by Maggie Hope
‘But … but what about your bed? You cannot walk all day and go down the pit on a night, man!’
‘It wouldn’t be the first time,’ said Tommy stolidly. He picked up his stick, which was standing in the corner by the fire, and walked over to the door. ‘Good night to ye,’ he said and pulled the sneck to behind him.
‘Harry,’ Lottie began but Harry cut her short.
‘I’ll go meself,’ he said. ‘I’ll set off now. It’s nobbut a few miles, I’ve walked further down the pit. I’m not wasting money on the train.’
Lottie sighed. ‘At least get some supper into you first, Harry,’ she said. She did not argue with him. It was true that he was in better shape to walk to Durham than his father and he would get some sleep before walking back in the early morning, in time for the back shift.
The doctor and medicine and a few extras to tempt Mary Anne’s appetite had taken all the spare money they had. Illness could be very dear, Lottie thought dismally as Harry’s pit boots rang on the stones as he walked down the yard to set off for Durham City. And at the pace Harry could walk, he could do the six or seven miles in an hour or very little more. But would Eliza be able to come? She was married to Peter Collier, the union man, and something almost unheard of, she still worked as a nurse in the pit villages around Durham.
The other thing was that Eliza had written to say she was having a bairn in a few months’ time. A call from the postman was a rare event in the miners’ houses, and especially in 35 Burns Row, but now Harry and Lottie were such good readers, they could read a letter to Mary Anne and Tommy.
Lottie cleared the supper things and hung Albert’s pit clothes by the fire to air, ready for him going on fore shift. She filled his bait tin with bread and bramble jam made from the fruit she had picked last autumn and made sure his metal water bottle was full. Then she checked on Mary Anne, who was propped up by pillows in the double bed in the corner of the front room, dozing fitfully. There was little coal in the bucket by the room fireplace so she took a shovelful from the fireback in the kitchen and banked up the fire with that. At last she was free to read her book for an hour or so before Albert came in.
The book had dropped on to her knee and she was dozing herself when she woke with a start. She was stiff and aching from sleeping in the chair and she put her hands to her back and stretched luxuriously. It was the sound of Albert’s pit boots coming down the yard that had woken her; a moment later he opened the door and came in.
‘I’m late,’ he said, and indeed the pit hooter was sounding down the rows, calling in the men on shift.
‘I’ll go in to bed,’ said Lottie. She had taken to sleeping on a shakey-down in the front room when Tommy wasn’t there. It allowed the lads some privacy to change in the warm kitchen. She lay for a while after Albert went out, running down the yard and up the row, catching up with the rest of the men converging on the pithead. She could hear the tramp of their feet on the stones and then there was quiet. Not total quiet: Mary Anne’s breathing was laboured and rasping and she kept muttering unintelligibly in her sleep.
The firelight flickered and played on the walls of the room, recently lime-washed on the orders of the mining agent, for there was cholera about in the county; mainly around Sunderland way it was true but it could sweep through the pit villages, with their midden heaps and lack of piped clean water.
Lottie watched the flickering light, seeing strange shapes in the shadows and weaving stories about them; fantastical stories, for she couldn’t get back to sleep. She lay and thought about Harry. Oh, he was a canny lad, he was. She was very fond of him. Most of the girls her age had already paired off with a lad. They were ‘walking out’, or some even courting, which in West Stanley was the equivalent of being engaged to be married. Even more, in spite of the minister’s disapproval. But what was a young couple to do? The wage a young hewer brought into the home was often vital when fathers were disabled in the pit or even just too old to hew. And the lasses now, they so often had to take on the running of the home when mothers were worn down and ill.
In the flickering firelight, Mary Anne moved restlessly as she laboured to breathe and Lottie got up to check on her. But Mary Anne settled down again and Lottie got back on to her shakey-down.
Aye, Harry was a nice lad and she didn’t want to cause him any grief. But he was a stay-at-home lad; all the books he got from the literacy class were enough for him. He had no wish to travel further than Durham and then only when there was something momentous on, like the opening of the Miners’ Hall in North Road. That was taking place in June and was all the talk in West Stanley.
Lottie turned on to her back and stared at the ceiling. She would settle down with Harry, she acknowledged to herself, but not yet. She was going to write, she was indeed. Only she had to be able to support herself. Just now, she did not really get a wage from Tommy and Mary Anne, for they simply didn’t have the money, but she had her keep. The boys gave her tuppence each for what she did for them, but that was the only actual cash she had.
She did not feel herself hard done by. It was nice living as part of a family. If only she could get on and do what she most wanted to do, she thought. She had a pile of exercise books, bought for a penny a time over the weeks from Mr Bateman, who bought them by the gross for a ha’penny each at Andrews and Co. in Durham City. The profits from this enterprise went towards the educating of the poorest children in the place, for even at the new National Schools the children were expected to pay threepence a week to learn reading and writing and adding up.
She had started to write stories in the books and she was almost ready to show them to Mr Bateman, but so far she had not been able to summon up the nerve to do so. And that way of thinking was not going to make her rich and famous, no it was not, she knew that. Lottie sighed and closed her eyes. Only supposing Mr Bateman told her she was wasting her time? Sleep overcame her.
Lottie woke to the sound of the back door opening and closing. Weak daylight was filtering through the curtain and Mary Anne was very quiet in the bed. Lottie scrambled to her feet and pulled on her old stuff dress, drawing the waist in by pulling the tapes threaded through and tying them at the back.
‘Are you decent, Lottie?’
It was Harry’s voice; he must be back from Durham already. The room was cold, the fire out. She combed her hair back from her face with her fingers and turned to the bed, at the same time calling out to Harry.
‘You can come in Harry.’
Dear God, Mary Anne was very quiet and very still. She reached a hand out and touched the older woman’s forehead. It was cold. Frantically she pulled the patchwork quilt up over Mary Anne’s chest and shoulders.
‘Fetch a shovelful of fire from the kitchen grate, Harry. Hurry!’
‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ Harry was behind her. He peered over her shoulder. ‘Pull back the curtain, Lottie,’ he cried and she ran to the window and let in more of the dawn light.
Mary Anne was gone, passed away during the night, during the short time that Lottie had slept, and she felt like a murderer.
‘I thought she was just cold, Harry. I thought she was asleep. It’s my fault, Harry, I should have been awake.’
‘Yes, you should have been,’ said Harry harshly. ‘It’s no good bringing in fire from the kitchen now, is it? She’s gone.’ He kept his eyes on his mother’s face for a few more moments, then turned away.
‘I’ll go for me da and our Albert,’ he said. He did not look at Lottie as he went out. ‘I reckon you were likely scribbling in that bloody book of yours,’ he said. His face was white and strained, but he did not weep. He was a man and a hewer and they did not weep.
Lottie did not blame him for what he said. She blamed herself. This was the second time this had happened when she was supposed to be looking after someone. She was no good, selfish, she told herself. Mechanically, she began to tidy the bed, pulling the quilt even closer around the still figure.
‘I’ve worked out what should be d
one,’ said Eliza. She had come over from Durham in her little tub trap. The trap was standing in the back street now, for the funeral was over and the family gathered in the kitchen. The minister had gone, along with all the neighbours who had been there for the funeral tea of ham and pease pudding and stotty cake; followed by funeral cake, a sort of light fruit cake.
Tommy, sitting by the fire and smoking his clay pipe, did not look up or take any interest in what was said.
‘Me da’s in a world of his own,’ Albert had commented to Harry and Dora.
Harry nodded, but in truth he too was taking little notice of what was being said.
‘Lottie cannot stay here, not on her own in a house with three men.’
Lottie felt as though her heart had dropped into her boots. They were going to tell her to go. Well, she deserved it, for she had neglected Mary Anne when she was dying. She stared at her hands, red and chapped from so much immersion in soda water, and yet marked with a couple of blue scars where coal dust had got into the chaps when she dashed the pit clothes on the outside wall.
‘I reckon it’s time Albert and Dora were wed,’ Eliza went on. Everyone of the family looked up, apart from Tommy, who took the pipe from his mouth and spit coaly phlegm into the heart of the fire, where it hissed for a few seconds.
‘We cannot! Not so soon after Mam died,’ said Albert, and Dora began to tremble and clenched her hands together to stop it.
‘Well, you needn’t have a do,’ said Eliza. ‘A nice quiet wedding in the chapel with just the minister and the family. You would be all right with that, wouldn’t you, Dora?’
Dora gave her a quick glance and nodded.
‘Well then, I’m sure the agent will agree to Albert taking over this house. Only Tommy and Harry will have to stay.’
Nothing was said about where she was to go, thought Lottie and immediately felt even more guilty for thinking of herself again. She rose to her feet.
‘I’ll take a breath of fresh air,’ Lottie murmured and went out. No one said anything and she thought they hadn’t even noticed her but Eliza had watched her progress up the yard and saw her pause at the gate. She looked across to her husband, Peter Collier, the union man, and he nodded.
‘Lottie can come back to Durham with me,’ she said.
‘You’re right bossy, our Eliza,’ said Albert.
‘Can you think of anything else to do?’ demanded Eliza.
He shook his head. In fact, he was well pleased with the plan.
Ten
Though Lottie had some bad memories of Durham, she loved the narrow streets of the ancient city, especially the busy shopping streets leading out of the marketplace. She looked forward to going for the ‘messages’ to Lockey’s, the tea dealer and family grocer, whose shop was at 14 Market Place and where exotic foods could be bought. Luxury items such as imperial plums in bottles and crystallized fruits and ginger and many different cheeses such as Cotherstone and Wensleydale and even Stilton.
Not that Lottie did much shopping at Lockey’s, as everyday shopping was done at the Durham Co-operative Society, which everyone was beginning to call the Store. Lottie took the order in weekly and it was delivered by the Store horse and cart the following day. But Eliza, being six months into her pregnancy, took some strange fancies, and Peter did his best to indulge her even if it was only a quarter pound of Cotherstone cheese from way up Teesdale.
Peter did not earn a great wage and of course Eliza could not work while she was expecting, that would have been a scandal. As far as possible, women stayed in seclusion when in a certain condition, at least in a town such as Durham. It was not a pit village. But he was a union man and in regular work now the union was legitimate and becoming stronger. So Lottie had instructions to buy a jar of imperial plums this day at the beginning of June. For tomorrow, 3 June, the new Miners’ Hall was to open officially and the family were coming in to witness it and Eliza wanted a special tea.
Plum pie and custard was very special, and there were cold cuts of pork from the Store and tomatoes, Spanish tomatoes that is, for even the forced tomatoes from Peter’s coal-heated greenhouse in the back garden were far from ready as yet. Though there were lettuces, also brought on in the greenhouse.
Lottie thought back over the few weeks she had been living in Durham as she walked along Saddler Street towards the marketplace. Everything had changed in her life. She hadn’t seen Harry since she had been here and she missed him, as well as Mr Bateman and the literacy class.
‘You must join one here, there must be one,’ Eliza had said. She had noticed Lottie’s exercise books and asked about them. Eliza was a woman who had forced her way up in the world; she had trained as a nurse against all odds and she had loads of self-confidence, for hadn’t she had Mary Anne for a mam and Tommy for a da? Whereas Lottie was shy of pushing herself forward. But she would, she told herself, sometimes she could, she would have to if she wanted to realize her ambitions.
Pausing before the window of Andrews and Co., the stationers in Saddler Street, Lottie read the advertisements in the newspaper stuck to the glass. By, it was good to be able to do that, she told herself. She should stand up and do things for herself, she must have a good mind or she wouldn’t have got so far, would she?
And Mr Bateman said she had a good mind and he should know, he was so clever himself.
GOVERNMENT EMIGRATION TO
NEW SOUTH WALES
Reduced Rates
Now, she knew where that was for hadn’t Mr Bateman told them about Captain James Cook, who had been born just over the Tees and had mapped out New South Wales? It was in a place called Australia, Mr Bateman had said. Maybe one day she would even travel to New South Wales, when she sold a book. Not that she had any idea how much she would get for writing a book, but surely it would be enough.
One evening, Mr Bateman had put on a slide show and there were pictures of the people who were native to New South Wales. They were as black as any man up from the pit and wore hardly any clothes, which Mr Bateman had said was because it was so hot. One day she might go there. She could do anything she put her mind to, even travelling the world. Lottie sighed. So long as she wasn’t too timid about it, she told herself.
There was an advertisement for Dr Gray concerning vaccination for smallpox. ‘Smallpox is raging,’ it stated. ‘Vaccination is the only way of preventing its spread.’
Lottie shivered. By, she didn’t want smallpox. Even if it didn’t kill you, it left a person badly scarred. She decided she would ask Eliza about vaccination, how much would it cost.
‘I’d best get on,’ she murmured to herself and turned away. She had taken no more than a couple of steps when she heard her name called.
‘Lottie! Lottie Lonsdale!’
It was a lad, a pit lad of about ten years old. He was in pit clothes and his face and hands were black. She didn’t recognize him as he ran up to her and he grinned and his white teeth gleamed whiter against the coal dust.
‘Noah?’ she asked hesitantly.
‘Nay, I’m Matthew. Can you not bring me to mind?’
‘Mattie! By, how you’ve grown,’ said Lottie. ‘You’re working down the pit now?’
‘I am,’ said Mattie proudly. ‘I’m on fore shift. I just came into Durham on a message for me da.’
A gentleman walking by with a lady took hold of her arm and pulled her to one side so that neither of them came within a foot of the black boy, which was the term used by the townspeople for the pit lads.
‘They shouldn’t be allowed on the streets with decent people,’ the woman said loudly. ‘It’s no wonder there are such awful diseases about.’
Lottie glared at her and her escort but they were hurrying away now. Frightened of contamination, no doubt. Mattie saw she was angry.
‘Take no notice, I don’t,’ said Mattie. ‘I should not have come in before I had me wash but Da was in a hurry.’
He must have been, thought Lottie. What was he thinking of, sending a lad on an errand when
he’d been working down the pit all night? Counting in her head, she decided that Mattie could be no more than ten years old.
‘You went away and you never came back to see us,’ said Mattie suddenly. ‘Why?’
Lottie felt so guilty she didn’t know what to say. She stared at the young boy. He was tall for his age but pinched-looking and now she noticed how tired he looked beneath the grime. And thin: why, he hadn’t a picking on him.
‘You were all right, though, weren’t you, Mattie? I mean, your da would get someone else to take my place, didn’t he?’
‘Aye. But Betty’s not like you, Lottie. She’s a workhouse lass like you but she’s different.’
‘Betty? What’s her other name? I might know her.’
‘Bates, and she knows you. Why did you go away and not come back, Lottie?’
‘I had to, Mattie. I’m sorry. I’ll keep in touch now though, Mattie, I’ll write to you. I can read and write now. I couldn’t before, not properly.’
‘Promise?’
‘I promise. I have to go now, I have messages to do and so have you,’ she reminded him.
She watched as he sped along Saddler Street to the bookie’s. Alf Green was still gambling then, she thought. He should have been in a comfortable position now, an overman at Sherburn Hill Colliery. His youngest lad should not have had to go down the pit so young. He could still have been at school, for Mattie was a bright boy.
As she went on her way to Lockey’s provisions shop she felt a small, nagging worry about Betty Bates, living and working in the same house as Alf Green. She would have to keep in touch with Mattie, ask him how Betty was. She might even go to see her. When Alf Green was safely at work, of course.
‘They’re back,’ said Eliza, coming into the kitchen of the house in Gilesgate which she and Peter had moved into when they married. ‘Push the kettles on to the fire, Lottie, please.’
Eliza had been sitting by the front window waiting for the men of the family to return from North Road, where the Miners’ Hall had been officially opened that very day, Saturday 3 June 1876. All the family were aware of the importance of the occasion. The Durham Miners’ Association had been meeting in the Market Hotel, but now they had their very own hall in North Road. Even little Bertie sat quietly on his mother Dora’s knee and stared solemnly around at the assembled family.