard in its infancy and who spoke of its creator with the respect that men give to a general. As they said, ‘the old man’ not only conceived the ships, he gave them ribs, bones and guts; then dressed them fully and fine ready for the water. Anything that left Palmer’s, they said, could sail to the limits of the globe. But this was the talk of the older men. The younger ones didn’t eulogise so. They were more apt to ask questions.
Along their way now, near the rolling mills, there lay great lengths of iron. They lay on bogies and would finally find their way to the boiler shop.
Joe had been working for three years in the boiler shop under Mr Hetherington, and he knew he was fortunate, for he could not have found a better man to serve his time with; for Mr Hetherington not only supervised the making of boilers—hearts for ships, he called them—but he talked, ate, and slept boilers, and was said to be able to tell with his eyes shut whether he was touching Cleveland iron of number one, two, or three quality, or simply number four forge, the stuff that was made into wrought iron. Nor did he have to see the brand of Jarrow or Tyneside stamped on the pigs to distinguish between the grades.
Apart from feeling himself lucky he was working under Mr Hetherington, Joe also felt proud that he held a special place in Mr Hetherington’s esteem. He had been to Mr Hetherington’s house a number of times, and only yesterday, when Mr and Mrs Hetherington were passing through Shields to get the steamer across the water for a Sunday jaunt with their daughter Mary, they had called in.
Joe now entered the great boiler shop that would, to an outsider, have appeared like a large enclosed space which had experienced an earthquake. It looked a place of utter disorder, a place of contorted iron, jibs, cranes, cylinders, all seeming to be mixed up together. Joe made his way to the far end of the shop, took off his outer coat, pulled off his muffler and stuffed it in his pocket. Then, picking up his black tea can from his bench, he prised off the lid, sniffed at the stale grouts, and wrinkled his nose. Then, reaching out to his coat, he put his hand in the pocket to make sure he had brought his tea—he had forgotten it one day last week. He pulled out the small twisted piece of paper that held a spoonful of tea, jerked his head at it as a man might do who knew himself to be the possessor of something special, then pushed it back into the pocket. As he did so a voice came to him above the din that was already filling the shop, saying, ‘Hello there, lad.’
‘Oh, hello, Mr Hetherington.’ Joe smiled broadly at the prematurely aged man facing him.
‘Nippy this mornin’?’
‘Aye, it is, Mr Hetherington.’
‘Well, let’s get started; standin’ jabberin’ won’t get anything off the stocks.’
‘No, it won’t, Mr Hetherington.’ Joe was moving forward to pick up his hammer when Mr Hetherington, coming to his side, said quietly, ‘Joe, at break I’d like a word with you.’
Joe narrowed his eyes at Mr Hetherington, and there was a note of apprehension in his voice as he said, ‘Aye, Mr Hetherington. Have I done owt wrong?’
‘Oh no, lad, no.’ Mr Hetherington put his hand on his shoulder. ‘It’s a private word I want with you, just a private word.’
‘Oh aye, Mr Hetherington, all right.’ Joe still felt a young lad when talking to Mr Hetherington.
From then until eight o’clock, when the shop stopped for a short while to enable the men to have a drink and a snack, which came under the heading of breakfast, Joe kept on thinking about what private word Mr Hetherington could want to say to him.
He was seated with his can lid full of tea on his knee and a shive of thick bread in his hand when Mr Hetherington came and seated himself by his side, and looking straight at him he said, ‘I’m comin’ to the point, lad, without goin’ round the houses. You see, it’s like this. After callin’ on you yesterday the missus and I got talkin’; in fact she’s never stopped talkin’ about it since. It’s about your sister.’
‘Katie?’
‘Aye, it concerns her; but it’s about the other one an’ all. Have you ever thought of putting her away, Joe?’
Joe looked down into the lidful of tea, and it was a moment before he spoke. ‘I’ve thought about it a lot, Mr Hetherington. But…but Katie won’t. You see, she promised me ma. Me ma went on terrible at the last about Lizzie, and she made Katie promise…’
‘Aw.’ Mr Hetherington threw his head from one side to the other. ‘These deathbed promises make me sick. The people who are crippled for life through deathbed promises…Look, lad.’ He brought his face close to Joe’s. ‘Your sister Katie is wastin’ her life. She’s a bonny lass, I’ve never seen bonnier. The wife’s never stopped, I tell you, since yesterday. She says it’s a sin afore God to have that lovely lass cooped up there at the top of that awful house with that lass. It would be no company for an old ’un but a young fine lass like that…’
‘I know, Mr Hetherington.’ Joe still had his head down. ‘I’ve been at her time and time again, but she won’t.’
‘How long has she been lookin’ after her?’
‘Oh, since me mother died last year. And afore that. You see, she would get a place—she’s had three in Westoe—but then me mother would take to her roaming, you know, and it was then Lizzie would start to howl and the woman below started to complain; mind you, aye, they’re very good, the rest—oh aye, they’re very good. An’ that’s why we stay there. I could get a little place farther into the town, away from the waterfront, more respectable like, but the neighbours might kick up, whereas the present ones…well, they understand.’
‘How many families are livin’ in the house?’
‘Three aside us.’
‘Sup your tea up; time’s getting on.’ Mr Hetherington watched Joe empty the can lid then fill it again before he said, ‘It isn’t fair on either of you. Say you wanted to get married, what’s going to happen to the pair of them then?’
‘Aw, Mr Hetherington,’ Joe smiled. ‘It’ll be a long time afore that happens to me; I’ll always look after them.’
‘You’re talkin’ through the fat of your neck, lad. It’ll hit you one of these days an’ you’ll want to marry afore you know where you are. And there’s no lass in her right senses…I’m not meanin’ to be nasty, I’m just using common sense, Joe, but I maintain there’s no lass in her right senses who’ll take you on if you have to support the
two of them. Anyway, you’d never make enough because afore you knew where you were you’d have a family of your own…Aw’—he raised his hand palm outwards towards Joe—‘don’t contradict me on that; you’re a man and you’ll want to marry.’
‘I don’t want to contradict you, Mr Hetherington; only if it came to the push I know the road I’d have to take.’
‘Well, as you say, it’ll be up to you, lad. An’ I hope you don’t think I’m interferin’. But the wife kept on talkin’…By the way, has Katie got a lad of any sort?’
‘No.’ Joe shook his head. ‘She wouldn’t have a lad from round there, not among those sorts, foreigners, sailors, an’ the like.’
‘But they’re not all foreigners and sailors; there’s decent fellows about, an’ some good fishin’ families down there, an’ I can’t see them closin’ their eyes to one that looks like her.’
‘Oh, they haven’t. She used to be followed time and again, but you know, Mr Hetherington…’ Joe cast his eyes towards his boots. ‘She’s not taken with men of any kind; she had a bellyful for the short time she was married. I told you.’
‘Aye, aye, lad, I suppose she had. But nature has a way of covering things up. It’s some years gone now an’ it isn’t natural for a lass like her, a woman—for that’s what she is—to be on her own and without friends.’
‘Oh, she isn’t entirely without friends, Mr Hetherington. Miss Theresa—you know, the daughter of the house where she used to work—she’s always popping in. She’s got a little school in Westoe. She lends Katie books; Katie’s a great reader.’
‘Aye, she might be. And it’s a great thing in itself to be able to read, but that’s not goin’ to satisfy her all her life.’
They remained silent for some minutes until Joe, trying to turn the conversation, said, ‘What do you think about the movement, Mr Hetherington?’
‘What do I think about it?’ Mr Hetherington took a bite out of a meat sandwich. ‘I think it’s comin’ to a head, lad.’
‘You think there’ll be a strike?’
‘It’s as near as damn it, but none of us wants it.’
‘Have they put the petition to the old man?’
‘Aye, but things are different now.’ Mr Hetherington put his head back and looked up at the tangle of gear attached to the grimy roof. ‘They’ve changed; the whole place has changed since it went over into a company. I’ve seen the day when you could go to the old man an’ talk to him. Aye, even me. Many’s the time he’s stopped by me side an’ said, “What do you think, John? Is it an improvement?” He was always out for improvement, makin’ things better and better.’
‘Well, he still is, isn’t he?’
‘Aye, yes, but at a price. He hasn’t got the hundred per cent backin’ of the men he used to have in the old days. You can’t get at him, or any of them up top for that matter; they’re workin’ from London now instead of inside the works here, although the bloody place is so full of offices and staff now we’ll soon have to move the blast furnaces.’
Joe laughed at this but continued to look at Mr Hetherington—he liked to listen to the older man talking—and Mr Hetherington went on, ‘See what they’ve done to the puddlers. Given them a ten per cent cut, and the whole country has accepted it like sheep—that is, all but North Staffordshire. They’re standin’ firm and they’ve come out.’
‘Do you think more puddlers’ll support them, Mr Hetherington?’
‘No, lad, I don’t. There’s too many unions, too many heads of unions, too many bosses, too many under-bosses. It’s every man jack for himself, or his own little band, instead of them all joining up together. After all, we’re all steel men. But God knows we don’t want any strikes; I’ve seen enough of them in me time.’ On this Mr Hetherington rose to his feet, saying, ‘Well now, here we go, lad. Let’s see those rivets flyin’.’
And all day Joe helped the rivets to fly until the buzzer went at half-past five. He had entered the boiler shop in the dark and he left it in the dark. But that didn’t trouble him; he had seen the daylight through the grimed windows of the shop, and at dinner time he had sat on the river bank where the skeleton ribs of a ship were rising from the keel, and with his mates he had talked ships, talked ‘Palmer’s’ with as much pride in the firm as if he was one of the shareholders getting his ten per cent.
Palmer’s men might fight, and argue, and talk against the bosses, even against the old man himself, but they were Palmer’s men, and, underneath it all, proud of the title.
Chapter Two
It was March and the strike had come about. The steelmasters of the country were determined to break trade unionism, and so on March 11, 1865, seventy thousand men all over the country were locked out. Palmer’s men were particularly bitter about this because earlier they had been presented with an ultimatum. There would be no lock-out in the yard, they were told, if they did not support the Staffordshire men by contributions in any form. The leaders of the various unions had reluctantly agreed to this, because the struggle for a livelihood was hard enough as it was now, but in a lock-out there were the wives and bairns to think about. Moreover, scab labour could be imported from other parts of the country, but mostly from Ireland, and when that started hell was let loose. It had been let loose before through the same cause. The Jarrow men became a fierce, battling, frightening horde when treated unjustly. They were aware of this; they knew themselves, and it wasn’t only the low drunken types among them who gave scope to their battling tendencies. Quite a good percentage of the workmen were property owners under Charles Mark Palmer’s factory building society scheme. When in work, even for as little as twenty shillings a week, they felt responsible men; they and the town were going places. The overall general feeling had been that old man Palmer was not only pushing the ships out of the yards, he was also pushing the town on. Wasn’t the building society proof of this? And also the Mechanics Institute he had built for them last year? The town was growing. Subsidiary firms were prospering, streets and streets of houses were springing up like mushrooms. They had actually brought the mains water into the town from Shields, and some of the new houses had their own taps in the yard. Moreover, the sewage was being seen to; the gutters were no longer running with filth. Things were moving in Jarrow; they didn’t want a lock-out.
But the lock-out had come; their earthly God, whose name was Charles Mark Palmer, who had promised them that if they played square with him he would play square with them, had joined up with the other steelmasters. Many excuses were given for his action, one being similar to that which had brought the Staffordshire men out: a depression in trade. This only made the men angry, for the yard was full of work, with a troopship for the Admiralty in the stocks.
But anyway they were out, and such was the fibre of the men that within a fortnight, when Mr Palmer would have restarted them again, they became stubborn and refused to go back, and now because of Andrew Gourlay and his demand for a nine-hour day. Only one or two unions could afford to pay the men strike pay, for the rest there was nothing. This meant families living, or existing, on tick, or help from their more fortunate neighbours, who might be in work at one or other of the new factories.
For the first week of the strike things had been normal for Katie and Joe. Katie had Joe’s pay to work on and she made it spread out into the middle of the second week, at least with regard to food. But the rent hadn’t been paid.
She sat now looking at Joe across the small refectory table that had once graced the little cottage in the country. She drummed her fingers on the edge of the polished wood and watched their movement as she said, ‘Well, there’s nothing for it. I’ll just have to break into it.’
Joe ran his hand through his sandy-coloured hair and, twisting round in his chair, looked out of the window on to the jumble of rooftops and chimneys. The roofs were grey slate, and the chimneys, though made of red brick, were black. Nearly all of them were spouting forth smoke, and this moved upwards to form a cloud under the already lowering sky. Th
e wind had dropped and within a few minutes it would likely rain. He was glad he had got in before he got wet; you always seemed much more hungry when you were wet. He had just finished a meal that Katie had ready for him; it had been tasty enough, for she was a grand cook, but there hadn’t been enough of it. Now they were really on their beam ends and she was saying she would have to break into the last sovereign. Times had been hard before, but they had never touched the sovereign; they were both of the opinion that if they kept that one sovereign intact they were all right. But now they had to face up to the fact that whereas they could economise on food and pull their belts well in they could do nothing about the rent man. Owe two weeks around this quarter and you were put on the street. It was anything but a savoury neighbourhood, but the rooms and houses were always snapped up, and for a purpose Joe’s mind wouldn’t allow him to go into. Although Joe no longer went regularly to chapel, his early training under his father was still with him, and there was only stern condemnation in him for the dirty, low-living bitches who changed their rooms frequently to keep one jump ahead of the police. He had his strong suspicions about the two occupants on the ground floor of this actual house, but they had made no advances to him, and they didn’t complain about Lizzie, so he did not question how they made their living. He said now, ‘It’ll likely be over next week, and then we can put it together again.’
‘What if it isn’t, Joe?’
‘We haven’t got to think like that.’
‘Look, I could get a daily place the morrow, you know I could, if you’d stay in and look after her.’
He got abruptly to his feet and walked to the fireplace, where some salt-soaked damp wood was smouldering, and he took the poker and turned it over before saying, ‘Aw, Katie, don’t let’s go into it again. I can’t, lass. I’ve told you. I’d go stark starin’ mad being stuck up here with her all day.’ The poker still in his hand, he turned round and faced her. ‘I don’t know how you stick it, I don’t really. You know, some time ago, in fact the day after they first called here, Mr Hetherington said…Well…’ He made an impatient movement with the poker. ‘He said she should be put away.’
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