Durham Trilogy 01. The Hungry Hills

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

  ‘You can keep your bag of silver.’ Sam almost spat the words out. ‘I’ll not betray my comrades to the likes of you. If you think a pitman can be bought off with such bribery then you don’t know the men you’re dealing with. You can take away all we’ve got, but we’ll still have more self-respect than a dozen of you lot. There’s one thing you’ll never break, Mr Seward-Scott,’ he trembled as he spoke, ‘and that’s our spirit!’

  ‘Then you’re a fool,’ Reginald answered coldly. ‘You’ll not win against your superiors, Ritson. All you’ll achieve will be misery for yourselves and your families. I’ll not make such an offer to you again.’

  ‘And I wouldn’t listen a second time.’ Sam stood, picked up his cap from the ornate table by his chair, and jammed it firmly on his head. Reginald glared at him in fury. For the first time he was struck by how short Sam Ritson was; he carried about him the air of a much larger man. ‘I’ll see myself out,’ Sam added stoutly and strode across the room.

  As soon as he was gone, the double doors that connected an adjoining sitting room opened and Hopkinson entered.

  ‘I suppose you heard all that,’ Reginald said in a clipped manner, barely controlling his anger.

  ‘Yes,’ the mines’ agent answered, satisfaction glinting in his grey eyes. He hated the disdainful miner who caused his management continual bother at the pit. ‘He’s a very silly man.’

  Reginald went quickly to the window, ignoring the comment.

  ‘I want notices drawn up terminating all contracts at the pits on the thirtieth of April - when the government subsidy is withdrawn.’ Hopkinson raised his eyebrows in surprise. ‘We’ll announce the conditions available to the miners who wish to reapply for employment on the first of May. Such things as free housing, rent allowances and free coal will be calculated as part of their wages in future.’

  ‘That means a reduction in wages in real terms,’ Hopkinson commented dubiously. ‘They’re used to those things as extras. Some may find it hard to manage.’

  ‘And the working day will be extended to eight hours,’ Reginald continued, as if the other man had not spoken. ‘I want a draft by the end of today. And now I’m going out riding.’ He spun round abruptly and marched towards the door before Hopkinson had time to query the command. Turning at the last moment, Reginald added, ‘Red Sam Ritson has declared war on the Seward-Scotts, and that’s exactly what he’s going to get.’

  As spring stirred in Whitton Grange and the first yellow primroses sprang into life in the dene, Eb retreated to the allotment once more to escape the increasing tension in the village. April was nearly at an end and there was little sign of any agreement being reached on wages for the pitmen or how the industry was to be run. Prime Minister Baldwin was making half-hearted attempts to press the two sides to settle the dispute, but the owners were in no mood to compromise and the miners refused to accept an eight-hour day. Already the Seward-Scotts had shown their vindictiveness in declaring the men would be finished on the 30th April. Those who were lucky enough to be re-employed would have to agree to a reduction of over two shillings a shift. How could the majority of them cope? Eb wondered bleakly. His family was luckier than most, with both himself and Hilda employed outside the pit. But Davie was still out of work and if his father and John were laid off too, life would be very tough. And what of Louie and Sam, with their first child on the way? He shuddered to think how they would manage. Eb looked around his small shed, cobbled together with bits of old fencing and advertising hoardings. The walls were covered with his pictures, for he no longer denied his passion for painting. He even drew at home, sketches of his family sitting around the kitchen. John and Davie thought his craving to draw odd, but he sensed that both his parents were quietly proud of his skill. Hilda was his greatest admirer and Sadie had begun a lucrative trade with her friends in swapping his drawings for sweets. She got Eb commissions from her schoolfriends May Little and Jane Pinkney, for which Sadie received a comic and a postcard of some dreamy-eyed actress.

  He looked at a picture he had done of Eleanor, head bent, reading a book as she sat in the allotment, framed by creeping sweet peas. Often he had wanted to tear it from its hook on the wall, but he could not bring himself to do it. Every day he thought of her, longed to see her, in spite of the way her arrogant husband and hard-nosed father were intent on bringing the pitmen to their knees.

  Galvanised by a sudden restlessness, he picked up his box of paints and left the allotment, striding purposefully through the woods up to the Common. Eb walked for half an hour but found only sheep occupying the high ground. He turned reluctantly for home, calling in at the allotment to tidy away his tools. A figure in the gloom of the shed startled him.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Eleanor said quickly. ‘I was looking for you. I couldn’t help seeing the paintings on the wall. You’ve done a lot this winter. They’re very fine.’ She was aware of how she was gabbling, trying to fill the awkwardness between them with words.

  ‘I was out on the hill,’ Eb answered diffidently.

  ‘Why have you been avoiding me?’ Eleanor plunged in. Eb turned away and began a deliberate sorting of his garden implements. ‘What’s happened, Eb?’ She could not bear his coolness. ‘Am I an embarrassment to you? Perhaps you have an intended? Tell me what it is, please. I will never stand in the way of your happiness; I just need to know what troubles you.’

  He faced her, his expression resentful under his grimy cap. ‘I saw you with another man on Christmas Day,’ he said in a dull voice. ‘I climbed up to The Grange to catch a glimpse of you. Soft as muck, aren’t I? You were with someone else - not your husband.’

  Eleanor blushed as she remembered Will’s approach to her on the terrace. No wonder Eb had avoided her since. He must think her heartless in the extreme.

  ‘I’m sorry you saw that.’ She dropped her head. ‘He was a friend of Beatrice’s and in too high spirits. There is absolutely nothing between us. Please believe me.’

  Eb sighed. He did not know if he did believe her. Perhaps people of her class played games with each other like figures in chess? Well, he would not be a pawn to divert her when she was bored with her aristocratic friends.

  ‘What do you want from me?’ he asked in a tight voice.

  ‘Your friendship,’ she answered softly. ‘As much as you can give me.’

  ‘What’s the point in being friends?’ he questioned, his blue eyes sad as he spoke. ‘We live in different worlds, Eleanor. Things are only going to get worse between your people and mine. Besides, you have a husband,’ he added with a note of finality.

  ‘A husband who is unfaithful to me,’ Eleanor said bitterly. Eb shot her a look of surprise and she cursed inwardly for allowing her self-pity to make her indiscreet. It was not Eb’s sympathy that she sought, but his love.

  ‘Am I your way of getting back at him?’ Eb accused her.

  ‘No,’ she answered vehemently. ‘How can you even think that of me?’ She gazed at him unhappily, feeling tears of frustration sting her eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he replied more gently and stepped towards her. Eleanor put out her hands and grasped his.

  ‘I care for you deeply, Eb,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t bear the thought of not being able to see you.’

  ‘Then you must decide whose side you are on,’ he insisted quietly, gripping her hands in his.

  ‘Why must there always be division?’ she asked forlornly, thinking of the way her father had demanded her loyalty too.

  ‘It’s the way of men,’ Eb replied. ‘Where there’s self-interest, there will always be division and hatred.’

  ‘But not between us, surely?’ Eleanor pleaded. ‘Don’t let the dispute force us apart.’ In reply, Eb put his arms about her and held her tight for a moment.

  ‘I hope not,’ he said in a low voice, though his spirit felt heavy with dread. They kissed briefly, as if they could keep the outside world from touching them while they clung to each other. Then Eb brushed away the tears that were slipp
ing down Eleanor’s pale high-boned cheeks.

  ‘That husband of yours must be mad, going looking elsewhere,’ he comforted her gruffly.

  Eleanor laughed with relief. ‘Thank you, Eb,’ she whispered, and kissed him again.

  For a further week, life continued as normal in the village, with the men tramping off up the lanes to the pits at the top of the hill as if nothing concerned them. The women and families at home carried on the pretence that this was an ordinary spring, going about their daily chores and ignoring the ominous headlines in the newspapers. But the uncertainty and fear gathered around them like black storm clouds intent on blocking out any last rays of hope for a peaceful settlement in the coalfields.

  Louie stood at her doorway late on a Friday afternoon, watching Sadie skipping with May Little, the two of them jumping as one as the rope descended and bound them together. Minnie was chatting to her on the doorstep while baby Jack kicked contentedly in his battered old pram.

  Arms crossed, Louie glanced occasionally up the street, watching for signs of the changeover of shift. The whistle blasted and she relaxed to think of Sam coming to the surface again. Then, unusually, it blasted a second time, the signal that work was finished for the week, although it was only Friday.

  ‘How are things with your Davie?’ Minnie asked, shaking dark curls out of her green eyes. Louie was momentarily distracted.

  ‘Canny,’ she smiled. ‘Iris seems to have settled down at last. And Raymond’s a treasure - walks like Charlie Chaplin - all bow-legged.’

  As Minnie busied herself fussing over Jack and making him gurgle, Louie lingered, enjoying the contented street scene of women leaning on their half-doors, chatting in the bright spring sun and listening to the call of their children at play. Unconsciously she unfolded her arms and slipped a hand down to cover her stomach where the small bump swelled the flowers on her apron. She felt a flutter from the baby in her womb, right under her hand. It sent an excited thrill through her whole body to feel it moving inside her.

  ‘I felt it move again, Minnie,’ Louie told her friend breathlessly.

  ‘Going to be a footballer, this one,’ Minnie smiled back, teasing. ‘Don’t tell Bomber, else he’ll have him signed up for Whitton the minute he’s born.’

  Louie laughed and then turned at the sound of men clattering out of the pit gates, their boots thudding like troops on the march. Gradually she realised that something was different. The men who were supposed to be beginning the evening shift were returning too, as well as those finishing the day stint.

  Murmuring spread down the street as the tide of pitmen surged back from the gates, grim-faced. Louie spotted Sam in the midst of a group of men, Bomber and her brother John among them.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Minnie shouted.

  ‘They’ve locked us out,’ Bomber called back over the heads of the others, confirming what they had all feared. Behind them the gates were being swung closed by a group of officials. They were arguing hotly with some retreating pitmen.

  ‘Mary, Mother of God, protect us,’ a frightened Minnie whispered, automatically crossing herself.

  Sam reached his front door and nodded at his wife.

  ‘They’ve done it,’ he told her grimly, his tired face blackened with dirt and streaked with sweat. ‘The battle’s begun.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  On May Day, the weekend newspapers and Iris’s crackly wireless carried the doom-laden Royal Proclamation. The Government was declaring a state of emergency in anticipation of a General Strike. The country had never been threatened with such industrial unrest, never before had there been a full-scale withdrawal of labour.

  Yet strangely, life in the village appeared normal during that first weekend in May. Louie went to chapel as usual, had lunch at her mother’s, helped with the Sunday School in the afternoon and went to her mother-in-law’s for tea. There was an uneasy quietness about the place, a subdued atmosphere of waiting for the unknown. The children’s play in the lanes sounded over-boisterous and discordant by comparison.

  Sam was constantly absent at lodge meetings, but that was not out of the ordinary. Louie went through the motions of preparing his bait tin and bottle for the pit on Monday, even though she knew he had no work to go to. She could not quite believe the men would be idle come Monday.

  That night as they lay in bed together, he told her what to expect. ‘The TUC has called for certain trades to strike at midnight tomorrow, if the lock-out continues. We’ve set up a Council of Action to help co-ordinate the strike effort. We’ll show them how working men can unite against tyranny, Louie. There won’t be a bus or train running come Tuesday, unless Baldwin and the bosses back down.’

  Louie felt cold and snuggled closer to Sam for warmth, even though their tiny room was airless and stuffy.

  ‘Is there any chance an all-out strike will be avoided?’ she asked anxiously, holding her breath for the reply.

  ‘I don’t think so, pet.’ Sam slipped an arm around her shoulders. Louie had the impression that he was relishing the fight ahead, as if he had a score to settle more personal than the struggle for a decent wage. He had refused to discuss what had passed between him and the coal owner at The Grange and she had not pressed him for details. All she knew was that Sam had been livid when the subject was raised, and the name of Seward-Scott had been forbidden in his company.

  Monday was warm and sunny. Sadie appeared at Louie’s kitchen door with her friends, May and Jane.

  ‘Can we go and see the Gallowa’s in the field, Louie?’ Sadie asked excitedly. ‘Uncle Jacob says they brought them up from the pit over the weekend.’

  ‘Why not,’ Louie agreed with unusual lenience. After all, there was no urgency to prepare dinner for Sam, as he would be out at meetings all day. She even reached for the sugar bowl and dropped a few white lumps into the pocket of her apron for the girls to feed to the pit ponies.

  Sadie skipped joyfully ahead, chattering with her friends. When they got to the fields below the Common, they discovered other families had had the same idea. Parents lazed around on the grass eating sandwiches, while the children fed titbits to the stout bewildered ponies, blinded by the unexpected light of the world above ground.

  Davie and Iris joined them, with Raymond staggering along and flopping into the lengthening grass.

  ‘Which is your pony, Davie?’ Sadie demanded, clutching the precious lumps of sugar. May had given hers away all at once in a wild generous gesture, but Sadie wanted to make the moment last for as long as possible.

  ‘Frisky.’ Davie pointed over to a squat tan-coloured beast with a light streak down its nose.

  ‘He’s tiny.’ Sadie marvelled at the pony. ‘I bet I’m taller than him.’ She ran towards the animal and leaned over the fence. ‘Here, Frisky, here’s some lovely sugar!’

  Davie held up Raymond to get a better look at the ponies. ‘Never thought I’d miss the bugger so much.’ Davie looked affectionately at his work horse who had helped him pull countless heavy tubs of coal below ground. Frisky recognised his voice and came towards the source of the sound with a soft neighing. Davie put down his son and stroked the pony’s mane.

  ‘Haven’t seen you for a few weeks, marra.’ He patted the short flanks.

  ‘Few months, more like,’ Iris pulled a face. Davie ignored his wife’s jibe. ‘And at least the Gallowa’s get fed by the management, strike or no strike,’ she continued.

  ‘Give over,’ Davie said with an impatient look. ‘Can’t you stop your complaining for just once?’

  Louie glanced up from encouraging Raymond in his walking and saw Iris bite back a rejoinder. Her slim face looked tense and petulant, as if nagging was growing into a habit. Louie wondered if a winter of being closeted together with Davie out of work was taking its toll on Iris’s brittle patience. At least summer was on its way, and if they were all to be idle, they could do it out of doors in the fresh air.

  ‘Let’s go up to Eb’s allotment and get some vegetables,’ Louie sug
gested, to put an end to their bickering.

  ‘Iris’ll go with you,’ Davie announced. ‘I’ve got a game of footy in the park in twenty minutes.’ He ruffled Raymond’s hair and sauntered off before anyone challenged his right to do so.

  ‘Come on then,’ Iris sighed, and lifted the little boy into her arms, flinging a reproachful look after her husband.

  Sadie and her friends ran ahead, playing hide and seek through the trees. When Louie and Iris arrived, they found Eb in his shed. He seemed unnerved to see them, and Louie was conscious of her eldest brother constantly glancing towards the door.

  ‘I’m off down to Greenbrae in a minute,’ he told them. ‘You can take some rhubarb with you though.’

  ‘Let me sit down for a minute, man,’ Louie said breathlessly. ‘That walk up the hill has done me in.’ She plonked herself on an upturned bucket and put her hands to her growing stomach.

  ‘Sorry, I forgot about your condition,’ Eb apologised, handing her his water bottle. ‘I’ll just be outside, then,’ he continued. ‘Make sure the lasses aren’t pulling up the beans.’ He disappeared quickly.

  ‘What’s wrong with us this morning?’ Iris pouted. ‘None of the Kirkup men want to know us.’

  ‘Eb likes the allotment all to himself,’ Louie laughed. ‘Like his own home this shed. Look how he covers the walls with pictures.’ She scanned the curling drawings with amusement, then caught her breath at the picture of the woman reading. The allotment background was unmistakable and so was the gaunt face of Eleanor Seward-Scott. So she came to Eb’s garden; Louie was shocked by the discovery. There was substance to her suspicions about them, after all. She was filled with foreboding at the thought of her brother being involved with a Seward-Scott. He had never had any sense of his place since his time in the army. Could he not see that the people from the big house were not their kind, that he could never be theirs, for all his love of painting and music? Besides, Mrs Reginald was a married woman. What could Eb be thinking of, allowing her to befriend him?