We found a small two-up, two-down house in Back Murray Street off Oldham Road - what they called a workingman’s home. We hadn’t much money to spend because I’d used up all I had doing up Mam’s house, and while Tommy had a decent enough job in the market, he had practically nothing in ready cash. It was a case of going back to Solly’s to borrow money for furniture. At Cantor’s on Oldham Street, we were able to furnish the whole house for under ten pounds. For the bedroom, we bought an iron double bed, with straw mattress, bolster and two pillows, a chair with a cane bottom, and to cover the bare floorboards, a bit of carpet. For the downstairs living room, we got a square table with four wooden chairs, two armchairs, a horsehair sofa, a fender and an ash pan. We covered the floor with a congoleum square and a peg rug. In the scullery, I had all that I could wish for to do the washing - a copper boiler, a mangle, a dolly, and a scrubbing board. A visit to Shufflebottom’s for crockery and pans and our household was complete. Not palatial but for Tommy and me, heaven. A place we could call our own at last. No more lodgings, no more being blown from pillar to post. No more having to be in at ten o’clock or being locked out in the rain.
Tommy had traditional ideas on marriage and insisted
that I give up work and look after the home and become a housewife. I didn’t need much persuading. Anyway, it would have been impossible to carry on at Westmacott’s because Tommy started work in the market at four o’clock in the morning and I got up with him to make his breakfast and prepare his mid-morning snack.
We settled down to a comfortable routine and life ticked over happily. I loved housework. After all, it’s what I’d been trained for and I was good at it. I shopped, cooked, cleaned, washed, black-leaded, polished the windows and sang my head off as I did so. At first I worried about disturbing the Kenyons next door with my rendering of the popular song of the year:
Ah! sweet mystery of life, at last I’ve found thee.
Ah! I know at last the secret of it all.
But my singing was nothing next to the row our neighbours made each weekend when they fought like cat and dog. At Mass on Sundays, Mrs Kenyon usually appeared with swollen face and a black eye.
‘Bumped into the kitchen door,’ she claimed, or, ‘Slipped on the kitchen step.’
Tommy finished work around midday and when he’d promised me that I’d never starve, I found that was a serious understatement. Every day he brought home a shopping bag filled with a wide variety of produce - fruit, vegetables, fish, chicken, and even the occasional rabbit. Sometimes he carried home ribs or pork chops bought from Muller’s, Hilda’s parents’ shop on Dantzig Street.
‘What a lovely old couple,’ he used to say, ‘and they threw in half a pound of sausages free.’
But that wasn’t all. Each day he left a sum of money on the table varying from three shillings on Monday to ten
shillings on Friday. I’d never been so well off and it gladdened my heart to see Tommy so content when he went off to Smithfield Market whistling even on dark, rainy mornings.
And our joy knew no bounds when at the end of July I suspected I was pregnant. I had missed two periods in a row and, while I wasn’t one hundred per cent sure about it, I was normally as regular as clockwork. So what else could it be? Besides, I’d been violently sick for a few mornings and I knew that was one of the signs.
It was a Monday afternoon when I thought I’d better tell him. I hoped he’d be happy but with men, well, you never knew how they were going to react to something like that. To put him in a good mood. I’d made him his favourite meal - cow heel stew - and he was tucking in and at the same time reading out bits of news from the Daily Mail. It was his way of keeping me up to date with current affairs, he said.
‘I see they nabbed that Dr Crippen fella whilst he was at sea. They caught him using that thing called wire-less. I always knew it would work one day.’
I seemed to remember that he’d said the opposite at the time and that it would never amount to anything, not in a month of Sundays. Best not to argue, not at that moment anyway.
‘Good news,’ I said.
‘Good news! I should think it was. Crippen had murdered his missus and buried her under the cellar floor.’
‘No, I mean we’ve got good news.’
I told him about it. I needn’t have worried about how he’d react. He was ecstatic. We both were. At the same time, we were also a little bewildered since our knowledge of sexual matters was rudimentary, to say the least. Nobody had told us anything. I had picked up a few snippets from
my dubious experiences with Harold in Macclesfield and from the jokes being thrown around by the women in Westmacott’s. But it was pretty sketchy. Of course Tommy and I knew how babies were made, we weren’t that daft, but all the same, we found it difficult to take in how our kissing and cuddling could result in this miracle of creation. We’d had to find out about sex by instinct, as it were. By leaving it to Nature, as Gran’ma used to say. We’d had to learn our lessons the hard way. In the early stages, I’d found sex not only painful but unpleasant, while Tommy found it embarrassing to discuss it. After a while, I got used to it and it became less painful but I never lost the idea that it was something that women had to put up with to keep the husband happy.
As for the birth process itself, I was even more ignorant since everything to do with sex and having babies was shrouded in secrecy. Nice people didn’t discuss such things. And being pregnant was embarrassing.
‘We must keep this news to ourselves,’Tommy said. ‘It’s a private matter and has nothing to do with anyone else.’
‘What about Mrs Kenyon next door?’
‘Especially Mrs Kenyon.’
I hid my condition from others’ eyes for as long as possible. Uncomfortable though it was, I tightened my corsets and wore a pinarette - the kind that ties at the sides - so that the growing bulge in my stomach was not apparent. When walking to the clinic on hot days, I wore my big winter coat to cover myself up and though the sweat was running down my arms, wild horses couldn’t have made me take it off. I noticed that from this time on, Tommy never went out in public with me. At weekends we’d always gone out somewhere - the pictures, the Queen’s Park Hipp, the local for a couple of quiet drinks. Now it all stopped. As if he didn’t want to be seen with me
now that I was starting to get big. Funny old world.
At five months, I could hide my condition no longer and the secret was out. Mrs Kenyon turned out to be helpful, for she had lots of suggestions. Little in the way of advice about actually having the baby - she was much too shy to talk about that - but she was well informed about predicting the sex of the baby.
‘During pregnancy,’ she told me, ‘you’ll get funny fanciful tastes. Ice cream with tomato sauce, sausages with jam, and God knows what else. Don’t worry about it, eat what you like. A little bit of what you fancy does you good.’
‘Strange you should say that,’ I said. ‘Lately I’ve had a craving for apple pie. It’s odd because I don’t usually like it that much.’
‘That is good news,’ she exclaimed. ‘It’s a sign. Apple pie means a boy. You’re going to have a little boy! It’s well- known in Lancashire that fancying cherry pie means a girl, and apple pie a boy. Your husband will be pleased.’
‘Are you absolutely sure?’
‘Absolutely! As God is my witness!’
‘An old wives’ tale,’ Tommy said when I told him. Nevertheless he looked pleased at the prospect of a son.
‘We’ll call him Thomas,’ I said. ‘He’ll be your son and heir.’
He gave a broad smile and looked as happy as a dog with an extra tail.
‘What if it’s a girl?’ he asked.
‘We’ll call her Mary after your mother. But Mrs Kenyon is one hundred per cent positive it’s a boy. So think boy.’
I began knitting. In the evening, no sound was to be heard in our living room but the clicking of needles. Everything was to be blue - bonnets, matinee coats, leggings, bootees, nighties - everything.
‘I think this little bugger’s going to be a Tory, judging by your knitting,’Tommy joked.
For the next few months, he thought and talked about nothing but his son.
‘I’ll teach him to play football. If he’s going to make the team, he’ll have to keep fit and that means long walks. Don’t worry, I’ll see to it that he keeps in training. There’s the problem of his education. We must try to send him to a decent school and I won’t stand for any kids bullying him. I’ll show him how to look after himself. I’ve learned a trick or two in the market. Another thing, nobody will push him around the way I was pushed around or he’ll have me to deal with. If I catch one of them teachers belting him. I’ll be up at that school in two shakes and I’ll give ’em what for. They’re not going to treat my son like that, I can tell you.’ He punched his hand and turned red with anger.
‘Hold on. Tommy,’ I said. ‘The kid hasn’t even been born yet and already you’re getting into fights over him at the school.’
‘We’ve got to think ahead. What kind of job will he have? I could show him how to be a market porter, it’s not a bad job. Good money and lots of fruit and veg to take home - even fish. That’s good brain food, you know. He’d never have an empty belly, that’s for sure. But he’d have to be quick, strong and clever to do the job well.’
Every day, he brought home extra food as if we didn’t have enough already. ‘Rabbit - that’s the meat to build you up,’ he insisted. ‘Best food there is to give you strength. Better than chicken. Better than steak.’
We ate rabbit till it was coming out of our ears, in every conceivable dish - rabbit pie, rabbit stew, rabbit casserole, and with dumplings for extra sustenance. I swear my two front teeth were beginning to take on the look of our furry friends.
From time to time, I wondered how and where the baby came out. I thought of visiting my mother for advice but Frank McGuinness was always present. I wanted to ask Mrs Kenyon but was too shy. And I’m sure it would have embarrassed her too. I remember my gran’ma saying, ‘It comes out where it went in.’ But that didn’t seem to make any sense. Girls at Swinton School had always claimed it came out of the belly button which would open like a flower at the right time. It was hard to know what to believe and I didn’t know what to expect. I stood over a mirror and had a look at myself‘down there’. What rubbish gran’ma had talked. There was no way a baby could get out from there! I had to go along with the belly button school of thought.
Towards the end of February in 1911 the pains began. I’d been doing the washing and had lifted the dolly tub filled with water and clothes when I felt something snap inside. When the contractions started a little later, I put them down to the rhubarb we had eaten the day before but then it dawned on me what they were. I’d arranged for Mrs Kenyon to come and help when my time was due. I had hoped to ask my good friend Angela to do this but she had lost her own baby in a miscarriage a few months earlier and I thought it might upset her. So I knocked on Mrs Kenyon’s wall and shouted to her that she was needed. I sent Tommy to get our ‘handy-woman’ who lived two streets away. There were two handy-women in our district - Annie Swann and Bridget Coogan. I didn’t want Annie even though she was an old friend because she was more used to laying out the dead and acting as pawnbroker’s runner than delivering children. We’d plumped for Mrs Coogan as she’d had a little training in midwifery and what’s more her fee was only a couple of bob.
I always kept the house spotless but Mrs Kenyon and I
had cleaned the bedroom from top to bottom just the same to make sure. I made the bed in readiness using the new sheets we’d got as wedding presents and I got dolled up in my best nightdress and cardigan. I sat there in all my glory waiting for Bridget Coogan.
Tommy was soon back with our woman who strode in, all businesslike. Her sharp manner gave us confidence. Here was a woman who knew what she was about.
‘The first thing you can do is get out of that finery, put on your oldest things and get out your oldest sheets and lay out newspapers to protect your mattress.’
From what? I wondered.
‘And you,’ she said pointing to Tommy, ‘can bugger off to the pub. You’ll only be in my road here.’
Tommy didn’t need telling twice. He looked relieved, nodded his agreement and had his cap on before she’d finished speaking.
When he’d gone, Mrs Kenyon heated up pans of water on the fire whilst Mrs Coogan tied a towel on the bedrail and told me to pull on that when I needed to. I hadn’t the first notion of what was going to happen and I was beginning to get scared. She asked me the name of our doctor ‘just in case’ and when I told her it was Dr Cooklin, she seemed pleased.
‘He’s one of the best,’ she said, ‘not like some of these others who kill half the kids with their forceps and he charges only thirty bob. But you look young, fit and healthy, so I’m sure we won’t need him. I hope you’re going to have your baby without any* fuss. None of that screaming or shouting or you’ll frighten half the neighbourhood. The first one is always the .most difficult but we’ll see what we can do to speed things up.’
This reference to screaming and shouting did nothing to reassure me.
Bridget told me to walk about the room until the baby was ready to come. When the first white-hot spasm went through me, I was taken completely by surprise. I held onto the bed and I couldn’t hold back the scream which came out of my throat. Bridget gave me a swift slap on the cheek.
‘We’ll have none of that!’ she snapped. ‘You must grin and bear it.’
I’ll bear it, I thought, but I won’t grin.
But Bridget was also kind and as I stood at the foot of the bed taking deep breaths, she stroked my back to try and deaden my agony. I lost count of the time and so I don’t know how long we stood around like this. A couple of hours maybe. It got bad, and she told me to get on the bed and lie on my left side.
‘Won’t be long now, love,’ she urged. ‘Pull on the towel for all you’re worth - that should ease things.’
I did as I was told but it didn’t help much.
More searing pain. I thought this agony was going to go on for ever. Then at last it was over and I heard the most beautiful sound in the whole universe, the wonderful, wonderful cry of a newly born infant.
‘It’s a little girl,’ Bridget announced. ‘The bonniest baby you ever did see. An angel from heaven. And today is the coronation of King George and Queen Mary. So maybe you should call her Georgina or Mary.’
‘It’s already been decided and it’s definitely not Georgina,’ I said. ‘Her name is Mary.’
She washed the baby and put her in my arms. She was right, she was indeed bonny, with light brown hair and hazel eyes like her father.
My first thought was that it should have been a boy, according to Mrs Kenyon and her apple pie theory, and I wondered how Tommy would take it after all that talk
about a son and heir. But at that moment I was past caring and only glad that the ordeal was over and the baby was alive and well. Mrs Kenyon joined us and helped by taking away the blood-stained newspapers and the afterbirth to burn them on the fire which she had built up in the kitchen.
As for Tommy, there was no need to worry about his reaction. When he laid eyes on his daughter, a look of unutterable tenderness came over him and he took her in his arms delicately as if afraid she might come apart if treated any other way.
‘It’s OK to hold her firmly,’ Bridget told him. ‘It’s a baby you’re holding, not a meringue! It won’t crumble in your grasp.’
But Tommy continued to treat Mary gently for ever after. It was as if having a daughter brought out all his tender instincts. Every night he cradled her in his arms and rocked her to sleep with soft words and gentle lullabies. He talked to her and told her how beautiful she was with her curly brown hair and the hazel Hopkins eyes. Mary gurgled and cooed with delight as if trying to answer him. During the night, the slightest cough or snuffle from the cradle and Tommy was up like a shot to attend to her. If he could have re-organised Mother Nature, he would have suckled her.
Shortly after Mary was born, Canon McCabe honoured us with a visit. It meant getting out the best cups and saucers. He congratulated us on our fine baby and arranged a date for the baptism. He questioned us closely about our chosen godparents. Were they God-fearing, practising Catholics who would take the awesome responsibilities of sponsorship seriously? We were able to reassure him on these points. We had chosen Jimmy and Angela for the simple reason that if they were destined not to have any children of their own, they could take over Mary’s
spiritual welfare ifTommy and me were knocked down by a tram or a runaway horse.
‘After the christening,’ the Canon said, ‘we shall arrange for the churching and purification of the mother.’
‘We don’t want to put you to any trouble, Canon,’ Tommy said. ‘We’ll just have the christening.’ He was thinking that this churching thing might involve extra expense.
‘Ah, but your wife must be purified after giving birth. It’s an ancient Catholic custom to give thanks to God for a safe delivery and to make atonement for her sin.’
Sin? What sin?
‘Sorry, Canon,’ I said. ‘I don’t understand. Surely having a baby is not a sin.’
‘Ah, indeed no,’ the Canon answered. ‘But the custom goes back to Old Testament times. The Jews considered a mother to be unclean for seven days - fourteen if God had sent her a girl, as in your case.’
It was the first I’d heard that I was unclean for having a baby and that I had to be purified. I couldn’t remember old Shirty Gerty mentioning it at school.
Tommy frowned at this suggestion that I was somehow tainted for having given birth to his beloved Mary.
‘And what happens, Father, if we decide not to have this ceremony of yours?’ he asked testily.
‘Well, I can tell you this,’ the Canon snapped. ‘In the old days in Ireland, we held that until she was churched, a mother would never get strong, and any food she cooked or served would do her family no good. And if she refused to be churched, neighbours were displeased, believing she would bring a plague of rats about the place. Kate here should not venture out of the house until she has been churched after the christening. Nor should she have any visitors, for it would only bring terrible misfortune on
them. And bear in mind that it’s a great privilege to be offered the ceremony because the church offers it only to respectable married mothers.’
A bit late to talk about not visiting or having visitors, I thought. There was the Royal London Club man who’d come round the first day to insure the baby for tuppence a week. There were Angela and Hilda who’d already been round to see the baby. According to the Canon, they were in for a run of disasters and bad luck.
Tommy now looked angry and was on the point of giving the Canon a piece of his mind. Tve never heard such a load of—’
‘We’ll be glad to have the ceremony,’ I said, interrupting him quickly before he could put his foot in it. Best not to get on the wrong side of the parish priest.
The following Sunday afternoon, we took Mary to be baptised. As well as Jimmy and Angela, we invited Hilda and Danny, and Mrs Kenyon. Eddie came over from Swinton and Cissie, who had managed to get the day off, came up from Macclesfield.
Mam and Frank McGuinness were also invited but were otherwise engaged. Aunt Sarah too was unable to come because of Barney’s ill health. As we set off walking to the church, I couldn’t help noticing how wistfully Angela looked at the baby as she carried it to the church. I sent up a silent prayer asking God to send Angela one of her own.
When we reached St Chad’s, the main party made its way to the baptismal font but I was told to go to the side altar of the Blessed Virgin as I wasn’t allowed to take part in the christening. I felt like one of the lepers I’d read about in history books. All I needed was a bell round my neck and I could enter the church calling out ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ so that everyone could keep away from me. I
knelt there saying the rosary whilst Mary was baptised at the other end of the church. All I could hear was a lot of Latin words being mumbled over my daughter, with Jimmy and Angela promising to bring her up in the Catholic faith if it so happened that Tommy and me got hit by that tram people kept talking about.
When the christening was over, the Canon came down to me with an altar boy carrying a lighted candle and a bucket of holy water and went inside the rails of the side altar. I was told to hang onto the end of his stole and hold the lighted candle while he said more Latin words over me. He blessed me with holy water and made the sign of the cross with his thumb on my forehead. I was declared clean and told that I could join my family who were waiting for me at the end of the church. So both Mary and I had the devil taken out of us that Sunday afternoon. I don’t know how Mary was feeling but I felt no different.
After the christening and the cleansing, it was back to Back Murray Street for tea and sandwiches. A proud and happy Tommy presided over it all. Danny and young Eddie gave us a lovely duet performance on clarinet and cornet, something from Mozart. Eddie was now fourteen years old and coming on well. Cissie told us how she was going out with a nice boy from Macclesfield. He was one of identical twins so like each other, she sometimes got them mixed up.
‘Well, it’s to be hoped that you marry the right one,’ I said. ‘You’ll have to have him tattooed. Anyway, you’re much too young to be going out with boys.’
‘Kate,’ she said, ‘you’re losing track of time. I’m now seventeen and old enough to think about getting married myself.’
It was true. Time was going by so quickly that I’d forgotten that my brother and sister were growing up fast.
Later, the three men went to ‘wet the baby’s head’ in the Turk’s Head, a popular pub for market workers on Shudehill.
Like most Smithfield market men, Tommy liked a drink but, thank God, he didn’t overdo it like the loathsome McTavish in the workhouse, my own mother and Frank McGuinness, or our neighbour, Paddy Kenyon, who not only drank but beat up his wife every weekend. A few Saturdays ago, Madge Kenyon had come running to us with her two kids for shelter and Tommy and I had had to go round to confront Paddy. He’d been in a violent mood and had been using his wife as a punch bag after drinking Chester’s beer in the Crown and Anchor. But he hadn’t been so brave when faced by another man and I think I put the fear of God in him when I threatened to set the ‘Cruelty Man’ on him. I’d asked Madge why she stayed with Paddy when he was so vicious.
‘It’s only when he’s had a drop too many, Kate. At other times, he’s kind and considerate. Besides, where could we run to if we did decide to leave? I depend on Paddy for everything - food, rent, fuel, clothes. Without him, I’ve got nowt. We do at least get a bit of peace some weekends since he’s joined the Territorials and has to go on manoeuvres. I think he’s only enlisted as a cheap way of getting a training camp holiday.’
Tommy’s drinking was confined to a couple of pints in the evening when he went to play his game of crib with his cronies and sort out world affairs, like what to do about the Chinese hordes, German re-armament, and the anarchists who were planting bombs in London. Tommy was always trying to involve me in the news by reading out bits from the paper. He always began with words like: ‘Country’s going to the dogs, Kate,’ or ‘I don’t know what the world’s coming to, I really don’t.’
Sad to say, I was never interested unless it concerned me personally. After all, I didn’t know any members of the Chinese hordes, or the German leaders who were building those Dreadnoughts. Whilst I was sorry to learn about the sinking of the Titanic and, like everybody else, made tut- tut and tsk-tsk noises when Tommy read it out, none of my friends had been on it and so it didn’t affect me. And God forgive me, there was even the guilty thought that such a thing could never happen to me or my family ’cos we weren’t in the habit of cruising on ships like that.
As the months went by, Tommy’s attachment to Mary grew stronger. Soon she was making little happy babbling noises in reply to his serenading; they reminded me at times of two doves cooing to each other. He murmured to her how one day he would dress her in silk and satin and tie ribbons in her hair. She’d be the most beautiful little girl, all peaches and cream, in the whole of Manchester and win prizes at baby shows. I couldn’t help thinking at times that he was overdoing it a bit but there was something about this little creature that brought joy to everyone’s heart. For Tommy, she brought out his most protective feelings. Mary had only to whimper and he was there to pick her up and she immediately stopped and began her happy cooing sounds.
When she was one year old, we were wakened in the middle of the night by her making little wheezing and grunting noises followed by a bark-like cough. It was evident that she was having difficulty in breathing. We both became alarmed and didn’t know what to do for the best. Mary turned her big eyes to Tommy, looking for help and relief, but he didn’t have the answer.
He fell to his knees - a thing I’d never seen him do.
‘Please, God,’ he prayed, ‘don’t take my child away. Please help her to get better.’
‘Don’t take on so,Tommy,’ I said. ‘She’s going to be all right. You’ll see.’
First thing next morning we were round at the surgery waiting with the other patients for Dr Cooklin to arrive.
‘Is it serious, doctor?’Tommy asked anxiously.
‘It’s a mild case of croup,’ the doctor said after examining Mary. ‘Steam inhalations will help her breathe more easily. Keep her warm and place a bowl filled with hot water and a few drops of Friar’s Balsam near her cot. And most important of all, both of you stay calm! Fear soon communicates itself to little ones.’
It was useless telling Tommy to stay calm. His early childhood experiences had made him tense and expecting the worst. But there was nothing to be afraid of. Within a week, Mary’s breathing returned to normal and she was her happy, gurgling self.
It was about this time that I found I was pregnant again.
Good, I told myself. Maybe this time it’ll be a boy. I decided not to consult my fortune-telling neighbour with her apple-pie/cherry-pie theories. Best to leave it to Nature and accept whatever God sent us. Since Mary had been born Tommy had never said he would like a boy but nevertheless I thought that deep down he would welcome a son and heir to play football with and to follow in his footsteps in the market. As it turned out, I had another little girl whom we named Florence after my childhood heroine Florence Nightingale. She was as beautiful as Mary but definitely took second place in Tommy’s affections. One good thing about another girl was that we were able to hand down Mary’s clothes.
A year later, there was another baby on the way. By the law of averages, surely this one would present Tommy with a son. Our hopes were in vain. Another girl! We called
number three Pauline, or Polly for short. Why Polly? It sounds daft, I know, but my favourite nursery rhyme at school had always been Tolly put the kettle on’ and I liked the sound of the full name Polly Hopkins. Somehow, it sounded so tasteful.
Of course Jimmy Dixon had a wonderful time with his snide remarks.
‘Why all these girls, Tommy? Trying to produce a netball team or what?’ or ‘You want to get some more Boddington’s bitter down you, Tommy. That should do the trick.’
Tommy took it in good part and simply laughed it off, even when Jimmy said one night, ‘Here’s Angela and me doing our best to have one kid and Tommy there has only to hang his trousers over the bed rail and there’s another little Hopkins on the way.’ It was meant to be a joke but the remark contained a certain amount of sadness because Angela still longed to have a child but there was nothing doing.
Whilst our home could not be described as crowded, it was gradually filling up. Everywhere there were baby things: clothes, rattles, prams, cradles, nappies drying on the line. What a job it was keeping the place clean and it was a constant battle to fight off the bugs, the fleas and the other pests. Cockroaches were my biggest worry; they usually came out at night and it was best to tackle them by putting talcum powder down. But one day, I had the shock of my life when I found Flo - who was now at the early crawling stage - had ‘something’ in her mouth.
‘Come on, Flo, my little love,’ I said softly. ‘What’s that you’ve got in your mouth?’
I managed to get the ‘something’ out. Imagine my horror when I found she’d picked up a cockroach! I redoubled my efforts. Tommy spent much of his time worrying about childhood illnesses - scarlet fever,
bronchitis, whooping cough. All potential killers. He brought home jars of Virol and bottles of Scott’s Emulsion, two products he swore by. And he was forever fretting that the kids might meet with some accident. One day, Mary slipped whilst playing hopscotch and bashed her head on the pavement. He carried her over five miles to the casualty department of Ancoats Hospital. It turned out to be nothing serious though it left a little lump on the back of her head for a day or two. But Tommy would take no chances.
How proud he was of the kids! Before our marriage, he hadn’t gone to church much but now he became a regular sight, happily attending nine o’clock Mass every Sunday with me and his three girls dressed in their ribbons and silk finery. A pillar of St Chad’s society is what he’d become.
He was anxious as ever to educate me in current affairs. One day, I was breast-feeding Polly and thinking about what I’d get Tommy for his tea - perhaps tripe and onions from the UCP, he always liked that - when he disturbed my train of thought by reading an item from the Daily Dispatch.
‘The news looks bad, Kate.’
Here we go again, I thought.
‘Irish at it again. Tommy?’
‘No, not the Irish this time, Kate. It’s abroad. Some mad bugger’s killed the Austrian Archduke and his missus.’
What in God’s name had that got to do with us? It was like all that stuff about famine in India and earthquakes in Turkey. As far as I knew, we didn’t have any archdukes among our friends or neighbours. Best to humour him, though.
‘Oh, aye,’ I replied. ‘Is that important?’
‘It could be, Kate,’ he said slowly. ‘All the countries have signed agreements to protect each other if they’re
attacked. Gentlemen’s agreements, they call them.’
‘Sounds complicated, Tommy,’ I said. ‘A bit like when kids fight in the playground. Johnny hits young Alfie. Sid comes up and says to Johnny, “You hit Alfie again and I’ll belt j/ow one.” Next Bert walks up to Sid. “And if you hit Johnny , I’ll thump you” And so it goes on till everyone’s making a fist at everyone else.’
Tommy laughed. ‘It’s what the politicians call the balance of power. Stalemate. That is, unless one of the crazy bastards does carry out his threat and then all hell will be let loose with everyone bashing each other over the head.’
‘Do you think that’s going to happen over this archduke fella? Is there going to be a war, Tommy?’
‘Not a chance. Thanks to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, all the European heads are related to each other - either uncles or cousins. Besides, nobody can afford it.’
Monday, 3 August, was a Bank Holiday.
‘I think we’ll go to Blackpool again,’ Angela announced one weekend in July. ‘I’ll organise seats for us on the excursion from Victoria for Monday morning. Whatever we arrange, the men will agree as they always leave it to us.’
By ‘us’ she meant herself. We’d always left the choice of our day out to Angela, but this time Hilda and I thought we’d like a say - a sort of palace revolution.
‘We’ve done Blackpool twice,’ Hilda said. ‘Let’s try somewhere else for a change.’
‘I suppose we could go to New Brighton again,’ Angela said, not sounding too keen on the idea.
‘Why not pick a different place?’ I protested. ‘Let’s try Southport.’
‘Southport!’ Angela exploded. ‘Who in God’s name
wants to go to Southport? It’s got the name of being the dead centre of Lancashire - a cemetery with lights. And the sea is so far out, you have to hire a cab to go for a swim.’
‘We’ve never been there and I’ve heard it’s a lovely place for the kids,’ I argued, not to be talked out of it so easily. ‘It’s called the Seaside Garden City.’
‘And I’ve heard it’s quiet and refined,’ Hilda added. She didn’t mention that she and I had talked it over before raising the matter with Angela.
‘So, who needs quiet and refined?’ Angela scoffed.
‘We do!’ Hilda and I chorused.
‘We’ll vote on it,’ I said. A bit unfair really, as we knew the result already.
Angela lost two to one. Southport it was.
‘Don’t blame me if you have a miserable time,’ she said. Angela always had to have the last word.
From Ancoats to Victoria Station is only a short walk. Tommy carried Mary high on his shoulders and Jimmy carried little Flo, while I had charge of Polly in her pram. Danny and Hilda met us at the station and this time we were joined by Eddie who had got the day off from Swinton. We put the pram in the guard’s van and caught the nine o’clock excursion, arriving in the resort an hour later. We stepped out of Chapel Street Station into glorious sunshine, and something strange came over the men. Perhaps it was the sea air or the freedom of a day off work. Whatever it was, they became little boys again - especially Tommy.
‘First thing we do,’ he shouted excitedly, ‘is take a carriage ride through the town.’
Outside the station we chose a landau drawn by a pair of fine black horses and we were soon riding down Southport’s magnificent boulevard that was Lord Street.
‘I’ve always wondered what it felt like to be King for a
day,’ Jimmy laughed as he gave a royal wave to passers-by on each side of the road.
‘Let’s hope some mad bugger doesn’t shoot us,’Tommy called.
After the tour, we found our way to the so-called Pleasureland where our three men rushed about like kids in a sweets factory eager to try everything that met their eye.
They insisted we all have a go on the water chute. Us ladies politely turned the offer down as we didn’t fancy it one bit and we hated paying out good money to be shaken about and frightened to death. Instead we took the children to the promenade paddling pool where Angela held Mary’s hand tightly as she joyfully splashed about in the water. Hilda and I sat in the shade with the two younger ones. We could hear the men’s ecstatic WHEEEE! as their wooden boats shot down the steel ramp at breakneck speed into the lake three hundred yards below. After that, it was the Maxim Flying Machine whirling them round the rim of the lake. With the children we preferred quieter activities like building sand castles or taking donkey rides. We couldn’t leave Pleasureland without visiting the funfair and wasting a few pennies on the ‘Try Your Luck’ stalls. Good, harmless fun. At the ‘Drop the Man Into the Water’ stall Tommy succeeded in hitting the bull’s-eye, so tipping the poor victim into the big barrel of water below.
There would have been more but I reckoned that it was time for a break, and anyroad it was one o’clock and we were ready for dinner. Near the railway station, we’d noticed a lovely restaurant called Hayes’ which offered ‘special terms for picnic parties’.
‘I reckon seven adults make up a picnic party,’ Danny remarked.
There was only one meal we could choose and that was
fish and chips cooked as only a Lancashire restaurant knew how.
Throughout the meal we could hear the newsboys calling out the headlines.
‘LATEST NEWS! INVASION OF FRANCE! GERMANY ON THE MARCH!’
‘I don’t like the sound of that,’ I said.
‘Newspapers exaggerating as usual,’ Tommy said. ‘Nothing to worry about, it won’t affect us.’
‘And even if it does,’ Danny answered, ‘you can leave it to the army. We’ll soon sort the Kaiser out if he wants war.’
‘I hope there is a war,’ Eddie exclaimed. ‘I wouldn’t mind getting into it.’
‘Don’t talk so daft, our Eddie,’ I said. ‘War’s not a game. Besides, you’re far too young.’
‘I’m over seventeen now, Kate. Old enough to join up.’
‘The army’s not for baby boys,’ retorted Danny. ‘You’re hardly out of nappies.’
‘Huh!’ Eddie replied. ‘I’ve already done two years with the Swinton army cadets, so I’m an old hand. If there’s going to be a war, I want to enlist fast before it’s all over. I’ll be in the Bugle Band.’
‘That should terrify the Kaiser, all right,’ Jimmy laughed. ‘That means we’ll have a short war.’
‘For God’s sake,’ Angela said. ‘Enough talk about war. We’re supposed to be enjoying ourselves.’
After lunch, we decided on less hectic activity and strolled along the promenade licking our ice-cream cornets.
Our walk took us as far as the pier and we found we were in time for a performance of the Pier Pierrots at three thirty. We took our seats in a row of deck chairs arranged in front of the stage and we hadn’t long to wait. The troupe came on singing ‘I do like to be beside the seaside’ to the accompaniment of several banjos; they were wearing
the traditional costume of loose-fitting white silk shirts with four or five large black pompoms on them, dunces’ caps and white face-paint. The entertainment was as advertised - a good family show, suitable for all ages. It began with a few songs sung around the piano, followed by a few simple sketches and monologues. Two comedians did a quick-fire double routine. The quips were topical and had an anti-German flavour. We wondered how Hilda would react having a German grandad but she seemed to take it in good part and laughed with the rest of us. Somehow the humour seemed to reflect the spirit of the times, unhurried, uncomplicated, unthreatening. The Germans wouldn’t dare to start a fight with us - we were British. The show finished with a general sing-song of the popular tunes of 1914: ‘Hello, Hello, Who’s Your Lady Friend?’ ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’. And finally Elgar’s patriotic song which had become our second national anthem:
Land of Hope and Glory , Mother of the free ,
How shall we uphold thee , who are horn of thee?
Gird thee well for battle , bid thy hosts increase;
Stand for faith and honour , smite for truth and peace!
After the show, we ordered tea and cakes from a kiosk in the municipal gardens and found places near a beautiful fountain. Not far away was a bandstand and we settled down to listen to a military band playing a selection of airs from The Merry Widow until it was time to catch the excursion train back to Manchester.
We reached Victoria Station tired but happy. Angela was ready to concede that Southport wasn’t so bad. But as we stepped out of the station, the terrible news hit us like a thunderbolt.
‘EVENING NEWS SPECIAL! GERMANY INVADES BELGIUM! WAR IMMINENT!’
Tommy bought a paper and read the main items.
‘A hundred thousand Germans march on Belgium and Luxembourg. Belgian King appeals to His Majesty King George the Fifth for help.’
‘What does it mean, Tommy?’ I asked. ‘Is it war?’
‘No two ways about it, Kate. It’s war all right.’
‘Oh, good,’ Eddie exclaimed. ‘Now I can join up. I’d better be quick though, before it’s all over.’
Next day, Great Britain declared war on Germany. As if by magic, there appeared on hoardings and the sides of trams and buses and on pillar boxes government recruiting posters with the moustached face of Lord Kitchener and his pointing finger. ‘In this crisis, your country calls on all able-bodied men to rally round the flag and enlist in the ranks of her army.’
Other posters appealed to the women of Britain to tell their men to go. Everywhere there were notices calling on army reservists and Territorials to report immediately for duty. Tradesmen had cards printed and exhibited in their shop windows: ‘Business as usual during alterations to the map of Europe.’
Mrs Kenyon came round to tell us that her Paddy was a reservist and would be joining up the next day. ‘He’s been told by his bosses at the Salford Gas Department that each man’s family will get fifteen shillings a week with a further half-crown for each child during his absence. That’s in addition to his shilling a day. We’ve never been so well-off.’
When she’d gone, Tommy said, ‘That bugger Paddy Kenyon can start taking out his anger by bashing the Boche instead of his wife. And she’s going to get paid while he’s doing it.’
On that first night of the war, Tommy and I got Mrs Kenyon to baby-sit while we went with Jimmy and Angela to join the crowds congregating in Albert Square. There we found a vast multitude of people celebrating, cheering and slapping each other on the back. They were waving Union Jacks and bellowing ‘Rule Britannia’.
‘Bloody fools!’Jimmy said. ‘They don’t understand what we’ve let ourselves in for.’
‘Not to worry,’ Tommy said. ‘Asquith said it’ll be over by Christmas.’
‘Not according to Kitchener,’ Jimmy replied. ‘He reckons we’re in for a long haul - a few years maybe.’
‘He would say that,’ I said. ‘Being a soldier, he’s hoping it’ll last for a few years. More medals and glory for him. Maybe a statue in Trafalgar Square and a plaque in Westminster Abbey.’
A number of city councillors appeared on the town hall steps to address the throng through a public address system. The first orator whipped up hatred of the Germans by describing the atrocities their troops had committed: bayoneting babies, bricking-up mines containing Belgian miners, hanging Belgian priests head downwards as living clappers in their church bells, and raping nuns. Speaker after speaker spoke of‘foul crimes towards both sexes’, the German hordes, the impending invasion, and the gallantry of our ‘little British army’.
The final speaker turned to the real purpose of the meeting - the question of recruitment.
‘Thousands, nay millions of men are to be rushed into the bloodiest of wars mainly, we are told, for a mere scrap of paper. But on that scrap of paper are written the words, “The honour of Britain”.’
There were loud cheers and it was some time before he could go on.
‘That is a fine idea, but we also have to remember that at the same time we shall be fighting for ourselves, for our wives, for our children, for everything that’s dear to us. Fighting for our shores, the liberty of our country, for our hearths and homes. Can we sit comfortably at home while this is going on? I appeal to the men of Manchester to enlist today.’
As I listened, I wondered how much fighting he would be doing personally. Probably not much. His speech had the desired effect, however, for there was spontaneous applause and the crowd began singing the national anthem with great gusto.
The night ended when the Lord Mayor came onto the platform and shouted out, ‘Are we downhearted?’
‘No!’
‘Shall we beat ’em?’
‘YE-E-E-S!’
At home that night,Tommy said, ‘I think that councillor was right. It’s not fair that people like me should sit at home while others fight for our home and our children.’
‘Don’t talk so daft, Tommy,’ I told him. ‘You’re thirty years of age and you have a family to think of. Leave the fighting to the young men.’
But he wouldn’t hear of it. Next day, he took the day off to go down early to join the crush of hopeful recruits at Ardwick Artillery HQ. He was away all day and I was worried out of my mind. I prayed to God that something - I couldn’t think what - would stop him from joining.
A sheepish-looking Tommy came back later that evening.
‘Well,’ I said anxiously, ‘when do you go?’
‘I don’t,’ he said. ‘I didn’t pass the medical.’
‘Didn’t pass the medical! But you’re as fit as a fiddle! What’s wrong with you?’
‘My feet,’ he said. ‘They said I’ve got hammer toes and something called Hallux Valgus.’
Thank you, God, I said silently. Up to that point I’d never realised that the Almighty had a sense of humour.
‘That Hallux thingamajig sounds serious,’ I said. ‘But surely those hammer toes would be useful in a war. You could kick hell out of the Germans.’
‘It seems not, Kate. They reckon I wouldn’t be able to do long route marches.’
That was a laugh. Tommy not able to do long marches! He’d marched me all round Manchester during our courtship and he’d have marched the British Army into the ground.