Margaret Dickinson
Daughters
of Courage
PAN BOOKS
For Dennis
With All My Love
Contents
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
Thirty-Five
Thirty-Six
Thirty-Seven
Thirty-Eight
Thirty-Nine
Forty
Forty-One
Forty-Two
Forty-Three
Forty-Four
Forty-Five
Forty-Six
Forty-Seven
Forty-Eight
Forty-Nine
Fifty
Fifty-One
Fifty-Two
Fifty-Three
Fifty-Four
Fifty-Five
Fifty-Six
Fifty-Seven
Fifty-Eight
Fifty-Nine
The Buffer Girls
One
Two
Three
One
Sheffield, September 1925
‘What’s up, Lizzie? You’ve got a face like a wet washday.’
With her hands on her hips, Emily faced the girl who’d just arrived at their place of work. Emily Trippet, tall and slim with blond hair and blue eyes, was already dressed in her workaday clothes; the buff-brat – a white, smock-like garment worn by all the buffer girls over a coarse dress – white cap and sturdy boots. Around her neck she’d tied a red scarf. She’d been about to cover herself with newspaper too to catch the worst of the oily sand that flew from the wheel as they buffed the cutlery, but now she paused. She could see that something was bothering Lizzie, her workmate and friend since Emily had first arrived in Sheffield five years earlier.
Their friendship had had its ups and downs through that time. They were both strong-minded, determined young women who’d recognized at first sight that they’d be either the best of friends or the worst of enemies and they’d been both at one time or another. But now they worked together, or rather Lizzie worked for Emily, for it was she who now ran the buffing business above a grinders’ workshop in Rockingham Street. It was known as Ryan’s, which had been her maiden name, and Emily handled all the paperwork, visited their customers to collect and return work and was adept at finding new clients with her ready smile and honest approach, but she was not averse to donning the buffer girls’ ‘uniform’ and lending a hand at a wheel when pressure of work demanded. And this morning they had to complete a big order, which would ensure all their wages for several weeks to come. Emily now employed four young women: Nell Geddis, who was readily acknowledged as the best buffer girl in the city, Ida Smithson, Flo Knight, who still acted as errand lass to them all, yet was learning the trade too in spare moments – and Lizzie Dugdale.
Emily was still waiting for an answer, but the girl glanced away to avoid meeting Emily’s steady gaze. Lizzie bit her lip, still standing uncertainly just inside the door, almost as if she were unsure of her welcome this morning. Her blue eyes were fearful, her head bowed and her long black hair hid her lovely face. As she opened her mouth to speak, the door opened again with a flurry and Nell rushed in.
‘Eeh, I’m sorry I’m late. I had to take Lucy to school this morning. It’s her first day back after the summer holidays and poor little mite was frit to death and—’ She stopped mid-sentence, suddenly becoming aware of the strange atmosphere in the workshop. She glanced worriedly from Emily to Lizzie and back again, raising her eyebrows in a question. With Nell’s arrival, colour flooded Lizzie’s pale face and she seemed even more ill at ease.
‘What’s up?’ Nell repeated Emily’s earlier question bluntly, but not unkindly. Nell had a strong face, which on a woman would be called handsome rather than beautiful, but nevertheless she was a striking-looking girl with a cloud of unruly, auburn curls that were already tucked firmly beneath her cap ready for work. She lived with her young daughter and elderly mother and worked hard to support the three of them.
Nell glanced at Emily who, still mystified, shrugged. Nell stepped closer to Lizzie and touched her arm. ‘What is it, luv?’
After a moment’s further hesitation, Lizzie whispered hoarsely, ‘Mick’s back.’
There was a pause before Emily said quietly, ‘Is he now?’
Nell’s mouth tightened. ‘And has your mam marched him off to the police station by the scruff of his miserable neck like she threatened to?’
Lizzie shook her head. ‘No. You – you know what mothers are like with their sons.’
Emily smiled wryly. Her younger brother Josh had always been their mother’s favourite though Emily had never been jealous of him and loved him dearly. He had been the reason the family had come to Sheffield towards the end of 1920. Martha Ryan’s ambitions for her son had known no bounds and she’d believed that the small cottage industry of candle-making, which had been in the Ryan family for at least four generations, was not good enough for Josh. The young man himself would have been content to stay in Ashford-in-the-Water, marry his sweetheart, Amy, and continue with the family tradition, but Martha had squashed all his hopes and dreams. Underage at eighteen, he had not been able to marry without his parents’ permission and Martha was the only one who could give that consent. Josh and Emily’s father, Walter, had returned from the carnage of the Great War a broken man. He could no longer work nor, for a time, even speak. His days were spent sitting beside the kitchen range, plagued by fits of shaking caused by shell shock and exposure to gas attacks.
Now, as they waited for Lizzie to explain further, Emily was remembering the time they had arrived in the court off Garden Street, the kindness of Lizzie and her mother Bess, and, she had to admit, in the early days, even Mick had been good to them too. But it had been Lizzie’s infatuation with Josh that had brought about an element of bitterness between the two families and when Josh, finding that Amy had borne his child, had returned to Ashford, things had got really nasty between the two families. Emily’s memories were interrupted as Nell sniffed, marched towards her machine and snatched at the pile of newspaper with swift, angry movements. ‘If he comes anywhere near me –’ she glanced swiftly at Emily – ‘us, then that’s where he’ll end up this time, I promise you. And as for Steve, well, when he hears that Mick’s dared to show his face here again, I dread to think what might happen.’
Galvanized by Nell’s remark, Lizzie hurried to her and grasped her arm, looking up into the other girl’s face with pleading eyes. ‘Please, Nell, don’t tell Steve. I’m begging you. It’ll cause such trouble.’
‘You really expect me to say and do nothing when your precious brother trussed me an’ Emily up like a pair of chickens and set fire to Mr Hawke’s workshop with us still inside it? You think we’re going to forgive that? He tried to kill us, Lizzie, and if it hadn’t been for Mr Hawke’s wonderful habit of losing his spectacles and coming back to look for them, we’d have been a pair of fried chickens.’<
br />
‘I know, Nell, I know. But Mick’s truly sorry and he – he’s changed . . .’
Nell laughed wryly. ‘If you think that, Lizzie Dugdale, then you’re a fool.’ Nell paused and seemed to be thinking. Slowly, she said, ‘No, I won’t tell Steve – not for your Mick’s sake, but for Steve’s – though I reckon he’ll get to hear anyway.’
Steve Henderson was the leader of the biggest gang that plagued the city and the man whom Nell loved. He was the father of her six-year-old daughter Lucy, yet Nell was strongly determined that her daughter would not grow up in the shadow of a man who operated on the wrong side of the law. Years before, though Steve had wanted to marry her, she’d given him an ultimatum. ‘You can see your child now and again. I’ll not deny you – or her – that,’ Nell had said, ‘but you can’t live with us and I certainly won’t marry you unless you go straight.’
But it seemed that Steve did not love her enough to give up his criminal life and, though he saw his daughter regularly, breaking Nell’s heart afresh every time he did so, and paid generously towards the little girl’s keep, he was unwilling to give up his activities. He and one or two other rival gangs held the good people of the city to ransom. In the aftermath of the Great War, the city – like so many others – suffered from poor housing with rows of back-to-back dwellings with crowded, insanitary courts behind them, sharing one outside toilet. Unemployment was on the rise and even the brewers felt the drop in their sales. Families had no money to spend on beer. Yet, conversely, betting increased. Perhaps it was the thrill of the occasional win or a desperate attempt to forget their hardships for a few hours, but the likes of Steve Henderson and Mick Dugdale, who’d led a rival gang, had prospered from illegal gambling. Pitch and toss, playing with three coins being thrown into the air and bets being taken on how they would fall, was one of the easiest forms to organize. Sky Edge, a patch of wasteland with a high vantage point, had become one of the most popular places, which both Steve and Mick had used. The approach of the law could be seen easily by the lookouts posted to keep watch, the gamblers melting away and the three coins swiftly pocketed. But it was not the harmless game it might have seemed and now and then violent quarrels broke out if it was thought that a particular ‘toss’ had been unfairly executed. It was not, however, the only illegal enterprise of the gangs whose members often carried knives and razors; extortion, bare-knuckle fighting, pick pocketing and confrontations with innocent passers-by – all kinds of trickery were used. It was even rumoured that one gang ran a prostitution racket. The streets were no longer a safe place for law-abiding citizens. And, much to Nell’s disgust, Steve seemed to be heavily involved.
And now Mick Dugdale, once Steve’s friend and then his rival, was back and goodness only knew what would happen.
‘Not a word to Ida or Flo,’ Emily warned as they heard the girls’ footsteps and laughter outside the door. ‘I don’t want them thinking we’re all going up in smoke.’
Lizzie bit her lip but said no more as she pulled on her cap and moved towards her wheel. Once, Mick had been her friend and protector as well as her brother. He had seen that neither she nor their mother had gone short of anything, but they’d not realized that the money he splashed around freely had come from crime. They’d naively thought that he was a clever wheeler-dealer in the city. How wrong they had been and, now he was back, Lizzie was perhaps the most frightened of all of them. Since Mick’s attempted act of revenge on Emily and Nell, because of what he saw as Josh’s ill-treatment of his sister, Lizzie was no longer as vivacious and outgoing as she had been. Her mother, Bess, had been devastated when she’d learned the truth about her son and had buried herself away in the court behind Garden Street, venturing out very little. It was a subdued and unhappy household with just the two women and only Lizzie’s wage to support them both. Despite his wicked ways, Mick was still her son and Bess mourned his loss, praying that somewhere he was still alive and well. Lizzie could still see the shock on her mother’s face when he had walked in through the door the previous night; a look that had been swiftly followed by tears and hugs and, to Lizzie’s amazement, there had been not a word of recrimination. But Lizzie was afraid. When Mick found out that she was still friends with Emily and Nell – was actually working with them – he would see it as a betrayal. His sister had thrown her lot in with the enemy.
As the door to the workshop opened and the other two girls came in, Nell, her even temper disturbed by the recent news, rounded on the young girl, Flo. ‘You’re late. You’re supposed to be first here and to get everything set up. Where’s me sand? Where’s me pan of work? Time’s money for me, y’know, Flo. It won’t do.’
Flo, younger than the others, stood her ground. Hands on her hips, she said, ‘Who’s rattled your cage this mornin’? I got everything ready last night ’afore I left.’ She waved her hand towards the bench near Nell. ‘There’s your sand and there’s your work. The on’y thing I haven’t got done yet is the fire, but Emily said she’d do it.’ With one accord they all glanced towards the fire, which burned cheerfully in the grate. ‘Ah, I see she has.’ She smiled at Emily. ‘Thanks, missus.’
Emily spoke quietly. ‘Flo asked if she could be in a little later than usual this morning. She had to take her mother to the hospital.’ She turned towards the girl. ‘How is she, Flo?’
Anxiety flooded the girl’s eyes and she bit her lip to stop it trembling. ‘Not good, missus. She’s had this pain for weeks now and no one seems to know what the matter is.’
‘I’m sorry. Just let me know if you need any more time off. We’ll cover for you.’
As she started up her machine, Nell sniffed her disapproval again, but this time, she said no more.
Two
As the girls turned off their machines that evening and were about to leave for home, they heard the sound of a child’s voice echoing up the stairs from the grinders’ workshop below. Nell’s eyes widened with fear as she glanced at Emily.
‘That’s Lucy,’ she whispered and, galvanized into action, she rushed towards the stairs. ‘Lucy! What’s the matter? What’s happened? What are you doing here?’
Emily and the others followed her swiftly in time to see Nell reach the foot of the stairs and her young daughter rush towards her. She buried her face against her mother’s skirt, not caring that she would be covered in the grime from Nell’s working day.
‘What is it? What’s happened, luv? Is it Granny?’
‘It’s the girls at school. They locked me in the toilet at playtime and at dinner time and they wouldn’t let me out.’
Nell squatted down in front of her and grasped the girl’s shoulders. ‘Have you been home to Granny? Does she know you’ve come here?’
With tears running down her face, Lucy shook her head. ‘I came to find you, Mam.’
‘You should have gone home first, Lucy, luv.’ Nell’s voice was firm but kind. She could see her daughter was already distressed, but she had to instil obedience in her. ‘Granny will be so worried that you’re this late home from school.’ She stood up and held out her hand. ‘Come along, we must go straight home and then we’ll sort those girls out.’ Now a note of anger crept into her tone. No one, but no one, laid a finger on her girl.
‘Is there anything we can do to help?’ Emily asked.
Nell gave them all a quick smile. ‘No, thanks, Emily. I’ll sort it out.’ She winked at her friends and added softly, ‘Or her dad will.’
‘Oo-er,’ Flo said, making light of the matter, now that they could all see that Lucy was safe. ‘I wouldn’t be in their shoes when Steve Henderson goes knocking on a few doors.’
‘I shan’t involve him unless I have to,’ Nell said. ‘I think a quiet word from me will be enough.’
More than enough, I would think, Emily thought with amusement. Nell was a staunch friend, but even Emily admitted that she wouldn’t like to get on Nell’s ‘wrong side’.
Outside their place of work in Rockingham Street, the girls separated and went thei
r different ways home. Ida and Flo set off together, leaving Lizzie to walk to the court off Garden Street, while Emily, Nell and Lucy, who lived a distance away but only a few streets apart from each other, hurried to catch a tram or a bus that would take them nearer home.
Emily now lived in Carr Road. The house was in the centre of a terrace near the top of the road, two doors away from the pub on the corner. It had a living kitchen, a front parlour, three bedrooms and a small backyard. Having picked up some pork chops from the butcher on South Road, as soon as she arrived home, Emily removed her dirty working clothes and had a good wash, then began preparing the evening meal.
‘I have to tell you something, Trip,’ were Emily’s first words to her husband, Thomas, when he arrived home, ‘but before I do, I want you to promise that you won’t do anything.’
Emily Ryan and Thomas Trippet – nicknamed Trip – had been friends from childhood and Emily had been in love with him forever. They had grown up together, roaming the hills and dales around Ashford-in-the-Water in Derbyshire where they’d lived. There’d been the four of them: Emily, her brother Josh, Trip, and Josh’s childhood sweetheart, Amy Clark. Arthur Trippet had done his best to separate his son from what he considered ‘unsuitable company’ for his only child, who would one day inherit not only the biggest house in Ashford, but also his cutlery manufacturing business in Sheffield. Sending Trip to boarding school hadn’t made any difference; the foursome still met in the school holidays. So then Arthur had decreed that Trip should ‘learn the business from the bottom up’ and had sent him to live and work in the city. But when the Ryan family moved there, Trip and Emily began walking out together. Incensed by the news, Arthur had uttered an ultimatum: give Emily up or be disowned. Trip had stood up to his father and, with his mother’s help, had married Emily. It could have meant the loss of his inheritance, but never for one moment did Trip regret his decision. Emily was everything to him. However, following his father’s serious stroke, Trip was back working at the factory alongside his half-brother, Richard, Arthur’s illegitimate son by his mistress Belle Beauman. It was an arrangement that suited them all, even though it was somewhat unusual.
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