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

  But now her hands, which had stiffened up over the winter and made it painful to play the piano, were loosened by the warm weather and she delighted in playing for customers, but especially for Edith. The pair were inseparable. While Millie worked and enjoyed the purpose and activity to her days, her mother would spoil Edith with treats and visits, games and music. Millie thought about the months in Newcastle she had whiled away doing nothing very much except spend money, and wondered how she had managed to fill her days.

  At the hotel, she got up early and breakfasted with Edith before her mother and Joseph awoke, then lit the fire and planned the modest menus and shopping for the day. After a morning of chores and dealing with deliveries, she would take Edith to the park, returning in time to serve teas. A trickle of travellers began to turn up at the hotel enquiring about bed and board, and for the first time in two years her mother placed an advertisement in the local newspaper encouraging societies to hold their annual dinners and functions there once more.

  On sunny days, Teresa would shoo them out of doors and Millie would push Edith round in the pram to Ella’s house. If the weather stayed fair, they would take the girls for a stroll along the river, packing a picnic of egg sandwiches, buttered teacake and a flask of sweet milky tea. They would trail their bare feet in the water and throw sticks into the current with Marjory, while Edith crawled around trying to eat the soil. They talked and talked, catching up on the years they had been apart, reminiscing about London, speculating about Ava and Grant in America and talking of the future.

  ‘I wonder where you’ll go next?’ Ella mused, as they lay in the dappled shade of a willow tree sucking strands of grass. ‘It must be exciting not knowing. I suppose me and Walter will stay in the same house in the same street until they put us in our boxes.’

  Millie laughed. ‘It used to excite me, the thought of going to different places. But I think I’m happiest when I’m settled and know the folk that live around me. I like living in Newcastle. I don’t want to leave. But I know I’ll have to if Dan’s to get on.’

  In fact the thought of the upheaval of moving and starting somewhere new filled Millie with dread. She knew it was likely once Dan returned from tour that he would be looking for a transfer, if only to pay off some of the debts they were accumulating. But she hated the idea of moving any further away from Ashborough and her mother. She pushed it from her mind. For now she was going to enjoy the sunshine and the countryside and the freedom to do as she pleased with Ella and their daughters. She knew that Ella felt the same. Since losing the baby, her friend had been nervous about going out and meeting people, shying away from company. But with Millie she could be herself because her friend was patient when bouts of grief gripped her. To Walter’s obvious relief, Ella was learning how to laugh again in Millie’s company.

  During that month they went to the annual pitmen’s picnic, when all the mining villages from around Northumberland unfurled their banners and marched together behind their brass bands. Millie watched Edith’s animated face as she carried her through the crowds to the field where they gathered for the picnic, speeches and games. She was reminded of her own earliest memories, riding high on her father’s shoulders or piggy-back on Graham, almost sick with excitement at the enormous gathering. Living on the coast at Craston, they would have to rise at dawn to walk into Ashborough in their finest clothes and catch the special train laid on from the colliery gates, or one of the horse-drawn carriages.

  Millie’s vision blurred at the sudden recollection and she scanned the crowds for any sign of her long-lost father. She spotted the Craston banner with its revolutionary figure declaring ‘Emancipation of Labour’ and the pile of brass instruments being minded by picnicking families. One or two faces were familiar, and she edged closer, wondering if she dared ask after her father. It was nearly eight years since she had lived in the village, and she doubted whether anyone would recognise her with her bobbed hair and plumper features. But before she could pluck up the courage, Ella was dragging her off in the other direction.

  ‘I don’t want to be spotted by some nosy old neighbour,’ Ella hissed. ‘They’d only ask questions and I don’t want to talk about . . . you know.’ So the moment passed and Millie banished her curiosity, half disappointed, half relieved not to speak to anyone from her old village.

  ***

  A week later was the Ashborough Carnival, and the women spent many happy hours preparing for the fun. Millie insisted that this year the hotel should have a float in the parade through the town, and she set about organising it with Ella’s help. They decided to dress up as American jazz musicians and inveigled the help of Major Hall, who agreed to play the piano and borrowed black jackets and bow ties for the women. Millie persuaded the Co-operative store to lend them a horse and dray by promising to advertise them on their banner, and then decorated it with red, white and blue bunting. With the help of Walter and some of his friends, they hauled the hotel piano on to the float and lassoed its feet with rope. Kenny Manners, who owned a trumpet, took little persuasion to play, while Millie and Ella and Elsie’s sister Mary – who now worked at the Co-op – got hold of football whistles, tambourines and two banjos from the pawn shop. Major Hall taught Millie and Walter how to play three chords.

  Millie secretly hoped that Dan might be back in time for the Carnival, for it was the end of June and she expected him to appear any day. But the Saturday came and he did not arrive. Instead Millie threw herself into last-minute preparations for the tea dance that she had organised for the afternoon.

  The morning was bright and blustery and she thought their banner and bunting would be blown away before the parade had started. Kenny and Walter turned up looking smart in dinner jackets, while Major Hall wore a striped blazer and boater, grinning beneath his eye patch. They laughed at the women dressed up in baggy trousers and waistcoats, their hair oiled with brilliantine, their bow-ties at raffish angles. Teresa and the small girls were dressed in pale-blue frocks with matching headbands. Teresa and Marjory wore false pearls and feathers in their headdresses, while Edith kept pulling off her headband in annoyance.

  They were the noisiest float in the whole parade, riding up Dyke Road and turning down Fern Street, Teresa and Bob Hall thumping the piano in a jazz duet, Millie and Walter on banjos, Kenny on trumpet and the others a discordant mix of whistles, tambourines and shrieks from the children. As they went, Ella and Mary threw out handwritten bills inviting people to come to the afternoon tea dance at the hotel. The crowds clapped and cheered and laughed, while children ran alongside shouting out requests.

  They ended up at Thomas Burt Park, ranged around the football pitch, beside stalls selling pies and peas or seafood, and hand-carts offering drinks or ice-creams. There were several bands playing, including the colliery band, a veterans’ military band and a couple of church bands. Millie and her mother got carried away by the music and the children dancing in front of the bands, and egged on by the crowd they played again, banging and screeching their way through an improvised rendering of ‘When the Saints Go Marching In’.

  By early afternoon it had started to cloud over, and before they had lurched their way back to the Co-operative stables, the rain began, huge, steady drops out of the thunderous air that soon turned to a downpour. They tumbled into the hotel laughing and shaking off the rain from their costumes and hair, wrapping the children in towels and plonking them by the hearth. Teresa was worried the weather would keep people away from their tea dance, but the town was full of families from outlying villages looking for something to do out of the rain.

  Millie persuaded Kenny and the others to stay. ‘Major Hall, you could lead the dancing, get people on their feet,’ she suggested, ‘while Mam and Kenny play.’

  An hour later, Millie and Ella could hardly keep up with the demand for teas and refreshments, while Teresa played the piano and Kenny gave sudden bursts on the trumpet. The Major went around the room, offering to partner diffident dancers. He seemed to have the knack o
f searching out the maiden aunt or widow who longed to dance but needed coaxing on to the floor. Millie noticed that they were soon won over by his natural courtesy and shy charm, and the dance was a huge success.

  As the numbers eventually dwindled and they began to clear up, Millie went outside to shake the tablecloths. The rain had eased off and the sky was clearing once more. Three women passed her on their way out of the hotel, and the oldest one gave her a sideways look. Millie had been half aware of being watched by this particular woman during the tea dance and thought there was something familiar about her weathered features. But under her purple pudding-shaped hat, she could have been any of several women she had seen around Ashborough.

  The woman walked on, hesitated, then turned round and came back.

  ‘You don’t remember me, do you?’ she asked. Her companions stood apart, waiting, looking ill at ease.

  Millie smiled. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t quite . . .’

  ‘Your mam doesn’t either,’ the woman grunted, ‘or pretends she doesn’t. Which is strange, since I lived five doors up from you for long enough.’

  Millie stared harder at the ageing woman, confused. Then suddenly a memory sparked. She was talking about Craston. This was a neighbour from Saviour Street, the first she had come face to face with since their undignified flit. Millie’s heart thumped nervously to be so abruptly confronted with the past they had disowned.

  ‘Mrs Gilfillan?’ she whispered. The woman nodded, triumphant.

  ‘Aye, I thought you’d remember, for all your mam doesn’t want to know her old neighbours.’

  Millie almost leapt to her mother’s defence, wanting to tell this woman that it was folk like her who had ostracised her mother and made life unbearable in Craston. But she bit back her retort, realising that it would only do harm to her mother’s business if she was rude. It was all too long in the past to stir up old enmities.

  ‘It’s nice of you to come. Have you enjoyed your tea, Mrs Gilfillan?’ Millie forced herself to ask with a smile.

  She nodded. ‘Aye, I have. It’s the first time I’ve been in and I must say I’m surprised at how respectable it is. Not what I’d heard. I wouldn’t have gone in, but me daughters wanted to.’ She nodded at the others. Millie did not recognise the Gilfillan girls; they had been younger than her by three or four years. ‘Course, your mam was always one for the piano.’ Mrs Gilfillan gave a sniff of disapproval. ‘We were all that shocked when she left like she did. The shame for Mr Mercer,’ she tutted. ‘Don’t suppose you ever see your father these days?’

  Millie felt winded. She groped for something to say to this woman who had so casually insulted her mother, and asked such an impertinent question. But something in Mrs Gilfillan’s voice alerted her. If she was asking if she ever saw her father, did this mean that she knew he was still alive? Millie dared to wonder.

  She stepped forward and put a hand on the older woman’s arm. She smelt of damp tweed and cinders, and the smell brought back the memory of Saviour Street more powerfully than any words. ‘Do – do you know where he is, Mrs Gilfillan?’ she gasped.

  The woman stepped away, alarmed at the pained look on Millie’s face.

  ‘Well, no, I don’t,’ she blustered. ‘He hasn’t been in Craston for many years.’

  Millie persisted, her heart hammering. ‘But you’ve never heard that he’s died?’ She forced out the question, her throat drying with nervousness.

  Mrs Gilfillan grew uncomfortable. ‘I really wouldn’t know about that. But I’m sure if your Aunt Hannah had heard anything she would have told me.’ She looked around in panic. ‘Now I really must catch up with me daughters.’ Millie saw the woman was about to walk away, yet this might be her one chance of learning some clue as to her father’s whereabouts.

  ‘Please, Mrs Gilfillan,’ she stopped her, ‘can you just tell me where you think he went? Anything,’ she pleaded.

  The woman shook her head. ‘He just disappeared one day – walked out of Craston like your mam did. We’d heard he’d tried to see you in Ashborough, but hadn’t been able to persuade that woman to come back. So I suppose he had nothing to stop around for. Your aunt’s never got over the shame of it all.’

  Millie’s look was one of bitter disappointment. She thought the old neighbour would say nothing more, but Mrs Gilfillan added in a kinder voice, ‘Mind, I did hear from your aunt that she’d met someone who thought they’d seen him a couple of years back.’

  ‘Where?’ Millie whispered.

  ‘In Newcastle. Thought he’d got work on the new Tyne Bridge. That’s all I know and it might not be reliable. Now I must be off.’ Mrs Gilfillan turned and hurried away, leaving Millie staring after her, feeling faint.

  Was it possible that her father could have been living in Newcastle all the time that she had? Had she unknowingly passed him in the street? Dan had sometimes taken her to watch the building of the new bridge and its bold arch of girders growing across the Tyne. From a distance she had gazed at the men crawling up scaffolding and working cranes and wondered how they had the nerve for such heights. Could she possibly have observed her own father at work? She tortured herself with the thought.

  Ella appeared at her side. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, catching a glimpse of the departing women. ‘Who was that?’

  Millie stood trembling and shook her head. ‘No one important,’ she gulped, too shocked to speak of the encounter, even to Ella. Her friend gathered up the tablecloths where Millie had let them fall. ‘These’ll need a good wash now. Haway, Millie, your mam’s saying we should gan to the carnival dance the night. We haven’t been to the Egyptian Ballroom in years. What do you say?’

  Millie gave a guilty glance towards the hotel, hoping her mother had not been watching. Teresa would only be angry and upset if she knew she had been talking to Mrs Gilfillan and trying to find news of her father. It seemed somehow disloyal. Ellis Mercer had made only one drunken, half-hearted attempt to see her in all these years, while her mother had worked tirelessly and sacrificed her reputation for her. She knew Teresa would go to the ends of the earth for her and Edith, whereas her father had been weak and buckled under the weight of responsibilities. He had not loved her enough, else he would have tried harder to win them back, Millie reasoned harshly. So why make herself so upset thinking she might have been living near him for the past two years? Her memories of him had faded; if she met him they would probably have nothing to say to each other.

  She forced herself to be composed. Looking at Ella, she realised her friend was suggesting going to a dance for the first time since her baby had died. It was a brave step. She took Ella’s arm.

  ‘That would be grand, I’d love to go to the dance,’ she agreed. Taking a deep breath, she hurried Ella back into the hotel. ‘Let’s get out of these lads’ clothes,’ she said. ‘You can wear one of me dresses if you like.’

  Ella grinned at the familiar phrase. In London they had constantly swapped clothes, unable to afford new outfits. ‘Just like old times,’ she laughed, as they went in together.

  ***

  It was the middle of July before Dan finally came for her. Millie had grown worried at not hearing from him and had sent a telegram to the club. They had replied the next day, saying the touring side had returned ten days previously. Millie was all for rushing back to Tyneside with Edith, but her mother persuaded her to send another telegram.

  ‘What if he’s not at the flat?’ Teresa argued. ‘You’d have gone back early for nothing.’

  ‘Well, where else could he be?’ Millie demanded, knowing her mother wanted to delay her departure with Edith as long as possible.

  ‘Maybe he’s taking a few days’ holiday, just having a quiet time,’ Teresa answered. ‘He’ll turn up when he’s ready.’

  One afternoon, when Millie was returning from Ella’s pushing a sleeping Edith, she saw the black Ford parked outside the hotel. She raced towards the open back door, shouting for Dan. He came running out, grinning, his face tanned and his hair
glinting in the sun, and opened his arms wide. Millie ran into them, laughing as he picked her up, swung her round and kissed her hard on the lips.

  ‘By, I’ve missed you!’ He kissed her again.

  ‘Where have you been?’ Millie cried.

  ‘Sorting out me transfer,’ Dan grinned. ‘We’re off to pastures new, Millie. The Black Country! Kilburn Wanderers. Still Second Division, but they’re on the up.’

  Millie felt a lurch of disappointment. This was the news she had not wanted to hear. ‘How far away is that?’ she asked, as Dan let her go and went eagerly to see Edith. ‘Still as bonny as ever,’ he crowed, gazing at their daughter.

  ‘Don’t wake her,’ Millie said hastily, but he was already plucking her out of the shaded pram.

  ‘Let me have a look at you!’ he cried. ‘By, she’s heavy. What’s your mam been feeding her?’ Edith woke up, startled, and began to cry. But Dan just laughed and bounced his daughter around in his arms. ‘You’ll love it where we’re going,’ Dan said to the small girl. ‘There’s a big viaduct just opposite the house we’re getting – you can see all the trains going by. And there’s a canal with boats on.’

  ‘A house?’ Millie asked with more interest. ‘They’re giving us a house?’

  ‘Aye,’ Dan smiled, ‘they really want me.’ He kissed Edith happily and her crying subsided.

  Millie slipped her arm through his, determining to put a brave face on the move. At least the three of them would be facing the unknown together.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Dan and Millie moved that August, hastily packing up their flat in Paradise Parade and saying goodbye to their friends. Bob and Dinah seemed strangely distant, as if they had already lost interest in Dan now that he was moving away and was no longer a local celebrity on the street. Bob had pressed a sovereign into Edith’s plump hand and wished them well, and Dinah had kissed them all and told Millie, ‘You take care of your lass – and keep a good eye on Dan.’ She had laughed as she said it, and winked, but it had made Millie uncomfortable and she had almost been relieved when they had gone.