The Shadow of War

by Stewart Binns

  ‘The Clarets’, their new nickname following their decision to wear claret and blue just four years ago, have started their season today with a shock home defeat to Bradford City, losing by a single goal. Over 11,000 fans – an excellent gate – have turned up, full of expectation that, following victory in the FA Cup in the spring, this will be Burnley’s year and will bring the club’s first league title.

  There is much head-shaking and muttering about the performance. The ominous events in France could not be further away, even though there are posters everywhere asking for volunteers for ‘Field Marshal Kitchener’s New Army’. Recruitment leaflets were issued before and after the game, but most men are too preoccupied with the loss of two points at the beginning of the season to pay much attention to events a very long way away.

  The vast majority of Burnley’s fans are poorly educated, semi-literate weavers and miners. Although most will have had schooling up to the age of twelve or thirteen, many would have been truants or poor performers in the classroom, which typically housed up to forty children. Burnley’s weavers and miners have little knowledge of the events of the day, beyond local concerns such as what is in their pay packet, or the price of beer and cigarettes. Nor do they have much sense of deference or respect for the British class system and the privileged elite who sit at its pinnacle. To many, the war in France is not their fight – at least, not yet.

  A particularly despondent group sits at a corner table, readily made available by the Wellington’s landlord, who knows they will help him sort out any trouble if it should occur later. Not only are they disappointed at the afternoon’s result, they are also weighed down by significant personal issues.

  Tommy and Mary Broxup have both lost their jobs, as have Mick and Cath Kenny. Vinny Sagar still has his job, but his ambition to become a professional sportsman has been dealt a severe body blow. His pal, Twaites Haythornthwaite, is heartbroken for Vinny but has also suffered a personal calamity of sorts: he is still smarting from yet another female rejection the night before.

  Vinny trained with Burnley’s trialists last weekend, played in a trial-team friendly against Preston North End on Monday evening and had two more evening training sessions during the week. However, on Friday evening he was called into the office of John Haworth, Burnley’s manager, who was with one of the club’s directors, Bob Wadge. The presence of Wadge led Vinny to think his moment had arrived, that he was about to be offered a contract as a junior apprentice. Sadly, nothing could have been further from the truth; he was about to hear the fateful words uttered to many an aspiring footballer.

  ‘Listen, Vinny lad, you’re a quick ’un and tha can thump a ball alreet. But tha’s not big enough, or strong enough, fer top level. Tha could play at a good amateur level, but not as a pro.’

  Vinny almost bursts into tears; the news is devastating.

  ‘Is tha sure, Mr Haworth?’

  ‘Aye, lad; I’m reet sorry.’

  Then the reason for Wadge’s presence becomes clear as he passes Vinny a small envelope.

  ‘There’s a few bob in there, lad. Get tha’sen some beers.’

  Vinny has had twenty-four hours to recover from the news, but is still feeling very raw. His state of mind is not helped by a severe hangover induced by the bellyful of ale consumed by Twaites and himself as they made good use of Bob Wadge’s silver.

  For Tommy and Mary, Mick and Cath, their dilemma is even more traumatic.

  Accrington, Burnley’s nearest neighbour, six miles to the west, is smaller than Burnley, but almost its Lancastrian twin. It is another cotton town but also famous for its ‘Accrington Iron’, the world’s toughest building brick, used to build the base of Blackpool Tower and other monumental buildings, and for the lining of most of Britain’s sewers.

  Since the beginning of July, Accrington has been tormented by a bitter industrial dispute that has brought the town to its knees. Howard and Bullough, the borough’s leading employer, is the world’s largest producer of power looms. Its huge Globe Works sits in the middle of the town like a red-brick colossus; it, too, is built with Accrington Iron.

  On 2 July, Howard and Bullough’s 600 engineers went on strike. Its management had refused to meet the demands of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers for recognition as a trade union and to consent to its demand for a minimum wage for the company’s employees. Six days later, the management locked out the whole workforce of nearly 5,000 men and boys. Although members of the ASE have since received 20 shillings a week lock-out pay, and 1,100 members of the Gasworkers and General Labourers Union have been given 10 shillings a week, some 2,000 non-union workers have been left without any income. Local charities and voluntary collections at mill gates and in pubs and clubs have provided their only means of survival.

  After war was declared, Howard and Bullough’s management decided to relent and, beginning on Monday 17 August, agreed to open the Globe’s gates to those who wanted to go back to work. Many decided to return, but the ASE, which still had not seen its demands met, told its members to stay out.

  After work on 17 August, local socialists and political activists flocked to the Globe Works’ picket lines. Over 100 Burnley union members travelled in a fleet of buses to show solidarity with their Accrington colleagues. Cath Kenny and Mary Broxup were among them. They had organized their shifts so that they could be there and, as violence of some sort was almost inevitable, had insisted that Mick and Tommy went with them. When non-union engineers emerged from the factory, many drafted in from the Midlands, all hell broke out. Bottles and stones were thrown and, wielding their batons, mounted police charged the crowd.

  There were also some in the throng looking for trouble. It was said they were hired thugs brought in by Howard and Bullough to discredit the picketing. Fist fights began everywhere, and Tommy and Mick were soon in the middle of them. After they had both been badly beaten by police truncheons, they were arrested by snatch squads and taken to Accrington Police Station in a Black Maria.

  When Cath and Mary went to try to get them released, they were locked up as well. All four spent the night in the cells: Mick and Tommy with dozens of other strikers, most with cracked heads and other injuries; Cath and Mary with Accrington’s female drunks, down-and-outs and prostitutes. Although not charged with a criminal offence, they were not released until lunchtime the next day and thus missed a day’s work.

  The outcome of the incident was catastrophic for the four of them. North-East Lancashire’s local employers closed ranks and all of them lost their jobs. Cath and Mary had become infamous as troublemakers, and their arrests had given their employers the perfect excuse to sack them. In Mick and Tommy’s case, they had crossed swords too many times with their foremen and supervisors, who were terrified of them, and the altercation in Accrington had provided an ideal opportunity to settle old scores.

  Neither Tommy nor Mick is a union man, so their income has disappeared overnight. Cath and Mary’s union have given them three months at half their normal wage, but the union will not offer any other support, nor fight their dismissal. They have few friends in the union hierarchy, most of whom resent women taking what they think are ‘men’s jobs’ and who dislike their avowed support for the suffragettes.

  Cath Kenny is now four months pregnant and beginning to show. Her anguish is perhaps the greatest of those at the table, all of whom are in a melancholy mood. But she tries not to talk about the predicament they face and asks the men about the afternoon’s game.

  ‘So ’ow did they laik?’

  ‘Like eleven Mary-Annes!’

  Mick is blunt, but Tommy is even more vociferous.

  ‘More like watchin’ fuckin’ blind school laik. That one Bert Freeman missed; I coulda blown it in wi’ me cap! The big pillock!’

  ‘I thought he were a good ’un.’

  ‘Aye, he usually is, Cath, he’s played centre for’ard fer England; but he laiked like a reet barm cake today.’

  Mary is oblivious to the banter about Burnl
ey. She is trying to read various pamphlets and papers on her lap, a task not made easy by the constant jostle of men passing with mugs of ale in their hands. The heavy haze of tobacco smoke and the rising volume of animated male voices does not help much either.

  While the men were at Turf Moor, she and Cath were at the Burnley headquarters of the British Socialist Party. The party is in turmoil, both locally and nationally, split asunder by arguments about the ethics of the war effort. Its leader, Henry Hyndman, who Cath and Mary both revere, has spoken out in favour of supporting Britain’s cause. The news has shocked the majority of grass-roots members. Most not only see the war as a fight between ruling aristocracies, in which working-class people are no better than cannon fodder, but are also instinctively pacifists and reject all forms of violence.

  For Cath and Mary, it is another ethical dilemma to add to the quandary created by the suffragettes’ decision to suspend their protests and to support the war. Mary can see the worry etched on Cath’s face.

  ‘How’s t’bairn?’

  ‘Alreet, I think. I can’t feel anythin’ yet, but I’ve got a grand bump showin’.’

  Cath’s eyes begin to fill. She looks at the men, still talking football.

  ‘What are we goin’ to do, Mary? These daft buggers don’t know what day it is.’

  ‘They’re just men; can’t ’elp th’sels. Most o’ time, when I’m talkin’ to Tommy, it’s like talkin’ to a wood stoop. I’ve been readin’ all this stuff. I don’t know what to think any more.’

  ‘Neither do I, lass. Pankhursts are arguing. They reckon Sylvia wants to carry on protestin’ and is very anti-war. Now Henry’s come out in favour o’ t’war. I don’t know what to mek on it all.’

  ‘I’m t’same. What chance ’ave we got to fathom it, if they can’t agree wi’ all their fancy education?’

  Mary hands Cath a newspaper cutting.

  ‘One o’ t’lads gimme this today.’

  Cath reads it intently. It is from the Burnley Express, a placed advertisement, a nationwide appeal to the men of England from Lady Louise Selina Maxwell, the wife of Sir John Maxwell, a senior army officer and veteran of Omdurman and the Boer War.

  Must we be ashamed to be Englishmen when we see you skulking at home watching football or cricket matches, lying in the grass in the sun, safe and secure – as you fondly delude yourselves – while the manhood of Europe is shedding blood on the battlefield. Awake!

  I am a woman, alas! I cannot go. But my man has gone. England needs you to save her liberty. Wives, give up your husbands. Mothers, send forth your sons. It is time the women rose and bid you go, or they must hang their heads in shame before the brave women of other countries, who have given their all for their country’s sake. Awake! Awake! England needs her sons.

  ‘Forgive my French, Mary, but who the fuck does she think she is!’

  ‘I know, she sounds like a reet stuck-up cow. But read this one from t’Accrington Observer. It’s from a lad called Clayton, addressed to the strikers at Howard an’ Bullough.’

  Mary presses a crumpled page of newsprint into Cath’s hand.

  What are you doing in this time of stress and trial? Shall I tell you the plain and unvarnished truth? You are sitting on your heels on the kerbstones. You are traipsing aimlessly through the already overcrowded streets. You are lounging, sitting and standing near the war office in Dutton Street discussing tactics and methods of a warfare in which you will not, either with hammer or gun, play your part for the honour of your country.

  ‘Who’s “Clayton”?’

  ‘I don’t reetly know. There are other letters, signed “Patriot” and “Loyalist”. They all say t’same thing. Here’s summat else; read this.’

  It is a front-page story from the Burnley Express, with the headline: ‘German Atrocities. Shocking Stories from Belgium.’

  In the towns and villages they begin by requisitioning food and drink, which they consume until intoxicated. Then the scenes of fire, murder and especially pillage begin, accompanied by acts of deliberate cruelty, without respect to age or sex. After a preliminary attack and massacre, they shut up the men in the church and then order the women to return to their homes, but to leave their doors open all night.

  Cath looks up sharply.

  ‘What, so that t’Germans can use ’em like tarts?’

  ‘O’ course! Th’Express is too soft to say so, but that’s what it means.’

  ‘Bugger, that’s terrible! Dost think it all true?’

  ‘Well, somebody t’mornin’ said t’stories were made up by t’government. I don’t know; Jack Mosscrop says it’s true, and ’e works on t’Colne Times. There’s lots o’ lads joinin’ up after readin’ stories like it.’

  ‘I don’t know, Mary. I’m reet confused.’

  ‘Apparently, men can sign up an’ serve together as a bunch o’ lads. They’re callin’ ’em “Pals Battalions”, wi’ local officers, not southern toffs.’

  ‘That’s a good idea. At least they can put all t’coffins on t’same train ’ome.’

  ‘I know, but better to feight wi’ yer pals than total strangers. It said in t’Guardian that Liverpool ’as already produced three battalions and Manchester four. An’ that in London, stockbrokers, sportsmen, Jews an’ all sorts are joinin’ up together.’

  Cath looks at Mick and the others, merrily drinking ale and still discussing the game.

  ‘Tha’s not sayin’ that this lot should join up? That’s agin all our principles!’

  ‘Is it? Not accordin’ to Henry Hyndman and t’suffragettes. I don’t believe in feightin’ and killin’ poor native people so that we tek their land from ’em. But even some o’ t’pacifists think this do wi’ t’Germans is different. An’ there’s summat else: tha’s expectin’, Cath. Think on; we’ll soon not ’ave a penny comin’ in to either of our ’ouses. ’Ow will we pay t’rent? Kitchener’s sayin’ he’ll give recruits twenty-one shillings pay an’ billetin’ allowance. An’ when t’men are away, twelve shillings an’ sixpence for a wife, an’ two shillings an’ sixpence fer each o’ t’childer.’

  ‘That’s more than we were getting’ at t’mill, workin’ four loom!’

  ‘Reet. Temptin’, in’t it?’

  ‘Tis that, but we’ll be called traitors to t’workin’-class cause an’ all that.’

  ‘I know we will; not by all of ’em, mind. But it’s our families that come first.’

  ‘But these four lummoxes might get th’sels shot. ’Ave yer seen t’casualty figures?’

  ‘Aye, but this lot are too daft to get shot.’

  ‘I don’t know, lass. I can’t bear t’thought of it. I’ll talk to Mick abaht it.’

  ‘Well, if Mick goes, Tommy’ll go wi’ ’im. An’ if those two go, Vinny’ll go. An’ where Vinny goes, Twaites goes.’

  ‘Aye, he’ll go to keep an eye on Vinny. He won’t want t’silly bugger to get ’issen shot.’

  ‘That’s as good a reason as any, Cath. Let’s hope none o’ them gets shot.’

  Admiralty House, Whitehall, London

  Winston Churchill’s family have finally returned from an extended stay in their holiday cottage in Overstrand and are now back in London. As Clemmie is now heavily pregnant and Sir Edward Grey is still using their house in Eccleston Square, Winston has moved Clemmie and the children into a flat in the Admiralty.

  It is Saturday night, but London is in a strange mood. Many people are still gripped by a martial fervour, a zeal that is part jingoism – indignation that someone should have the audacity to threaten Britain’s pre-eminence – and part anger that, if the press stories are to be believed, the Germans have been committing dreadful atrocities in Belgium. The ‘Hun’ is being painted as a marauding beast, a monster threatening civilization itself. Lurid descriptions of brutality by German troops are everywhere, as are voyeuristic images of naked Belgian damsels being molested by savage Huns who resemble snarling hyenas or vicious bears.

  But some people have become less warli
ke. Shocked crowds have gathered at ports all over the country to see the convoys of ambulances bringing the wounded from France. The casualty figures are far greater than anybody expected and the newspaper reports about the BEF in full retreat in a parlous state have added to the alarm.

  Winston has been neglecting his family. The copious flow of letters between him and Clemmie has been reduced to a trickle. As his brother, Jack, is preparing to leave for France, Winston has organized a private supper at the Admiralty for Clemmie, Jack and Goonie. He has also invited his great friend F. E. Smith and his wife, Margaret. The six of them have dressed formally and Winston has ensured that the food, drink and service are commensurate with the fare offered at the finest of London’s restaurants.

  The first half of the dinner is devoted to family chatter, niceties and the usual banter between Winston and FE. It includes a couple of FE’s legendary tales, which Winston encourages him to repeat. Both were comments he made to judges on the Northern Circuit while he was cutting his teeth as a barrister in Liverpool.

  On one occasion, he was chastised by a judge who said, ‘Mr Smith, having listened to your case, I am no wiser.’

  To which FE replied, ‘Possibly not, m’lud, but you are now much better informed.’

  In another fabled moment, a very senior judge, whose wisdom was doubted by many, asked him, ‘What do you suppose I am on the Bench for, Mr Smith?’

  To which FE responded, in an instant, ‘It is not for me, Your Honour, to attempt to fathom the inscrutable workings of Providence.’

  Having given FE the floor for a while, Winston begins to hold court. He is in jubilant mood, which is a surprise to his guests. They felt sure he would need succour, given the worrying news about the BEF’s anguished retreat from Mons.

  ‘As you know, I am not inclined to crow unless, of course, it is an irresistible necessity driven by overwhelming achievements in which I may have played a minor role.’