by M J Lee
All the children nodded.
Little Tom put up his hand. ‘Can we play with them?’
The priest thought for a moment. ‘I’m sure you can, but you’ll have to ask the mother politely first.’ He waved his finger. ‘Not the Reverend Mother, the kangaroo’s mother, of course.’
The children laughed again. Even the Reverend Mother’s face broke into something approaching a smile.
‘Now, I’ve an important question for youse.’ The children watched as the priest paused and scratched his nose. ‘How many of you would like to go to Australia?’
The children looked at each other, not understanding.
It was Little Tom who spoke first. ‘And leave England?’
The priest smiled. ‘Let me put this a different way. How many of you would like to play with the kangaroos in Australia?’
Little Tom’s hand shot up, followed by the others. Not wanting to be left out, Harry slowly raised his own hand.
The priest and the Mother Superior smiled broadly, nodding to each other. ‘That’s very good, very good. The lucky ones might just get the chance to play with them. I’ll have a chat with Sister Mary and choose just a few of you to come with me when I leave in a couple of months’ time. Now, just to check again. Who would like to play with the kangaroos in Australia?’
This time all the hands, including Harry’s, shot up.
‘All of you? Grand. I’m afraid we only have places for a few, but we’ll let you know just as soon as we can who’ll be going.’
The Mother Superior told Harry he would be going to Australia two weeks later.
‘But what about me mum?’
‘I thought you wanted to play with the kangaroos?’
‘I do, but...’
‘Your mother is happy for you to go. See, she’s signed the form.’ The Reverend Mother held up a piece of paper with a scrawled signature on the bottom.
Harry’s soul shrivelled up inside him. His mum wasn’t coming for him after all. He wasn’t going to meet his new dad or his younger brother or sister.
‘Me mum wants me to go?’ he finally said.
The Reverend Mother smiled. ‘She thinks it’s for the best. You’ll have a much better life in Australia. Besides, she has a new family now and she doesn’t want anything to do with you any more.’
‘I have a new brother?’
‘You have a new sister, actually. That’s why it’s best you go to Australia.’
‘Can I see my mum before I go?’
The Mother Superior smiled again. ‘She doesn’t want to see you any more, Harold. You only have us now. We’re your family.’
Chapter Sixteen
June 18, 2017.
Eyam, Derbyshire, England
Vera picked up the last envelope. ‘The post-mark is clear; September 28, 1951, only two weeks since the last one. Two letters from them in a month is a lot.’
‘We don’t know, love, perhaps she didn’t save all the letters, just the most important ones.’
‘I hope you save all my letters, Robert, even the unimportant ones.’
‘Hurry up and read the letter, Vera. All this lovey-dovey stuff is a bit sickening.’
‘You know, you’ve become the tired cliché, Charlie; a grumpy old man. They should draw a cartoon of you.’
Her brother picked at what remained of the cake. ‘At least I don’t go sticking my nose in where it’s not wanted,’ he sniffed.
‘Read the letter, love.’
Vera coughed twice, clearing her throat.
‘Dear Freda,
I’m afraid we have some news. Mr Keaton from the home came yesterday. They have decided to take Harry back. Apparently, he has reached an age where he needs the support of a proper Christian education. Just taking him to church on Sunday was not enough. The sisters will make sure he receives a good education.
He’s lucky there is a place for him at the home. These days there are more children than beds, that’s why we took him in the first place. Thomas and I will miss Harry immensely. His broad smile was a ray of sunshine even on the greyest day. And our son, David, is already missing his playmate. He keeps asking when Harry is coming back. Unfortunately, we can’t give him an answer.
Has the home written to tell you? Sometimes they can be a bit slow at keeping parents informed. So we thought we’d tell you as soon as possible.
If you have time, I would go to visit him to make sure he’s settling in properly. I’m afraid we’re not allowed to go, just being foster parents.
Have you given more thought to what we talked about last time you were here? We are serious about adopting Harry permanently if you feel you can no longer look after him. We would love to have him stay with us forever. Please let us know as soon as you can. The church can be very slow when it comes to adoption and we have to set the wheels in motion.
Please consider it. I know you’ve always planned to take him back one day, but now he’s in the home again, we should make a decision.
Yours sincerely,
Irene Beggs
‘What does it all mean, Jayne?’ asked Vera.
‘It means he went back to the home and Mum never saw him again!’ shouted Charlie, standing up from his chair. ‘Are you happy now you’ve brought Mum’s dirty linen to light?’ He leaned over Vera. ‘Didn’t it occur to you, when you were off traipsing after your men friends, that she was so sad? All those years, missing him every day, wanting to see him again.’
Robert stood up, facing Charlie. ‘Back off. Don’t speak to my wife like that,’ he said through gritted teeth.
Charlie stomped over to the far side of the room, staring out of the small window.
Vera was still sitting on the sofa, her hands clasped in front of her, tears streaming down her face. ‘I never knew... I never knew.’
Charlie ran his fingers through his hair. His voice was softer now, quieter. ‘She told me one Christmas. We’d been to Mass that afternoon, Dad had already gone to bed. We were sitting together in front of the fire, drinking a small whisky. You remember how a wee dram helped her sleep. Well, this time she must have had more than one. She blurted it out as we were both sitting there quietly. “You have a brother, you know.” I’ll never forget those words as long as I live. She then told me the whole story. The soldier she thought loved her, who was already married. The baby, how happy he was. But her mother wouldn’t hear of her keeping him. So she had him placed in a home, visiting every couple of months when she could take time off work. Her new marriage...’ He lifted his head. His face was in shadow, the small round body silhouetted against the late evening light streaming in through the window. His voice low, almost a murmur. ‘Dad wasn’t too keen on him coming back. He thought Harry was happy with the Beggses...’
Vera stared at him. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘She swore me to secrecy. I promised I would tell nobody, least of all you.’ He stopped speaking for a moment, swallowing a lump in his throat. ‘She loved you, you know. She wasn’t very good at showing it, but she did.’
‘But we argued and fought so much, that’s why I left when I did.’
‘Perhaps it was her way of showing she cared.’
The room fell silent. In the corner, an old clock ticked away the hours. Outside, a blackbird sang his independence from the top of his perch in the approaching dusk. In the distance, a church bell began to ring, calling the faithful to prayer.
Jayne coughed, clearing her throat. Her voice, when she spoke, was strangely muted. ‘Do you want to pursue this, Vera? Searching for Harry, I mean?’
Vera thought for a moment and then stared at her brother. ‘We have to. Harry might still be out there somewhere. I’d like to meet him before I die.’
Chapter Seventeen
June 18, 2017
Buxton Residential Home, Derbyshire, England
Jayne, her father and Vera sat in the common room of the home, drinking a cup of coffee. Most of the other residents had already turned in for the night. Jus
t one old man was sat in front of the television in his wheelchair, watching Strictly Come Dancing.
‘He used to be a professional, you know,’ said her father.
‘A professional what?’ asked Jayne.
‘Dancer. Went all over the world with it. Brazil. Argentina. Hong Kong, Blackpool. Then the arthritis got the better of him, so here he is. Never misses a programme, though.’
‘Can we get back to the job at hand?’ said Vera sharply.
They had driven back from Vera’s brother’s with the case. It now lay open beside them, the letters at the side and the solitary picture of a child with a toy soldier on top.
‘This is what we know,’ pronounced Jayne. ‘Your mother, Freda, did have a baby in 1944. She called him Harry or Harold. It was fostered out to the Beggses by a charity, probably in 1946, staying with them until September 1951 when he returned to the home.’
‘Can we call him Harry? “He” is so impersonal.’
‘Sorry, Vera, you’re right. We’ll call him Harry.’ Jayne picked up the picture of the young boy. ‘This is probably a picture of him, as it mentions in the letters that your mother gave him a toy soldier. We can’t be certain, though.’
The boy in the picture was looking directly into the camera, his hair styled in a cute quiff and a confident smile on his face. A happy boy. A cheeky boy. The eyes had a little mischief, a little devilment in them.
Jayne took a deep breath. ‘Now, here are the two major problems. We still don’t know Harry’s surname, the name he was registered under at birth. I’m certain it wasn’t Duckworth, though.’
‘How can you be sure, Jayne?’ asked her father.
‘I’ve checked all the Duckworth births for 1944 and there are no Harolds or Harrys.’
Vera took the photo from Jayne. ‘So he must have been registered under a different name?’
‘Correct. It could have been the father’s name or something else entirely. Without a surname, he’s going to be difficult to find. And if he was adopted, we can’t ask for any information unless we know his birth surname.’
‘But you’ve requested the birth certificates of the four Duckworth mothers in 1944, haven’t you?’
‘I did, and I’m hoping Freda is one of them, but...’
‘But what, Jayne?’
‘But it all depends what name she used when she actually registered the birth. If she didn’t use her real name…’
The people around the table were silent for a moment.
Her father ran his hand through his thinning hair. ‘You said there were two problems, Jayne. What’s the other one?’
Jayne logged on to the childrenshomes.org site. ‘We don’t know the name of the home he was sent to. According to this site, there were over seven hundred and fifty residential care homes in Lancashire at this time.’
Her father whistled. ‘So many?’
‘War, poverty, hunger, fear; they all take their toll on the most vulnerable in society.’
‘But the Beggses and my mother were Catholic,’ said Vera. ‘The letter said he was going to be taken care of by nuns.’
Jayne pressed a few keys on the computer. ‘If we search for just the Catholic homes, it still gives us over a hundred in Lancashire, and more than thirty-five in an area ten miles around Oldham.’
Her father tapped the computer screen. ‘Why that area, Jayne?’
She noticed the liver spots on the back of her father’s hand had become much more numerous. ‘Reading between the lines of the letters, I feel the Beggses had a relationship with some of the Catholic homes, to foster children. I could be wrong, but I don’t think they would take them more than a short drive, otherwise it would be too much of a nuisance to visit and check up on them.’
Her father nodded. ‘It makes sense, but it doesn’t help us very much. It still leaves thirty-five possible homes where Harry could have been sent.’
Another silence enveloped the table. Off to the left, tinny Argentinian tango music came from the television’s tiny speakers.
‘There’s only one thing we can do.’
‘What’s that, Jayne?’
‘Visit here. Go to Delph.’ She tapped the top of one of the letters with the address of the Beggses.
‘But the letter was sent over sixty years ago, Jayne. The Beggses must be dead by now.’
‘I know it’s a long shot, but perhaps a neighbour remembers them. And they had a son called David, perhaps he’s still alive.’
‘The chances are not great, Jayne.’
‘Well, Dad, unless you have a better idea, that’s where we’re going.’
‘When?’ asked Vera.
‘Tomorrow morning. We’ll leave early, put a full day in. How does nine a.m. sound?’
He father scratched his nose. ‘It sounds like I’m going to be setting the alarm.’
Chapter Eighteen
June 19, 2017
Delph, Lancashire, England
It was nearly eleven o’clock before they finally arrived in Delph. They had come from Buxton on the A624, the looming hills of the Peak District National Park on their right and the industrial wasteland of Greater Manchester on their left.
Jayne was tired of driving. The evening before, she had considered staying in one of Buxton’s B&Bs for the evening, or even treating herself to a night at the Palace Hotel, bathing in the spa and maybe having a massage to ease her tired limbs. But then she remembered the cat hadn’t been fed and he would by then be bellowing for his dinner with all the ferocity of caged lion. So she had driven all the way back to Manchester.
At home, she had treated herself to a nice glass of Aussie Shiraz and an even nicer block of Valrhona chocolate. With Mr Smith fed, watered and released out into the neighbourhood to prowl, she settled down in front of the computer to see if she could make any more progress on finding the vanished child.
Could she come at this problem from a different angle?
At least they now knew the child’s Christian name was Harry or Harold. How many children were born with that name and a Duckworth mother in 1944?
She typed ‘Harold’ into the FreeBMD search area, leaving the surname blank, but keeping 1944 as the year.
The computer seemed to take an age to respond.
In the whole of England, there was just one baby with the Christian name Harold born to a Duckworth mother. It was one of the four names she had already found.
For a second, Jayne’s hopes soared, only for them to plummet back to earth when she realised the woman lived in Nelson and had four other children by the same man before the arrival of Harold.
A quick slurp of wine and a square of chocolate gave her the energy to continue.
Could Freda have used a different surname when she registered the birth? But how? Surely the Registrar would have asked her for proof of identity? During the war, everybody had to carry Identity Cards. As Freda was under 21 at the time, hers would have been brown, with a code indicating the year and quarter in which she had been born. But there were no Duckworth mothers in Oldham – she had checked the FreeBMD site twice. How had Freda avoided telling the Registrar her real name? Had she used a fake Identity Card? In those days, there were no pictures inside and no description, so it would certainly have been possible.
Jayne shook her head. Sometimes the past was a different country with no map to guide you. She took another chunk of chocolate, letting it melt slowly on her tongue.
Come at it a different way.
She now knew Harry wasn’t adopted, which meant Freda registered him herself. She went back on the website and isolated all the Harrys and Harolds born in Oldham in 1944, writing down the names of fourteen individuals.
Births Mar 1944
Child’s Name Mother’s Name Birthplace Vol Page
Butler, Harold Quinlan Oldham 8d 985
Cook, Harold Thomas Oldham 8d 1030
McNally, Harold McInnes Oldham 8d 1045
Mungo, Harold Hampson Oldham 8d 960
Stone, Harold A
rnold Oldham 8d 991
Births Jun 1944
Child’s Name Mother’s Name Birthplace Vol Page
Daly, Harold Davenport Oldham 8d 1088
Richards, Harold Hinton Oldham 8d 938
Births Sep 1944
Child’s Name Mother’s Name Birthplace Vol Page
Stout, Harold Mooney Oldham 8d 1040
Britton, Harold Burns Oldham 8d 978
Davids, Harold Hulley Oldham 8d 957
Press, Harold Roberts Oldham 8d 1035
Births Dec 1944
Child’s name Mother’s Name Birthplace Vol Page
Brain, Harold Lockett Oldham 8d 1007
Court, Harold Haughton Oldham 8d 1011
Massey, Harold Andrew Oldham 8d 956
She stared at the list, not really taking it all in. The Harry they were looking for could be any one of these children. Then it occurred to her that Freda may have had the baby in another area. She added the filter of the county, Lancashire, and the results came back for 156 Harolds born that year.
This wasn’t helping. Unless she could find out more information, it was going to be a long, lonely slog through the records trying to find the right Harold, presuming he was born in Lancashire. She was dreading going through the records of all the surrounding counties.
She switched off the computer and went to bed – maybe tomorrow would be a better day.
But the next morning started badly. They left the nursing home later than intended; Robert couldn’t find his glasses and Vera forgot her knitting.
‘I always knit in the car, Jayne, it takes my mind off the rocking, otherwise I get motion sickness.’
Eventually they reached the outskirts of Delph, avoiding Manchester and Oldham completely.