At work, Angela continued to organise our social calendar. Every August Bank Holiday, she arranged a trip to the seaside for the six of us and we were happy to let her do so. On these day excursions, we covered about all of them - Blackpool, New Brighton, Morecambe, Llandudno.
Then early in 1910, Angela and Jimmy announced their forthcoming marriage. When I say ‘announced 5 , I mean they sent out fancy, engraved invitation cards to their selected guests, and Hilda and I were included as workmates. The wedding was to be celebrated in February at St Michael’s Church, Ancoats, and Danny agreed to be one of the ushers, and Tommy to be best man. When I heard this last piece of news, I was concerned because that meant a speech and I wondered if Tommy was up to it. Whatever happened, I didn’t want him to make a fool of himself.
‘What about your stammer?’ I asked.
‘Not to worry,’ he said. ‘I don’t get tense amongst friends, and anyway, I’m hoping you’ll go over my speech to check it for me.’ He took out a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket. I read it over quickly.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, you’ll be glad to know that my speech will be a short one. Jimmy chose me to be his best man and I don’t know why unless it’s because he’s
recognised at last that I am the best man. But Jimmy and Angela are a good match and I’m sure you will share with me in wishing the happy couple the best of luck in their future life together. Jimmy is a lucky man to have won Angela - she is a lovely girl and so are her sisters Rosa and Francesca. So now please stand and raise your glasses in a toast to the bridesmaids.’
‘Well, what do you think?’ he asked, anxiously scanning my face.
‘Fine,’ I answered. ‘It’s nice and short and that’s what a good speech should be. But you might be nervous on the day and so I think we should take out words beginning with the sound of “sh”, like short, sure, share, she.’
He readily agreed and rehearsed his speech aloud several times until he had it off pat.
An Italian wedding is not merely a ceremony - it’s a spectacle.Three priests in full regalia and sung High Mass were needed to make sure the marriage knot was firmly tied. But the Mass was so long, I couldn’t help thinking that not only was the knot tied, it was secured with a double padlock. Angela wore a white bridal gown and a tiara of flowers in her glossy black hair. She looked beautiful and radiant, and hardly recognisable as our fellow bottle-washer.
When they reached the exchanging of vows, always the most emotional part of the ceremony, there was a great deal of snuffling amongst the ladies and a few of the men. It was that talk of ‘for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, till death us do part’ that triggered the weeping, as was to be expected. What was not expected was that the best man would keep turning round from his place in the front row to give me a shy smile and a nod of the head. Was he trying to say something?
The reception after church was held in the parish hall and the festivities were to go on all day. What with all the depressing news that was about - terrible earthquakes in Italy, suffragettes being force-fed in prison, Germany making threatening noises, and God knows what else - a wedding was what people needed to cheer them up. The celebrations were truly wonderful.There must have been a hundred guests, some dancing on the wooden floor, others sitting it out at tables piled high with rich food, demijohns of vino , and a dozen kinds of ice cream. Angela and Jimmy sat in splendour at a raised table and waved like royalty to the people below. At speech time, Tommy delivered his words with practised ease and I was proud of his achievement. There was a great deal of laughing and singing to the accompaniment of a mandolin. We were enjoying ourselves so much that we lost track of the time.
‘It’s a good job there’s no work tomorrow,’ Tommy remarked. ‘I’d never get up for four o’clock.’
The word ‘clock’ brought me to my senses with a jolt.
‘What time is it. Tommy?’ I asked anxiously.
He consulted his waistcoat watch.
‘By God, it’s half past twelve already. How time flies when you’re enjoying yourself.’
My heart skipped a beat. Mrs Hudson would have locked up the house. I’d told her that I’d be back around eleven o’clock.
Tommy and I got our coats, paid our respects to everyone, and left hurriedly. We walked swiftly across to Sherratt Court but I knew in advance what we’d find. The house was locked and in total darkness. We knocked carefully a few times but I knew it was no use. The door had been bolted and Mrs Hudson would not open it to anyone, not at one o’clock in the morning. What to do? Only one thing left. I had to go back to my mother’s and
beg a bed for the night. How I hated to do it! But what alternative was there? I’d had little contact with Mam since arranging things for Cissie and Eddie and I wasn’t sure what kind of reception I would get. We set off walking again, and to make matters worse it started to tipple down. Tommy’s getting plenty of training tonight, I thought.
It was one thirty when we reached Angel Meadow and we were both wet through. There were still lights on at the house, though the front door was shut. No doubt one of Mam’s and Frank’s drinking sessions had wound down and I had the awful job of asking them for a night’s lodgings. How humiliated I felt! I was going to have to eat big pieces of humble pie and no mistake.
We stopped inside the doorway of a factory.
‘Let’s sh-shelter here out of the rain, Kate,’ Tommy said. I noticed the slight stammer. He was jumpy about something.
‘Kate, before you go in and ask for a bed,’ he said, water dripping from his cap, ‘let me ask you something.’
I looked at him closely. I knew what he was going to ask and I also knew he was not finding it easy. In his life, he’d been rejected so much, he must have been afraid that he was going to get hurt again.
‘I love you, Kate. Have done ever since I saw you going to work on Oldham Road. I want to take care of you and look after you for the rest of your life. What do you say?’ He gazed into my eyes anxiously; his life and his future happiness lay in my answer.
I didn’t hesitate for a second. I’d known for some time what my answer would be. How I’d waited for this moment!
‘Tommy,’ I said, ‘I knew what you were going to ask. And my answer is yes! A definite yes! Let’s get married as soon as we can and set up a home of our own. You and I were made for each other.’
Tommy’s look of relief said it all. He took my face in his hands and kissed me on the cheek. I wrapped both arms round him and held him close.
‘Oh, Tommy, Tommy,’ I said. ‘I don’t know why we’ve waited so long.’
‘Thank you, thank you, Kate, for accepting me,’ he said. ‘I know I’m not much of a catch, and I’m sure you could have done much better than the likes of me, a market porter. But the one thing I can promise you is that you’ll want for nothing. I earn enough in the market to keep us, if not in luxury, at least enough to keep a roof over our heads and we won’t starve. I’ll see to that. Now go in and face the music but remember, there’s light at the end of the tunnel. I’ll stand here with you to make sure you’re all right.’
‘Fine, Tommy,’ I said, ‘but leave the talking to me.’
My heart was bubbling with joy and now that Tommy had asked me to marry him, I could have faced anything or anybody - even the devil himself.
It was Frank McGuinness who answered the door. He didn’t recognise me at first, probably because it was dark and it was raining. He also looked bleary-eyed as if he’d had a few. When the penny finally dropped, he rubbed my nose in it, good and proper.
‘Well, lookee here! The Queen herself has come to visit us. And with her new boyfriend. What may we do for you, Your Majesty, on this dark and rainy night?’
He was soon joined by Mam who came down the lobby to see what was going on.
I explained the situation, how we’d been to a wedding and how my landlady had locked me out and I needed a bed for the night.
‘Goodnight, Kate, 5 Tommy said cheerily when he was sure I was going to be all right. ‘See you tomorrow.’
I gave Tommy a quick hug and whispered to him, ‘No need to worry now, Tommy. Everything’s fine. The way I’m feeling I could climb Mount Everest or swim the Atlantic but right now I’ll settle for a bed and a roof over my head. Meet you tomorrow ’cos we’ve got lots to talk about.’
I turned back to Mam who was standing in the doorway.
‘Kate,’ she said, ‘you look wet through. Come in at once.’
But Frank McGuinness wasn’t going to let an opportunity like this go by and he couldn’t resist gloating at my predicament.
‘I think we should charge her for board and lodging,’ he sneered.
‘You can stop that talk, Frank,’ Mam said. ‘No matter what you think, Kate is still my flesh and blood and there’s always a bed here for her if she wants it.’
I was moved when I heard Mam say this. She hadn’t forgotten her first family after all.
‘You can sleep in the back bedroom,’ Mam said. ‘You’ll be with the kids. They’re sound asleep and so I don’t think you’ll disturb them.’
There were now two children - John and the new baby, Henrietta, Hetty for short. Furthermore, they’d married in a hush-hush wedding at St Michael’s. According to Angela, who lived in the same parish, the rector had leaned on them about having kids and ‘living in sin’.
Frank looked put out by Mam’s chastisement, not that anything Frank said or did could have taken away that wonderful warm glow of happiness I felt inside that night.
We chose Saturday, 7 May, as our wedding day. If Angela’s wedding could be described as spectacular, ours was sombre by comparison. We planned for a ceremony to be
held at St Chad’s Church on Cheetham Hill Road, with a little reception afterwards for friends and relatives in the Knowsley Inn opposite. My own immediate family was there: Danny who was best man, Cissie the bridesmaid, and young Eddie - only now not so young at thirteen years of age. We had also invited Mam and Frank McGuinness but she had sprained her ankle - or so she said - and they were unable to come. I was disappointed that my own mother hadn’t been able to make it for my big day and I suspected that Frank was somehow behind it.
Invited guests were few -- Jimmy and Angela, already pregnant, Hilda, and one or two fellow workers from Westmacott’s. We wanted a quiet wedding with no fuss. And that’s what we got, only a little more than we bargained for. On Wednesday, 4 May, King Edward became ill with pneumonia and died on the Friday. Most inconvenient of him, we thought. At least he could have given us notice.
Canon McCabe asked us if we wanted to postpone since the whole country had gone into mourning. It was a repeat of Victoria’s death only more so because Edward had been popular. People had affectionately called him Bertie or good oldTeddie. Even the songs of the time had declared that there would never be war as long as Eddie was on the throne. Now there was gloom and misery everywhere. But with or without Edward on the throne, we were going on with our wedding. When we’d fixed the date, we’d had no idea that Edward was going to depart this life. The only thing we did cancel was the week’s honeymoon in Blackpool since we felt that the place would indeed be Black pool. Furthermore, the money saved could be put to better use.
‘I’m not joking,’ I said to Tommy when we heard the
news of the King’s death, ‘the government thinks it can switch our feelings on and off like a tap. Now we’re supposed to go around with long faces; there’s to be no laughing or joking or dancing. In fact no enjoyment. But you watch,’ I added, ‘in a year’s time, there’ll be the coronation of his son, George, and the government will order us to start smiling and celebrating again.’
‘You’re right, Kate,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry the King’s dead but it doesn’t affect us, ’cos when all’s said and done, we didn’t know him personally. We’ve just got to get on with our lives.’
The ceremony went off without a hitch though Canon McCabe felt that a short, subdued affair was more suitable than the usual ritual. Half an hour after arriving at the church, we were man and wife.
It was the same over in the pub. Everything was draped in black and the landlord decreed that everyone had to talk in whispers and on no account was there to be any singing unless it was to be something like ‘Down Among the Dead Men’. We had some lovely presents given us. A linen tablecloth from Susie in Durham, from Lizzie in America a ten dollar note for which the bank gave us fifty shillings, a crockery set from the girls at Westmacott’s, a set of pans from Angela, sheets and pillowcases from Hilda and Danny, a biscuit barrel from Cissie. The biggest surprise of all came from Eddie. My glass swan! Almost as good as new! He’d picked up the pieces and glued them together again in the workshop at Swinton. This little act of Eddie’s had me in tears for I felt that, although Mam wouldn’t be at my wedding, Dad was present in that glass swan.
Jimmy had to have his joke though. He looked round at the depressing decor of the pub. ‘Even if Edward hadn’t died,’ he chuckled quietly, ‘I reckon the atmosphere is
right for a man getting married. We can sing “At Trinity Church I met my doom”.’
‘You wait till I get you home,’ Angela hissed, poking him playfully in the ribs.