Unemployment and hardship were still rife in the city and when cuts in the unemployment assistance were announced in February 1935, there was a noisy and disorderly protest in the Town Hall Square by thousands of people. Over twenty arrests were made and several people, including members of the police force, were injured.
But the demonstration had an effect and only two days later the cuts were restored.
‘Thank goodness Percy Sillitoe smashed the gangs. I daren’t think what that protest would have turned into if he hadn’t.’
‘A nasty riot and street fighting for weeks,’ Emily said bluntly, then added, ‘I wonder how he’s getting on in Glasgow.’
Four years earlier, his job done in Sheffield, Percy Sillitoe had been appointed Chief Constable of Glasgow, with the same brief that he had been given in Sheffield; to break up Glasgow’s razor gangs.
‘It might be a bit tougher there, but I hope he succeeds.’
‘The next thing we need,’ Trip said decidedly, when he heard that a new telephone exchange had been opened in the city in March, ‘is the telephone. We need one at the factory and we should certainly have one here at home. What about you, Emily? You really ought to have one at each of your workshops. It might save you a lot of time running between them if you could just speak to your employees on the telephone, and you should definitely have one at the shop.’
‘You’re right, Trip.’ And so telephones were installed in all their premises and the instruments certainly saved everyone a lot of time and effort.
‘What are we going to do to celebrate the King’s Silver Jubilee in May?’ Emily asked. ‘We ought to have a street party at the very least.’
‘Mm.’ Trip seemed preoccupied.
‘Trip?’
He jabbed at the newspaper he was reading. ‘It’s starting, Emily. Hitler’s making demands that Germany should have an air force on a par with ours, and a navy too. And he wants to build an army five times that which was permitted under the Treaty of Versailles at the end of the war. He’s just ignoring that treaty.’
Emily pulled the paper out of his grasp. ‘In the meantime, Trip, we’ll just get on with our lives and not worry about Herr Hitler.’
‘I’m sorry, but we should worry about him, Emily. He’s a threat to our security. To the security of the whole of Europe, if only they could see it.’
Emily stood in front of him with her hands on her hips. ‘So, what are you going to do about it? Become an MP?’
‘D’you know, if I thought I could win a seat, I would.’ He stood up suddenly, his sombre mood pushed aside. ‘But you’re right, Emily. I shouldn’t be worrying about things over which I have no control – sadly. Now, what were you saying?’
‘What are we going to do to celebrate the King’s Silver Jubilee?’
‘They’ll be bringing out a commemorative medal with a red, white and blue ribbon, I’ve no doubt, but Richard and I have been working on a design for a special penknife.’ He grinned. ‘In fact, they’ll be coming to your girls very soon. Oh, and how many would you like to order for your shop, Mrs Trippet?’
‘What a marvellous idea! We’ll take six dozen to start with.’ Then she frowned. ‘Will you be supplying Coles?’
Trip chuckled. ‘No, Richard and I have agreed that you should have exclusive rights. No one else in the city will have them but you.’
‘Oh Trip!’ was all Emily could say.
The day of the Jubilee, 6 May, had been declared a public holiday and Emily was determined that her workers and their families should enjoy it. She was the prime mover – with Bess’s help – in organizing a street party. On that sunny morning, it seemed as if everyone she had invited – and a few more besides – came to the party.
‘It’s like Armistice night,’ Bess mused, glancing round at the children tucking into the sandwiches and cakes Emily had ordered from a caterer, at young couples dancing to music blaring from wireless sets that had been carried into the street, and at the older folk enjoying the fun and forgetting just for a few brief hours the struggles of their daily lives. ‘Let’s hope we never have to have another one of those.’
Emily smiled, but said nothing. Daily, she lived with Trip’s gloomy predictions of the trouble brewing on the Continent and, whilst she hoped and prayed he was wrong, she had the awful premonition that he was not worrying unnecessarily and when, a few months later, Hitler stepped up his persecution of the German Jews by banning marriage between Jews and non-Jews and proclaiming that any ‘friendships’ would result in arrest, even Emily began to fear where it would all lead.
But by the Bank Holiday in August that year, Trip was more cheerful.
‘D’you know, Emily,’ Trip said, as they motored towards Skegness on the Saturday morning for a long weekend by the sea. Three excited boys took up the back seat; Lewis, Harry and Phil, who had come to stay with Emily and Trip for the first time. ‘I really think things are starting to improve slowly.’
‘Do you? What makes you say that?’
‘The papers say that unemployment has fallen by about a third over the last three years and there is a feeling of optimism. We’ve a few more orders trickling in. Not vast amounts, but enough to mean that I don’t have to lay any more of my own men off or put any of those who rent workshops in our premises in jeopardy. It’s such a relief, Emily, I can’t tell you. How are things with you?’
‘I hardly dare say it, but all right, thanks. “Nell’s girls”, as we call all the recently trained ones, are doing really well.’
‘So, your workshops are fully staffed now.’
Emily nodded. ‘We’ve even had to encroach on Billy’s territory but he doesn’t seem to mind.’
‘Of course he won’t. What man would mind working alongside pretty girls?’
‘They’re not so pretty covered with black, oily sand.’
‘I shouldn’t think he even notices them with a lovely wife of his own. Any more than I do. Ah, here we are. This is Skegness. Now, where can we park?’
‘I don’t see the sea, Uncle Trip.’
‘It’s here somewhere, Phil. We’ll find it, never fear.’
Trip parked the car in a side street and they walked until they neared the clock tower standing sentinel near the shore. It was a lovely day, warm and sunny, but there was a cool breeze blowing in from the sea. They strolled on the beach, paddled in the sea and then walked the full length of the pier until they felt as if they were standing in the sea with the waves lapping beneath them. The two younger boys had donkey rides; Harry and Trip had an impromptu game of football on the beach, whilst Emily sat on the sand watching them. It was a carefree day that they would all remember for, as the summer turned to autumn, new fears obsessed Trip. Italy’s fascist dictator invaded Abyssinia.
‘Hitler will be watching him,’ he remarked dolefully. ‘And emulating him, if it’s a success.’