THE TYNESIDE SAGAS: Box set of three dramatic and emotional stories: A Handful of Stars, Chasing the Dream and For Love & Glory

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

  Millie loved the shops of this residential area, with their windows piled high with fresh fruit and pyramids of tinned peas, the mouth-watering pastries in Tilley’s, the choice of gloves at the haberdasher’s and perfumes in Laurie’s hairdresser’s, where she had her hair bobbed. Her friend, Dinah Fairish, who worked for Mr and Mrs Laurie, was coming on the trip too, with her husband Bob, a drinking friend of Dan’s.

  Dinah was small, plump and lively. She reminded Millie of how Ella had been in the days when they had worked in London and had gone to dances and the pictures and shared their wages and jokes about lads. Millie never heard from Ella these days, despite having written and asked her to come and stay and bring her bairn. She had only seen Ella’s daughter Marjory once, when she had returned at Easter time for a snatched visit while Dan was playing away in the south. Marjory was already four months old, and yet the dress and matinee coat that Millie had bought her swamped the tiny, sallow-faced baby.

  ‘She’s bonny,’ Millie had said, thinking quite the opposite and noticing for the first time how sooty Ella’s kitchen was. Her friend did not appear to have decorated her cottage that spring, and she looked careworn and far older than twenty. She showed no interest in Millie’s new life on Tyneside, so preoccupied was she with the impending threat of a lockout at the pit.

  ‘They’re going to lay them all off if they don’t sign new agreements to cut their wages and increase their hours,’ she had fretted. ‘There’s going to be a strike, Millie, you’re lucky to be out of it.’ And Ella had given her such a look of resentment that Millie had not stayed long.

  ‘You will come and visit us, won’t you?’ Millie had insisted. ‘It’d do you good to get away from here for a few days. I’ll show you the sights; introduce you to our friends at the Waterloo. I can tell you’d get on with Dinah like a house on fire.’

  Ella had nodded. ‘Aye, I will.’ But Millie had known from the dull look in her eyes that she would no more think of travelling the twenty miles to see her than fly to the stars. She offered to pay her train fare, but Ella had bristled and said that would not be necessary, and Millie had left, pulling her warm coat with the fox-fur collar around her self-consciously and wishing she had not been so well dressed. But Dan insisted on buying her new clothes every month, and they revelled in going round the large Newcastle stores together, choosing outfits and buying each other gifts. It was something she would have loved to do with Ella, treating her to new clothes and spoiling baby Marjory with treats, but she knew her friend was too proud.

  Millie cut off the crusts and quartered the sandwiches into triangles, wrapping them in greaseproof paper and placing them in their new wicker picnic basket. She filled the thermos flask with tea and secured it with leather straps in the basket. She added slices of cherry cake, bananas and a packet of fig rolls, then turned her attention to cooking bacon and eggs and black pudding for breakfast. By the time Dan emerged from bed, his fair hair standing up in spikes and his eyes bleary, it was almost ready. She shooed him away when he tried to cuddle her.

  ‘We haven’t time for that,’ she smiled. ‘We have to be at the Waterloo in half an hour.’

  Dan grunted and staggered off to douse himself in cold water. Millie was proud they had their own bath, even if it was wedged into the corner of the kitchen. It made a useful extra surface when it was covered over with a washboard, and she had hot water coming out of the taps. She did her washing in it too, so there was none of the back-breaking chore of fetching water from stand-pumps, laying a fire under a wash-pot or dashing out in the pouring rain to an outside washhouse as she had once done for Effie. Not for the first time, Millie said a silent prayer of thanks that Dan was no longer a pitman.

  Millie eyed her husband as he leapt into a tub of cold water, splashing and roaring as the shock woke him up. He was lean and fit, despite the amount of beer he drank, his legs and arms well-muscled. Soon the season would be starting, and Millie felt a sudden surge of relief. Dan was always happiest when he was playing and working at the club. He was their top goal-scorer of the previous season and took the credit for lifting the Vulcans into the Second Division. He was already becoming recognised around Tyneside, enjoying the attention and looking with hope towards the prestigious St James’s Park of Newcastle United. All his drinking mates told him it was only a matter of time.

  It had been fun, Millie reflected, having Dan around during the summer months, but he spent too much and drank too heavily when there was no work. Luckily he still got paid while he was not playing, but only at half his normal wages, and they had precious little left to live on. Their flat was carpeted, crammed with new furniture from the co-operative cabinet-makers at Pelaw, and filled with crockery from Malings pottery, for which Millie was developing a passion. Their wardrobe was bursting with stylish dresses, fifty-shilling double-breasted suits from Montague Burton and new Aertex undergarments instead of old-fashioned long Johns.

  As Dan whistled a Count Basie tune, Millie went to open the kitchen window, feeling suddenly nauseous from the smell of frying. She had felt this way on and off for several days now and hoped she was not going to be ill on the trip. The sea air at Whitley Bay was what she needed, she told herself firmly. Hearing the postman’s footsteps below, she served Dan’s breakfast on to a flowery plate and went downstairs. There was a letter in her mother’s handwriting, formal and elaborately looped, and she could imagine Teresa sitting at the desk in the kitchen laboriously copying her darting thoughts on to paper with the slowness of an old scribe.

  Millie’s nausea rose. She would not read it now. It was probably another letter complaining that she had not been to see her mother for months, rebuking her for spending too much money and telling her it was high time they started a family. Millie could put up with Teresa’s bluntness, but what she dreaded was any reference to the lockout at the pit. She knew she was being cowardly, but the reason she made excuses not to go back to Ashborough was the fear of seeing the men out of work hanging around the street corners, reminding her of Craston. She did not like to contemplate how Ella and Walter were surviving with no wages coming in. Her mother had told her that the hotel was running an unofficial soup kitchen, filling up empty milk jugs and tins with broth. Millie had sent money to her mother to salve her conscience, and hated herself for the relief that she felt that she and Dan had escaped when they had.

  She never showed these letters to Dan, in case he saw the criticisms about them being slow to have children, and he never asked for news of home. He did not dwell on the past, and Millie knew that when his friends and family were out of sight, they were out of Dan’s mind. He took up and left off friendships as easily as changing clothes, living for the moment. Millie was different. She often caught herself thinking about Ella and Walter, her friends at the Palace and Elsie at the hotel, and wondering what they were doing. But most of all she missed her mother and the intensity of their relationship. It was rooted in a time before memory; demanding, exasperating and argumentative, but loving. They frequently disagreed, but they always knew what the other was feeling, as if bound by an invisible umbilical cord that had never been cut. It did not matter that they were miles apart and had not seen each other for months; Millie thought of her mother every day and knew that Teresa did the same. She had tried to get her mother to visit Tyneside, but first she had used the hotel as an excuse not to come, refusing to leave Ava in charge, and now it was the strike.

  Well, a reproachful letter from her mother was not going to spoil this special day, Millie decided, stuffing it into her pinny and going to get ready. She would read it after the trip, when Dan was asleep, or maybe tomorrow. Whatever bleak news it carried from Ashborough could wait.

  At the top of the street, Millie caught sight of Dinah waving excitedly at her, peering from under a new purple hat that swamped her round face. Millie had helped her choose it on their recent trip into town. She waved back and called cheerily, ‘Have you packed your bucket and spade?’

  ‘Aye, and you sh
ould see me new bathing suit!’ her friend shouted back.

  ‘Can’t wait,’ Dan joked.

  Millie laughed and quickened her pace beside her husband. The crowd of onlookers gathering around the charabanc to gawp at the day trippers in their finery, turned to watch them approach. They made a handsome couple, Millie tall and elegant in a yellow summer dress and matching ribbons in her hat, while Dan looked debonair in a light-coloured suit, spats and well-polished shoes, sporting a boater, gloves and cane.

  One of the barefoot children who was hanging around shouted out, ‘It’s Charlie Chaplin!’

  His older brother gave him a reproving shove. ‘Shurrup! That’s Dan Nixon of the Vulcans.’

  But Dan grinned, and putting down the picnic basket gave a twirl of his cane and mimicked the film star’s waddling walk, to the delight of the children. The proprietor of the pub came out to wish them well for the trip, and they piled into the open bus with much merriment and promises to return and drink at the Waterloo before sundown.

  The warm morning turned into a hot, sultry late-August day, with little breeze stirring the sun-baked streets of Tyneside, where children played in the dust and the smell of fresh horse manure mingled with the smoky haze from chimneys. They passed acres of housing stretching in solid redbrick ranks down to the Tyne, with the skeletal necks of the dockside cranes rearing up like giant birds. Millie, already feeling the sweat prickling her back and her heart beating erratically, craved the fresh sea air that would bring relief.

  Then, as the motor vehicle laboured up the hill and turned towards the coast, Millie caught sight of a distant pit wheel and its nearby slag heap. As they skirted past the village she could see clearly that the wheel was still and that no smoke rose from the chimneys of the pit cottages. Bile rose in her throat as she was struck by this rude reminder of her past. It was as if she had suddenly come across a long-forgotten photograph of her childhood, one she had kept buried at the bottom of a drawer and hoped to forget. She knew that within that village there would be children whose stomachs twisted with hunger as they watched their mothers boiling up nettles for soup, while their fathers risked arrest picking over the pit heap for dross.

  Millie wanted to look away but could not, like those drawn to the scene of an accident by fascinated horror. No one else seemed to even notice, or if they did, they saw nothing but a grim little pit village like any other. All she could do was stare, and wonder at the hidden suffering. The miners had been on strike for four months now, longer than any dispute she had ever lived through, and she shuddered to think what life was like for them. Suddenly she caught sight of Dan’s unconcerned, laughing face and felt an inexplicable anger. Leaning over the side of the charabanc, she pressed a handkerchief against her mouth to stop herself retching.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Dinah demanded behind her. ‘You’ve not been drinking stout for breakfast, have you?’

  Dan turned to her in concern and immediately put a comforting arm about her. ‘Millie?’ He raised his voice to the driver. ‘Hoy, stop the bus! The missus is going to be sick.’

  Millie shook her head, feeling desperate. ‘No, please don’t,’ she whispered, and retched over the side. They were past the village when the driver pulled on to the verge.

  Dan climbed out of the charabanc and helped her down. Millie was sick into the ditch, though there was little to show for it as her breakfast had been a cup of tea and a plain biscuit.

  ‘You’re not much of a traveller, are you?’ Dan teased, wiping her mouth with his own handkerchief. ‘We’re only a couple of miles from home!’

  Millie gave him a weak smile. She could not begin to explain to him how a vision of the past had frightened her into being sick. It was a part of her life that she kept locked away from everyone, even Dan, too full of ghosts and fears and painful, hungry memories.

  ‘I’ll be fine once we get to the seaside,’ she assured him.

  And once they reached the promenade, Millie did begin to feel better. They hired deck chairs, and bathing huts for those who wanted to swim, and spread out picnics on rugs. Dinah and Millie changed into their new bathing suits and caps and ran down to the water’s edge, where Dan and Bob were standing with their trousers rolled up to the knee, swigging out of beer bottles.

  Dan whistled at the women, who splashed them as they ran past and fell into the shallow water. Neither of them could swim, but that was not going to stop them having fun. Yet all through the day, Millie could not quite shake off the feeling of dread that the sight of the pit village had evoked. She touched little of the picnic and could not wait for the fish-and-chip tea at the cafe to be over so that they could return home.

  She hoped that she and Dan could go straight back to the flat when the charabanc drew up outside the Waterloo, but he was keen to carry on drinking in the pub with their friends. He was the centre of attention there, being asked questions about the coming season and the Vulcans’ surprise promotion to the Second Division. Millie, seeing that he was in his element, resigned herself to staying.

  But Dinah took her to one side. ‘You don’t look at all well,’ she told her. ‘Are you sickening for something?’

  Millie shrugged off her concern, but her friend insisted on taking her home.

  ‘I’ll sit with you till Dan comes home if you like,’ Dinah offered.

  ‘You don’t have to do that,’ Millie assured her. ‘I’ll just put myself to bed. I’ll be right as rain in the morning, after a bit of sleep.’

  Most other nights she would have welcomed Dinah’s company and her chatter, but that night she did not want to talk about clothes or furniture or the gossip from the hairdresser’s. She wanted to lie down and be alone. She wanted to read her mother’s letter.

  Much later, when Dan came fumbling in at the door and tried to find the electric light switch, he found Millie curled up on a chair, wrapped in a blanket.

  He stopped whistling. ‘What you doing there?’ he slurred, swaying in front of her.

  She pulled out a piece of paper from under the blanket, and Dan noticed that her face was puffy from crying.

  ‘It’s a letter from Mam,’ Millie said in a small voice. ‘It came this morning.’

  ‘What’s the old dragon got to say?’ Dan asked, collapsing in a chair beside her.

  ‘Grant and Ava got married a fortnight ago,’ Millie said with a tremble.

  Dan gaped at her. ‘Me own brother got wed and didn’t tell us?’ he laughed.

  ‘Dan! It’s not something to laugh about,’ Millie said with a sniff. She felt desolate, imagining them all there together without them. They had not even had the courtesy to let them know, so that they could at least have sent a present, Millie fumed, ‘Mam’s making excuses for them, of course. Says they couldn’t afford a party so they didn’t invite us. But it’ll be because of me. Ava wouldn’t have wanted me there. Now you’ve missed your own brother’s wedding because of me.’

  Dan reached across to give her a clumsy hug. ‘Don’t you go saying you’re sorry. It’s none of your doing. It doesn’t bother me. I’d have been surprised if that miserable bugger Grant had invited me. And if they didn’t have a party, I’m glad we missed it. Imagine; tea and Bovril in your Mam’s temperance bar.’

  But this just made Millie the more indignant. ‘But it’s family! Walter was there – he was best man.’

  ‘Good for him,’ Dan hiccupped, unconcerned. ‘If you’re that bothered, we can go and visit them soon. Take them a present. You can choose some nice crockery or som’at.’

  Millie suddenly burst into tears. Dan pulled her into a comforting hug. ‘Haway, you’re never upset over Ava? You can’t stand her anyway. What’s really the matter?’

  Millie sobbed. ‘I want to see Mam!’ She had not known until that moment quite why she was so upset. Dan was right; it was not really about missing the wedding. Neither of them was close to Ava or Grant. She felt childish crying over her mother, yet that was how she felt. She was tearful and moody for no particular reason and
did not know what to do about it.

  Dan pulled her on to his knee and kissed her short, curly bob of hair. ‘We’ll go and see her then. I just thought you didn’t like going back to Ashborough. You tried that hard to get away.’ He pointed at the letter in her lap. ‘What else does it say?’

  Millie hesitated, knowing he would not like what he heard, then decided it was time he knew what was going on too. She read: ‘“Ava and Grant are living with Mungo, so they don’t have to furnish a house, which is lucky. There’s no sign of the men being put back on at the pit. What little they have to start their married life is what Joseph has given them for a wedding present. Mind you, there is no business at the hotel. A few travellers, that is all. All the dinners have been cancelled this summer. The temperance bar is closed. People have no money. Grant says the Comrades might have to disband because they cannot pay their subs . . .”’

  ‘The Comrades?’ Dan said, sitting up. ‘But they’ve just been readmitted to the League! They can’t close them down. I don’t believe things are that bad.’

  Finally something had been said to make Dan take notice of what was happening at home. Millie thought it was typical that only football could make him do that.

  ‘Things are that bad,’ she insisted, ‘Mam’s letters have been full of it. People don’t have enough to live on, let alone find the money to go to the football.’

  Dan’s face was appalled. ‘Why didn’t you tell me all this before?’ he accused.

  ‘You’ve never been interested,’ Millie chided. ‘When have you ever asked for news of home? You’ve never once been in touch with your family. It’s me who writes to them and visits.’