Daughters of Courage

by Margaret Dickinson

  Over the weeks and months that followed, Emily expanded her training plans and created six more places. The first six were now ready to work on their own and bring in money and so twelve girls were recruited.

  ‘That workshop isn’t big enough now, Trip. What shall I do?’

  ‘Couldn’t you make better use of the workshop in Broad Lane? Billy’s working on his own on the upper floor. That seems a waste of space.’

  But Emily shook her head. ‘I don’t want to alter the lay-out there. The girls go to him when he teaches them the different processes they don’t already know. No, I need another workshop.’

  ‘I haven’t a spare area you could use, but I’ve heard that there’s a workshop in Rockingham Street – not far from yours – that’s come up for rent or for sale. Why not take a look at it?’

  ‘Will you come with me?’

  ‘Of course. When shall we go?’

  Emily laughed. ‘Right now.’

  The workshop was larger than the one three doors away that she now owned and the twelve trainee girls would fit in easily. And there was space upstairs for expansion, if needed in the future.

  ‘But what about the one at your factory, Trip? I don’t want to leave you with a vacant space.’

  ‘Why not keep the six girls, who are ready to work on their own, there – as fully fledged buffer girls, maybe with Jane in charge – and set this one up as the training workshop?’

  ‘That’s a good idea.’

  ‘You could afford to buy it with the money Nathan Hawke left you.’

  Emily shook her head. ‘No, I want to keep that behind me. There’ll be a lot of expense fitting this place out . . .’ She shuddered as she glanced around the dusty workshop. ‘And cleaning it, to say nothing of all the machinery we’ll need.’

  Trip chuckled. ‘Why not set the new girls you choose as trainees to clean the place up first. That’ll sort out any idle ones for you.’

  ‘Very true,’ Emily said seriously. She knew Trip was half-joking, but his idea was a good one. ‘And I’ll set on another errand lass for Creswick Street. The training workshop doesn’t need one; the trainees must fetch and carry for themselves. That way it teaches them how to treat an errand lass in the future. If they’ve done the work, they appreciate what a young lass has to cope with.’

  Emily would then have four workshops running: the original two and now the premises within Trip’s factory would also become a buffing workshop, whilst the newly acquired one would be the training room.

  ‘I think Jane has a younger sister, who’s just about to leave school. I’ll see if she’s interested in becoming an errand lass. I’d like to help that family a little more if I can.’

  ‘Has the father found work yet, d’you know?’

  Emily shook her head.

  ‘I wonder if he’d be willing to retrain. I’m in need of a spring knife cutter.’

  Soberly, Emily said, ‘I think the poor man would do anything to be working again.’

  ‘I’ll have a word with Richard.’

  As they turned to leave the workshop, Trip said, ‘Emily, there’s just one other thing that Richard and I have been talking about. We’d like you to consider becoming an equal partner in Trippets’.’

  ‘Really? Wouldn’t that make it rather unfair on Richard? Husband and wife are bound to stick together if there is ever any disagreement.’

  Trip threw back his head and laughed aloud. ‘Do you really think we don’t know you well enough to know that you’d always voice your own opinion – that’d you’d never just side with me because I’m your husband? I know that and Richard knows it too. So, what do you say?’

  Emily was silent for a moment, her mind working furiously. At last she said slowly, ‘I suppose you and Richard would want to be partners in my enterprises too, would you?’

  To her surprise Trip shook his head. ‘No, we wouldn’t. We both feel those are yours and yours alone. You’re building these workshops up from nothing and we don’t want to take anything away from you, but our thinking is that with you as an equal partner it will safeguard the future for Lewis and for any children that Richard might have. If something happened to one of us, we know how fair-minded you are. You’d see that both sides were treated equally.’

  Emily shrugged. ‘If that’s what you’ve both agreed, then yes, I’d be happy to do that.’ She giggled and eyed her husband saucily. ‘As just a sleeping partner, I presume?’

  Trip took her in his arms and kissed her soundly.

  As the 1930s progressed, the economic situation showed no sign of easing and overshadowed everyone’s life, so much so that often happenings abroad failed to be noticed. Unemployment rose and, in Sheffield, it reached sixty thousand. Any job that was advertised attracted many applicants. There were pockets of cheer, though, which for a few hours could take the citizens away from their anxieties. The coming of the ‘talkies’, as everyone called them, meant that new cinemas had opened, often converted from theatres.

  But Trip remained interested in international affairs too, especially in Europe.

  ‘Have you seen this?’ he said as he opened the daily newspaper on 30 January 1933. ‘There seems to be a lot of unrest in Germany. Hindenburg has appointed this feller Hitler as Chancellor.’

  ‘Really? But I thought it was only last year that he rejected him.’

  ‘He did. As recently as November, on the grounds that he thought this man’s cabinet would develop into a party dictatorship.’

  ‘What’s made him change his mind?’

  ‘I really don’t know. I expect he was put under pressure of some sort and, besides, he’s an old man. He’s eighty-five. And this Adolf Hitler seems to have great plans for Germany.’

  ‘What’s his party called?’

  ‘The National Socialists.’

  ‘Perhaps they need a strong leader. It must have been dreadful for them at the end of the war.’

  ‘Mm.’ Trip didn’t sound too sure as he read on. ‘He sounds a bit of a fanatic, but he’s certainly patriotic. You can’t deny that.’

  ‘Just so long as he sticks to helping his own country and doesn’t bother us, good luck to him, I say. Now, Trip, can you make sure Lewis goes round to Mrs Dugdale’s before you leave for work? I really must get to Rockingham Street this morning.’

  With the business of the day ahead filling her mind, all thoughts of Hitler and his plans for Germany were forgotten. But it wasn’t long before Trip, an ardent follower of the political scene, both at home and abroad, began to feel uneasy about the new regime in Germany. In February 1933, when the German Reichstag burned down, he told Emily, ‘Hitler’s blaming the Communists and he’s curtailing freedom of speech. He’s becoming exactly what Hindenberg had originally feared, Emily. A dictator. I don’t like the sound of it at all.’

  ‘Mm.’ Emily was hardly listening, her mind busy with her plans for one of the small retail shops in the city centre that was now hers. ‘Trip, I’ve been thinking.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Trip said, pretending foreboding. ‘I don’t like the sound of that, either.’

  Emily grinned at him and carried on. ‘The tenant at one of the little shops that Mr Hawke left me has given notice. Instead of advertising it for rental, why don’t we turn it into a centre for cutlery, selling items of the very best quality right through to inexpensive household cutlery?’

  ‘I’m glad you didn’t say “cheap”.’

  ‘But what do you think?’

  Trip wrinkled his forehead thoughtfully. ‘It might be a bit of a limited market, if you only stocked cutlery. Think about it. Once households have got the cutlery they need, they won’t be buying any more. I mean, it lasts for years. Well,’ he added proudly, ‘Sheffield-made cutlery does, anyway.’

  ‘We-ell,’ Emily said slowly, thinking aloud, ‘I could make it a shop for general household goods, but with cutlery as the focal point. But I’d be putting myself in direct competition with the big stores.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have t
he overheads that the bigger shops and stores have got. Maybe you could undercut their prices.’ Trip nodded. ‘It does sound like a good idea. Who would you get to run it for you? We don’t know anyone in the retail trade, do we?’

  Emily shook her head. ‘No, but I think I know the very person to manage it; I’ll talk to your mother and George. Who that man doesn’t know in Sheffield, isn’t worth knowing.’

  Trip laughed and with a fond kiss, he set out for work. He was still chuckling when he arrived at the factory in Creswick Street.

  That same evening Trip arrived home late, carrying a wireless set into the house. ‘I am determined not to miss any of the news and I thought you would like to listen to the entertainment programmes.’

  Lewis bounced up and down in excitement as he watched his father install the square-shaped wooden box with a speaker in the top half and three dials and the programme finder on the bottom half.

  ‘Can I listen to Children’s Hour, Daddy? Samuel at school has a wireless and he says it’s brilliant.’

  ‘Of course you can, Lewis.’

  That evening the three of them sat listening in silence to the new invention that Trip had brought home. Lewis was so entranced with it that he was reluctant to go to bed until Trip took charge and turned it off. ‘Off you go, young man. You can listen to it again tomorrow, I promise.’

  Thirty-Seven

  ‘Mrs Nicholson, how would you like to become manageress of one of the shops in the city that Mr Hawke left me?’

  Ruth’s mouth dropped open. ‘Me? Oh – I – er – don’t know. Aren’t you happy with the work I’m doing now? I thought . . .’

  ‘More than happy. But there are so many men out of work in the city, I thought I could employ one of them – one who can drive, of course – to do what you’re doing. But a woman’s touch would be best in a shop selling household goods. Don’t you agree?’

  ‘Well, yes, but I don’t know anything about selling, Emily.’

  Emily beamed. ‘You can learn. And you’re good with paperwork and figures. I saw that for myself when you were the buffer missus at Waterfall’s.’

  ‘It’d be rather nice, I have to admit.’ Ruth was warming to the idea. ‘And if I might make a suggestion . . . ?’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘There’s a nice young man who lives in the court now in your old home. He has a wife and two young children and they’ve hit hard times, Emily. He used to be a delivery driver, but he was laid off four months ago. Would you interview him?’

  ‘Of course. I’ll ask George to sit in with me. He’s so good at weighing folk up very quickly.’

  When the young man presented himself at Ryan’s workshop in Rockingham Street, he was obviously very nervous. His jacket and trousers were shabby, the cuffs of his shirt frayed, but he was clean-shaven and his light brown hair was neatly cut.

  ‘Please come into the office, Mr Wragg. This is Mr Bayes.’

  Suddenly, Alan Wragg smiled. ‘I know Mr Bayes. How are you, sir?’ He held out his hand to George, who shook it and smiled broadly.

  ‘Mrs Trippet didn’t tell me the name of the applicant, so I didn’t know it was you.’ He turned to Emily. ‘Alan’s family lived next door but one to Muriel and me. I’ve known him since he was a nipper.’

  ‘Ah . . . I see,’ Emily said, and couldn’t keep the note of doubt from her tone. She was not prepared to employ someone just because George had known him as a child.

  Sensing her hesitation, George, ever tactful, said, ‘Perhaps I should withdraw from the interview . . .’

  ‘No, no,’ Emily said swiftly, ‘that won’t be necessary, but I would like to know what you’ve done as a job, Mr Wragg, in recent years.’

  So the three of them sat down and the interview, though searching, was more like a friendly chat. When the questions and answers came to a natural end, Emily said, ‘Perhaps you’d wait outside whilst Mr Bayes and I have a little chat.’

  As the door closed behind him, George said at once, ‘I’m sorry, Emily, I didn’t mean to put you in an awkward position. If you don’t feel . . .’

  ‘On the contrary, I think he’d be perfect. He has a pleasant, deferential manner that I’m sure will go down well with our customers. I don’t want anyone too full of themselves. Actually, I think I’ve seen him before. I’m sure he and his wife and children have been to the soup kitchens.’ She sighed. ‘Poor things, they must be desperate. So, we’ll employ him and there’s something else we can do without hurting his feelings.’

  Puzzled, George frowned. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘We can say he needs a uniform with the name “Ryan’s” on his jacket. That way, he’ll look smart without having to provide his own clothes, which he obviously can’t do at present.’

  ‘Oh Emily,’ George murmured softly, ‘you really are the most extraordinary young woman.’

  Emily brushed aside his compliment. ‘I’m just thankful we’ve found someone without having to advertise. Did you hear about the firm that advertised for a warehouseman and over eighty men turned up to apply? It nearly caused a riot.’

  George shook his head sadly. ‘I don’t know where it’s all going to end.’

  ‘Well,’ she said with a smile, ‘we’ll just have to keep battling on, won’t we?’

  On Thursday, 11 May 1933, the same day that Emily opened her new shop in the city centre with Ruth Nicholson in charge, news came through that on the previous night huge bonfires in Berlin and Munich had destroyed thousands of books which were considered by the Nazis, as Hitler’s party was now being called, to be ‘un-German’.

  ‘They’re even brain-washing children,’ Trip said in disgust as he sat at the dinner table. They were holding a small dinner party to celebrate Emily’s latest venture. Constance, George, Richard and his mother, Belle, were their guests. The day had been a great success, despite the economic depression that was still gripping the whole country.

  ‘You’re helping to give people a feeling of optimism,’ Constance said, smiling at her daughter-in-law. She was very fond of Emily. ‘People may not be able to buy very much at the moment, but women love to window-shop and plan what they’d like when they can afford it. And many of the things you’re stocking are necessities with a few tempting luxuries thrown in for good measure.’

  ‘Our takings were quite good, we thought, for the first day.’

  ‘I bought a lovely tablecloth and matching napkins,’ Belle said. ‘You must all come to dinner so that I can have an excuse to use them. And I do like that wonderful canteen of cutlery you have as a centrepiece in your display, Emily. The one in the mahogany box and lined with red velvet. It’s magnificent.’

  George smiled fondly across the table at Emily. ‘Mr Hawke would be very proud of you, my dear. You’re using his generous legacy wisely.’

  ‘Thank you, George. That means a lot to me.’

  ‘I just hope,’ he began and then he hesitated before adding, ‘you haven’t overstretched yourself. You’re doing so much to help others, but I worry for you. This Depression doesn’t seem likely to end in the near future.’

  Trip reached out and touched Emily’s hand. ‘My wife is very shrewd and has even taught me the need for thriftiness.’ He glanced at his mother. ‘I was lucky enough to have been born into a wealthy family. I’ve never known real hardship, but Emily has and so, right from when she started her own buffing business, she’s saved. We live in this nice – but modest – house. We have two cars, I know, but we need them for our separate businesses and, yes, we eat well, but no grand houses or expensive holidays for us. We’ve always saved for the proverbial rainy day and now that a few rainy days are here, well, we’re all right at the moment.’

  ‘Be sure to let me know if you’re not, won’t you?’ Constance said. ‘The hotel is doing very well considering the circumstances and making a modest profit. I think most of our clientele are those who will always have money no matter what happens. And, following Lizzie’s wedding, we now offer the Riversdale Ho
tel as a venue for wedding receptions right from lavish affairs down to a modest event for those less well off. We have held several already and have more bookings.’

  ‘We’re holding our own at the factory,’ Richard put in. ‘Since we rented out a few of the unused workshops to little mesters or –’ he smiled across the table at Emily – ‘to enterprising women, we’re holding our own. We haven’t had to lay anyone else off yet.’

  ‘How’s Mr Arnold doing?’

  Richard frowned. ‘All right as far as his work is concerned. He was glad to accept the offer I made him, but I have my suspicions that he’s a bit of an agitator amongst the employees. We’ll have to keep an eye on him. I think all that’s keeping him quiet is that he has reason to be grateful to the Trippet family on his own behalf and his daughter’s. I don’t think he would dare make waves – at least not at the moment. But it troubles me that he seems to admire what Hitler is doing in Germany. His favourite saying seems to be “they lost the war, but they’ll come out on top”.’

  ‘Well, I certainly don’t like what he’s doing,’ Trip said earnestly. ‘I’m all for patriotism, but Hitler’s taking it a bit far to my mind. Burning books you don’t agree with and replacing them on the shelves with your own seems egotistical in the extreme to me.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Emily asked.

  ‘He wrote a book in the twenties called Mein Kampf, which means “my struggle”, outlining his political ideology and plans for the future of Germany. Evidently, he started writing it whilst imprisoned for political crimes in the mid-twenties.’

  Emily laughed. ‘And that’s what’s replacing all the books being burned – his own?’

  Solemnly, Trip nodded and then turned to Richard. ‘Perhaps someone should tell Percy Arnold that Hitler’s also trying to smash the trades union movement. His Storm Troopers have already seized files from their offices and arrested leaders.’

  ‘It sounds as if he – Hitler, I mean – is trying to stifle free thinking.’