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

  ‘What are you doing?’ Millie gasped.

  ‘What does it look like?’ Ava replied, unconcerned.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Millie demanded, with a sinking feeling of already knowing.

  Ava faced her with a triumphant smile. ‘I’m leaving with Gordon. I’ve been waiting for this moment for so long, I can’t believe it’s finally come.’

  ‘Don’t be daft!’ Millie flustered. ‘You hardly know the man.’

  ‘Well enough to know I love him,’ Ava snapped. ‘He makes me laugh and he spends money on me. I’ve thrown away too many years on that useless husband of mine, expecting him to make me life better. But he just makes it a misery and I’ve had enough of him and this place and all of you! I’m going to take this chance while I’ve got it.’ She turned and clicked shut her suitcase, reaching for her coat and the scarf Gordon had given her for Christmas.

  ‘And the girls?’ Millie demanded angrily. ‘Are you going to be a mother to them?’

  Ava laughed. ‘Not if I can help it. You do that so much better than me, remember? I’m thankful I never had any of me own to worry about.’

  Millie blocked her way. ‘Does Grant know anything about this?’

  ‘No, but he’ll sharp find out,’ Ava replied. ‘You can break the good news to him for me.’ She pushed her way past a dumbfounded Millie and headed down the stairs.

  Within minutes she and Gordon were out of the house and heading across the bridge for the southbound train. Patience and Charity stood staring out of the window after them, their father’s words – that he would come back and collect them when he had made the house homely – ringing in their ears. Millie went and put her arms around the girls, seeing in their eyes their disbelief. Patience cried into her shoulder, but Charity declared, ‘I’m glad she’s gone, she was as bossy as Aunt Rachael. I’d much rather live here with you, Auntie Millie, you’re nearly like a real mam.’

  Millie’s heart ached for the girl as she kissed her dark head. ‘This is your home as long as you want it to be,’ she promised, and knew that she must keep to it. These children had been let down too many times before, she thought. As she comforted them, she wondered nervously how she was going to explain Ava’s cowardly escape to Grant. He was a proud man, whose pride was about to be badly wounded once more.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Life during those years immediately after the war was not as easy as Millie had hoped. The hotel was peaceful after Ava ran off with Gordon Armstrong, but rationing continued and making a living never ceased to be a struggle, despite the rash of wedding teas that peace brought. A lot of the time Millie felt achingly tired, as if her body was finally slowing down after years of restricted diet, gruelling work and scant sleep. She saw in the drawn, ageing faces of other women how the war had taken its toll of them all, not just the combatants. But they had been unprepared for the post-war hardships, when rationing grew worse, and the severe winter of 1947 brought food and fuel shortages. Coal stocks piled up at the pits, unable to be moved, and countless families were reduced to using candles and going to bed hungry and cold.

  Occasionally a letter would arrive from London from Helen bringing the unsettling news that Dan was living nearby and working in a hospital. Part of Millie craved news of him, yet these snippets merely left her resentful that Helen now had his attention. Ella, who was the only one she showed the letters to, would tell her she was better off without Dan. ‘Put him from your mind and get on,’ Ella advised, and so Millie tried.

  Patience and Charity remained in Millie’s care, their father always putting off the day when they could rejoin him; until Millie was sure the girls would refuse to go even if he finally asked them. Patience finished school when she turned sixteen and went to work as a clerk in an accountant’s office, where she thrived. Charity, who had always outstripped Jack in races, excelled in sport at school and ran for the county, while Jack was content with a book or helping his Uncle Grant with gardening. Sometimes they would go fishing together, comfortable in each other’s quiet company.

  Grant had taken Ava’s final rejection of him badly. A year after her move to Tyneside, she wrote to him demanding a divorce. When he refused, she turned up furious in Ashborough, berating him for his pig-headedness and assuring him she would never return.

  Millie asked afterwards, ‘Why don’t you agree to a divorce? It’s just causing you both extra misery.’

  Grant told her bitterly, ‘She’s made me suffer, so why should I let her have what she wants?’

  ‘That’s just being petty!’ Millie reproved. ‘You should put your past behind you like I have.’

  Grant fixed her with a hard look. ‘You might pretend to yourself that you’re over Dan, but I’m not fooled,’ he said.

  Millie flushed. ‘What do you mean by that? I never mention him.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ Grant answered, ‘but Ella’s told me how you get letters from that lass Helen telling you how he is.’

  Millie glared at him with indignation. ‘She shouldn’t have told you! Anyway, Helen’s only written a couple of times and I didn’t ask for news of him. I don’t care what he does with his life.’

  Grant shook his head. ‘Then why do you let his memory hang like a shadow over this place?’ he accused. ‘It’s as if he haunts it still. Whenever anyone comes through the door you turn with that look on your face, as if you’re willing it to be Dan.’

  ‘No I don’t!’ Millie cried in fury.

  ‘And that’s not all,’ Grant went on forcefully. ‘It affects the way you treat the lads – especially Albert.’

  ‘In what way?’ Millie demanded angrily.

  ‘By the way you discourage his football, show no interest in his playing,’ Grant accused. ‘You asked me to help the lad when he was down and I encouraged him to keep on at his football because he’s a canny player. But you don’t like to see that, do you, Millie? Because when you look at him out on that pitch you see Dan. He looks more like his dad every day.’ Grant’s accusing look bore into her. ‘You’ve every right to feel bitter at Dan, but because of that, you don’t want Albert to succeed at the game when he’s got a good chance of doing so.’

  ‘Stop it!’ Millie cried. ‘That’s not true! I just don’t want a son of mine to waste his life trying to copy what Dan did. Look how it ruined our family! Dan was eaten up with his ambition to play alongside “the gods”, as he called them. Well, it didn’t happen. And I threw away me life trying to help make it happen, more fool me! I’ll not have our Albert making the same mistake. You should be encouraging him in his work, not on fanciful notions about football!’

  ‘Let the lad decide for himself,’ Grant said with a glare, ‘and you stop interfering in other folk’s lives for once!’ He stormed out before Millie could have the last word and they did not speak again for weeks. Eventually, with Ella’s intervention, they came to a civil truce, but each remained angry about the brutal criticism of the other.

  As time went by, Millie had to admit that she had never really given up hope that Dan would at least visit them. The letters from Helen stopped abruptly after a couple of years and Millie wondered if she had emigrated to Australia with the engineering fiancé she had written about. The notes had been brief and stilted, but she had learned that Helen’s mother, Clementine, wanted nothing to do with Dan, but that Helen herself kept in occasional contact and had seen him for Sunday teas. Helen indicated that he drank too much and that she had tried to make him stop, to no avail. Millie could well imagine.

  But when the letters stopped, the scant information on Dan ceased. Gradually Millie came to terms with the probability that she would neither see nor hear of Dan again. Perhaps he had emigrated with Helen and her husband; perhaps Clementine had given in and finally been reconciled with him. Or maybe the drink had killed him. Millie kept her tortured thoughts to herself and tried to hide her bitterness that he had given them up so easily. Still, the abrupt ending of news made it easier for her to bury the past.

  Mi
llie took Grant’s words to heart and curbed her criticism of Albert’s footballing passion. Yet she no longer found the enjoyment she once had in the game and did not share the town’s revival in enthusiasm for the sport. Grant would pester her for clothing coupons to kit out the swelling Comrades teams, and Albert would be out in all weathers kicking a ball around with huge packs of boys or training at the club. But she closed her ears to their constant chatter about the local League and the hysteria in the spring of 1948 when Newcastle were promoted to the First Division after thirteen years in the doldrums.

  It was Robert who caused more concern when, one summer, during the town’s carnival, he disappeared with the travelling fair for two weeks. When he returned to a furious and concerned Teresa and Millie, he announced that he did not want his job at the pit back and was going to join the navy. Millie persuaded Teresa that he should be allowed to do so if that was what he wished, recognising her mother’s tempestuous spirit in his defiance.

  ‘With this National Service coming in,’ Robert pointed out, ‘I’ll be called up anyway. And I’d rather go to sea than be stuck in some army canteen.’

  ‘You know I don’t want you to go, don’t you?’ Teresa told him tearfully. They exchanged looks.

  ‘I know,’ Robert said awkwardly.

  Millie hugged him. ‘We’ll miss you. Just remember to come home as often as you can.’

  ‘Aye, I will,’ Robert promised, and rewarded them with one of his rare bashful smiles.

  ***

  With the crisis over Robert, Millie was taken by surprise by Albert’s promotion to the Comrades’ first team at the start of the 1949 season. He rushed home bursting with excitement at the honour, but Millie caught his wary look when he asked, ‘Will you come and see me, M-mam? We’re playing away near Newcastle on Saturday.’

  She felt suddenly irritated. ‘When do I ever get a Saturday off to do anything?’ she demanded. ‘And even if I did, I wouldn’t spend it watching football. I’ve seen enough games to last me a lifetime.’ It was blurted out and she regretted the harshness at once. Why was she always so impatient and bad-tempered with him? she wondered in bafflement. But the damage was done and Albert rushed away.

  Millie looked at her mother in despair. ‘I just want him to be settled,’ she defended herself. ‘Grant’s filled his head full of daft ambitions as if he was the lad’s father!’

  Teresa shrugged. ‘Well, he’s been closer to him these past years than his real father,’ she said pointedly.

  Such a thought left Millie feeling guilty. ‘Well, he’s not his father and I’ll not have him taking my Albert from me!’ she snapped. ‘He’s happiest here in Ashborough where he belongs.’

  So Millie did not go and watch Albert play, and football was never talked about in front of her. She was too busy in the hotel to notice how little time Albert spent at home and how any spare moment he had away from the pit was spent at the club. She found only irritation in shopkeepers’ comments about how well he was doing in his position as left back for the Comrades.

  ‘Aye, well, he’s also been promoted to working on the cutters at the pit,’ she would reply tartly, ‘and there’s not many his age do that.’

  With the New Year came the start of a new decade, and the family brought in 1950 with a small party at the hotel. Marjory was back briefly from nursing in Newcastle, and Ella, Walter and Grant all came over. Teresa was thrilled that Robert had managed to get home for a few days, and the young ones planned to first-foot their neighbours after midnight. Walter was persuaded to play his old banjo and Grant gave a few tunes on the pipes, while Robert banged out some popular songs badly on the piano.

  ‘I’m pleased to see one of us has inherited the family gift for music,’ Teresa crowed proudly, putting a possessive arm around her son’s shoulders. ‘Your great-grandfather was a famous musician, you know, and your ancestors were French noblemen.’

  Robert laughed with embarrassment, but Millie could tell he was pleased. He had grown up suddenly; much more sure of himself since being away, and Millie was gladdened to see how much he loved the navy. It made her so happy to see them all gathered together safely, the young ones enjoying themselves with their whole lives before them. She had never seen her mother so relaxed and content since those distant days in Craston when they had sung around the piano and been unsuspecting of the traumas to come. She could tell from the fondness between Teresa and her son that Robert was finally filling the empty place left in her heart by the long-dead Graham, and that Robert was coming to accept her too as his mother.

  Millie was basking in the congenial atmosphere when Marjory turned to Albert and said, ‘Congratulations, by the way. Mam says you’ve been picked for a trial with Newcastle!’

  The noise of chatter in the dining room fell away as everyone stared at Millie. Albert shot his mother an anxious look.

  ‘Have I said something wrong?’ Marjory said, puzzled. ‘It’s true, isn’t it?’

  ‘Aye, it is.’ Albert flushed. ‘It’s just w-we haven’t told Mam yet.’

  Millie went puce. ‘You? Newcastle?’ she gasped.

  ‘Aye, a t-trial for the reserves,’ Albert stammered. ‘W-we were going t-to tell you soon ...’

  ‘We?’ Millie questioned.

  ‘Aye.’ Grant spoke up. ‘The lad was afraid to tell you, so we thought we’d wait till after the party. But the cat’s out the bag now. He’s got a trial in two weeks.’

  Millie just stared at them in dismay, humiliated by the way she had been kept out of the secret. ‘You all knew and nobody told me?’ she accused sharply, and rushed from the room, suddenly overcome with emotion. She knew she was spoiling the party, but she could not help the churning apprehension she felt. Grant went after her and found her shivering and weeping under a starry sky on the steps of the hotel.

  ‘Why are you so full of anger all the time, Millie?’ he demanded. ‘Can’t you just be pleased for the lad? It’s what he wants after all.’

  Millie sobbed. ‘I can’t help it! I worry for him being disappointed.’

  ‘That’s not it, is it?’ Grant persisted. ‘You’re angry at the lad for reminding you of Dan.’

  Millie raged, ‘Well, maybe I am! But why’s he doing all this to please a father that doesn’t care about him any more? I don’t want him throwing his life away on dreams like Dan did!’

  Grant seized her hands. ‘Millie, he’s eighteen, he’s not your little lad any more. Albert wants to play football because he’s good at it. What does it matter if a little bit of him wants to prove to his father that he can succeed? Most of all he wants you to be proud of him, Millie, his mother. He thinks the world of you! And you should be proud of him. He’s been playing in front of crowds of nine thousand already, but never in front of you. Now he’s got a chance of the big time – something Dan would’ve given his eye teeth for. But Dan squandered his talent – Albert’s grafted like a Trojan for his. Why can’t you let him have his own dreams? Is it just because yours didn’t come to anything?’

  Millie gasped and pulled away from him. ‘You’re a fine one to lecture me about failures in life,’ she hissed.

  Grant flinched and stepped back, his dark eyes angry. ‘Even if I tried you wouldn’t listen to me,’ he answered coldly. ‘But for what it’s worth, I think you’re doing your son down. Underneath you’re still that bothered about Dan that you can’t believe Albert could do better. You think he’ll make the same mistakes and that’s why you’re punishing him. But he’s not Dan, he’s Albert. They’re quite different men, Millie. When will you ever accept that?’

  He turned from her and walked back inside, leaving her shaking with indignation. Millie buried her face in her hands and wept in distress in the icy dark.

  ***

  The atmosphere was strained around the hotel that following week, with Albert keeping out of Millie’s way and Millie unable to bring herself to congratulate her son. The thought of how pleased Dan would have been had they still been in contact just made her th
e more angry and bitter. It was she who had brought up their boys, without any help from him, and she cursed Albert’s inherited passion. She would not listen to her mother’s attempts to reason with her, and she especially ignored Grant after his brutal accusations that her opposition was merely bitterness over Dan.

  It was eleven o’clock on the following Monday, while Millie was midway through hanging out the washing under a glowering, wintry sky, when the pit buzzer blew. The siren’s insistence made her heart jump. It was far too early for the end of the shift, and it sounded alarm.

  She dropped the washing basket and flew into the lane where others had already appeared to look anxiously up the road. Charity, who was off school with bronchitis, was peering out of the bedroom window above, her pale face creased in worry. Millie realised with a lurch that the girl was thinking the same thing: Albert was one of those underground. For a fleeting second she was caught by the surprise notion that Charity might be sweet on the boy who had spent the last ten years teasing and aggravating her. Then the panic she felt overwhelmed her again.

  ‘Tell Mam I’m going up the pit to see what’s happened!’ she yelled at Charity’s pasty face. Seizing Jack’s bicycle from where it leaned against the yard wall, Millie clambered on and wobbled precariously up the slippery lane. She fell off twice before she reached the main street that led into the middle of town. Dodging a bus, two vans and three dogs, she crossed this and cycled down the long terraced row that led eventually to the pit gates. By the time she arrived, there was a large crowd of onlookers already gathered. They stood around numbly, asking questions that no one could answer while others ran around, shouting that they wanted to help. A car drove up carrying three men.

  ‘They’re rescue workers,’ someone commented. ‘That’s Billy Hill from West Avenue.’

  Then a dark-blue pit ambulance clanged through the gates. Suddenly Millie spotted Ella among the crowd. They went to each other at once.