Walking down Hessle Road, I could see the decay of the area. When Hull had been a thriving port, with plentiful employment, this area was the city’s heartbeat. Now, it was run-down and being slowly abandoned. Many of the residents had left and those who remained suffered from anti-social behaviour, with some parts of the area all but out of bounds to non-residents. Shop units which hadn’t been left to stand empty were generally run down and shabby. A few major chains still remained in the area, some I knew had been there since its heyday, but it was mainly local traders scratching out a living. It was the kind of area which seemed to lack hope and had been allowed to just wither away. It made me angry.
Maria Platt’s house was as I expected; old-fashioned but neat and tidy. It was situated on one of the many rows of terraces, which ran like spiders legs off the main drag of shops. The furnishings and electrical goods were out of date, but that was the least of her problems. We sat down on the settee and she introduced us to Derek, her brother.
‘Have you got some news?’ she asked us. ‘I want her back here with me. I know I’ve not got long left and I can’t begin to tell you how that makes me feel.’ She looks terrible; underweight and gaunt. Her voice raspy and thin.
Her eyes still have a sparkle of hope but I shake my head. ‘I’m sorry. Not yet.’
Sarah took over. ‘We’ve been speaking to some of Donna’s friends; the girls she was in the band with. They suggested Donna didn’t get on too well with her father.’
Derek cut in. ‘Ron loved his kids. Donna was always the apple of his eye.’
‘I’m sure he had their best interests at heart’ I said, hoping to sound diplomatic, ‘but we need to at least discuss it. If we can understand how Donna was thinking and acting, then it might help us find her. It’s surprising how the smallest detail can help.’
The room was silent. Maria Platt looked at her brother and nodded before turning back to us. ‘Ron loved our kids. It was like Derek said.’
Sarah and I sat quietly, allowing her the time to tell her story.
‘It was difficult raising the kids. It was difficult for me with Ron working away for weeks on end. I was at home trying to bring them up right; keep them on the straight and narrow. Because Ron got paid depending how much fish they caught, I never knew how much money he would bring home. Sometimes it was next to none. It was tough to run a house under those conditions.’
‘A three day millionaire?’ I said.
Derek smiled. ‘Those were the days, alright.’
I’d read that when the trawlermen returned to Hull, they’d often pick up substantial pay packets. The men worked hard and played hard, taxiing around the city and spending their money in the pubs of Hessle Road, before heading back to the docks for another trip.
‘Ron had a family to look after’ Maria said.
‘But he was a drinker’ said Derek.
Maria tutted and looked away.
‘They need to know how things were’ he said to her. ‘If it helps to find our Donna, you’ve got to tell them how it was.’
Maria nodded. ‘He liked a drink. He didn’t always arrive home with the money.’
‘And I was as bad as anyone’ Derek said. ‘We’d go drinking, and once we’d started, we wouldn’t stop.’
‘Did you have a family to support?’ Sarah asked.
He shook his head. ‘Not at the time, no.’
Maria had turned away. It was obvious she hadn’t approved of their behaviour. I asked her what her husband had done once the trawler industry disappeared.
‘He never worked again.’
‘Never?’
‘Just the odd days here and there; working on a building site, you know, that kind of thing.’
‘I suppose it was difficult, given the skills he had’ said Sarah.
‘There was nothing for most of the men around here once the fishing went. I learnt to get by on his dole money.’ She shrugged and looked at her brother. ‘It’s what we had to do.’
I knew it wasn’t true because Donna’s boyfriend’s parents had opened an off-licence and made a decent living. I mentioned his name to her.
‘Tim was a nice boy’ she said. ‘I liked him.’
‘Did your husband approve of them?’
‘Oh yes. He thought Donna should go steady with him and settle down; buy a house and start a family, like we did.’
‘And Tim was a good bet?’
‘His mam and dad have done well for themselves. He saved his money and they eventually opened themselves a shop. They’ve done well.’ Sarah had told me about the shop. I assumed Maria Platt was ignoring the gangs of youths who congregated outside of it and the necessity of Perspex glass within the shop. It didn’t seem like paradise to me. Her voice contained a trace of bitterness. Reading between the lines, it sounded like her husband had wallowed in self-pity whilst others used their money more wisely. I wondered how bitter that had left him, what kind of man he became.
‘What happened with Tim?’ asked Sarah.
‘Our Donna chucked him; said he was boring. A mistake, if you ask me.’
‘Boring?’ I repeated.
‘She said they were stuck in a rut, always going to the same places, seeing the same people. Donna wanted a bit more from life than just getting married and becoming a housewife.’
Sarah said nothing and neither did I. Life had been disappointing for Maria Platt and she wanted better for her daughter.
‘How did your husband feel when she dumped Tim?’ I asked.
‘He wasn’t best pleased’ Maria Platt eventually said.
‘Did they argue about it?’ I asked.
She nodded. ‘All the time. They fought like cat and dog. He’d lose his temper and tell her she was stupid. He thought she should get a steady job. She’d tell him it was none of his business; it was her life and she’d please herself. I was stuck in the middle, trying to keep the peace.’
I sat forward. ‘Did he threaten her, Maria?’
Derek leant forwards. ‘I don’t like where you’re heading with this.’
I held my hands up. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t mean to imply anything. I’m trying to understand the state of her relationship with her father.’ I turned to Maria. ‘What did he think of her being in a group?’
‘He hated it. He didn’t understand it, I suppose. He didn’t like the thought of her being in nightclubs, having the men in the crowd leering after her. He hated it all, the whole thing, I suppose.’
‘Did they argue about it?’
She nodded. ‘All the time. He tried to ban her from being in the band. She just laughed at him.’
‘Did she ever mention Frank Salford?’
‘Why would she?’ asked Derek. Sarah stared at me. I got the message.
‘He used to manage the band’ I said.
Maria Platt looked at her brother before shaking her head. ‘She never mentioned him.’
I had to ask. ‘Do you think your husband knew the band had a manager?’
‘I doubt it. I’d have been the one to know, and if I’d known, I’d have told him.’ She searched for a new tissue. ‘Should we know this man?’
I shook my head. ‘No. Not at all.’
Maria Platt waited for me to sit back down and looked me in the eye. ‘I just wanted Donna to be happy.’
But your husband drove her away, I thought. ‘Why didn’t you report her as missing?’
She didn’t respond. Sarah moved over to comfort Maria Platt. I didn’t feel great about what I’d said, but we were getting somewhere. Donna had obviously been opposed to her father. Derek looked at his sister and Sarah huddled together, nodded to me and suggested we went for a walk.
Derek clearly intended our walk to take us no further than the nearest pub, which had just opened for the day. It was the kind of place where new faces weren’t very frequent, or particularly welcome. Derek nodded silent greetings to a few of the men stood around the bar, but no one acknowledged me. The walls were decorated with old black and white ph
otographs of Hull FC from days gone by and photographs of old trawlers. One of the 1980 Challenge Cup Final team caught my eye. I recognised all the faces; even knew some of them back in the day. I’d learnt how to play the game alongside and against them as a boy. I wondered what they were all doing now. The rivalry between the two Hull clubs is still intense and as a former KR player, I was very much in enemy territory. I’d only ever played in one derby match, and that had been at Craven Park, our home ground. The noise had been incredible, the game so much more intense. I can still hear the individual voices calling out; encouragement from my fans, abuse from the opposition.
‘Cheers’ said Derek, taking hold of the pint I’d bought him. He steered us over to the far corner of the pub, away from the handful of other drinkers.
‘Cheers’ I replied. I waited for him to put his drink down and gather his thoughts.
‘I remember when you’d come back from sea and the pubs would have pints already pulled, ready on the bar for you. That was some sight, I can tell you. All the glasses lined up neatly, full to the brim.’
‘Must have been quite a sight.’
‘It was.’ He placed his glass down and looked at me. ‘Mr Geraghty’ he started.
‘It’s Joe’ I said.
‘Joe, then. I wanted to talk to you away from the house. Try to explain a little better that Ron wasn’t a bad man, but Maria doesn’t understand what it was really like for us at sea.’ He put his drink down and continued. ‘It was hard work on the trawlers; unbelievably hard work. We’d work eighteen hours a day and there was no time for niceties like washing or eating properly. Even sleeping was difficult on the boats. We’d often be six men to a small room and the bunks were so small, you just wedged yourself in, which was no bad thing, given the conditions. As for the noise, it was 24 hours a day because you were often next to the engine room, and that was before the weather conditions. You’d get thrown about the place and the noise and coldness as you sailed through ice was beyond belief.’ He looked at me. ‘It was beyond horrible.’
I just nodded. I couldn’t begin to comprehend what it must have been like working under those conditions. ‘Did you work on the same trawlers as Ron?’ I asked.
‘We did for a while, but he left to join another company. We were both deckies. We’d haul the fish into the boats, gut them and pass them down to the storage area. The tough thing was, we’d only get paid if we got a decent catch, so it was a competitive carry-on. If the skipper found us a decent fishing spot, we’d milk it all we could. We’d work slightly longer and even in dangerous conditions. Anything to bring home a decent catch so we got paid. There was once when Ron and me came home with absolutely nothing after our food money and what not had been deducted by the bosses. It was a bit of a one-off as there were always alternatives available to you. We’d remove the livers and boil them to make cod liver oil to sell when we returned home. It was our bonus, if you like. Of course, if you were Ron, you’d try and make your bonus from playing cards. When you weren’t working that hard, like when you were sailing out to the fishing waters, the place to go was the canteen. We’d smoke our cigs, talk and listen to foreign radio which piped in new music we’d not yet heard. It was great, just spending time with your mates.’
‘Ron was a card player?’
‘There was always a card school on the go, but Ron wasn’t the best at it to be honest. He’d often leave a boat owing people money, which wasn’t the plan, or something our Maria was very happy about.’
Hardly surprising, I thought.
‘Ron could usually make it up a bit at Christmas when the Christmas Crackers would go out. You’d make excellent money if you had a decent catch, but it was a risky business, alright. Because most of the regulars wanted to spend Christmas at home, the crews would be padded out with anyone who wanted the work. Just chuck them onto the boat and get going.’
Derek glanced at his empty glass. It was my round again.
After his story, I needed the break. I knew you had to be tough to survive on the trawlers, but I never knew just how tough. I placed the fresh drinks on the table and asked him what it was like once the industry had disappeared.
‘Harsh. We got nothing at all. Not a thing.’ He held his left hand up. ‘Didn’t even escape with a full set of fingers.
‘The Cod Wars?’ I said, not wanting to look at the gap where his index finger once was.
‘Once Iceland said we couldn’t fish their waters, our government rolled over and threw the towel in without a thought to us workers. It was disgusting. We had our nets cut and Ron once told me a trawler he was on was rammed. Scary as hell that kind of thing. Our government sold us out. We were allowed to fish in their seas up to a certain amount, but it was a fraction of what we’d done in the past.’
‘What did you and Ron do after that for work?’
He laughed. ‘Work? What work? We weren’t trained to do anything else. Nobody wanted to know us. I was one of the lucky ones. My brother-in-law ran his own business, so I got some work on building sites, just labouring to start, but it worked out alright and I was a foreman until I retired.’
‘What about Ron?’
‘Hardly ever worked again. I got him a few days here and there but it wasn’t for him.’
‘What about redundancy money? What did he do with it?’
He laughed again. ‘There was no redundancy pay. I don’t know how it worked, but we never qualified for any. In legal terms, we were casual labour. We had no rights.’ He leant in towards me. ‘If you owned the trawlers, you were fine. You received compensation for your boats not earning and what have you. They didn’t suffer, believe me.’
‘You got nothing?’
‘We got something eventually. Ron worked for over twenty years on them trawlers, but because of the various legal loopholes, he only got a few hundred quid off the government.’ Derek shook his head. ‘A few hundred pounds, it’s insulting.’
‘Was he bitter?’
‘Wouldn’t you be?’
I nodded. Under those circumstances, I probably would be.
‘And that was before the pension carry-on. When you went to sea, you had to pay in to a pension scheme. There was no choice. Ron and me thought we had some decent money coming to us. I was lucky, my pension was waiting for me. It wasn’t much, but it helped. Ron wasn’t so lucky. Because the companies who owned the boats disappeared, nobody knew how to get their money. I was lucky because the company I worked for continued to trade, but the people Ron worked for shut down. He got nowhere trying to get what he was owed. The pension people reckon they paid the money out to the companies for them to give to us, but they say there’s no paperwork. I know most people have got their money now, but there’s still some who haven’t and the insurance companies have washed their hands of it all. Ron didn’t live to get his money and Maria’s in no state to fight these people.’
‘So Ron had to bring up his kids on benefits?’
‘Maria brought them up on benefits. Ron more or less gave up.’
‘I assume it affected his relationship with them?’
I watched Derek finish his drink. ‘Whatever happened, he loved his kids. They were his world. But I have to admit he was harsh to them at times. He sometimes took his frustrations out on them but I know he only wanted the best for them.’
‘Like with Donna and her band? What was his problem? Surely it was a good thing? Showed she was determined and had a bit of ambition?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t think he could relate to it all. He wanted Donna to be secure and that meant settling down and getting married. He didn’t think she’d find that security by becoming a singer.’
‘Were their arguments ever violent?’
He shook his head. ‘Never. Ron was a decent man. He wouldn’t do that.’
On balance, I believed him. ‘How did his death affect the family?’
‘As you’d expect. Maria and Gary were devastated. The doctors didn’t catch the cancer early enough, so there was lit
tle they could do. If the stupid bugger had been a bit more willing to see them when he was ill, it might have been different. Maria nursed him at home, all the way to the end. It was tough on her, but it was the way she wanted things. Have you ever experienced it first-hand, Joe?’
I shook my head. ‘No.’
‘Try and keep it that way.’
We sat there in silence for a few moments until Derek told me he knew Frank Salford. ‘I know what he is, too.’
‘So do I. Don’t worry about that. Just leave him be for now whilst we get what we need on him.’
I watched Derek take a mouthful of lager. ‘Alright?’ I said.
‘Alright.’
‘Why didn’t Ron report Donna missing to the police?’ I asked, changing the subject.
It took Derek a few moments to answer. ‘Ron was a proud man, Mr Geraghty. I don’t think he wanted to admit it was his fault, that his attitude drove her away. He always told me she was old enough to make up her own mind. If she wanted to come back, she knew where to find us.’
I thanked him for his time. Although I still didn’t know why Donna had left, I knew more about her upbringing. Undoubtedly, it had been tough for her; her family had little money, and her father for all his faults, had endured a tough life at sea followed by disappointment when the industry died. What puzzled me was if she left the city to further her music career, why didn’t any of her band mates know more? It didn’t ring true.
Broken Dreams Page 7