Durham Trilogy 03. Never Stand Alone

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

  Charlie turned to see Dan, blood dripping from his mouth, being bundled beyond the pit gates. After him ran Ted Laws, escaping his immobile bus, clutching his bloodied head. The gates closed and the men fell back. As Charlie looked to see what had happened to Mick, some of the miners turned on the bus instead, wreaking their revenge and frustration on the vehicle that had brought in the scabs.

  ‘Proud’s are bastards!’

  ‘This one’ll not bring in any more scabs!’

  ‘Turn it over!’

  Makeshift missiles, bricks and debris from the waste ground around, rained on to the bus. The police fell back from the volatile crowd, their main mission accomplished. The security cameras put there during the week, watching like unblinking eyes above the pit gates, would identify the offenders later.

  Eddy appeared at Charlie’s side, gawping at the sight of the bus being battered. Several men were now trying to heave it over. At the third attempt they succeeded.

  ‘They’ve got Mick,’ Charlie said, full of anger, kicking the ground.

  Eddy nodded. ‘I saw. Did he smash the window?’

  Charlie shrugged. ‘I didn’t see who did it.’

  ‘He’ll be for the high jump now, mind.’

  Charlie swung round, glaring furiously. ‘I know that! And all for that bloody Hardman boy and after all Mick’s done for him. I tell you now, Eddy, Dan Hardman will never cross my doorstep again.’

  ‘Watch out!’ Eddy cried, pulling Charlie back with him.

  A flash of vivid light lit the dawn sky and then flared crazily. The bus was on fire. The two brothers leapt back to safety, cursing the way things had spiralled out of control. A siren wailed in the distance and Charlie looked up the hill to see the riot police regrouping, extra men pouring out of the back of instant response unit vans. Charlie knew they would be powerless to defend themselves. He had heard so many tales of violence around picket lines from the travelling pickets but he never thought it would come to Brassbank. They would always be solid behind the strike, Charlie had believed. They were Durham men who had proved themselves for generations as loyal to the union asto their own kin.

  But as the dark waves of police swept down on them once more, Charlie’s faith was shattered. And the spectre of 1926, buried in his childish memory for so long, rose up to haunt him. His own father had defended him then, but just now he had been powerless to protect his own son from arrest.

  ‘What do we do now?’ Eddy asked, quite at a loss.

  Charlie answered with bleak determination, ‘Remember the lodge banner, “Never Stand Alone”. That’s what we do, Eddy, we stand with the others.’ He stepped forward, fists bunched, his square face set. ‘And we fight!’

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The news reached the women in Whitby later that day. Sid rang them from Joanne’s to tell them of the picket line trouble and several arrests. Carol spoke to him briefly.

  ‘Sorry, pet, but Mick’s been arrested - his dad an’ all.’

  Carol was stunned. ‘But what happened?’

  Sid explained quickly about the return to work of three Brassbank miners. ‘Mick stopped the bus going in the first day,’ Sid told her proudly. ‘But there was all hell on this morning. Mick had a go at one of the scabs. They say it was Dan Hardman.’

  Carol gasped. ‘Never!’

  ‘Listen; don’t tell your Linda until things are clearer, eh?’ Sid suggested. ‘We’re sending a bus down to collect you all tomorrow.’

  ‘I wish I could be back sooner,’ Carol said, trying to control her voice. ‘Is Mick all right?’

  There was a pause, then Sid said, ‘We’re trying to find out where they’re holding him. We’ll know more by the time you’re back.’

  Carol could not speak. She felt faint at the thought of what might happen to Mick now. And Charlie arrested too. What a blow to their resistance.

  Just as she was about to ring off, Sid asked, ‘Can I speak to Kelly a minute?’

  Carol’s stomach lurched. So Kelly had not gone home yet. Where on earth could she be?

  ‘Sorry, Sid, she’s out,’ Carol answered.

  Sid grunted. ‘Well, tell her I’ll see her at home tomorrow.’

  Carol agreed and rang off quickly. All the women were gathered in the dining room talking about the news. June was in tears because her husband Frankie was one of the arrested. May came over and hugged Carol.

  ‘We’ll stick by you, pet,’ she comforted.

  Carol wanted to cry at her kindness. ‘Oh, May. What about poor Lotty?’

  ‘The sooner we all get home the better,’ Dot said. ‘The men need us there more than ever.’

  ‘Aye,’ May agreed. ‘Look what happens when we go off for a fortnight. They get themselves into bother, that’s what! They’re worse than the bairns.’

  Carol wondered how she was going to get through the night waiting for the journey home. They had all packed and most of them were watching the TV with the children, or sitting out on the steps chatting quietly. The temperature had suddenly dropped with the onset of wet weather and Carol shivered in the dampness as she shared a cigarette with Denise. Summer was abruptly over.

  ‘Will you look at that!’ May exclaimed.

  They turned to see a large yellow Dodge pulling up outside the hostel.

  ‘Isn’t that Uncle Eddy?’ Denise asked.

  Carol was on her feet and running down the steps to meet him. ‘Eddy!’ she cried and hugged him dearly as he climbed out of his huge battered old American car.

  ‘Thought you’d find it hard waiting till the morra,’ he smiled, ‘and Lotty wants you back sharp.’

  Carol had no idea how he had afforded the petrol to come down and fetch them, but she was thrilled to see him and hear that Lotty needed her.

  ‘And can you take Linda and Calvin too?’ Carol asked.

  Eddy nodded. ‘Aye, it’s best if they come home now.’

  Carol noticed the tension in his face but asked no more questions. She raced back into the hostel to fetch Laura and their luggage. When she emerged again, Eddy was sitting in the middle of a throng of women, answering their questions with his usual light banter. He was obviously not going to add to their worries while they were away from their husbands, Carol observed with fondness. Neither did he repeat any rumours about Dan being a scab in front of the others.

  Linda became tearful as she said goodbye to Denise and seemed reluctant to go, but Eddy humoured her into the back of the car with the baby and Laura. As the sun set over the moors, the other women waved them away and promised to meet up as soon as they got home.

  It was only in the privacy of Eddy’s car that he began to tell them of the traumatic events of the past days. When he told them of Grandda Bowman’s death, Linda burst into floods of tears and Eddy had to pull the car into a lay-by while they calmed her down. Later, when they were on the road again and Linda and Laura had dozed off in the back, exhausted from crying, Eddy told Carol what had happened subsequently.

  Carol wanted to cry herself when she heard how Dan had betrayed them; she understood how Mick had lost all reason.

  ‘Charlie and me were caught up in the scuffle after the bus was burned but I was sent home. The others are being kept in. They’ll be up before the mags tomorrow.’

  Carol’s heart was leaden. She knew Mick was in real trouble this time. He had assaulted Dan Hardman and probably caused the bus to crash in the first place. She should have been there! Perhaps she could have stopped him. And dear Grandda dead. She wanted to weep.

  They arrived back in the village after dark, but before they were halfway down the hill, Eddy was stopped at a roadblock.

  ‘You can’t take a vehicle down here,’ the policeman told them.

  ‘But we live down there,’ Eddy said, ‘in the rows.’

  ‘Sorry,’ the man looked apologetic, ‘there’s no traffic allowed on the lane up to the pit. You’ll have to park here and walk down.’

  Carol sprang out of the car and faced him. ‘We’ve g
ot a bairn and a two-month-old baby in the back! What do you mean we have to walk?’

  ‘There’s been a lot of trouble today, we’re just making sure it’s peaceful from now on,’ he explained. ‘I can get someone to help you carry things.’

  ‘You’ve no right to stop us moving about our own village,’ Carol said, furious. ‘What are you, the bloody Gestapo?’

  ‘Carol,’ Eddy intervened, ‘we’re in enough bother as it is. Get in and I’ll park the car.’

  ‘Don’t be so soft!’ Carol said with contempt. ‘He’s no right to stop us driving to our own homes.’

  Linda and the children began to stir in the back. ‘What’s wrong, Mam?’ Laura said in alarm.

  Carol glared at the policeman who was answering a crackling radio.

  ‘Haway, Carol,’ Eddy appealed to her, ‘Lotty doesn’t need you arrested an’ all.’

  Carol swallowed her fury and got back in the car. Eddy parked in a back lane and they trudged down the hill to Septimus Street, Carol carrying Laura while Eddy humped their cases.

  Lotty was waiting up for them and both Linda and Carol fell into her arms with relief. There were tears and talk well into the night and Linda was finally told about Dan’s return to work and Mick’s attack. She howled with distress and woke Calvin and Laura. Carol could not comfort her daughter who screamed for her daddy and wailed that she would never see him again.

  ‘You shouldn’t have taken me on holiday, Mam,’ Laura sobbed. ‘It’s all your fault! I want my daddy!’

  Eventually Lotty managed to calm the child and she lay down on the bed beside her granddaughter, while Carol slept fitfully on Laura’s other side. In the morning, still exhausted, Linda insisted she was going to return to Dan and rang his parents. Dan had been discharged from hospital but was off work with concussion. Reluctantly his father agreed to come and pick her up with the baby later.

  Lotty was close to tears. ‘Please stay with us, pet,’ she pleaded, ‘at least until your father comes home.’

  ‘He might not be coming home,’ Linda snapped. ‘Any road, you’re all against me and Dan now. How can I stay here after what Mick did? I’m going back to Dan. He’s the one who needs me.’

  ‘Let her go,’ Carol said, exhausted and resigned. ‘We can’t run her life for her for ever.’ She looked at the fretful Calvin and thought how wrong it was that he was having to drink watered-down condensed milk for some of his feeds because they could not afford the baby formula. At least if Linda went back to Dan, their baby might have a better chance of survival. There would be a wage coming in, Carol thought with a twinge of resentment, and for the first time glimpsed why Linda might be leaving.

  She said, ‘You go up and have a wash. I’ll give Calvin his bottle. Then Eddy can take you over to the Hardmans’. There’s no need for Mr Hardman to come here.’

  Linda looked at her with suspicion but did as she suggested. Lotty sat down and wept while Carol cradled Calvin.

  ‘Oh God, I can’t bear it!’

  ‘It’s probably for the best that Linda’s gone when Charlie gets home,’ Carol said. ‘He might take it out on the lass. Linda will come back if she needs us.’ But silently she doubted whether Linda would ever return to Septimus Street, or whether she would ever be accepted there again. She knew that Dan certainly would not. She hugged Calvin tighter.

  They listened to the sounds of Laura kicking a ball against the back wall, like she so often did with her father. It made Carol want to weep for her young daughter, frightened and confused by what was going on. But she knew she had to be strong for them all, stronger than she had ever been before. Lotty’s courage was crumbling in the face of her father’s sudden death and the arrests of her husband and son. Carol had to carry the burden for them all until her mother-in-law recovered.

  ‘Here, Mam,’ she said gently, holding out Calvin, ‘take your grandson for a bit of a cuddle.’

  Lotty blew her nose and put on a brave face, then took the baby in her arms.

  ‘Oh, you poor little lamb,’ she crooned as she rocked him close to her, ‘what sort of future will you have?’

  Mick was silent. He had learned from experience. He would not be tripped up by his questioners like before. It was all he had to fling back at them: defiance, silence.

  ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘Who are your next of kin?’

  ‘Are you related to Charlie Todd?’

  ‘You’re a union activist, aren’t you?’

  ‘Your wife’s mixed up in politics, isn’t she?’

  ‘Did you throw the brick?’

  ‘You’re a dangerous man. You could have got people killed. Did you ever stop to think of that?’

  ‘How long had you planned your attack?’

  ‘You’ve got a record of violence, haven’t you? You’re up on riot charges, aren’t you?’

  ‘You’re an out-and-out criminal, masquerading as a striking miner, aren’t you, Todd?’

  ‘You’re a piece of scum!’

  ‘You’re going away where you belong - among the rest of the filth.’

  Silence. Mick answered no questions and reacted to no insults. He did not even confirm his name. He sat mute throughout and the more angry and impatient his questioners became, the more powerful he felt. They thought they had him beaten. But he - Mick Todd, son of Charlie Todd, grandson of legendary Michael Samuel Todd - was not beaten, would never be beaten.

  In the afternoon, Eddy drove Lotty and Carol over to the magistrates’ court in Whittledene. The other women had arrived back from Whitby and Denise had come straight round to Septimus Street. She had swiftly seen the state of things and taken Laura off to the park with a promise of a trip of Dimarco’s on the way back. Paul Dimarco was well known for giving the children of the strikers free treats without them asking.

  The court was packed with press and relations of the accused. Carol noticed with a jolt that Pete Fletcher was there among the reporters, but she glanced away when he tried to catch her eye. Lotty squeezed her hand and began to tremble when Charlie was led into the dock along with Frankie Burt and two others. There was a buzz among the press at the sight of him. The lodge deputy was a force to be reckoned with in Brassbank; he had masterminded much of their union resistance and here he was up on criminal charges.

  The men were charged with minor riot offences, pleaded guilty and given suspended sentences of a year. Angry murmurings broke out in the courtroom, but Lotty clung to Carol in relief that Charlie was being released.

  ‘Licence to give him hell for a year, that’s what the suspended sentence means,’ Eddy muttered to Carol. ‘He’ll have to stay squeaky clean.’

  She could not speak, for her eyes were riveted to the sight of Mick being led out alone, between two police guards. He still wore the grubby clothes he had been arrested in and his hair looked unkempt, his unshaven face bruised and unwashed. But he stood defiant, composed, his blue eyes fixed on the magistrates, showing no fear. A huge lump formed in Carol’s throat at the sight of her husband, so brave yet so alone.

  He was charged with assault and criminal damage and remanded in custody pending trial at the Crown Court. He had broken his bail and would not be bailed again. Carol watched him standing there, erect and expressionless, silent throughout. And then he was being led away and the court broke out in noisy protest. They were all bundled out of the courtroom. Outside there were local television reporters pressing around them for interviews. Carol caught a glimpse of Pete Fletcher, but he was holding back and did not approach them.

  ‘How do you feel about your husband’s arrest?’

  ‘How are you managing, Mrs Todd?’

  ‘What do you think of Scargill and the strike now?’

  The questions rained in on Carol as Eddy tried to steer her to the safety of the car. She was shaking with distress and rage. She wanted to speak back at them and say all the clever things she had said to rally people to their cause in the past. But she could not utter a word. All she could think of was M
ick, somewhere in the building behind her being led away to a cell or a waiting security van to take him off to prison.

  Prison! They had talked about it in theory before. They had even talked of it with pride when harking back to Mick’s grandfather’s heroic spell in prison in 1926. But this was reality. Mick, her once happy, uncomplicated, law-abiding husband, would be locked up like a common criminal while he awaited trial. The unthinkable had happened.

  Carol hardly remembered getting home. Charlie and Lotty and Eddy were there and some of her friends came round to comfort and reassure her that he would soon be released. But all she could feel was a numb unreality.

  Finally Eddy came back with some whisky from The Ship and poured her a large tot, then Lotty put her to bed. Carol passed out with fatigue sometime in the middle of the night, vaguely wishing she would never have to wake up.

  The days passed in a blur. Carol insisted on staying with Laura at Dominion Terrace, feeling closer to Mick that way. She longed to see him, but it took Charlie a while to find out when she could visit him at the new high-security prison between Whittledene and Durham. Meanwhile, the trickle of returning miners continued and the battles grew more bitter.

  The village seemed gripped by tension and suspicion. Police from other forces patrolled their streets, going into shops and harassing the wives of strikers, dropping lewd comments and making obscene gestures. Paul Dimarco put up a sign of protest, telling police on picket duty they would not be served in his cafe. One officer marched in and tore down the sign and deliberately knocked over a large bell jar of sweets from the counter, which smashed on the tiled floor.

  At the pit gates the new police waved five pound notes at the pickets and walked by them in the late summer sun eating ice creams.

  ‘When’s the last time your kiddies had one of these?’ one mocked.

  ‘Carry on striking,’ another crowed, ‘the overtime’s getting me a holiday to the Caribbean. Pity you’ll never be able to afford a foreign holiday again,’ he laughed. ‘Bet your wife and kiddies love you for that!’