When the Christmas celebrations were over, we came down to earth with a bump - a big bump.
For one thing, it started to snow heavily. Fun for us kids, you think, but we had no coal and we’d used up the slack we had in the cellar. Using our coal shovel, we kept warm by clearing a pathway through the snow for our own house and for Annie Swann and the Hicks. They gave us a few pennies for doing it. Then us three big kids - Danny, Lizzie and me - had this idea of going over to Gould Street Gasworks with a sack to pick up lumps of coke that the carts dropped as they came out of the gate. Cissie cried to come with us but we didn’t let her.
‘You’re too small,’ I told her.
‘I’m not,’ she protested. ‘I’ll soon be six.’
We left her behind anyway, still crying her eyes out.
We took our old pram with the wobbly wheel that seemed to have a mind of its own, and when we got to Gould Street, we found we were not the only ones with the idea. As a cartload of hot steaming coke came out of the yard, there was a mad scramble. The Collyhurst kids were too quick for us and they snaffled the lot. But when the second load appeared, we were ready and quite a few lumps dropped in our path. We got a little more coke by appealing to the carters’ better nature. ‘Got any spare
coke, mister? Please, mister. We’re freezing at home.’ Some of the drivers told us to bugger off but one or two threw a few handfuls our way. We followed the carts for a few hundred yards and whenever the carts gave a jerk or a jolt we thanked God ’cos a few more lumps fell off. Then I had a brainwave.
‘Why wait for these jolts?’ I said. ‘Let’s make ’em happen. Danny, go and find a good sized rock - not too big and not too small.’
Danny soon found one on a nearby croft. We placed the rock on the cobbled roadway and every time a cart rolled over it. Abracadabra! Pieces of coke fell right into our lap.
Half a day of this and we’d collected half a bag. We went home happy with our haul ’cos it meant we could have a warm fire and make toast. Some of the kids hanging around the gasworks told us that it was better at the railway sidings in Collyhurst Road ’cos you could pick coal and clinkers on the tip there but you had to keep your eyes skinned for the Railway Police who’d grab you for trespassing.
The following weekend we decided to try our luck. Cissie started her skriking again and so we let her come with us this time even though it was a long walk across two main roads. We made her promise not to get in the way. ‘I won’t, I won’t,’ she said.
We turned off Collyhurst Road and crossed over the Canal Cut by an iron bridge. Behind Collyhurst Dwellings we came to the big railway fence; it was about seven feet high and made of thick wood. There were little holes in the wood which let you see what was happening on the other side. Danny got up in two easy jumps like a frog when it’s had a stick poked into its backside. Straddled across the fence, he hoisted first Cissie, next Lizzie and lastly me. On the other side we couldn’t believe our eyes.Treasure! There
was a big rubbish tip and we could see straightaway that along with broken LMS crockery, it had rich pickings of coal, coke and clinkers dumped from the trains in the Red Bank sidings. We even found one or two cups and saucers still in one piece. There were lots of other kids there but there were enough goodies for everyone.
With a whoop of delight, we went to work and soon had a bag filled with a wealth of mixed fuel. We were like hens scrabbling and scratching for grubs. Our faces and our clothes were black, our fingers were cut and bleeding but we didn’t care. We started work on the second sack. We’d got it about half filled when there was a terrified shout from the other scavengers. ‘Railway cops! Run for it!’There was a mad scurrying and scrabbling as everyone tried to run down the tip to make for the fence. ‘Grab the bags!’ I bawled to the others. Danny picked up Cissie, and Lizzie and me got the bags, then we ran for all we were worth. We threw the bags over, losing half our swag in the process, but Danny pushed us over to safety. It took a bit more effort to get Cissie over as we had to catch her on the other side. What a relief as we helped her down! Danny was not so lucky. He was snatched by the Railway Police and taken away by the scruff of the neck across the railway sidings.
My heart was beating wildly as we dragged our two sacks - still half filled with coal and coke - along the streets and back to Butler Court. Mam and Auntie Gladys were filled with horror when we told them the news. ‘Oh, poor, poor Danny!’ Mam moaned. ‘What’ll they do to him? I wish you’d never gone near the bloody place. We’d rather shiver with the cold than have this trouble with the police.’
That night a big burly copper called round and knocked loudly on the front door. He told Mam that she had to go to Willett Street police station to collect her son. Worried
out of her mind. Mam put on her shawl and took me with her. I think I’d become her support whenever there was trouble.
At the police station, a desk sergeant took down our particulars and we were told to sit on a hard wooden bench. There were all kinds of roughs around us - drunks, mad-looking men, wild-eyed women who screamed abuse at the sergeant and everyone else. After an hour, the police brought out a sorry-looking Danny. His face was puffed up from crying and he had a red mark on his cheek where they’d belted him. We were called to the desk and the big sergeant read out the charge. ‘Daniel Lally, you have been charged with trespass on railway property. We have decided to let you go on this occasion as it’s your first offence. But it has been noted in our books and you now have a criminal record against your name. I must warn you that if you are ever brought before the police or the courts again, you will be punished most severely. Do you understand?’
Danny, racked with sobs, could only mumble ‘Yes’ through his tears.
At home, Mam gave us a severe telling-off. ‘I want you to stay away from gasworks and railway sidings. Whichever way we turn, it all goes wrong. I try to work, we have the School Board on our back; I apply for relief and I’m told I must first sell all we’ve got; we go to the pawnbroker and have to give away our things for a pittance; and now, we try to scavenge a few scraps of coke and we’re in trouble with the law. It’s getting that I don’t know which way to turn. If we didn’t have Auntie Gladys lodging with us and bringing in a little help with the rent, I don’t know what I’d do.’
*
It was true that bit about Auntie Gladys helping us a little with the rent. It hadn’t been so long ago that she’d been thanking us for taking her and Lizzie in. But now the
boot was on the other foot. She was the one with the job - not much, admittedly, but it was something . The five shillings a week she gave to Mam was helping us to keep our heads above water - if only just.
Over the weeks after Christmas, our house was gradually emptied and Solly Goldstein’s horse and cart became a familiar sight outside the house. Mam no longer cared if the neighbours knew. The chest of drawers and the wardrobes from both bedrooms went the way of the others. Finally our bedsteads were taken away and we were left with straw palliasses on the floor and our coats became our blankets. We managed to survive into February but it was bitterly cold and when the water in the standpipe and the toilet froze over, we found ourselves shivering all the time. It was even a relief to go to school as, despite Gerty’s cruel ‘treatments’, at least there was some heat there. Even the strap was welcome as it warmed our hands.
We were hungry most of the time but Mam wouldn’t hear of us going to one of the charity soup kitchens run by the Salvation Army.
‘Selling everything to the pawnbroker was bad enough but not the soup kitchen! I’d be too ashamed to be seen going into one of them places. What would the neighbours think?’
‘I couldn’t care less what the neighbours think,’ I answered. ‘Let’s get some of that hot pea soup inside us.’
She agreed to let us go but only after five o’clock when it had turned dark. We took a small pan in case the soup- makers thought we were greedy. We were soon back and Mam heated the soup up on the kitchen fire. It was thin watery soup but who cared? Thank God for the Sally Army, I said to myself. A thought struck me. Solly and Sally - our two saviours.
Auntie Sarah and Uncle Barney came round to see if
they could help. As usual, Barney was out of work and so they had no money but they brought us a bucket of coal and half a bag of coke so we could at least boil a kettle to make a hot drink. Mam told me to go to the corner shop for a jar of Bovril. ‘Tell Mrs Greenall to put it on the slate,’ she said. Soon we were drinking the lovely beef stew from the jam jars and the railway cups. Our own crockery had long since gone to Solly. Things didn’t seem so bad when we had the Bovril inside us. At least, things couldn’t get any worse, we thought. Not much.
Auntie Gladys caught a bad cold because of the icy weather and our empty grate. She tried the usual things - hot bread poultices, Friar’s Balsam, Veno’s Cough Cure, but it was no good. She went on coughing and wheezing. I hoped she wasn’t another one with bronchitis or consumption like my dad’s. But Auntie recovered and after a week in bed went back into work. We sighed with relief as we’d come to depend on her little wage. Later that morning, she came home - sacked for having so much time off. The factory explained that they couldn’t employ someone who wasn’t a hundred per cent fit and they’d had to find a replacement for her. They were nice about it, though, and gave her a week’s wage - twelve shillings and sixpence.
‘They say that troubles come in threes,’ Mam said, ‘but I think in this family they’re coming in fours and fives. We’ve run out of money, run out of things to sell, and I’ve run out of ideas.’
‘I’m sure we’ll think of something,’ I said, but not too hopefully.
That same day, I came home from school to find a hen party in progress. Mrs Hicks from next door but one had come round and the three ladies were jugging it - drinking ale from the jam jars. I wondered where they’d got the money from.
Mam sent me and Lizzie round to GreenalPs for a loaf of bread, cheese and a quarter of bacon - on tick as usual. I returned with the bad news.
‘Mrs Greenall said she can’t let you have any more in the book, Mam, as you owe her over two pounds already.’
Mrs Hicks came to the rescue with a ten shilling note.
‘Take that round to the shop, love, and get what you need. We can’t see you go hungry.’
‘As I was saying,’ the Hicks woman continued, ‘if you’re short, I can let you have a few bob till your luck changes. But the best thing you can do is take up my offer. You two ladies are still young, both good-looking and you’ve still got your figures. I can soon show you how to make money - pots of it. Night work, of course.’ She laughed. ‘Think it over.’
Mrs Hicks was right about them being good-looking. Mam had lovely chestnut-coloured hair and Auntie Gladys wasn’t called Golden-Haired Gladys by people in the district for nothing.
Auntie looked as if she’d been thinking it over, for she said, ‘I’d have to be at the end of my tether to take up your offer and it’s not come to that - yet.’
‘I don’t need to think it over,’ Mam replied. ‘I’m sure it’s not our line.’
‘Anyroad, the offer’s there,’ Mrs Hicks replied. ‘It’s better than starving.’ She looked over at Lizzie and me. ‘And another thing,’ she said, ‘those two young girls could make a fortune if they went on the game. Lovely young faces. There’s lots of men like a bit of young, fresh stuff and will pay through the nose for it.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Mam said. ‘I’d rather feed my kids arsenic than have them go on the game.’
Mrs Hicks said she had to love us and leave us as she had to go to work. When I asked her where she worked, she gave
me a funny look and started to laugh. ‘I do community work, love, and have an open-air job in Piccadilly.’
She must have one of those jobs on the open-air stalls, I thought, like the ones I’ve seen on Tib Street market.
When she’d gone, Mam said, ‘We may be desperate but we’re not that desperate. We’ll have to apply for outdoor relief and call that funny little man from the Guardians back. What was his name again?’
‘Gillespie,’ I told her.
A few days later, he was back in our sitting room. He sat stiffly on the edge of a straight-backed chair and he didn’t look at all comfortable. Mam offered him tea which he accepted though without enthusiasm. Little did he know that the coal we used to heat up the kettle was our last.
‘I see you’ve been on your holidays,’ he said, examining his cup.
‘Holidays? We can’t afford no holidays,’ Mam said. ‘What makes you say that?’
‘The cups,’ he replied. ‘They have London Midland and Scottish Railways printed on the side.’
‘Oh, those! No, they were found by the kids on somebody’s tip.’
The adults went on a tour of the house, with Gillespie taking notes in every room.
‘Well,’ he said when they returned. ‘Things are looking a bit different from the last time I was here. You’ve sold most of your furniture, I see.’
‘We’ve managed to keep our heads above water for six months,’ Mam said. ‘We’ve nothing left to sell or pawn as all our belongings are now in Solly Goldstein’s shop.’
‘Not quite all,’ he said. ‘The children still have good clothes.’
Mam flared up when she heard that. ‘The only clothes they have are the ones they stand up in and they have to
serve as blankets as well. Surely you don’t want them to go round naked.’
‘No,’ he said nervously. ‘We’re not that bad. Tell me how the Guardians can best help you and we’ll see what we can do.’
‘We need help with the rent,’ Mam said, ‘with food, and with shoes for the kids - the ones they have let water in and we have no money to repair them or buy new ones.’
‘We don’t give actual money,’ he told her, ‘as many of you people are tempted to spend it on drink. We can give you tickets to help with part of your rent, your fuel, and your food. As for footwear, we can give you a chit to get clogs from Briggs’s on Swan Street. You’ll find they’re special clogs with a brass iron fixed round the rim to stop them being sold or pawned. That’s been tried before.’
‘Can we use the tickets at Greenall’s corner shop?’ Mam asked. ‘It’s only a few yards away.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘The tickets can only be used at designated shops on Oldham Road.’
One of our neighbours once told us that the Guardians used only their own favourite shops ’cos they were in a clique together and they gave the poor the scrag ends of meat and left-over bread. We didn’t know whether to believe her but it was beginning to sound true.
The allowance he gave us covered half the rent, half the food and half the fuel bills. He didn’t say where we were to get the other half. The tickets were just enough to keep us on the edge of starvation.
‘What do we do if we can’t survive on the paltry sums you’ve given us?’ Mam asked bravely.
‘You can apply to go before the Board for supplementary funds but I don’t hold out much hope there. I’ve given you all that’s within my powers as parish overseer.’
Auntie Gladys now came forward and asked, ‘What
about me and my daughter Lizzie, sir? We are lodgers but since I lost my job, we are destitute.’
‘What about your husband?’
‘He’s dead, sir.’
‘Did he not provide for you? Who was he? What was his job?’
‘He was my brother-in-law, Jack Lally,’ Mam said quickly, answering for her. ‘He died in an accident on a building site.’
‘Why is Mrs Brennan called Brennan if her husband was Lally?’ Gillespie asked, looking from one to the other suspiciously.
Auntie spoke up for herself. ‘He died before we could be married, sir, and I’ve had to bring up my daughter myself.’
Gillespie tut-tutted. ‘You and Mr Lally jumped the gun, as it were. Your daughter then is a . . . a . . .’ He couldn’t bring himself to say the word. ‘I’m afraid the Board doesn’t look kindly upon mothers with illegitimate offspring. Can you not get a job cleaning or taking in washing?’
‘We’ve tried, sir, but everyone round here is like us - penniless.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘there’s nothing I can do. My hands are tied.’
Things were little better after Gillespie’s visit, despite the tickets. We got our clogs from Briggs’s and we had a fine time making sparks fly by stamping along the pavement. The other kids at school laughed at us and poked fun. ‘You look like Hansel and Gretel,’ Eve Ogboddy sneered at me and Danny. ‘Where do you live now - in a windmill?’ We took no notice of her. At least we were better off than Florrie Moss who didn’t have any shoes at all. On Sundays, though, we didn’t wear the clogs - it’s not respectable,
Mam said. Instead she put cardboard in our shoes to cover the holes. Fine as long as it wasn’t raining.
The neighbours in the surrounding streets started a bit of a subscription for us and several people put their names down for a shilling. It was a big surprise and Mam and Auntie Gladys were touched by the gesture. When Mr Dugan came round with the fifteen shillings in an envelope, Mam and Auntie burst into tears. The rest of us did the same ’cos we thought it was yet more trouble as every calamity in our life seemed somehow connected with men with envelopes appearing at the front door. The collection helped us survive for another two weeks.
As the days went by, though, it became more and more obvious that we couldn’t manage on the pitiful allowance Gillespie had left us. It wasn’t enough to feed us or keep us warm and only half the rent was paid. We borrowed a few shillings from Auntie Sarah and Gran’ma but they couldn’t afford much as they were nearly as skint as we were. I asked Mam why we couldn’t borrow from Mrs Hicks but Mam wouldn’t hear of it. She tried to pawn the clogs but Solly wasn’t born yesterday and he recognised the brass irons on the rims.
‘I’d love to help you,’ he said, holding out two upturned hands, ‘as you’ve been such good customers but the Guardians would send me to Strangeways if I lent money on their property.’
We raised a little cash, enough for a few days’ grub, by selling our chairs and we made do with a, couple of orange boxes from Greenall’s. But even the boxes had to go in the end as we needed a fire tt> boil the kettle for tea. Danny didn’t seem to suffer as much as the rest of us ’cos he was always out with his pals and I was sure he cadged bread and jam at their houses.
It was Cissie and the baby I worried about most. Eddie
cried constantly and Mam tried to keep him quiet by giving him the breast but somehow that didn’t seem to satisfy him.
Cissie cried quietly. ‘I’m hungry, Kate. Can’t we have some bread and jam?’
‘Later, later, Cissie,’ I told her. ‘As soon as Mam gets back from Solly’s. Offer your belly ache up for Dad in purgatory.’
As if being hungry wasn’t enough, we fell behind with the rent. That’s the most serious thing of all, Mam wailed. The rent collector called one Friday to tell us we were five weeks in arrears and if we didn’t pay what we owed by the following Friday, we were to be evicted.
‘If it were left to me,’ he said, ‘I would turn a blind eye but this property belongs to the Earl of Derby and if he doesn’t get his rents, many people will find themselves out of work, me included.’
‘We’ve reached the end of the line,’ Mam said tearfully when he’d gone. She looked crushed, like a beaten dog. ‘There’s only one thing left to us now. I want you to write one of your letters to the Board of Guardians and apply for supplementary relief.’
Apart from my glass swan, there were two things I’d managed to keep from Solly’s shop - my fountain pen and a bottle ofWaterman’s ink. I always knew they’d be needed one day.
‘Of course I’ll write the letter, Mam,’ I answered. ‘But what happens if the Board turns us down?’
‘God only knows,’ she sobbed. ‘It’s too awful even to think about it.’