Durham Trilogy 03. Never Stand Alone

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

  ‘Aye, well, people have to make a living,’ Ted lashed out.

  Mick advanced on him. ‘We all want to make a living, Mr Laws. But you have to stand by your marras. If you don’t stand up for what’s right together then you haven’t got anything.’

  Ted gave his smoker’s cough and spat into the sink again. ‘I just drive a bus. It’s me job. Proud tells me what to do and I do it. I didn’t have a job for six years until he gave me one. I’m fifty-five. If I lose this one, who’s ganin’ to give me another one at my age, eh?’

  ‘And is it right to let a man like Proud frighten you into doing his dirty work? He doesn’t care about you or any of us. He only thinks about making money for himself, making a fortune out of the misery of others, out of us lads on strike. He’s probably got contracts to bring in scab labour to all the pits in the north, knowing Vic Proud. And you’re breaking the strike by bringing those lads in an’ all.’

  Ted stabbed the chopping board with the paring knife. ‘I don’t belong to any union so I can cross any picket line I like!’

  Mick gave him a long despairing look and saw him flinch away. ‘Your missus used to work in the pit canteen, didn’t she, Mr Laws? She’d have known what a picket line was for,’ he said quietly and turned to go. As he reached the front door he heard Ted call after him in a tremulous voice.

  ‘I pick them up at the back of the police station. They come by taxi. That’s all I know.’

  Mick heard him sob, so did not go back into the kitchen. Ta, Mr Laws,’ he replied and let himself out of the house, leaving Ted the dignity of crying unobserved.

  Mick determined to wait up all night if necessary to catch the strike-breakers. He would attempt to talk them out of scabbing before they boarded the bus. The police would not let the pickets near them, but he might stand a chance before the bus joined the convoy. At the very least he could find out who they were and then his father could go round and try to talk some sense into them at home. Besides, he could no longer bear to stay in his house alone. Eddy called to see if he fancied a half-pint at The Ship.

  ‘I think I’ll go over and see how Grandda is,’ Mick told his uncle.

  ‘I’ll come with you then,’ Eddy said, amiable as ever.

  ‘You don’t have to keep watch over me day and night,’ Mick smiled. ‘I’m not going to do anything daft.’

  ‘No, but I might,’ Eddy grinned, ‘so you’ve a duty to keep an eye on me.’

  Mick laughed. ‘Mam’s told you to follow me, hasn’t she?’

  Eddy shook his head. ‘No, but Carol did.’

  Mick flushed and pulled on his leather jacket. Eddy clapped him round the shoulders. ‘Listen, lad, I’m not blind. I can see things aren’t champion between the two of you, but I know that Carol cares about you. Things’ll work themselves out once this is all over. If you love each other as much as I think you do, it’ll come back with time. You don’t just stop loving someone overnight. But you’ve got to show Carol you care too.’

  Mick shrugged him off, embarrassed by talk of such personal feelings. ‘Did you get that off one of your Johnny Matthis records, Eddy?’ he teased.

  Eddy laughed and dropped his arm. ‘Haway, you cheeky bugger. Did I ever tell you about the time I met Johnny Matthis in a club in Soho?’

  ‘Aye, and he was a waiter named after the famous singer.’

  ‘Spoiling me punch line again,’ Eddy complained.

  Mick grinned and followed his uncle out into the lane.

  Cutting across the park where a game of bowls was taking place in the dying sun, it took them fifteen minutes to reach Arthur Bowman’s retirement cottage, built by the miners’ union in the thirties. The house was in shadow and no smoke rose from the chimney, even though Grandda was still getting his pensioner’s entitlement to free coal. The small, neat garden in front was a riot of late blooms but there was no sign of the old man pottering about his domain.

  ‘Maybe it’s dominoes night,’ Eddy shrugged.

  ‘No, he’s always in on a Monday night,’ Mick answered, puzzled.

  They went inside and called, but there was no reply. Searching the small house, they found it empty and chill. Mick shivered, then something brushed his leg and he sprang back.

  ‘It’s Smoky,’ Eddy laughed at him, bending to stroke Arthur’s old cat. Smoky dribbled with delight and gave his bronchial purr. ‘You wheeze louder than the old man,’ Eddy said, scratching it behind the ears. ‘Are you going to tell us where he is then?’

  The cat meowed and then circled Eddy’s legs.

  Mick went back out of the house with impatience. ‘Talking to the cat’s not getting us anywhere.’

  ‘Smoky knows where he is, don’t you, boy?’ Eddy insisted, following the cat into the garden.

  ‘Smoky’s a girl,’ Mick snorted.

  ‘No wonder she likes me then,’ Eddy grinned. The cat jumped up on the garden fence and leapt out of sight into the dense undergrowth behind, which hid an old railway line that had once run to the pit. Eddy looked set to follow.

  ‘We’d be better off asking a neighbour,’ Mick said and went to knock at the bungalow next door. Mary Hunt, the talkative widow who was working for the Prouds to earn some money for her striking family, came to the door.

  ‘He’ll be down the old railway track like he usually is,’ she told them.

  ‘Why?’ Mick asked.

  ‘Hunting for coal, of course,’ Mary replied. ‘He’s at it most evenings when it starts to get dark.’

  ‘But he doesn’t need to do that.’

  ‘What else is he going to get a fire going with?’ Mary demanded. ‘He gives his ration away to that family down the hill with the five bairns. I knew he wouldn’t have told his own family. That’s Arthur for you.’ She seemed pleased to know something they did not. ‘I told him he ought to stop, they’re policing the line now, but he won’t listen.’

  ‘Haway and let’s look for him,’ Eddy said. ‘Ta very much, Mrs Hunt.’

  They climbed a fence at the end of the lane and jumped into the gloomy undergrowth of brambles and nettles, cursing the stubborn old miner.

  ‘Thinks he’s Robin-bloody-Hood,’ Eddy muttered.

  ‘Aye, and at his age with a bad chest. Daft old bugger,’ Mick agreed, wincing as a bramble tore into his arm.

  ‘Gan canny,’ Eddy warned, ‘we don’t want you running into any coppers either.’

  They searched for twenty minutes without finding him, as the evening sky dimmed to a deep violet and a stiff onshore breeze rustled the bushes around them. The old track was long overgrown, though Mick could remember it in the sixties, busy with rattling coal trucks trundling off to the staithes further up the coast. Grandda used to tell him they were taking coal to the large power stations in the south-east - ‘Bringing light to the heathens of the south,’ he had often chuckled. As a boy Mick had been forbidden to go near the line which belonged to the Coal Board and he knew he was trespassing now and breaking the conditions of his bail.

  He pressed on grimly, angry that the thought should worry him. For what use was a deserted railway line to anyone but blackberry pickers and old men like Grandda Bowman trying to do his best for his destitute neighbours?

  As they reached the brow of the embankment, just where it dipped gently down towards the pit, Eddy gave a shout.

  ‘There he is! Down in the cutting.’

  Mick peered and saw the frail, stooped figure of his grandfather bending over and digging the weedy cinder track with a garden trowel. He was working methodically along one side of the cutting; bending, digging, lifting some small nugget of coal dropped twenty years ago and then pausing before shovelling it carefully into an old shopping bag on wheels. After a moment’s rest he began again, inching his way up the line. Smoky was with him, circling the operation like a watchful pit deputy. As Mick and Eddy drew closer, they could hear the old man chatting to the cat as he worked, his breath coming in laboured wheezes like a squeaking bellows.

  Mick felt a lump formin
g in his throat at the sight. He remembered Grandda telling him how they had gone on to the pit heap to steal coal during the lock-out in ‘26 and how his cousin Albert had been caught and fined and gone to prison because he could not pay. And they had thought those bad old days had gone for ever! Hadn’t his grandfather already had more than his share of hard times?

  ‘It’s not right,’ Mick fumed. ‘He shouldn’t have to do this, Eddy.’

  His uncle nodded. ‘Aye, and your nana would spin in the cemetery if she knew he was using her tartan shopping bag for carrying coal.’

  They descended into the shadowy cutting.

  ‘Haway, Grandda!’ Eddy called. ‘You’ve done enough thieving for one night.’

  The old miner jerked up in fright; he had not heard them approaching. For a moment he did not recognise them and Mick wondered if his grandfather’s mind had wandered into the past as he worked.

  ‘Oh, it’s you, lad.’ Arthur coughed with relief. ‘For a minute I thought you were coppers.’

  ‘Guilty conscience,’ Eddy teased. ‘Come on, give us that bag and we’ll get you off home.’

  ‘I’ll just sit here for a minute and catch me breath.’

  Mick, seeing he was tired out, tried to help him on to the grassy bank, but he squatted down stubbornly on his haunches and pulled out a tin of snuff. Dabbing the brown powder on to the back of his hand, he held it to his whiskery nostrils and snorted it in. A few seconds later he gave an enormous sneeze that sent Smoky leaping for cover.

  ‘By, you oldtimers know how to enjoy yourselves,’ Eddy chuckled.

  ‘Who told you I was here?’ Arthur asked.

  ‘Smoky,’ Eddy said.

  ‘It was that interfering wife, Mary, wasn’t it?’ he grumbled.

  ‘Mam would go light if she knew you were down here,’ Mick scolded.

  ‘Don’t fuss over me, lad.’

  ‘The place is swarming with police since morning, Grandda,’ Mick said more gently. ‘You shouldn’t be out here.’

  The old man turned to look at him and Mick could see the desolation in his face. He shook his head. ‘I’ve lived through this all before, bonny lad,’ he sighed. ‘Did you know they turned the hoses on us to knock us off the spoil heap for picking dross? I swore I’d never let it happen to me own bairns. But I never thought to see me grandbairns suffering ...’ He broke off, unable to finish, his eyes filling with tears.

  ‘Haway, Grandda,’ Mick said, reaching out to take his arm. ‘Let’s get you back.’

  As they heaved the old man up, a flash of light darted at the end of the cutting and Mick heard voices and the tramp of feet. He glanced towards the bend where the old line disappeared into the colliery yard and saw two dark figures walking towards them.

  ‘Coppers,’ he hissed to Eddy.

  ‘Bloody hell, that’s all we need,’ Eddy groaned. ‘You get yourself out of here sharp, Mick.’

  ‘I’m not leaving Grandda here with this coal.’ Mick was adamant.

  ‘Haway then and get him up the bank. The fence looks broken at the top,’ Eddy urged.

  But Arthur had stopped still, his face ashen in the twilight. Mick saw fear tense his features and felt the claw-like grip on his grandfather’s hand tighten on his arm.

  They’ll have us,’ he gasped. ‘They’ll have us, our Albert!’

  ‘Grandda, it’s Mick,’ he tried to reassure the confused widower. ‘Take his other arm, Eddy.’

  They heaved the trembling man between them, abandoning the shopping trolley, and began to clamber up the embankment. But the old man tripped and fell, scrambling on his hands and knees in his haste to get away. His breathing was heavy and erratic. ‘Don’t leave me, Albert.’

  Mick heaved him up again, while Eddy searched in the dark for a way through the fence. They heard shouts further up the line and the two policemen began to run towards them, flashing their torches along the bank.

  ‘Hoy! What you up to?’ one demanded. ‘Stop! This is private property!’

  ‘Over here, Mick!’ Eddy called.

  Grandda cried, ‘Don’t leave the coal!’

  Mick hauled his grandfather to the fence and thrust him at Eddy who was holding the broken fencing back to let them through.

  ‘I’m going back for the bag - they’ll trace it to Grandda,’ Mick panted.

  ‘Leave the sodding bag, man!’ Eddy cried. But Mick was already scrambling back down the line. He grabbed his grandmother’s prize shopping bag, but he had miscalculated just how close the policemen were. A moment later, he was dazzled by a torch shone in his eyes.

  ‘It’s Mick Todd.’

  ‘Grab him!’ the other cried.

  ‘I’m not running,’ Mick answered sharply, shaking off the young man’s hold, then realised it was Carol’s brother. ‘Simon!’

  ‘What the hell are you doing down here?’ Simon asked him.

  ‘What does it look like?’ Mick said.

  ‘Looks like you’re stealing from the Coal Board,’ the older man answered. Mick did not recognise him as a local man. ‘Do you know this thief?’

  ‘He’s my brother-in-law,’ Simon answered, embarrassed.

  ‘Not the one who thumped your old man?’ the officer crowed.

  ‘That’s just rumour,’ Simon said stiffly.

  ‘Too soft to press charges, I’d heard,’ his colleague said with contempt. ‘Don’t know why he wants to protect scum like this.’ He jabbed his torch at Mick’s face, blinding him for an instant. ‘Who else was with you?’

  ‘No one.’

  ‘Lying bastard! Get up the bank, Shannon, and see who they are.’

  Simon hesitated an instant and then ran up the embankment, finding the gap in the fence with his torch. Through on the other side he saw Eddy Todd crouching in the grass with old Arthur Bowman. He knew the retired miner from his childhood; he was some distant relation of his mother’s, according to Carol. The old man was whimpering and Eddy tried to shield him from the harsh light. They said nothing.

  Simon switched off his torch and turned away. He scrambled back down the bank.

  ‘Whoever it was, they’ve gone,’ he told his colleague.

  Mick caught the briefest of glances from Simon and knew he had saved his relations.

  ‘Well, we’ve got this one,’ the other policeman said with harsh satisfaction. ‘Let’s get him up the police station.’

  ‘Just a warning would do, wouldn’t it?’ Simon suggested. ‘I mean, it’s just a bag of dross he’s got, probably not even his.’

  The other man gave him a sharp look. ‘You’re too pally by half with these people. You better remember who your mates are, Shannon. You stick up for your fellow officers, not riffraff like this hairy yob. Get it, Shannon?’

  ‘Yeah, you’re right,’ Simon replied evenly. ‘It’s just he’s a relation of Superintendent Bowman. Why cause embarrassment when there are more important fish to catch?’

  But the other officer advanced on Mick, blinding him again with his torch. ‘I thought I’d seen you before. You’re that lunatic who lay in front of the bus this morning, aren’t you? Well, you haven’t got Bowman here to protect you now!’ He looked triumphant. ‘We’re here to do a job and we’re going to do it. Get him back up the line and into the van.’

  Simon threw Mick a look of apology. Mick said nothing, only thankful that his grandfather and Eddy were safe.

  He sat around for an age at the police station waiting to be questioned while forms were filled in and they took his fingerprints and photograph. But the inspector made it plain he thought it was a waste of time and Mick was finally released in the early hours of the morning without being charged. Exhausted, but worried about his grandfather, he made his way through the empty streets back to the retirement cottages.

  The house was in darkness and Mick was about to leave, thankful that the old man was sleeping peacefully, when Mary Hunt startled him by appearing on her doorstep.

  ‘By, what a carry on!’ she whispered loudly. ‘Your mam’s been
over, worried sick about you. And poor Arthur!’

  ‘What about him, Mrs Hunt?’ Mick asked.

  ‘Poorly bad he is. Taken him off to the hospital. Heart attack. Your mam’s gone with him. Poor Lotty, worried stiff. I told him he should never have gone down the cutting, but he wouldn’t listen.’

  ‘It’s not your fault, Mrs Hunt. Don’t you worry yourself. Grandda’s a tough old boot, he’ll survive.’

  But as Mick turned away and headed off to Septimus Street, his heart was full of dread.

  By the time he reached his parents’ house, his mother was already back from the hospital in Whittledene. Auntie Val was there too, sobbing into Eddy’s shoulder.

  ‘Your father tried to find you,’ Lotty told him, her eyes red from crying. ‘Grandda died in the ambulance. They tried to revive him, but he never came round again.’

  Mick went across and put his arms about her shoulders as she sobbed in grief. He was numb with shock.

  He should have been with his grandfather - would have been with him if he had not gone back for the bag of coal. Perhaps it might never have happened if he had been there to help Eddy.

  ‘I should’ve been there!’ he cried in anguish.

  ‘No, son,’ Eddy tried to calm him, ‘it was always going to happen.’

  ‘Eddy’s right,’ Charlie agreed. ‘All that humping coal up the railway line was too much for him.’

  Mick spun round, his face haggard. ‘I’ll tell you what was too much for him, being chased by the coppers like a criminal. He thought he was back with his cousin Albert in twenty-six. He was terrified for his life. That poor old man. He should’ve been left in peace to enjoy his retirement. I can’t take any more of this!’ Mick cried.

  ‘Listen to me, lad.’ Charlie rushed to him and gripped him tight. ‘None of us will have any peace any more because of what they’re doing to our village.’ His face burned with fury and determination. ‘We’ve lost too much already in this strike but we’ve got to win it, else we’ve lost everything. We owe it to your grandda to come out of this fighting. And that means stopping those lads going into the pit in a few hours’ time.’