Durham Trilogy 03. Never Stand Alone

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Durham Trilogy 03. Never Stand Alone Page 22

by Janet MacLeod Trotter


  Carol felt a swell of resentment, wanting to know who would be caring for her husband and on whose floor he would be sleeping that night.

  ‘How long?’ she asked, feeling her eyes prickle.

  Charlie shrugged. ‘As long as it takes. Maybe a couple of days, maybes longer. If they stay local, then they’ll not be harassed by the coppers on the road. There’s been that many roadblocks. You wouldn’t believe the trouble there’s been just trying to reach picket lines - smashed windscreens, car keys confiscated, the lot. The police are abusing their powers all the time.’

  Carol stiffened. She knew that some of the police had acted with brutality but she was not going to suffer one of Charlie’s tirades against them. Her brother Simon was no bully and she was sure the majority were decent men like him, forced to carry out unpleasant work. She would not risk having Simon criticised in front of Laura either.

  ‘Go and get your hairbrush,’ she told her daughter firmly. When the girl was out of the room, Carol rounded on her father-in-law. ‘You should have told me last night where he was going. You knew and you never said. I never had a chance to say goodbye properly.’

  ‘He’s just gone picketing, pet.’ Charlie dismissed her worries with a laugh.

  ‘Don’t treat me like a kid. He’s heading into trouble; else there wouldn’t be all this secrecy.’

  Instantly Charlie was serious. ‘Listen, Carol, the fewer people who know where the lads go the better. There’s a dirty war going on out there against us, believe me. Thatcher and the Tories want us beaten. Our phones are being tapped. There are undercover coppers mixing with the lads, ready to shop the activists. They’re finding out our plans and then stopping us on the road before we even get there. Thousands of pitmen have been arrested already. I just came here to put your mind at rest - thought maybes Mick wouldn’t have told you he’d be off for a few days. No doubt he’ll ring you when he gets there.’

  Carol looked at her father-in-law. They had always been wary of each other, but just now she felt he had confided in her as never before. He was carrying a huge burden of worries yet had found time to come here and make sure she was all right. His face was stern and knowing, but his eyes shone with compassion.

  Impulsively, Carol stretched out her hand to touch his. ‘I’m sorry for biting your head off. It’s just I worry so much for Mick.’

  He gave her a small, bashful smile. ‘I know you do, pet.’

  To the relief of both of them, Laura bounded back into the room and set Dougal jumping and barking with delight.

  ‘Stay and have a cup of tea with us,’ Carol urged. But Charlie shook his head.

  ‘I must get back.’ He whistled to the dog and Dougal raced to his heels.

  ‘I’ll see you later at the hall, then,’ Carol said, then forced herself to add, ‘Thanks for coming.’

  Charlie nodded and was gone.

  ‘Can we have a dog?’ Laura asked.

  Carol sighed. ‘Not this year, pet.’

  ‘When then?’ Laura persisted. ‘For Christmas?’

  ‘We’ll see.’ Carol knew she should scotch the idea straightaway, but didn’t have the heart. Every day she seemed to be saying no to anything Laura asked for.

  ‘Great, a dog for Christmas! I want a black one with a red collar.’

  ‘Laura . . .’ Carol tried to protest, but the girl was already out of the door and shouting out the news to Denise who was passing in her long black skirt and heavy boots.

  The older girl stopped and waved at Carol to come out. Surprised, Carol went out to see what she wanted.

  ‘Linda’s back,’ she said without expression.

  Carol was stunned. ‘She can’t be. Her dad’s just been round here and he never said anything.’

  A faint smile of triumph played around her pale lips. ‘She turned up at ours last night.’

  ‘With Dan?’ Carol asked, nonplussed.

  Denise shook her head. ‘Dan’s gone back to his parents but Linda was scared of ganin’ to hers. She’s been living on her own for a week. Don’t think she’s eaten in a couple of days.’

  Carol was shocked, thinking how wounded Lotty would be that her youngest had not gone straight to her for help. But her heart went out to her lonely, unhappy young sister-in-law and she felt a pang of guilt for not having made more of an effort to keep in touch.

  ‘Oh, poor Linda! Well, your mam can’t be expected to feed an extra mouth, she must come to us,’ Carol insisted. ‘Tell our Linda I’ll be round as soon as I’ve taken Laura to school.’

  Denise nodded and grinned. Carol was amazed at the effect it had of enlivening her pallid face.

  ‘I knew you’d stick up for her,’ Denise said with approval. ‘I told Linda you would.’

  It was early morning. Mick and Eddy sat in the makeshift canteen of a miners’ hall, eating bacon sandwiches. A cheerful man sat opposite munching on his roll and swapping stories about his family and children with the men from Durham. Bob told them he was from the north-east but now living and working in Yorkshire. Eddy chatted happily about their village and Mick found himself drawing out a photo of Carol and Laura and showing them off.

  ‘Canny,’ Bob said with a nod of appreciation and got out one of his children sitting on a beach. ‘That’s when we went to Corfu. Not be doing that this year, more’s the pity.’

  Bob’s chatter took Mick’s mind off the day ahead. They had stayed the first night on the floor of a social club, some of them lying out on the pool tables to sleep, but last night they had been farmed out to different homes of striking miners to try and make their presence less obvious. Mick and Eddy were staying with an elderly couple whose son-in-law and grandsons were strikers. The stooped, retired miner, John Kirkup, had sat up late reminiscing about his days in a Durham pit before the war. Eddy’s easy chatter had drawn the old man out of his reticence.

  ‘I remember picketing in nineteen twenty-six. Me brother-in-law, Sam Ritson, got sent to prison. You’ve maybes heard of him? Red Sam they used to call him. Aye, Whitton Grange,’ he whistled through false teeth, ‘that’s where I was born and brought up . . .’

  His wife had told them that John rarely talked about the old days. ‘It tore his family in two, did the lock-out. I was glad when we moved away. Seeing all the trouble on the telly, well, it brings it back to him. It’s hard to believe it’s all happening again. Breaks me heart to see me grandbairns suffering like we did. So we want to help where we can.’

  Mick thought again of his own father’s stories of 1926, of the friendship with Ben Shannon which was poisoned by Shannon’s father scabbing for the coal owners.

  ‘My grandfather went to prison too,’ Mick told the Kirkups, ‘for putting a brick through a scab’s window. Even though me father says he never did it. He never had a proper job again after that. Died in his forties, broken, very bitter, me dad says.’

  Eddy nodded and added sourly, ‘The scab went on to become overman at the pit. His son’s the manager there today.’

  Mick was surprised by Eddy’s bitter tone and felt the injustice of the situation swell in him again. Well, Carol had married him, he thought in harsh exultation. At least Shannon’s daughter had been taken from him, as if in some recompense for the wrongs of the past.

  The Kirkups had shaken their heads in pity and understanding and retired to bed late. Mick had lain awake listening to the old man coughing through the night and thought of Carol alone at home and wished he could be with her. His ancient hosts had no telephone and so he had not been able to ring her as he had hoped. Tomorrow he would find a kiosk and ring home and hear the voice he missed so much . . .

  Breakfast over, they boarded the mini vans that were to take them near Orgreave. A mile or so from the plant, they disembarked and trudged along the road in the early morning light. Birds chorused and the green wheat fields around them rustled and whispered like the sea, making Mick long for home. Beside him, Bob was engaging Sid’s brother-in-law, John Taylor, and Marty Dillon in conversation. Marty, a
red-faced barrel of a man, was keeping their spirits up with a stream of jokes and outrageous statements about everyone from politicians to the local vicar. By the time they came within sight of the coking works, their mood was buoyant.

  They skirted a large post-war housing estate and crossed a railway bridge. Below lay fields and then the long grey tarmacadam road leading to the depot. Grey light glinted on metal storage tanks around the squat buildings and blackened chimneys of the works, belching white smoke into the lightening sky. It seemed to taunt them with its activity.

  ‘We’re going to stop the bastard scabs bringing any more in!’ Bob shouted as they marched forward and there were cries of agreement around him. ‘And no effing copper’s going to stop us!’

  After that, the jokes ceased and they hurried on purposefully to join the other pickets. At Mick’s side, Dan Hardman kept close. Mick could tell the lad was nervous and wound up and he thought he smelt liquor on his breath even at this early hour. He had been camping out in someone’s back garden and looked unshaven and unkempt and Mick wondered how well he and Linda had been managing for the past month. No one had seen them for a fortnight and Dan had shrugged off his questioning with blunt denials that anything was wrong.

  Suddenly Dan swore at the sight up ahead.

  Through the gloom they now saw rank upon rank of police amassed at the depot gates. All traffic had been stopped from approaching the plant but there were motorcycle outriders buzzing like drones up and down the road and lines of transit vans, their windows darkened from prying eyes, parked at the ready. More police with dogs were gathered in a nearby field, waiting.

  ‘There’s bloody thousands of them!’ Eddy said in awe.

  ‘Canny of so many to turn up just for us,’ Marty joked grimly. ‘I mean, they could be out catching thieves, but no, they’d rather be here with us. Touching, isn’t it?’

  They walked on, joining the other pickets that were appearing in gathering numbers down the road and in the opposite field. As the lines of police drew nearer, Mick told Dan, ‘Stay with me and don’t do anything daft.’

  For a while the two sides stood off from each other, with just some harmless name-calling. Then Mick heard a noise in the distance - the deep, rumbling roar of heavy lorries on the move. The convoy hove over the hill and down towards them. At once the pickets began to push towards the entrance, trying to get close to the plant, but the sheer numbers of police held them off. The pushing and shoving increased.

  Arms linked, the cordons of police moved forward, propelling them off the road. The shouting became more hot-tempered as frustration set in. Mick could feel himself stumbling back towards the ditch. The lorries careered past and hurtled safely through the gates.

  All at once, a loud-hailer boomed above the shouting and Mick thought he heard it bellowing for prisoners to be taken.

  Before he could react, Mick saw the lines of police open up nearby and through them, running at the double, came a score of men, wielding truncheons. The pickets began to scatter and run, hurling themselves over the walls into the fields. But miners around Mick were grabbed and kicked by the pursuing police and dragged off by the snatch squads who disappeared behind the cordons of police as quickly as they had come.

  ‘They’ve got Marty!’ Dan shouted.

  Mick turned long enough to see his friend being hauled away and repeatedly kicked in the legs as he tried to stay on his feet. Then Marty was gone. Mick pushed Dan over the wall and followed, scraping his elbows. Somebody hit him in the throat and he fell down among the young wheat, gasping for breath. He saw Dan running, dodging crazily through the crop, and braced himself to be grabbed by his pursuers.

  But the arms that got to him first and hauled him up were those of John Taylor and Eddy.

  ‘Haway!’ Eddy panted.

  ‘Back to the bridge, lads!’ Bob ordered.

  Dan joined them and they set off at a run, routed by an organised force and snapped at by vicious-looking dogs, straining at their leashes.

  Finally stopping at the railway embankment, Mick felt his insides heave. He was ashamed at having run away so quickly and angry at the overwhelming numbers against them.

  ‘They’re like an army, it’s bloody ridiculous!’ he ranted. ‘And we’re no better than a Sunday School outing with nowt but our trainers to kick with and our fists as weapons.’

  ‘Didn’t even have the chance to use them,’ Eddy scowled. He was sweating and grey-faced and looked ill from running.

  ‘What do we do now?’ John asked.

  No one spoke. They were shaken and unsure. Mick had never before seen such opposition ranked against a mass picket or such a ruthlessly swift response to their protest.

  ‘There’ll be another convoy along the road today,’ Bob told them calmly. ‘So we better start collecting some missiles.’ They looked at him cautiously. ‘Stones and that,’ he suggested.

  ‘Stones?’ Mick said dismissively. ‘Great! Stone-age men against the paramilitary? What chance do we have?’

  ‘More than if you sit here on your backside,’ Bob answered with a look of scorn. ‘Call yourself union men!’

  ‘Aye, he’s right. And I’ve got more than stones,’ Dan spoke up, a sickly grin on his pasty face. Out of his pocket he drew an object and flicked it open.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ Mick exclaimed. ‘Give it here, you daft bugger!’ He leaned over and wrested the knife from Dan’s grasp. Securing the blade, he put it in his back pocket. ‘We don’t want that kind of trouble, man.’

  Dan gave him a surly look. ‘That’s typical of you, Mick Todd. You talk a good fight all the time but when it comes to a scrap you’re just good at running away. I’m not afraid to use a weapon on the pigs!’ He grabbed at a dandelion in the grass and thrust it childishly under Mick’s chin. ‘Aye, you’re yeller, just as I thought.’

  Mick flushed at the accusation of being a coward. He knew Dan was just lashing out to save face, but he was furious nonetheless. More furious perhaps because he was still smarting from his ignoble flight from the trouble. He had watched Marty being carted off and done nothing to try and help him. Mick’s control went as he lunged at Dan and knocked him back in the grass.

  Immediately, John and Eddy seized him and pulled him off.

  ‘Steady on, lads!’ Eddy warned. ‘It solves nowt to scrap among ourselves.’

  Mick sank back, ashamed once more.

  The men lapsed into silence again and watched Bob as he stood up and climbed through a hole in the fencing. When he re-emerged, he thrust out a fist in Mick’s direction.

  ‘If you want to fight, then take this,’ he challenged. Mick looked at him inquiringly. Bob’s eyes seemed to be assessing his worth.

  Mick put out his hand. ‘Give us it.’

  Bob placed a large stone on his palm. ‘This time we fight back,’ he said quietly, but with all the authority of an order.

  The day was warm and before returning to the picket, they trooped off into the housing estate to buy cans of pop and sandwiches. But as they descended the hill once more, Mick could see that the situation had grown far worse. The road was lined with instant response unit vans and the front lines of police were equipped with full riot gear. His stomach twisted at the sight of the glinting blue helmets and perspex visors and shields arrayed like a military force against them. And beyond them they could see and hear the impatient stamp and whinny of horses - the mounted police.

  ‘The gates are completely blocked off now,’ John said in dismay. ‘We’ll not get anywhere near them.’

  ‘Aye,’ Eddy grunted, looking worn out. ‘Maybes we should gan back up the road and wait for the bus.’

  ‘No,’ Bob scotched the idea. ‘Sooner or later they’re going to try and get another convoy in again. We’ve got to be there to stop it.’

  ‘Aye,’ Mick agreed grimly, ‘we came here to do a job. We’re not ganin’ to run away twice in one day.’

  They carried on down the road towards the crowds ahead. As they neared the other pi
ckets, they picked up a rumour that Arthur Scargill had been arrested earlier in the day. It fuelled their anger and pent-up frustration at their failure to stop the blackleg lorry drivers from reaching the plant.

  ‘What’s happening now?’ Eddy asked, as he shared a cigarette with a man in the crowd.

  ‘Summat’s up,’ the man replied. ‘I think they’re going to try and clear the road any minute. I can hear the lorries revving up in the plant.’

  A few minutes later a loud-hailer ordered the pickets to retreat. The jostling began again. Lines of riot police began to advance. The barrage of noise grew louder and the pickets shoved in return. Suddenly a stone came whizzing over Mick’s head from the back of the crowd and landed with a clang against a riot shield. A shower of other stones followed. Mick ducked instinctively.

  ‘Bloody coward!’

  Mick turned to see who had spoken. It was Bob.

  ‘Not much of a Todd, are you? Think more of saving your own skin than standing up for your family and marras, don’t you?’ he taunted.

  Mick looked at him in astonished fury. He had no idea why this man had suddenly taken against him. How dare he question his loyalty to his family and friends? Mick had a fleeting painful thought of Carol struggling to make ends meet without complaint, los-ing her job because of the strike, yet doing all she could to help feed and look after mining families. And he thought of sweet, loving, demanding Laura having to suffer because of scabs who drove over picket lines and police who colluded with the Coal Board and Government to break their strike. He seethed inwardly at the injustice of it all and for being attacked by one of his own kind.

  ‘Don’t lecture me, you bald bastard! I haven’t seen you do owt but talk a good fight so far!’

  Another loud-hailer warning crackled out over their heads. If the stone-throwing continued they would use the mounted police to break up the crowd.

  Bob’s eyes glinted challengingly at Mick. ‘Watch this then, Toddy!’ He drew back his arm and flung the piece of brick he had been nursing over the heads of the pickets into the ranks of police. Mick stared after the missile, horrified. Then something inside him snapped and he did something he thought he would never do. Spurred on by the man’s scorn and livid at their impotency, he hurled his larger stone, shouting his fury at the top of his voice.

 

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