by Mary Gibson
‘Follow me, Bertie, time to live a bit. We’re going on the joy slide!’
25
‘Turn ’em Over’
December 1925–May 1926
Ellen Colman was cradling her granddaughter in her arms. She had been waging a campaign to choose her name, ever since the baby’s birth two weeks earlier on a misty December morning in 1925. ‘It’s a disgrace. The poor child still hasn’t got a name!’
‘Mum, we’ve got plenty of time to register her,’ Milly said. ‘Anyway, I want something a bit different. There’s already too many Marys in Dockhead!’
Her mother looked shocked. ‘If it’s good enough for Our Lady, it’s good enough for her! And she was born at Christmas time, what else can you call her? I hope you’re not going for any of Bertie’s proddywack names.’
Milly laughed. ‘Don’t worry about that. I’ve already told him she’s not being named after any of his Welsh relations, so she won’t be a Blodwen if that’s what you mean!’
At that moment Bertie came in with Jimmy; they had been in the Storks Road garden.
‘Eggsies!’ Jimmy announced. ‘Eggsies!’
‘Yes, you clever boy, you’ve been collecting eggs!’ Milly said, holding out her arms to hug him as he ran towards her. All her attention had been on the new baby and she’d missed her little boy. He pulled out of her arms, then sidled up shyly to his grandmother. With a gentle forefinger, he prodded the baby’s cheek. ‘Baby.’ He looked round smiling.
‘Yes, darlin’,’ said Mrs Colman, ‘and we’ll be calling her that till the cows come home if your mother’s got anything to do with it!’
Bertie caught Milly’s eye. She hoped he wasn’t going to give in, but she’d noticed that he would fall over backwards when it came to her mother. Though Mrs Colman would never forgive him for not being Catholic, her early distrust had mellowed and she’d begun to show grudging respect, and even affection, for her son-in-law in the past year.
‘Well, if Mary’s too common,’ he said, looking with undisguised adoration at his daughter, ‘what about Marie?’ He pronounced it in the Welsh way.
Jimmy looked up at Bertie, then pointed at the baby. ‘Mahri!’ he said, mimicking Bertie.
Her mother nodded. ‘That’ll do. Marie’s Our Lady, whatever way you want to pronounce it.’
‘Well, I’m glad you three are happy,’ said Milly. ‘Now give Marie to me. She’s hungry.’
Milly may have been tired, but she was happy too. Marie was not proving such an easy baby as Jimmy. He’d been passive and largely contented, but Marie seemed born fidgety. She couldn’t keep still and apparently needed very little sleep. But nonetheless, Milly was captivated by her alert little presence, large blue comprehending eyes taking in everything around her, as though she’d already been a long time in the world. As if reading her thoughts, Marie pushed away from her breast and began grizzling.
‘Oh, you don’t know what you want, do you?’ she asked her restless child, then making the decision for her, she tucked her into the pram and began to bounce it vigorously. No gentle rocking would pacify her daughter. She had to believe the pram was really moving before she would be content.
‘Bounce the baby!’ said Jimmy, toddling over to join in the fun, a huge grin on his elfin little face.
Milly looked on, marvelling at how, from the day she’d married Bertie, everything had gone right, and not more than a month after the wedding he’d finally got a job. She’d suggested that instead of looking for shop work, he use his other skill, and try for a driving job. Many factories were supplementing horse-driven delivery carts with motors, and it was one of the few areas where skilled people were in demand. One afternoon, walking home from Southwell’s along Wolseley Street, she’d seen a sign outside the Jacob’s biscuit factory advertising for drivers, and the next day Bertie was taken on.
It was a good job and though he would never have the sort of income he’d once had from his uncle’s business, at least his pride hadn’t been tested for too long, so Milly’s ingenuity had only been required to keep them afloat for a short while. Bertie hadn’t wanted her to go back to Southwell’s after Marie’s birth, but however much she loved being at home with the children, his wage would never be enough to pay the rent on Storks Road and keep them all clothed and fed, so she’d carried on making and selling clothes at the Old Clo’. She’d done so well that Bertie had shown her how to do simple book-keeping to keep track of the profits.
One evening, about a month after Marie was born, Bertie came home from Jacob’s to find Milly with Marie asleep over one shoulder, Jimmy curled in her lap, a table full of material and a mouthful of pins. She was desperately trying to finish another dress for the market.
‘Sorry, Bertie, love, it’s cold meat tonight. I’ve got to get this finished!’ she said, through the pins, lifting her cheek to be kissed and smiling gratefully as Bertie lifted Marie from her shoulder.
‘Shhhh,’ he said, quickly rocking the baby when she threatened to wake.
Milly darted him a look that needed no translation.
‘You’ve only just got her to sleep then?’ Bertie said, as one-handed he scooped up Jimmy. ‘You look like you’ve had a day of it. I’ll put them to bed, while you clear up your sewing.’
After they’d eaten, Bertie sat reading the local Labour Party newspaper and Milly took out her sewing again. They were silent for a while and then Milly became conscious of him looking at her intently.
‘What?’ she asked, puzzled.
‘You look tired.’ He reached for her hand.
‘Not the fresh young thing you married a year ago?’
‘Strike me dumb, I didn’t mean that. I just wish you didn’t have to do all this sewing.’
‘Don’t start on that again. We need the extra money, and anyway, you know I love it.’
‘But it’s wearing you out.’
‘It’s the kids wearing me out!’
‘Well, life shouldn’t be all work and bed. Let’s have a holiday.’
She looked up sharply. ‘We haven’t got the—’
‘And don’t say we haven’t got the money. I’ll find the money. It’ll be good for you and the kids. We’re having a holiday.’
And that was that. Bertie was the most easy-going person she’d ever met, but he could also be the most stubborn. In the end he’d sold his father’s gold hunter without any regret and booked a week in a guest house in Ramsgate. She would never have admitted it, but her second pregnancy and the demands of two small children had proved more energy sapping than any triple shifts in the jam factory, and by the time they boarded the train at London Bridge, she was secretly glad she’d given in to Bertie’s urgings.
Milly narrowed her eyes against bright discs of light which bounced off the rippling waves. The tide was coming in, but the sea was still separated from her by an expanse of ridged wet sand and a paler strip of dry sand. She could see Bertie, with his trousers rolled to the knee, the small curling waves foaming about his bare feet. Her toddler stood next to him, one hand firmly in Bertie’s and the other holding a red tin bucket. Bertie squatted down, so he could help the little boy fill the bucket with water. They had been building a sandcastle all morning and were now in the process of filling the moat, making laborious treks from sea to castle with buckets full of water. They were on their fourth trip.
Milly sat in the deckchair, her hand gently resting on the pram where Marie slept. She’d moved their little encampment back into the narrow strip of shade cast by the high promenade wall, grateful for some relief from the heat radiating off fine white sand. It was an unusually warm day in late April, and Ramsgate beach was crowded with holidaymakers and day trippers, encouraged out by fine weather. There wasn’t a patch of spare sand between the red-and-white striped deckchairs. All along the shoreline, children splashed and ran in and out of the sea, while men with suit trousers rolled and women holding up skirts paddled and strolled along the sea edge.
This was Milly’s first trip to
the seaside, and she had been every bit as excited as Jimmy by the novelty of it. Some of the families in Dockhead were able to afford seaside holidays if the fathers were foremen or dockmasters, but generally there was only one form of holiday: hop-picking in Kent. Much as Milly loved the hop fields, the seaside had been a revelation. It was the air that struck her. Sharp as salt on the tongue; clean as a blade with a honed edge. Compared to this sea air, Bermondsey’s was thick as dirty cotton wool, clogged with soot and smoke. At home, it was hard work sometimes even to breathe, but here, each breath was as easy and natural as the daily incoming and outgoing of the tide. Each morning she threw up the bedroom window of their guest house and took in a gulping breath. No wonder people loved the sea. And then there was the uncluttered horizon, not a roof or a chimney stack, just sky meeting the straight edge of sea, broken here and there by a steamer or a sail.
Now, sitting on the beach, enjoying the unaccustomed freedom of doing nothing at all, she leaned her head back and glanced up at the couples and families strolling along the promenade above where she sat. Her attention was caught by a laughing group of three young women, in summer hats and flowing dresses, who sat on the promenade railing swinging their legs. Suddenly she was transported back to another lifetime. She saw her little sister Elsie gazing up at a poster of three young women. Wouldn’t it be lovely to go to the seaside instead of down hopping, Elsie had said, and Milly, so angry because she couldn’t go, had dragged her off, dismissing her sister’s longing as selfishness. Now she understood what Elsie had longed for and wished she could spirit her here. She closed her eyes, tears pooling beneath the lids – tears of regret and tears of guilt, for she’d visited Elsie only once since her marriage last February. Her sister hadn’t even commented when Milly showed her the wedding photo. After that, the truth was, Milly had simply found it too painful to visit again.
Suddenly she felt her face being sprinkled with cold water and opened her eyes with a start.
‘Wake up, sleepyhead, come and see the castle!’ Bertie stood over her with Jimmy’s bucket, ready to douse her again. She made a dive for him, knocking him off his feet, while Jimmy, his city child’s pale body browned with sun and crusted sand, stood stock-still, a worried look on his face.
‘Mummy’s cryin’!’ he accused, until Milly pulled him down too, wrestling them both into submission.
‘Who’s the king of the castle?’ she demanded, sitting on Bertie’s chest and tickling Jimmy until they both laughingly capitulated. ‘Mummy is!’
Their first seaside holiday had been every bit the success that Bertie had hoped. Milly had the spring in her long stride again and even the children seemed less fractious. But as soon as they returned from their week at Ramsgate there came news that worried Bertie and frightened Milly. While they’d been away, there had been talk in the newspapers of a miners’ strike in response to the colliery owners demanding more work for less pay. Bertie said the word at the Labour Institute was that if the miners went out, there would be a national uprising in support of them, for if it could happen to the miners, then everyone would be under threat.
One Thursday evening, not long after their return, Bertie came home from a lecture given by Dr Salter at the Fort Road Labour Institute with the news that a general strike of all workers had been called.
‘The doctor’s right when he says we should stick together like glue, Milly, or else it’ll be every wage that’s cut next. We’ve got to stand with the miners if the working man in this country is going to have any chance of a decent life. Look at us last week. Just a few days away at the seaside, and see what a difference it’s made to you – you’ve got back the roses in your cheeks!’
She smiled as he reached out to stroke her face. ‘It certainly made me feel alive! I suppose it’s right what you said. It shouldn’t be all work and bed, should it? But what would it mean, if we did “stick together like glue”?’
Bertie threw up the back kitchen window as he lit his pipe. The spring night air was mild, and the sweetness of bluebells planted beneath the window came wafting through to her.
‘Come into the garden with me.’
They walked outside and she waited while he drew on the glowing bowl of tobacco and puffed. He could never seem to gather his thoughts quickly, or perhaps, unlike her, he preferred not to put both feet into his mouth as soon as he opened it.
‘What he means by “sticking together like glue” is that all working men, wherever they are in the country, should come out on strike... in sympathy.’
She certainly had sympathy for the miners and their families. She’d read enough in the newspapers about their lives lately – worse off than before the war, many faced seeing their children starve, and they had little to lose by going out on strike. But what good would a sympathy strike do, she asked him. Wouldn’t it just mean their own families and children starving?
‘Not if we organize it properly, with a strike fund, so no striker’s family needs to go hungry. And imagine, Milly, what would happen if the railways came out and the docks and the print, all the heavy industries?’
‘The country’d come to a standstill,’ she answered.
‘Exactly!’ He poked the air with his pipe stem. ‘And then the government’d be forced to give the miners a living wage.’
She put her hand through his arm and asked softly, ‘Would you go on strike, Bertie?’
‘I would!’ he said. ‘I’d be ashamed to do anything else, Milly.’
She could feel him tense a little and knew he was waiting for her to dissuade him. Though some of his decisions might seem to others fanciful and impractical, they had always turned out for the good. She only had to look at her own life. Good sense would have told Bertie to run like the wind from common Milly Colman, teetering on the edge of the Thames with a bastard on her hip, but instead he had run in the opposite direction, straight into her arms.
‘Bertie, whatever you do, I know it’ll be the right thing,’ she said, and she meant it, for if joining a general strike was his latest foolish quest, then it was hers too, whatever the consequences might be for all of them.
And it appeared most trade union members agreed with Dr Salter and Bertie, for on the third of May, the General Strike was called. That evening, when the first workers downed tools, there was a meeting at the Bermondsey Town Hall, which Bertie attended. He came home almost glowing, as he described how the whole borough council had voluntarily disbanded itself and set up a Council of Action for the duration of the strike. Bertie, along with most of the other drivers at Jacob’s, refused to cross the picket lines at the docks, and as most of the raw materials for the biscuits came from the river warehouses, work at the factory virtually ceased. The same was true of all Bermondsey food factories, including Southwell’s, which although it had its own wharf, couldn’t land fruit or sugar without the stevedores’ cooperation. It wouldn’t be long before there was an impact on the food cupboards of the capital – Bermondsey wasn’t called London’s Larder for nothing.
Bertie immediately volunteered for the Council of Action and was given the job of helping distribute the daily bulletin, produced by the Bermondsey Labour Party. In the absence of any newspapers it was essential that all the strikers knew exactly what was going on, so the daily mimeographed paper was snapped up within minutes of it being distributed. Every evening, Bertie collected stacks of the newly printed sheets from the Labour Institute and drove a commandeered council van around Bermondsey, delivering the bulletin to official distribution points along Tooley Street, Tower Bridge Road and the Old Kent Road. When he told Milly the job he’d been given, her heart sank. Police were said to be arresting anyone producing or even reading a strike bulletin. But when she asked him if he couldn’t do another job, he’d shrugged it off, saying they’d have to get through the barricades to catch him and that wouldn’t be easy as all the roads into Bermondsey were manned by strikers.
The Town Hall in Spa Road became the centre of operations, and on the second afternoon o
f the strike Milly joined other women there for a packed meeting. They crammed into the hall. Many, like Milly, had husbands who were strikers; some were striking themselves, or, like Florence Green, were willing volunteers. She’d been surprised to meet Florence on the way to the meeting. Somehow she’d expected her to be one of the middle-class volunteers on the opposite side of the barricades, but as they walked together along Southwark Park Road Florence had explained.
‘Bermondsey’s my home now, Milly. I could no more cross the barricades than I could return to my father’s parsonage, not after all the hardship I’ve seen. Besides, the doctor would have my guts for garters if I did!’
Milly laughed. Dr Salter might be a saint, but when it came to commitment to Bermondsey, he was a hard taskmaster.
‘Everything’s so quiet, isn’t it?’ Florence said.
Milly had to agree. The familiar Bermondsey streets had an eerie, abandoned feel, with the normal rumble of carts and crush of traffic silenced. It felt to Milly as though they were under siege. Main roads in and out of the borough were barricaded by the Council of Action, with only authorized vehicles allowed through. Pickets were being posted at the docks, railway and bus stations. It felt as though the natural boundaries of the borough had been sealed: the river to the north; London Bridge to the west; Rotherhithe Tunnel to the east; and the Old Kent Road to the south. They were turning the tiny borough into an impregnable fortress within the very heart of London.
The town hall was abuzz with the ear-splitting, high-pitched chatter of women. Milly had left Jimmy and Marie with her mother, but many of the women had brought their children and the hall rang with shouts from toddlers and cries from babies. As they squeezed past the crush into the hall, Milly heard her name being called. It was Kitty, beckoning them over. Although there was not a seat to be had, Kitty elbowed out a space near her in the aisle. There was an almighty banging from the stage as a woman with a gavel tried to establish order.