Durham Trilogy 01. The Hungry Hills

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

‘We could set up a soup kitchen,’ Louie suggested decisively, ‘like they’ve done in other villages. At least the worst off can then get one hot meal a day, and their bairns can be fed.’

  Sam had agreed and Louie had gone to her father, who’d approached the Reverend Stephen Pinkney at the chapel and arranged the use of the hall as a centre. Every day now, Louie, her mother and Iris, along with Minnie and her sister Margaret, Edie Parkin and the younger Dobson sisters, Susan and Eva, gathered at the chapel to scrub and chop vegetables and make up pans of steaming soup. By the end of the week they were serving up soup and tea to two hundred miners and their families. On their feet all day, the work was exhausting, but at the end of it, Louie could fall asleep as soon as she got into bed, instead of lying awake anxiously thinking of Sam’s impending court case. There would be time enough to concern herself about that when the moment came.

  The relief centre attracted further volunteers; among them John’s girlfriend, Marjory Hewitson, who brought her cheery face and plump giggle to the group of helpers, and Sam’s sister Mary, delighted to turn her missionary zeal to good use.

  ‘If you talked less about God and did more of the washing up, we’d get on a lot faster,’ Iris complained forthrightly as Mary sermonised over the sink.

  ‘There’s good comes out of everything,’ Mary continued, undaunted by her sceptical helper.

  ‘I don’t see how any good will come from this strike,’ Iris grumbled. ‘The miners should know when they’re beaten and get back to work, I say.’ Louie gasped in shock at the disloyal words as she came into the tiny galley with a tray of dirty bowls.

  ‘Don’t let our Sam hear you say that,’ she cut in reprovingly.

  ‘Well, it’s true.’ Iris put her hands on her narrow hips and tossed her short auburn curls. ‘We can’t go on living off soup kitchens for ever. At least if they went back to the pit there’d be some wages coming in - and some’s better than none.’

  ‘Don’t talk like that.’ Louie was scared the others might overhear Iris. It would only confirm their distrust of her as an outsider who did not understand their ways.

  ‘I’ll say what I like,’ Iris pouted, ‘and you’ll agree with me once our men have been locked up in Durham gaol. What good will come out of that, eh?’ She turned to give Mary a needling look.

  ‘The Lord works in mysterious ways, Iris.’ Mary smiled back serenely. ‘Look how he’s brought us all together here - not thinking of ourselves, but helping the unfortunate poor.’

  ‘We’re the unfortunate poor now!’ Iris threw down her tea towel and stomped out of the kitchen.

  Mary looked round, bewildered at Iris’s sudden flash of temper. ‘What did I say?’ she asked Louie in astonishment. ‘I thought we were getting on well.’ Louie put a reassuring hand on her sister-in-law’s shoulder.

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ Louie sighed. ‘She’s just worried about our Davie; you can’t blame her really.’

  ‘Does Davie think he’s going to gaol?’ Mary asked.

  Louie laughed shortly. ‘I don’t think it’s occurred to him; he’s spending all his time catching rabbits and poaching birds with Tadger Brown. Davie’s having the time of his life - he’s just a big bairn, that brother of mine.’ Louie smiled with affection.

  The following week saw the Government proposals to reduce wages and reorganise the coal industry rejected by both the coal owners and the miners’ leaders. As warm and sunny May neared its end, the dispute became more entrenched and both sides resigned themselves to a summer of stalemate and increasing hardship. Rumour spread that the Government was planning to import coal from abroad and that a state of emergency would again be declared. Finally the tense waiting ended when Sam and the others received their summonses to attend court in Durham.

  ‘Let me come with you,’ Louie pleaded for the umpteenth time as she pressed his best shirt, noticing for the first time how it had begun to fray at the cuffs. Tomorrow her husband would stand as a criminal in the dock wearing this shirt under his brown suit.

  ‘We can’t afford to send you by train and I’m not letting you walk all that way with you expecting,’ Sam replied firmly. ‘And I don’t want you getting upset either, so there’s an end to it - don’t ask me again, Louie.’

  Louie took up the shirt and held it to her in silence, frustrated that she could not go. What if Sam was imprisoned? she wondered with rising panic. This could be their last night together for ages. The thought of such loneliness made tears sting her eyes, but she turned away quickly and folded the shirt neatly as she had done scores of times before. ‘I’ve made you up some paste sandwiches - I’ve been keeping a spare jar for—’ She broke off, realising she had been about to say ‘a special occasion’.

  ‘Come here.’ Sam beckoned her gently and put his arms about her, feeling the bump of their unborn child between them. ‘I want you to take good care of yourself,’ he whispered in her ear, ‘you and the bairn.’ Louie nodded speechlessly, tears running down the channels between her round cheeks and button nose. ‘It probably won’t come to prison,’ Sam tried to cheer her, ‘but we’ll say our goodbyes just in case, eh?’

  ‘I love you, Sam.’ Louie choked out the words. Sam gave her an answering hug, wishing he could protect her from the uncertainty of life ahead as his wife, cursing a Fate that had made him a miner.

  ‘Let’s go to bed, pet.’ He pulled her gently towards the iron bedstead.

  For hours they lay awake holding each other, then towards dawn, Sam fell into a fitful doze. But sleep eluded Louie; she lay uncovered in the stuffiness of their tiny room, touching Sam for reassurance and feeling the movements of her restless baby. What dismal future could they offer their first-born? she wondered bleakly.

  Against Eb’s wishes, Eleanor was determined to attend the court case in Durham. Beatrice had left for London, and was so recovered from her ordeal that she now boasted of her involvement in the General Strike and was dying to tell her friends all about it. Reginald, at last free to travel where he wished, resumed his visits to Waterloo Bridge for tennis and cricket. He was mildly amused by Eleanor’s interest in the trials and was only pleased she did not want to accompany him to the Fishers’. Only her father watched her shrewdly and noticed the subtle change in his elder daughter, the decisiveness once more returned to her step, the glint of purpose in her dark eyes.

  Eleanor collected Isobel from Greenbrae, as the school had closed for the day, and drove them into the city. They parked near Elvet Bridge and walked the rest of the way to the court. The stark, blind walls of Durham prison loomed overhead like a sleeping bird of prey.

  To their amazement, a huge crowd of onlookers had already gathered in front of the building. Isobel looked nervously at her friend, but Eleanor pushed ahead without a second’s hesitation. The cordon of police held back the people from the steps to allow the women through. There were a few shouts of derision at the well-dressed ladies in their straw hats and lacy frocks, but Eleanor chose to ignore them.

  Inside the courtroom, the visitors’ gallery was already packed. The two friends squeezed on to the end of the bench on the back row, trying to appear inconspicuous.

  In the heat of the cramped chamber, justice was swiftly dealt out to the stream of miners who came in front of the magistrates, sitting high above them in their sombre black robes. Eleanor recognised the thin-nosed retired banker who led the proceedings. He was a colleague of Reginald’s on their local emergency committee and she was under no illusion as to the man’s hostility towards the strikers. The first dozen were penalised with petty fines of £3 and £5. Isobel whispered to Eleanor that the union would probably pay up on their behalf. Then it came to the turn of Eb and Davie.

  Eleanor watched Eb standing impassively with military erectness before the court, his tall frame filling the dowdy black suit, the stiff white collar cutting into his thick ruddy neck. His blond hair was crudely cropped at the back, his moustache pale against his weathered face. For a moment she glimpsed him objectively as the
prosecutor did; a hardened, surly miner who did not flinch under questioning or drop his insolent blue gaze in deference to his superiors. It was only then that she feared for him.

  Beside him, Davie appeared scruffily morose, his hair unbrushed and his tie knotted at an angle. Young Alfred Turnbull, who had been in the same class as Davie at school, gave evidence against him. The court heard how Davie had hit him on the cheek, obstructing the arrest of Samuel Ritson. Davie did not deny it.

  The magistrates deliberated. A £50 fine or a month in prison, the retired banker rapped out. There was consternation in the visitors’ gallery, as Iris burst into tears and the spectators voiced their incredulity. The central magistrate called for order, threatening to have the gallery cleared at the next disruption. The convicted chose imprisonment and were led away by two policemen.

  ‘They can’t possibly afford to pay such a fine,’ Eleanor said to Isobel with indignation. ‘They have no choice but to go to prison. It’s monstrous.’

  ‘Hush,’ Isobel cautioned, ‘we mustn’t draw attention to ourselves.’

  Iris, weeping inconsolably, was led past them by a stout man with a nose like the end of a bulbous pipe. Eleanor guessed he must be Ramshaw the publican. They were followed by Fanny and Hilda Kirkup, looking pale with shock. Hilda caught sight of Eleanor at the last minute.

  ‘Oh, miss, what are you doing here?’ she cried. Fanny looked blankly at the grand lady clutching a lacquered stick. Recognition dawned as Eleanor spoke.

  ‘I came to see what I could do,’ she answered, her dark-brown eyes full of compassion. ‘I shall pay their fines,’ she insisted to the older woman, concerned at her drawn grey face. Eleanor recalled how handsome she’d been when she’d worked at The Grange.

  ‘Oh, thank you, Miss Eleanor,’ Fanny Kirkup said wheezily, with the glimmer of a smile.

  ‘Quiet at the back,’ ordered an officer of the court, and Hilda led her mother quickly after Iris.

  Eleanor and Isobel stayed on to witness more rough justice meted out to Sam and Bomber. They stood defiant and unrepentant of their actions of resistance against the police. The magistrates pronounced a sentence of two months each, with no option of a fine or appeal. As the stunned miners were led away, the gallery exploded in uproar.

  The spectators were bustled from their seats as the police tried to empty the court. Eleanor and Isobel found themselves unceremoniously swept through the door with a tide of pit folk, shoved and pushed towards the main entrance. Word spread faster than they could walk to the crowd waiting outside for news. Howls of protest greeted the verdicts and the demonstrators burst into a noisy rendition of ‘The Red Flag’ as the accused miners were taken from the courthouse.

  Eleanor glimpsed Eb’s bald head above the rest and saw Sam give a salute to the crowd before he was swallowed up in a tunnel of dark-blue uniforms.

  ‘We must get out of here,’ Isobel said urgently to her friend, but as Eleanor pressed after her, they became parted by the throng of angry miners around them. She found herself pinned against the outside wall without a hope of escape until the crowds were dispersed. The atmosphere was growing more rowdy and menacing, and far from breaking up, the aggrieved miners seemed intent on revenge on the administrators of the law. They bayed for the magistrates and jeered at the policemen who could barely keep order.

  A short while later, several police on horseback appeared to the right, followed by reinforcements of constables on foot. Eleanor looked up in alarm at the progress of the horses, thinking how the beasts might rear up in terror at such a din. They could cause a full scale riot. To her relief, the miners began to fall back from the steps of the court building at the approach of the mounted officers. But once a crack had been forced in their ranks, the uniformed men behind charged in with batons, wielding them at the becapped heads of the pitmen. The solid mass of demonstrators scattered and the scene became one of chaos. Eleanor froze in horror at the attack, pressing herself against the cold stone at her back and raising her stick as protection. Even at the height of her suffragist struggles she had not seen such hostility turned against an unruly crowd.

  Suddenly she saw a gap open up in front of her and she dashed for safety. Catching her heel on the cobbles, she stumbled and abandoned both shoes, hobbling in her silk stockings until she was round the corner.

  Fear and relief welled up and she found herself retching on the pavement. Not since she had been a hot-headed young suffragette, punched by police for throwing eggs at Asquith on a visit to Newcastle, had she experienced such terror. Then, she had been scared rigid by the numbers around her, the stifling press of bodies, the faces of men distorted in hatred as they turned to violence against the protesting women. Today she had witnessed the same heavy-handedness against the miners.

  Hatless and shoeless, Eleanor groped her way back to the car, unaware that she was sobbing out loud.

  Louie was sitting in the dark of her mother’s kitchen, Sadie asleep on her knee and Raymond bedded down in his cot in the parlour, when the bedraggled walkers completed their trek back from Durham. Iris went straight to her sister-in-law and threw her arms about her neck, waking Sadie as she did so.

  ‘They got gaol,’ she cried into Louie’s shoulder. Sadie started to bawl for her cousin Eb. Louie just felt a coldness creep around her heart, her worst suspicions confirmed.

  ‘How long?’ she asked.

  ‘A month for Eb and Davie,’ her father replied exhausted. ‘Two for Sam and Bomber,’ he added, turning away so his daughter could not see how upset he was.

  Firelight flickered across Louie’s face as she struggled to come to terms with this blow. Even Sam had not thought he would get more than a month. A month she could cope with, but two? Two months stretched away like eternity. What would she live on? What if the baby came a month early and Sam was not there?

  ‘We’ll manage.’ Fanny answered her unspoken fears, her insides tugging to see the forlorn look on her daughter’s face. ‘Stay with us tonight. You can sleep with Iris.’

  That night, Louie and Iris shared the parlour bed, remembering how they had lain with their men just a day ago. The dark hours seemed endless, but both feigned sleep, not knowing how to comfort the other.

  In the morning, Jacob Kirkup went off to the Institute for a morning’s quiet reading. The others lingered listlessly over a meagre breakfast of dry toast and tea. Iris began to complain.

  ‘I wish my father could pay Davie’s fine,’ she said, nibbling on a crust. ‘I asked him, but his business has been affected by the strike; he can’t afford fifty pounds.’

  ‘It’s not a matter of the money.’ John stopped his tea-slurping. ‘It’s a point of principle. A pitman would rather serve time than buy his way out. Sam and the others are not criminals; all they’ve done wrong is to stand up to the Establishment.’

  ‘Don’t talk rubbish,’ Iris argued back. ‘They’d all be out tomorrow if they had any sense - no one in their right mind wants to spend time in Durham gaol.’

  ‘You don’t understand principles, that’s your trouble,’ John growled back at her.

  ‘Listen to you - Mr High and Mighty - why aren’t you there with them if you’ve got so many principles?’ Iris taunted, knowing how John suffered guilt at being the brother who had escaped arrest. He glared back at her with dislike.

  Fanny did not have the energy to weather one of their gale-force rows and interrupted quickly. ‘Mrs Seward-Scott was at the court yesterday, wasn’t she, Hilda?’ She turned to her younger daughter. Hilda was immersed in a book, oblivious to the crackling of tempers in the room.

  ‘What’s that, Mam?’ She glanced up.

  ‘Mrs Seward-Scott - she said she would pay their fines, didn’t she? There might be some hope for Davie and Eb at least.’

  ‘She did say something about it,’ Hilda answered cautiously, not wanting to raise too many hopes.

  But Iris brightened immediately. ‘You should have said so before, Hildy.’ She went into the parlour and bathed in col
d water. Then, having put on her best cream and brown dress, beige gloves and matching cloche hat with a sprig of artificial flowers, she emerged again, practising a warm smile, her mouth picked out in red lipstick, now rationed for special occasions.

  ‘Come on, Raymond, we’ve got an errand to run,’ she told the boy brightly, sweeping him into her arms.

  ‘Where are you off to?’ Louie questioned.

  ‘I’m going to visit the lady at the big house,’ she announced, ‘and I’m going to get my Davie back.’ She clattered out of the back door in her high heels and they heard her tapping down the back lane.

  ‘Good luck to her,’ Louie sighed, envious of Iris’s nerve at going to approach Mrs Reginald.

  ‘She’ll put on a good act, that one,’ Fanny commented wryly and coughed into the fire.

  ‘She thinks she’s as good as them at the big house anyway,’ John added sarcastically. ‘I don’t know why our Davie married her in the first place.’

  Fanny cleared her throat. ‘Don’t start that again. Hilda, you should be off to Greenbrae - you’re late.’

  Reluctantly Hilda put down her book, and started to pull on her coat. ‘I can’t see Eb agreeing to have his fine paid, even if Davie does.’

  ‘Why should the Seward woman want to?’ puzzled John. ‘That’s what I can’t understand — she being the missus of the boss an’ all.’

  Hilda and Louie exchanged glances, but did not speak their suspicions.

  ‘I’m off then, see you tonight.’ Hilda rushed for the back door, then hesitated in the doorway. ‘Would you like me to come and stay with you for a bit, Louie?’ she asked, cocking her head of wispy fair hair on one side.

  Louie almost jumped at the offer of company, then realised she was being selfish; Hilda was needed at home. Her mother’s cough was worsening and the slightest exertion left her breathless. She should never have attempted the walk into Durham and back yesterday, but she had insisted on being there to support her sons.

  ‘I’ll be all right, Hildy.’ Louie shook her head. ‘But ta anyway.’