For some time after the funeral, everyone in the family was miserable as if a light had gone out of our lives. Nobody did anything. Mam lay in bed staring at the ceiling and weeping quietly to herself. The rest of us moped about the house, getting more and more depressed. Everywhere we looked there were things that reminded us of Dad.
‘Here are the cards he did those tricks with,’ said Danny sadly. ‘And look, I was right. He had marked the cards.’
‘You’d better tell him then,’ I said, ‘that he was a twister.’
‘No matter where I turn,’ Mam said after a while, ‘there he is. All the little things he left behind - his cuff links, even his collar studs.’ She pulled out his straw boater and his silver cane. ‘He won’t be needing these any more,’ she sighed.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ I replied, trying to be cheerful. ‘Maybe he’s entertaining them in heaven or purgatory or wherever he is, doing his song and dance act.’
For Cissie, it was the same. She clung to that big teddy bear he’d won at the fair. I. thought it was worse for me though. I had those glass friggers he’d made for me - the dog, the cat, but specially the swan he’d made for my birthday. They reminded me of the glassworks and the happy times I used to have watching him and his team at work.
Us kids in the family tried playing games in the court but
it was no use, our hearts weren’t in it. We wouldn’t have dreamt of doing ‘black rabbit’ on Annie Swann’s door - not after all she did for us laying Dad out in his coffin.
One day I said to Mam, ‘This could go on for weeks and we’re getting more and more miserable. Someone’s got to do something.’
My words must’ve hit home, for Mam made the first move. One Sunday after Mass, about a fortnight after we’d buried Dad, she called us together, including Auntie Gladys and Lizzie.
‘Kate’s right. We’ve got to snap out of this grieving. I’m sure Mick wouldn’t have wanted us to go round with faces as long as fiddles for the rest of our lives. It’ll soon be Christmas and we’ve got to start looking on the bright side. So I’ve made some plans for the future. First of all. Auntie Gladys and Lizzie are coming up from the cellar to live with the rest of us. Gladys can sleep with me in the big bed in the front room and Lizzie can go into the girls’ bed, top and tail.’
‘That’s great, Mam,’ I said. ‘Lizzie’s my best friend and it can’t be healthy down there in the cellar - it’s so damp.’
Auntie Gladys already knew about the new arrangement. She smiled and nodded.
‘Thank you very much, Mrs Lally,’ Lizzie said in her quiet voice.
‘The next thing we’ve got to realise,’ Mam went on, ‘is that the ride in the gravy train when your dad was earning good wages is over. We’re almost broke. I think I’ve got about fifteen shillings left in my purse and that’s got to see us through the week. The money from the insurance has gone on the fancy funeral and the new clothes. Now we have to get some cash from somewhere.’
‘I have tuppence,’ said Cissie, ‘and you can have that if you want it.’
Mam smiled and patted her on the head. ‘That’s good of you, Cissie. I know you mean well, love, but we need a lot more than that.’
‘We could get Saturday jobs,’ I suggested.
‘Sell firewood or run errands,’ Danny said.
‘They don’t pay much and anyroad there’s no need,’ Mam said. ‘I’ve got myself a job working with Gladys at the Magadi Soda Works in Angel Meadow. The wages are twelve shillings a week and if Gladys and me pool our money we should be all right. We’ll have twenty-four shillings altogether; our rent is seven and six and that’ll leave us over sixteen bob a week. That should be enough.’
‘What about Eddie there?’ I asked, pointing to the baby. ‘What do we do with him?’
‘That’s where you come in, Kate. Now that your father’s dead, you’re going to have to grow up fast. I’m leaving you in charge of the house and the family while me and Gladys are at work.’
‘But what about school? I’ll have the School Board after me.’
‘We don’t have much choice, Kate. You’ll be leaving school when you’re twelve next year. So it won’t make much difference.’
I didn’t like the sound of any of this. Not one bit. I might do my share of moaning about school but deep down I loved going and I was doing so well in the weekly tests, especially in English and arithmetic. Besides, there was the School Board and everyone knew about the School Board - they were worse than Mr.Rooney and Shirty Gerty rolled into one. According to Florrie Moss in our class, they’d hit you with a big stick if they caught you playing wag.
On the Monday morning, we started the new routine. At five o’clock, we heard Joe Gatley, the knocker-up, banging
his pole on the front bedroom window. ‘Come on, get up with thee,’ he called. ‘You’re not born to lie in bed all day.’ At half past five, Mam came into the bedroom and dumped Eddie into the bed with us. They had to be at work in time for the six o’clock hooter.
‘I’m leaving you in charge,’ Mam said. ‘Bring Eddie over to the works at twelve o’clock and I’ll feed him.’ From the breast she meant. Mam didn’t believe in bottle-feeding. ‘Nearly all the bottle fed babies die,’ she said. She finished giving her orders and she was gone. I couldn’t go back to sleep after that and anyroad Eddie needed his nappy changing.
No use moaning about it, I had to get up and get on with it. I set the fire using wood and the cinders from yesterday. I soon had a cheerful blaze going. The nappy was next. I removed the dirty one, put Vaseline on his bum, wrapped the fresh one and fixed it with a safety pin, taking great care not to stick it in his bottom or I’d never have heard the end of it. Next, breakfast and that meant only one thing - toast. I cut slices of bread and raked the mixture of coal and coke till I had a nice glow right for toasting. I gave Danny and Lizzie the job of spearing and holding the bread to the bars while I made the tea from the big iron kettle on the hob. I helped Cissie to get washed at the slopstone. She moaned about the cold water. ‘Mam always uses warm.’ ‘Well, I’m not Mam, and anyroad, there’s no time.’ I made sure that Danny got washed properly, especially his neck as he seemed to forget that he had one. At half past eight, they were ready for school. Lizzie promised to look after Cissie. I told Danny that I’d be out at dinnertime taking Eddie to be fed and I warned him not to lose the front door key. ‘What’s for dinner?’ he asked. ‘Bread and dripping’, I told him. I couldn’t think of anything else. I hoped there was enough dripping. We’ll
have to get ourselves better organised, I said to myself.
When they were gone, I sided the table, washed the pots, and swept up. The fire was going out and I had to go for a shovelful of coal in the bunker at the back. It was all slack and I had to be careful not to put the fire out. A few lumps of coke put that right. Mam had left me a pile of ironing and so I put the iron on the hob. It took me the rest of morning to get through it. Meanwhile, Eddie was yelling the place down and I took him on my knee and gave him a bottle of sugar and water to keep him quiet. I’d rather have been at school, I thought, even kneeling at the front of Gerty’s class.
At half past eleven, it was time to take Eddie across to Mam at the soda works in Angel Meadow. I wrapped the baby in his warm coat and his woolly hat. He wasn’t too heavy and as it was quite a way to go, I decided to carry him as it was quicker than pushing the bassinet which had a rickety wheel. I set off, making sure I closed the front door behind me. I only hoped Danny didn’t lose the front door key or we’d be in big trouble.To get to Angel Meadow, I had to cross two busy main roads. I walked quickly down Oldham Road and at the Victoria Square Buildings I crossed over to Thompson Street and past the railway goods yards until I reached Rochdale Road. It was an area Danny and me knew well as we often came over this way with the pram to buy coke at the Gould Street depot. I managed to get over the road opposite Ludgate Hill and a short walk brought me to Angel Meadow. A funny name, I thought, and I wondered who decided the names of the streets as there was no sign of a meadow and certainly none of any angels.
At twelve o’clock, the factory hooters went off and soon I saw Mam and Auntie Gladys coming out of the soda works. I handed Eddie over to Mam. She sat on a stone step
and gave Eddie the breast. He sucked greedily. Anyone would’ve thought he hadn’t been fed before. Mam brought up his wind by putting him over her shoulder and patting his back. Eddie obliged by giving a belch that could be heard several streets away. She handed him back to me and I could tell from the smell and the farting noises he was making that it would mean a change of nappy when I got him back home. ‘Take him home now and put him to bed,’ Mam said. ‘Close the curtains when you get back and don’t open the door to nobody or you’ll have the School Board after us. I’ll be back after six o’clock.’ She went off with Auntie Gladys to get her own dinner of bread, cheese and a bottle of stout in the Angel Inn at the corner.
I wondered how Danny, Lizzie and Cissie were getting on at home. Had they managed to find the bread and dripping I left for them? Still worrying about them, I hurried back. I reached Sherratt Street off Oldham Road. And as I turned into George Leigh Street, there he was! The School Board! A tall man with a droopy moustache and dressed in a uniform with a peaked cap like a postman and carrying a large stick. ‘Hoi, you!’ he shouted. ‘Come here at once!’ I was terrified. We’d heard such stories about them and what they did to you if they caught you. Clutching the baby, I ran and ran. In Silk Street there was Mrs Sullivan standing outside her door. I must’ve changed to a frightened colour.
‘What’s to do, Kate?’ she asked.
‘The School Board’s round there and he’s after me.’
‘Quick,’ she said, ‘come in here.’ It was a lobby house. ‘Take the baby into the scullery. Whatever you do, don’t let him cry.’
‘He won’t. He’s still asleep.’
As I was cowering in the kitchen saying my prayers to St Jude, I could hear the School Board outside. ‘Did you
see a little girl with a baby in her arms pass here?’
‘Not while I’ve been stood here,’ Mrs Sullivan replied. ‘Why, what’s she been doing?’
‘Playing wag from school, missing her lessons, that’s what she’s been doing. If I catch her, I’ll teach her a lesson she won’t forget.’
I waited till he’d gone but my heart was thumping madly as I crept along the last few streets to Butler Court. God, I hoped I didn’t get this every day or I’d soon be a nervous wreck. I made it home in one piece and put Eddie to bed. I made sure the other three had something to eat and I got them off to school for the afternoon session. How I wished I could have gone with them!
We got through the rest of the week without any further mishaps but I noticed that Mam and Auntie Gladys were getting home later and later. They finished work at six o’clock and it shouldn’t have taken more than half an hour to walk home. On the Monday they were back at seven but by Friday night - the day they got paid - it was half past eight. I had already got Eddie and Cissie to bed when Mam and Auntie got back. There was that sweet smell of stout about them like the whiff of a saloon bar when you’re walking past the open door. They’d both taken to sniffing snuff and they talked a bit funny and kept repeating themselves. Not only that, they sounded that cheerful - too cheerful.
‘You’re a proper little mother, our Kate,’ Mam gibbered. ‘A real saint if ever there was one. No wonder you were always your dad’s favourite.1
I didn’t like this talk and I wasn’t my dad’s favourite or anything of the kind. If he’d had a favourite, it was Cissie. I didn’t say anything. I’d found it was best to keep quiet when people had had a drop.
It was on the Saturday that things came to a head. It
was seven o’clock and I had Eddie and Cissie in the tin bath in front of the fire, with Lizzie helping. The bath water had gone a bit cold and so I asked Danny to put some more water in the big kettle. He picked up the heavy iron kettle from the fire and, as he was going over to the slop stone, he tripped over the coconut matting and not only spilt hot water on his foot but bashed his head against the bolt on the scullery door. What to do? He was yelling the place down. ‘Help! Help! I’m bleeding to death.’The two in the bath joined in in sympathy. I got his stocking off and sprinkled flour on his burning foot. Next I put lint and bandage on the cut on his forehead but I could see he was going to need a couple of stitches in the wound.
‘Quick,’ I said to Lizzie, ‘take Danny over to Auntie Sarah’s in Bengal Street and ask her to take him to Ancoats Hospital. I’ll have to stay with the young ’uns.’
When Danny heard those words ‘Ancoats Hospital’ he bawled even louder ’cos like the rest of us he knew about Ancoats. There was a giant of a nurse there with one of those massive headdresses. She was one of those no- nonsense types. And there was something about that hospital that was terrifying - the funny-shaped glass bottles with all kinds of coloured liquids, and a sickening smell of ether or chloroform or something. And what was even more frightening, if you had to have stitches, there was no painkiller or anything like that and the big nurse had to hold you down while the doctor did his fancy needlework on your flesh.
I got the two small ones out of the bath, dried them and got them into bed. At half past eight, Auntie Sarah returned with a sorry-looking Danny. He looked as if he’d been in the wars and the only thing that would console him was a big jam butty. Auntie Sarah sat in front of the fire and waited. She may have been a little woman but she had a
fiery temper and I could tell from the way she was scowling that she wasn’t happy.
Half an hour later., Mam and Gladys rolled in breathing stout and snuff fumes all over the place. They’d both got silly smiles on their faces but Auntie Sarah’s expression soon wiped them off.
‘You stupid, stupid pair,’ she shouted. ‘Fancy leaving a young eleven-year-old girl like Kate in charge of the house while you two go off gallivanting. I’ve half a mind to set the cruelty man on you.’
‘There’s no need for that nastiness,’ Mam said, turning sober in a matter of seconds. ‘Gladys and me have put in a hard week’s work in that terrible soda factory and we’ve a right to take a little time off to enjoy ourselves.’
‘It won’t do,’ Sarah yelled. ‘You can’t work and rear a family at the same time. You’ll have to give up the job and stay at home to look after your kids.’
‘And what are we supposed to use for money?’ Mam shouted back. ‘Since Mick died, we haven’t two ha’pennies to rub together. What can we do? Maybe you could do some baby-sitting for us?’
‘No use coming to me for your baby-sitting for haven’t I a job of my own to hold down. You’ll have to apply to the parish for outdoor relief.’
‘That’s one thing I’ll never do,’ Mam said. ‘I’d sooner die first than go on the parish.’
Next afternoon, matters were taken out of her hands. It was Sunday afternoon and things were quiet. Mam and Auntie Gladys had both gone for a snooze, taking Eddie with them. The others were playing outside in the court. There was a loud knock at the front door. I left off blackleading the grate and looked through the curtain to see who in God’s name would be visiting us on a Sunday afternoon. My heart skipped a beat when I saw who it was.
The School Board man still in his uniform and wearing his peaked cap! ‘Mam! Mam!’ I called up the stairs. ‘Come quick, it’s the School Board!’
She soon came hurrying down the stairs, pausing at the mirror to primp up her hair before opening the door.
‘Mrs Lally?’ the Board man said in a stern official voice. ‘Mrs Celia Lally?’
‘That’s right, sir. That’s me.’ Mam was shaking like a leaf.
‘You have a daughter by the name of Catherine Lally?’
‘That’s correct, sir. Why, what’s she been doing?’ she said, looking accusingly at me.
‘It’s what she hasn’t been doing,’ he sneered. ‘Why has she been away from school?’
Mam was flummoxed but only for a minute. ‘She’s got no shoes.’ The old, old story, the School Board must’ve heard it a thousand times.
‘She can come in her bare feet - as long as they’re clean. But it has been reported to us by Mrs Ogboddy that you have been keeping her home while you go out to work and I distinctly saw her during the week running away carrying a baby.’
‘It must have been someone else,’ Mam lied. ‘Our Kate hasn’t stirred out of the house. Have you, Kate?’
‘No, Mam.’ That lie was going to cost me at least a couple of thousand years in purgatory, I said to myself.
‘Be that as it may,’ the Board man said in that funny way he had of talking, ‘but I have to inform you that in accordance with the Education Act of eighteen eighty, attendance at school is compulsory for children until the age of twelve. Failure to comply with the law can mean a fine of up to five pounds. If you continue to break the law, it will result in a prison sentence.’
He took out an official-looking notebook and filled in a
lot of details. He tore off the page and handed it to Mam who took it with trembling hand. ‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘This is a formal order that you ensure your daughter attends school. Failure to comply with this order will result in proceedings being taken out against you.’
‘What does that mean?’ Mam faltered. ‘We’ve done nothing.’
‘It means,’ he said, ‘that I shall expect to see your daughter at St Michael’s School first thing on Monday. Otherwise, I shall have no alternative but to issue you with a summons. Good afternoon.’
That word ‘summons’ was enough for Mam. It was a word much feared in the district. It meant court, solicitors, police, magistrates, fines and maybe even Strangeways.
Next day, Mam gave up her job at the soda factory and I went back to school. I filled in a form of application for outdoor relief to the Board of Poor Law Guardians. It was a form I was familiar with as I’d done it for dozens of neighbours. Two weeks later, we had a visit from a member of the district relief committee. Mam told the young ’uns to go out and play but she let me stay to give her support ’cos she was jittery when she had to talk to any kind of official. Our visitor was a small man with large bulbous eyes which didn’t look at you straight. I thought he had some disease like St Vitus dance until I realised that his head and his eyes were darting about the place taking stock of everything in the room.
‘My name’s Mr Gillqspie,’ he said, turning his head from side to side like the beam from a lighthouse. ‘I’m one of the guardians for your district. I’m here to look at your case and see if you qualify for outdoor relief. It’s also my job to see that we don’t give away the ratepayers’ money to undeserving cases.’ He smiled nervously as if expecting
someone to punch him. Maybe on some previous visit someone had.
‘Can I get you a cup of tea, Mr Gillespie?’ Mam asked, partly to make him feel welcome and partly to hide her own jangled nerves.
‘That would be welcome, Mrs Lally,’ he said, flicking his eyes in every direction.
Mam brought out her best china - something she only did for special people like priests or doctors.
‘Bone china?’ he asked, scribbling in his notebook.
‘A wedding present I’ve managed to keep in one piece all these years,’ Mam said proudly, handing him his tea with trembling hand.
‘Let me explain the position,’ he said. ‘It’s the job of the relief committee to give help where there’s genuine hardship. Do you think you come into this category, Mrs Lally?’ '
‘I don’t know what genuine hardship is,’ Mam said, speaking up bravely, ‘but I have four young children and since my husband died no income whatsoever. My rent’s over seven shillings a week, and we need money for food, coal, paraffin, and the bare necessities to keep body and soul together.’
‘That may be so,’ the little man said, ‘but I think you’re far from being destitute. We can only give relief to the poorest of the poor. You said on your form that you have a lodger - a Mrs Gladys Brennan - who is helping you out with the rent and so I’m afraid you don’t qualify for aid from the rates.’
‘But I have no wages coming in and I have four mouths to feed.’
‘That may be so,’ he said, ‘but we can only give relief when we see a person is completely without any means. That is to say, only cases where an applicant has used up
her own resources and has no choice but to come to us for support.’
‘You mean when she’s reached the end of her tether and is dying of starvation?’
‘Exactly,’ he said, swivelling his head in a full circle. ‘Looking round your lovely home, Mrs Lally, it’s obvious you have many valuable possessions and it would be unfair to the deserving cases we have on our books if we were to give you help when you have the means to help yourself.’
‘You’re saying we have to sell everything we have before you can give us relief?’
‘That is correct,’ he said, grimacing as if he’d got belly ache. I felt like grabbing the cup out of his hand and giving him a clout.
‘From where I’m sitting, I can see a whole range of beautiful objects. Your furniture, sideboard, table and chairs, the statues in their glass shades, the grandmother clock and the pictures on the walls, the ornamental teapot and those lovely blown-glass things on the mantelpiece, your china tea set. And that’s only in this room. You have your beds and your bedding. Even your clothes and those of the children are of good quality. I could go on but you can see it’s obvious that you’re nowhere near being a genuine case of poverty.’ He put away his notebook.
‘So, only when we have nothing left will you consider us?’ Mam said angrily.
‘I’m afraid that is so,’ he replied, putting down his cup hastily and sensing maybe that this was where things might start to turn nasty. He stood up. ‘If ever you do reach the point where you have exhausted your own resources, don’t hesitate . . .’ He was already moving towards the door. A minute later he’d gone.
It was from the day of that visit that we started to slide downhill.