*
Allegedly Bill too had been book-smart as a boy, but his schooling was curtailed at sixteen, whereupon he drew his first wage as an apprentice at Bearpark Colliery. He never took to it: not the place nor the people, nor the noisy, filthy, ill-rewarded graft. Instead he had the wit to sign up for and cycle to a night-school class, and won a trainee position as an installations engineer for Post Office Telecommunication.
In John’s eyes his father appeared the consummate workman in helmet, overalls, belt and boots, climbing toolbox in hand from his Bedford utility van, emblazoned with a decal of a fat orange parrot in a vest exhorting passers-by to MAKE SOMEONE HAPPY. Whenever John peeked at the innards of that van he would boggle at the unruly forest of drop-wire, the hanging baskets of insulators, gravity switches, surge arrestors and sockets. The truly daunting fact was that his father operated solo, beginning work out by the pole on the street, up a ladder with a dispenser drum, and concluding it within the hour by the skirting of the customer’s hallway. Granted, Bill was less adept at conversing with these customers, many of them wary of what he might do to their paintwork with his drill. John couldn’t imagine how his fretful father managed such exchanges.
But these were only a portion of the complaints he would hear from across the kitchen table. It was a source of inordinate ire to Bill that, ‘in this day and age’, the nation’s telephone network should still be part of the Post Office – that the poles up which he shinned each day were government property. ‘You see that?’ Bill would jab a finger at the black bakelite phone on the Gores’ hall table. ‘That’s not ours. We rent that. It’s bloody Soviet, man.’
‘Why don’t you tell them then? Give ’em what for?’ Such was the view of Susannah, very much her father’s daughter, fifteen-year-old Saturday girl at Boots the chemist in Durham.
‘Whey, you’ll never ever change ’em, Sue. Not the jobsworth brigade.’
In Jubilee Year the Gores moved to a three-bedroom house on Durham Moor Crescent, closer still to the city. Bill’s fierce proficiency seemed to be getting its due. In only one small respect was he a little unmanned before his family. On certain mornings after he had stepped from the house, as John and Susannah dawdled over cereals, the golden van remained stationary in the driveway for some minutes, until Audrey dropped the latch and dashed to the driver’s window. Apparently Bill would sometimes climb into the front seat and jam the key into the ignition only to discover he had forgotten entirely where he was going. Audrey began to fret. She spoke of her worry to John now and then. She had tried confiding in Susannah, who merely informed her, with seeming sangfroid, that telephones emitted microwaves and could yet fry Bill’s brain over time, if it were not already toasted.
*
One pale autumnal Sunday John strode forth ahead of Audrey, from Durham Market Place down cobblestones and past the shopfronts of Saddler Street, a short distance thence to the narrow steep-winding path of Owengate which drew the pilgrim toward the broad enclosure of the Palace Green. As he trudged directly up the middle of the road, he began to hear a deep-reverberating peal of bells. Then Durham Cathedral revealed itself, sat in colossal assurance over its surroundings, five hundred feet wide from east end to west.
This, by John’s estimation, had to be what was commonly known as a work of art. And yet he could just as easily suppose the Cathedral had always been there, rising but gradually from the earth over a thousand years – like an iceberg, its sculpted summit a mere fraction of a truly awesome depth. The almighty clang of bells persisted, their shudder and judder lording over the Green, tearing the air, dispelling any rival claim. Everything in John hammered and resonated in kind.
Within the walls, cool and calm prevailed. All visitors were pacified, made respectful. John wandered down past the massive stone columns that flanked and dominated the nave, each minutely and geometrically patterned, supporting great arches that lured the eye up to a ribbed and vaulting ceiling. Craftsmanship and handiwork, impossibly fine! This was the model of how God should be glorified.
He sat awhile in the pews, peering at a huge circular rose window set high in the east end – Christ in majesty, ringed by solemn saints. The light so cast was rare within this great shadowy space, and yet it seemed to John there was no want of translucence, as if some form of light were emanating through the very walls. Everything felt heightened, every step meaningful. Some visitors lit penny candles. Many more sat stolid, heads bowed. John wished to give his feeling a physical expression, some gesture of respect. He went to a column midway down the nave, traced on it with a finger, then pressed his cheek against the chill granite.
He found his mother again, drifting down the nave.
‘I always get the shivers a bit in here,’ she murmured.
‘Do you want my jumper?’ John enquired.
‘No, pet, I mean it just feels cold to us. The mood of it. It’s beautiful and all that, of course. But there’s no …’ She shrugged. John could not concur. Audrey seemed to read as much. ‘Well of course,’ she added quickly, ‘it’s a very special place.’
She paid ten pence and lit a candle, then they walked back by the west side, Audrey pausing before an alcove in which was set a coal-black memorial feature, etched with gilt letters, winged cherubs flying up both sides. An extravagant basket of flowers was placed on a step below. Suspended to the left, above the creamy pages of a book of remembrance, was a brass candle-lamp, which John recognised as identical to one Alec kept on his mantelpiece in Langley Park. He followed his mother’s gaze to the gilt inscription.
REMEMBER BEFORE GOD
THE DURHAM WORKERS WHO HAVE
GIVEN THEIR LIVES IN THE PITS
OF THIS COUNTRY AND THOSE WHO
WORK IN DARKNESS AND DANGER
IN THOSE PITS TODAY
*
John clasped his hands across his groin, straining to recall what little Alec had mentioned of that immemorial explosion at Easington. Eventually he chanced a glance at Audrey. But she was pressing a forefinger on the bridge of her spectacles between closed eyes, rubbing distractedly, and there was nothing he could read but that she was ‘cold’, tired, ready for home.
*
The Gore household had seemed at peace on a Sunday afternoon in high June, with Alec lodged in the visitor’s armchair, mugs of tea getting supped and cold meat pie consumed. Alec sucked his dentures for a while, looked first at John, then to the settee where Bill and Audrey sat.
‘I was thinkin’, does the bairn maybe fancy coming wi’ us to big meeting?’
Bill blew out his lips as to say the thought hadn’t occurred. Audrey was nonplussed. ‘I doubt our John’s one for a miners’ gala.’
John knew his father’s dislike, and his mother’s worry – that he dallied too much around Alec, failed to consort with his peers. But at least he wasn’t knocking about with all the little terrors at the shopping precinct. And Big Meeting was known to be a grand day out. Still, when he raised his voice to express a preference, it felt nonetheless like a minor treason.
*
Saturday, 15 July 1978, and the done thing for Big Meeting, it seemed, was to go by bus and get there by nine. So John rode a mere handful of stops and disembarked near the County Hospital. There stood his granddad, imperturbable in black gabardine, toting two plastic carriers – one stacked with Tupperware boxes, the other with four pint-bottles of Federation beer.
‘Got your bit bait, have you, son? What’s your mam given you?’
John proffered up a single sandwich wrapped in tinfoil. It seemed a small package in the sunlight, next to Alec’s heavy load.
They stood and watched brass bands congregate at a car park in the shade of the railway viaduct. Chartered coaches and minibuses were arrayed in row upon row, their drivers in huddles, shaking off fatigue over a flask and a fag. Bandsmen were in stages of undress, vests visible between brass buttons, their gleaming instruments sat in cases on the gravel. Spot-checks and impromptu rehearsals were afoot, and the grainy ululat
ion of bagpipes, emanating from one lone clan in kilts, rose above the parps of brass. The scale and seeming import of the day began to get its hooks into John – so many souls, ebulliently certain of why they were gathered.
‘How, there’s my team owa there.’ Alec steered him toward a set of bandsmen congregated round the banner of Langley Park Colliery that several pairs of hands were carefully unrolling. John gave his firmest handshake to each man and woman, and his granddad accepted a bottle of beer – this at nine-thirty in the morning. As John rehearsed his surprise, Alec decanted half the beer into a Tupperware tooth-mug and handed this to John with a wink, before treating himself to a healthy swig from the lips of the pint bottle. John sipped cautiously at the sharp-tasting froth, and found it not unpleasant.
They moved off en masse through Durham’s narrow streets, crossing the Wear by the broad Framwellgate Bridge, and climbing the steep cobbled Silver Street to congregate in Market Place square. John was mutely stunned, Alec a shade wistful. ‘It’s canny, but it’s not what it was. Should have seen it thirty year ago.’
Kicking his heels as others made busy, John found himself for the first time making close inspection of the square’s main statue, a huge impassive hussar rearing on horseback, plated with copper of a greenish corroded hue. The engraving identified CHARLES WILLIAM VANE STEWART, MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY.
‘You admiring his lordship?’ Alec was at John’s shoulder, sou-rfaced. ‘If he could step down off of there I’d knock his block off. Biggest and worst mine-owner in all Durham, that one. Eh, Hughie?’
By Alec’s side was a rheumy-eyed old fellow wearing a dark Crombie overcoat in defiance of the sun. ‘Londonderry?’ the old fellow responded. ‘Aw aye. If he were still about the day he’d be packing this un off doon the bloody pit.’ And with gnarled fingers Hughie rattled John’s shoulder.
All around men had begun shouting, clapping and calling to order. Trumpets were being raised to lips, drums strapped onto chests, banners lofted and marchers arrayed. Two of Alec’s comrades lifted poles, their wives clutched the stabilising ropes, and the name of Langley Park was hoisted high. John peered all about him at a tide of Durham place names, thirty or more, festooned in many colours. Langley Park was decorated with a painting of the ‘Sam Watson Rest Home’. Other banners offered multiple portraits of whiskered and sober-suited gents, presumably local heroes – John counted half a dozen images of one Keir Hardie. Some favoured uplifting exhortations: ‘Unity is Strength’, ‘Workers of the World Unite!’ John was more taken by the biblical scenes on display: East Hetton Lodge, adorned with a vivid storybook painting of the Good Samaritan stooping to tend the unfortunate traveller, underscored by the legend ‘Go Thou And Do Likewise’.
The march began as a short but congested journey down the hill. Soon it was obvious to John that progress would be hopelessly slow. The old snaking streets were crammed with bodies. As they shuffled, John took care not to tread into groups of men sat by the kerbside in shirtsleeves, nursing cans and bottles, calling out merrily. The ale had worked a little magic on his own spirits. He sensed a breakaway of some bodies moving up Saddler Street in the direction of the Palace Green.
‘Are we going to the Cathedral?’ he asked Alec.
‘Nah, son, we’re for the racecourse. Some do, later on. There’s a service to get their banners blessed and that.’ The scorn in Alec’s mouth John thought odd and uncommon. They shuffled onward. Alec, though, seemed dissatisfied with the manner in which he had expressed himself. ‘I’ll tell you summat, mind. Y’knaa how after the war, the government, they bought up the mines for the country?’
John nodded, though he didn’t entirely follow.
‘Cos before that, they were just the property of the big knobs, y’knaa? And none of them buggers gave a tinker’s toss for their men, right? But I’ll tell you who else got fat off owning the mines in the old days, and that was Dean and Chapter of Durham Cathedral. What do you think of that, eh?’ Alec’s eyes were chilly blue as always, but his cheeks were mottled. ‘Aw aye, there’s two sides to Durham, bonny lad. Never the twain shall meet.’
The incremental progression carried them over the Old Elvet Bridge, and they paused in unison outside the Royal County Hotel. From a balustrade balcony two floors up a welcoming party waved down, some with conspicuous raised fists. John recognised Durham’s Mayor, bloated in civic regalia, pressed in on all sides of the standing room by a congregation of men in grey suits and their good ladies.
‘Are they all important?’ John enquired of Alec.
‘They reckon they are. The fat fella?’ Alec pointed at a bespectacled gent with a bulbous, near luminous nose. ‘That’s Heffer, he’s in the government. Ginger nut beside him, that’s Scargill, big man in the union. They’ll be boring us stiff wi’ speeches later on.’
Langley Park turned its banner toward the balcony. The band formed up facing the same way, and struck up a tune. The lordly ones gazed down as the opening bars rose upward, bearing with them immediate cheers and applause from the gathering. The guests turned to one another, then joined in the singing, looking to Gore’s eye for all the world as though they were lined up in church. One suit even put his hand to his breast, trying, it seemed, just a tad too hard. Everybody knew the words.
‘Though cowards flinch, and traitors sneer, we’ll keep the red flag flying here …’
It seemed to John that if there was drunkenness abroad now, it was not liquor alone that had lifted spirits. Even Alec’s voice was lusty in the chorus, and he seemed, as Audrey might say, proud as Lucifer.
*
Durham Racecourse Ground was a well-trodden carpet of green under the sun, munificently set with stalls and fairground attractions. The heat of the day had risen, the atmosphere thick with noise and smell. John stood with Alec as Langley Park’s banner was dismantled. Beneath the shade of a tree a short distance hence, a thickset chap with meaty sideburns was bent over, one hand on the trunk, vomiting onto the ground. Hughie shouted over cheerily. ‘That’s it ya bugger, get it out!’
Alec was quick to press coins in John’s palm and urge that the boy avail himself of the entertainments. ‘Nee fun for you, sittin’ with a load of old pit yackers.’ But John wasn’t mad for chips or candyfloss, nor did he fancy testing his strength or aim. It didn’t seem wholly appropriate. Instead, while the men munched their sandwiches, John sat and stole looks at Tommy, a lanky man, milky-eyed and jug-eared, his crinkled forehead topped by startlingly vertical tufts of grey hair. But it was Tommy’s right hand that transfixed him, guiltily, for it had somewhere and somehow suffered the loss of the four fingers, now rendered down to smooth white nubs of skin. Finally John must have looked a little too long. Tommy caught his eye and raised the wounded hand in the air between them, sharp as a warning. John felt himself blanch.
‘You after the tale of this then, kidder? Is that it?’
But there seemed no affront in Tommy’s piping high voice. Nor did the others look bothered. ‘Aye, gan on, Tom,’ murmured Alec. ‘Give him the story.’
‘It were, what? Twenty-eight year ago now? I was on back-shift, right near the end of it, more’s the pity. And this bliddy great coal truck – well, the dreg on it was fettled, see? It come down on wuh so fast I couldn’t get out the road. So it went right owa this here hand. Quick as a wink. I can still feel it now when I think.’
John had flinched. With the fingers of his good left hand, Tommy took a consoling grip of the dorsum of his right. ‘Now your grandda – him being the deputy – he ran and fetched us a bit bandage and that, from the first-aid box. Cos he was good like that, your grandda. And wor marras got us up and out, sharp as they could. Hugh here, he was banksman, see? He did the cage, got us to surface. Doctor from the ambulance station were ready for wuh. I knew, but, in me’sel. That was me done. Ruined, y’knaa? Stupid thing, but. It shouldna happened.’
Tommy paused and trailed his good fingers over some tufted blades of grass. John felt a shiver run through him, heedless of the sun
’s warmth. He realised, mortified, that his eyes had moistened, and he ducked his face into his chest.
Tommy looked up. ‘Aye, that was how ah felt and all, bonny lad. I’ll tell you this, but. I passed out for a bit, after, while the doctor were seein’ to us? When I come round, he were stood over wuh, all solemn, like. And he says, “Tommy, son, now listen, I’ve stitched you up, and you’ll be grand. But I’m very sorry to have to tell you – you’ll not play the violin ever again.”’
Seasoned chuckles in the group. Tommy was pulling a music-hall face of dismay. ‘I says, “Eee, doctor! Divvint tell us that, man, I’m down to give a recital in the club Tuesday neet …”’
John watched the old men, their sides heaved with suppressed jollity. The sudden levity he found yet more impressive than the earlier stoicism, and he rubbed at his wet cheek. Alec’s eyes were on him. ‘Are y’alright there now, bonny lad?’
John swallowed, nodded. ‘It’s just, it’s not bloody fair is all,’ he said into his chest. He had thought himself barely audible but when he looked up, Alec was grinning in a skewed manner at his old pals. ‘Whey, d’you hear that, eh? He’s a Labour man, this lad. Red-hot Labour in the making, why aye.’
Aways across the field a brass band struck up, a deep mournful swelling that brought forth applause. John felt himself stir. For the duration of the opening bars he was sure he was hearing ‘The Lord is My Shepherd’, or some variation on the same. But on all sides of him it was a different set of words that Langley Park were singing or mouthing. John listened with care, until there came a great final surge of brass, a crash of cymbals, and words that seemed the stuff of hymnal.
O saviour Christ, who on the cruel tree, for all mankind thy precious blood has shed
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