by Maggie Hope
Contents
Cover
About the Book
About the Author
Also by Maggie Hope
Title Page
Dedication
Prologue
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Read on for an excerpt from Workhouse Child
Copyright
About the Book
A terrible choice between her sweetheart and her reputation…
Orphaned from birth, Mary Trent has always dreamed of the day she can escape from poverty, and when she meets the dashing young doctor Tom Gallagher, it seems her prayers have been answered.
But an untimely pregnancy spells disaster and the threat of returning to a life of destitution. Is a marriage of convenience the only thing that can save her?
From the author of Orphan Girl and Workhouse Child
About the Author
Maggie Hope was born and raised in County Durham. She worked as a nurse for many years, before giving up her career to raise her family.
Also by Maggie Hope
A Wartime Nurse
A Mother’s Gift
A Nurse’s Duty
A Daughter’s Gift
Molly’s War
The Servant Girl
A Daughter’s Duty
Like Mother, Like Daughter
Orphan Girl
Eliza’s Child
Workhouse Child
To
Tot and Cilla
Prologue
1962
‘They should never have got permission,’ said Mrs Morrison, and Edie Wright, in front of her at the store counter, nodded glumly. The noise outside the shop became louder so that both assistants and customers had to shout to make themselves heard. An enormous digging machine was rumbling past, on its way to the opencast mining site, halfway between Winton Colliery and Eden Hope Colliery. Flurries of dust came through the open door and an old miner, waiting to buy cigarettes, coughed.
‘The Coal Board can do whatever it wants to do,’ Jane, the girl behind the counter said. She went over to the cheese slicer and expertly cut half a pound of Cheddar and wrapped it.
‘One and sixpence ha’penny, please,’ she said. ‘Anything else?’
‘No thanks, pet,’ said Edie and turned back to Joan Morrison. ‘My Don’s seen the plans, you know. He reckons they’re going right up to Old Pit.’
Joan sighed. ‘I hope not. It’s a piece of history that place. They should leave it alone.’
The women nodded. All of them had played ‘House’ in the old village, in their imaginations the ruined houses becoming a proper row, like the ones in Winton Colliery. The lads had played Cowboys and Indians and lately, British and Germans in and out of the buildings, pretending they were falling down because they’d been bombed. They’d had no thought for danger then. And now the Coal Board had the area fenced off with high banks of topsoil reinforcing the fences.
They’d said they would put it all back when they were finished and perhaps they would. At the moment the NCB was bent on winning the last ounce of coal from the seams once worked by underground miners by extracting it more efficiently from the surface. And they would put the old slag heaps in the hole too and the valley would be green again.
It was the following week when Big Geordie, the giant digger that pulled a dragline behind it over long stretches of ground going deeper and deeper into the earth as it created its own valley, came across an old gallery a couple of hundred feet down. There were wicker corves in one place, which disintegrated as the air got to them and an old shaft with broken ladders leading up to the surface.
‘By heck, I wouldn’t have liked to live in them days,’ a burly worker said as they broke off to eat their bait. ‘They had a bloody awful life them old pitmen. Fancy doing a shift underground and then having to climb up ladders to the top.’
The other men nodded and chewed on their sandwiches as they thought about it. The buzzer went and they got to their feet. Four more hours and they could go home to their dinners. A cold wind blew down the valley.
‘That was one thing that was better,’ Jack Morrison said. ‘It was always warm in the pit.’
‘Aye,’ one replied. ‘Sometimes too blooming warm.’ He climbed into the driver’s cabin of Big Geordie and started the engine.
The great machine worked on and on trundling along the bottom of the man-made valley, broadening it out. Until they uncovered something which made them all down tools for a day.
A tunnel, or gallery actually, following the line of the coal seam they were ripping from the earth had been found. In the tunnel there were the remains of men and, heart-breakingly, boys who could have been no more than eight or nine, together with pit ponies still attached to small waggons with bits of leather harness. Both ends of the gallery had been sealed with falls of stone and coal to a width of fifty or more yards.
‘It’s a mark of respect,’ said Jack Morrison, facing the site manager in his portable cabin. He stared at Ben Atkinson across the desk. Ben shook his head.
‘It happened a long time ago, man,’ he protested. ‘In those days there were no proper plans for the mines, let alone detailed maps. We wouldn’t have exposed it on purpose, would we?’
‘No, mebbe not. But we have. And now we have to do something about it,’ said Jack.
‘Well, we are doing something. The authorities have been notified, haven’t they? There’ll be an inquest. But there’s nothing to stop us extending at the other side, is there?’
‘I’m the union representative here and I say we’ll stop work as a mark of respect,’ said Jack, taking on a stubborn look.
‘Well, I’ll get on to the Area Office again, that’s all I can do,’ said the manager.
The site lay idle that day and the next. There was a report in the local paper.
Are these the remains of the men caught in the explosion in Jane Pit way back in the 1870s or was it 1880s? There is an old stone memorial, battered and worn in the deserted mining village that lies fairly near the site. Maybe the site should be covered in again, the dead left in peace. Or should the bones be removed and buried in consecrated ground? Readers are invited to give their opinions on the matter.
‘There’s one person who ought to be asked,’ Mr James, the Methodist minister wrote in. ‘Merry Gallagher was born in one of the cottages of Old Pit and she insists it happened on the very day of the disaster. Of course she is very old and frail but she is in full possession of her faculties. I understand she lost her grandfather, father and brother in the disaster.’
‘Mother, there’s a bit about you in the paper today,’ said Marian Gallagher. ‘It’s in connection with that curious story of the entombed miners that was in a few days ago. Would you like me to read it out to you?’ Taking the answer for granted, Marian settled down on the chair beside her mother’s and read out the minister’s letter. ‘What do you think of that?’ she asked when she had finished. Sitting back she re
moved her spectacles and rubbed her nose where they had rested.
Merry said nothing for a moment and Marian felt a twinge of concern. Had she better call the doctor? After all, her mother was so very frail now and this finding of the entombed miners might have stirred her feelings too much. But suddenly Merry began to speak.
‘Tell Mr James I want to speak to him,’ she said. ‘And he can bring that newfangled tape recorder with him. I had the whole story of the disaster from my gran. And what happened to the families that were left. I reckon it’s time it was told.’
One
Vera Trent moved heavily from the table to the fire. As she carefully lifted the lid of the pan steam gushed out so that she had to jerk her face back out of range. The potatoes were boiling a little too fast, she thought, and pulled the pan back on to the bar a little, next to the kettle. Still holding the piece of sacking she used as a pan holder she sat down on the rocking chair and closed her eyes. Just for a minute, she told herself. She laid her hand across her belly, feeling the baby within her. Only one more month to go, she thought.
There was an ache in the bottom of her back and she leaned forward and rubbed at it. Catching sight of her feet she sighed. She couldn’t get her boots on now – her feet were too swollen so she was wearing a pair of Lance’s thick pit stockings to protect herself from the cold shooting up from the flagged floor.
She gazed around her, noting with pleasure the gleaming press and the floor, scrubbed only yesterday. Maybe she had worked too hard yesterday but she had been filled with energy and determined the house should be clean from top to bottom.
The pit hooter blew and she rose to her feet and picked up the pie she had ready on the table and opened the oven door to put it in. And then it happened. The whole house shook and the pie was jerked out of her hands by a force that terrified her. Losing her balance she fell heavily against the steel fender, catching her head a glancing blow from the poker that was jerked out of its stand.
Dazed, she lay on the clippie mat as pain shot through her belly.
‘Lance!’ she cried but of course Lance wasn’t there, he hadn’t come in yet. She felt the poker by her side and grasped it. If she could hit the iron fireback with it she could get help from May Morrison. If only she could stand up.
Suddenly there was a loud rumbling, the ground trembled again and the iron kettle that had been teetering on the bar fell onto the fender, spilling boiling water over her shoulder and splattering her face. Vera screamed once before she lost consciousness.
May Morrison ran out of the house into the back yard when the earth tremor came. She was standing, unsure what to do, when a rumbling, thundering crash shook the houses again. A few slates came sliding from the roof into the yard and she ran to the gate.
‘What the hell’s going on?’ Albert, May’s husband, who had been in bed as he had worked the fore shift, pushed the sash window up and stuck his head out of the window. A slate came down and narrowly missed him so he hastily drew back inside. And then Vera screamed and at that moment the pit hooter blew, a long continuous blast that made terror spring up in every person in the village. The children who had not been crying began now, sobbing and wailing.
‘It’s the pit,’ said May, rather obviously for everyone was out of the houses now and they all knew what it was. ‘My God, there’s been an explosion.’ She looked over her neighbour’s gate; there was no sign of Vera yet her house had been shaken too and her man was down the pit. She ran up the yard and into the kitchen, followed by her daughter, Dora, and stood in horror at what she saw.
‘What is it, Mam, what’s wrong with Mrs Trent?’
May started. ‘Never you mind! Go on and fetch old Ma Trent, will you? Tell her the babby’s started.’
Half an hour earlier, Lance Trent had been working underground in the Low Main Seam putting the coal to the shaft bottom, driving the pony that was pulling the tub along a narrow railroad. He was desperate to get this last tub of coal to the shaft bottom before the buzzer signalling the end of the shift blew but all his efforts were frustrated by the pony.
‘Howay now, Bonny, nearly finished,’ he said trying to keep the irritation out of his voice. Ponies knew when they were winning. Bonnie was a small Shetland pony with intelligent eyes and he had been sluggish all through the shift. Now he wedged himself at an awkward bend in the tunnel and stood, four-square. Lance knew that the pony knew he couldn’t get at him there, force him to move on. The ponies soon find out these places, he thought savagely.
‘By, I could have done with old Peter,’ said Lance to himself. Peter was his usual pony but he had had a stone fall on his shoulder, cutting it, so he was away recuperating. Bonny had a reputation among the miners; he was too clever by half.
‘Go on, lad,’ Lance said again. ‘I need the money, man.’ He was forcing himself to keep his voice low, reassuring. ‘Nearly home now.’
The buzzer sounded and suddenly Lance erupted with rage. He had not made enough money this fortnight to keep himself and Vera, let alone pay for the lying-in woman. What was more, the rest of the men on his cavil blamed him for not managing the pony better. Suddenly his frustration got the better of him and he kicked out at the only bit of pony he could reach – his steel toecap connected with a hock and the skin broke.
Bonny squealed and jumped causing the coal tub to overturn and hit a pit prop, one that should have been replaced days earlier but the gaffer had said the maintenance could be done at the weekend. The pit prop bent and broke, and then the next one to it and the one after that. Lance, crouching against the fallen tub heard a great rumbling and began to cough as coal and stone dust started to fall.
Bonny’s bucking was ever wilder, his eyes rolling in terror, but Lance couldn’t get to him even if he’d wanted to. He wouldn’t have been able to calm him anyway so he tried to move backwards between the tramlines but the roof started to fall as more props broke. It was close to the junction with the main way and pit props were going down like ninepins. Bonny’s screaming stopped abruptly as man and pony went down, both hit by great chunks of stone.
At the top of the shaft the engine house that worked the winding wheel bringing up the cage for both men and coal shuddered and strained, then the engine stopped altogether as below ground there was a great explosion. Coal dust had been disturbed, the air was thick with it and lurking firedamp – methane – had been ignited by a falling miner’s lamp. Fire raged.
‘Oh God, oh God,’ whispered Tommy Trent, ‘it couldn’t be worse. Our poor Lance.’
‘Do you think me dad is dead, Grandda?’ asked Johnny. The group of miners clustered together. Johnny had just joined the men working the cavil, the part of the coal seam allocated to the group of marras. He had been looking forward to the pie his mother had promised she would bake.
When the noises came even Johnny knew exactly what they meant, as the roof caved in, cutting them off from the way out. They crouched together, heads down as stone dust swirled in the air, choking them.
‘Grandda!’ he croaked and Tommy managed to reach him and put an arm around him.
‘They’ll get us out, lad,’ said Tommy, for Johnny was only just coming up twelve. But Tommy knew there was next to no hope. Behind them the roadway had been cut off, so they couldn’t even try for the old shaft. And already the air they were breathing was becoming foul.
‘Howay, lass, see if you can push,’ said Peggy Trent, though Vera’s eyes were closed and her face blue white. Vera gave no sign of hearing. Indeed, May thought, she looked as though it was already too late for her. But the baby’s head was crowned – it would surely come. Almost imperceptibly the girl lying on the clippie mat let out a tiny breath.
‘If we could just get her up on the settee,’ said May.
‘Well, we cannot move her,’ Peggy answered. ‘Not ’til the bairn comes.’ She slid her hand over Vera’s belly, found the right place and kneaded. Vera moved slightly and the baby’s head came out, the little face red and screwed up with effort. A
fter that it was only minutes before Peggy had her out.
‘It’s a bit lass,’ said May. ‘By, she’s a fighter an’ all.’ For the baby’s fist waved in the air and from her open mouth came a loud wail of rage.
‘Tak’ her,’ said Peggy, and May pulled a piece of worn blanket from the line over the fireplace and wrapped the child in it. Peggy was bending over Vera, looking in dismay as blood gushed suddenly and then stopped.
‘I’ll give you a hand getting her up,’ said May as she laid the baby in the bottom drawer from the press, in lieu of a cradle.
‘There’s no hurry now,’ said Peggy sadly. ‘She’s gone. Will you get a blanket to cover her, May? And can you stay for a bit? I have to go up to the pit yard to find out what’s happening.’
‘Eeh!’ May looked stricken, for in the urgencies of the last half-hour the fact that something had happened at the pit had slipped her mind. How could that have happened? Just because her own Albert was safely off shift. ‘You go on, Peggy, I’ll attend to things,’ she said. All of Peggy’s menfolk were on shift. In spite of herself May couldn’t help a profound though guilty thankfulness that it wasn’t her own.
Peggy picked up her shawl from the back of the chair where she had dropped it when she came in and wrapped it round her thin shoulders. She could do nothing for Vera now. All her instincts were drawing her to the pithead.
Albert came in just after Peggy left, dressed in his pit clothes, his leather and tin hat on his head, his knee protectors strapped on.
‘I didn’t like to come in before,’ he said. ‘Oh no, the lass isn’t dead, is she?’
‘Aye, she is,’ May replied. ‘You can lift her onto the settee for me if you like.’
Albert picked up Vera, still with the blanket covering her and laid her as carefully as he could on the horsehair settee. Then he turned back to his wife.
‘I have to go, lass,’ he said. ‘I might be needed at the pit.’
‘Aye,’ said May. ‘Hadaway, lad, I know. Mind, be careful.’
