Minerva

by June Hirst

  MINERVA

  In Wartime Love is Equal

  By June Hirst

  This novel is a work of fiction.

  Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the authors imagination, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © June Hirst 2013

  The author has asserted the moral rights to be identified as the author of this work.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be produced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any other mean, electronic, mechanical, ecording or photocopying or otherwise, without the permission of the author.

  Chapter 1

  The piercing noise of the siren signalled the end of the day and Minnie Wood thankfully turned off her loom, in the oppressive heat, of the weaving shed in Perseverance Mill. She could feel the sweat trickling down her back and her dark blue cotton dress clung to her thin frame. The sun was still blazing down through the ceiling windows, in weaving shed number seven, on this summer’s day in August 1939.

  It was not just the end of the day, but the end of work for one glorious week. Minnie took off her black pinafore and her head scarf, which were thick with grease. She wearily rolled them up. Her blonde curls were plastered to her head. It was time for the annual holiday week and excitement had been bubbling for days. The other girls were ecstatic and were throwing their black greasy pinafores up into the air and whooping with joy. Minnie watched, silently. Most of the girls were going to Blackpool by the sea, next morning for an exciting adventure. Minnie sighed, oh how she wished that she was going too.

  ‘Come on girls’ Jessie Smith shouted ‘Let’s do our goodbye parade’. The girls formed a long line behind Jessie clasping both hands on one another’s waists, as they slithered around all the looms, on the greasy floor, in a long snake chanting ‘Blackpool here we come’ over and over again and whooping at the top of their voices. Minnie was smiling, as she watched them. Sam Hinchliffe, the weaving shed foreman, came in,

  ‘Shut up you lot, you’re like a set of screaming banshees. Get off home and God help Blackpool’ he shouted.

  ‘We’re off Sam. We can’t wait to see the back of this place, for a week,’ Jessie added hastily, remembering that she had better not be too cheeky, or he was likely to sack her. Sam noticed Minnie hovering behind her loom,

  ‘Aren’t you going with them Minnie’ he asked.

  ‘No Mr Hinchliffe’ she replied as she quickly mingled into the crowd of girls. She did not want to be left alone with him. He was always praising her work and pointing her out as an example to the other girls. Jessie always teased her and said that he only wanted to get into her knickers, which made her blush.

  The girls burst out into the warm August sunshine lifting their pale faces to its sunbeams and filling their lungs with the welcome fresh air. The boilers had already been turned off and the towering mill chimney, which was visible for miles, when it bellowed out black smoke, was resting peacefully. It was as though it was benevolently watching a human tide as waves of employees swarmed out of the weaving sheds, the spinning block, the dye houses, and the wool washing works. Minnie was swept along amongst them and she was enjoying their joyful exuberance.

  Martin Moxon, the mill owner’s younger son, stood at the office window on the top floor of the spinning block building and watched the tide of humanity, as it flowed through the mill yard and out of the gates. He sighed,

  ‘Heatonfield will be a ghost town by this time tomorrow when all the excursions have departed.’ His older brother Michael looked up from his desk. Michael hardly ever left the office. He did not like noise, the smell, the grease and the dust in the enormous sheds. He took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes and pushed back his brown hair.

  ‘Thank God for some peace and quiet for a week,’ he said. Their father Joseph Moxon put down his pen then joined Martin at the window.

  ‘Just remember lads, that it’s all that noise and sweat and toil that earns you a very substantial living ‘Joseph told them.

  Michael grinned, ‘We know that father, but it’s still good when they’ve all gone home.’

  Martin continued staring out of the window and Joseph watched him fondly. Martin was taller and broader than his father and brother. His thick black hair and strikingly blue eyes made him noticeably handsome. Office work did not suit him. Martin preferred to be in the mill. Rather than a good wool worsted suit like his father and brother, he wore corduroy trousers and his shirt sleeves were always rolled up showing his strong arms. In the heat of the sheds, some of his shirt buttons were usually undone showing his sun tanned chest, while his shirt pulled tight across the rippling muscles of his broad back. ,

  Every morning before breakfast he liked to run up the hill behind the solid, stone, mill owner’s mansion, where he would sit on a large rock and watch the valley awaken. The river snaked its’ way past the mill, where the abundant soft water was used to wash the wool. The air was clear and sharp and he liked to watch the mill chimneys when they started to smoke, as the boilers were stoked to life to provide the power. He liked to watch the rows and rows of terrace houses awaken. Their chimneys stood on parade like a battalion of soldiers, Smoke started puffing from them, when the mill employees lit their fires, in order to boil kettles for breakfast. He knew then that it was time to go home.

  ‘I see that you’ve got grease on your shirt again Martin. Mother won’t like it.’ Michael said. Martin jumped; he was day dreaming that he was on a yacht on the Mediterranean Sea.

  ‘What are you muttering about Mick,’ Martin replied.

  ‘I was just saying, your shirt is full of grease again and don’t call me Mick.’

  ‘Some of us get our hands mucky. You know the Yorkshire saying; ‘where there’s muck there’s brass,’ Michael sir.’

  ‘I suppose by brass you mean money. Really Martin you get more like the employees every day.’ Michael replied, disdainfully.

  ‘That will do Michael. Come along you two, let’s go home and see where your mother is planning for us to go. All the sheds are locked; the boilers are out, let’s lock the gates and begin our holiday.’ Joseph said.

  Minnie Wood trudged slowly up Buttercup Street. It was hot and dusty and a Buttercup would have struggled to grow through cracks in the pavement. Even Dandelions did not try. The front doors of the houses opened straight onto the pavement. They were all open to let the fresh breeze, which had just arisen, blow through the house and out of the back door, in order to cool the kitchens. The coal fire in the kitchen range heated the oven for cooking and also heated the water, which would be needed for the Friday night baths. Minnie entered number ten calling out,

  ‘I’m home Mrs Sykes.’ Muriel Sykes was bending over the coal fire, stirring the contents in the pans, which were bubbling on the hob.

  ‘On holiday now then lass and with holiday pay as well. Hand over your wage packet. I think we can manage a little extra spending money this week. You can help with the housework and cooking,’ she said, as she straightened up and rubbed her back. Minnie reluctantly handed over her wage packet to her landlady. She had been living here now for seven years. She was sent to this foster home from the Orphanage, when she was fourteen and old enough to start working in the mill.

  ‘Me and Ben are going to Blackpool for a few days, so you can do the washing and there’s money in the pot for your food.’ Muriel told her.

  Minnie did not answer, but at that moment she decided that as soon as she was twenty one, she would rebel. She had been saving most of her spending money for seven years. She had a tin O.X.O. box under a loose floorboard beneath her bed. The agreement had been that she would hand over her wage packet and receive spending money, but now that she was a weaver, she was earning goo
d money. The Sykes’s were making a good profit from her labours and she was almost legally an adult.

  ‘Have you seen Ben on your way home?’

  ‘No I haven’t Mrs Sykes,’

  ‘I expect he’s in the pub. He’d better not be long. I’m going to serve up our tea now, it’s ready. I’ll put his in the oven. It’s his own fault if it’s dried up’ Minnie laid the table and the two women ate their evening meal, which they called their tea. Ben arrived,

  ‘Something smells good love .Is mine in the oven?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes it is and it serves you right if it’s spoilt’. Muriel replied.

  ‘Hello Minnie love. Wage slaves united! A week of freedom!’

  ‘Yes Mr Sykes. I’m looking forward to it.’

  ‘Speak for yourselves. I don’t get a week holiday with pay.’ Muriel grumbled.

  ‘You haven’t been to the mill for years Muriel, so how can you have a holiday from it? Ben said.

  Minnie started to clear the table. The sooner she had finished the washing up, the sooner she could escape to her bedroom. The back door opened out into a back yard, where they kept the tin bath, the wash tub and mangle. Here also was the lavatory, where they kept the container from the mill, into which Minnie tipped the urine from the chamber pots. This was sold weekly, to the mill, for use in the dye house. Minnie was allowed to keep the money.

  ‘I’ve finished,’ Minnie called out, as she escaped to her bedroom, leaving the Sykes’s still arguing. Quietly she prized up the floorboard with a small penknife, which she kept hidden in her drawer and took out the O.X.O. tin. She had an arrangement with Mrs Hinchliffe at the corner shop to change her coins into pound notes and the O.X.O. tin was full. Underneath the notes she kept her prize possessions; two miniature photographs in tiny frames. Minnie took them out of the box and held each one to her cheeks. Her soft brown eyes brimmed with tears, which spilled over profusely. She held the miniatures against her heart.

  ‘Oh mum and dad I would have loved you so much. As soon as I’m an adult I’m going to take my savings and leave here .There must be someone out there who will love me.’

  The Matron in the Orphanage had kept the photographs safe and given them to Minnie when she left to go to her foster home. Someone had written on the back;

  Ernest Froggett died for his country in France April 24th 1918 age 21.

  Evelyn Wood died of influenza February 15th 1919 age19.

  ‘Oh dad did you die in vain? There’s going to be another war,’ she murmured. Minnie realized that her father must have been on leave, during the winter of 1918, when she was conceived. She often used to daydream about her parents love affair and always ended up in tears, when she thought of her father slaughtered on the battle fields of France and her distraught mother running away, when she discovered that she was pregnant.

  Evelyn Wood had found refuge in the Irish tenements in Heatonfield, where she could blend into the overcrowded conditions. She had managed to conceal her pregnancy, as she worked at her spinning frame, until the last minute. She gave birth to a baby girl, who she named Minerva, on November 11th 1918, the day that peace was declared at the end of World War One. She never recovered and soon she was a victim of the Spanish Flu epidemic, which swept through the country. It was Mary Flanagan, who took the baby and fed her with her own, before it was decided that Minerva must go to the Orphanage. Mary made sure that the Parish Priest knew about the photographs and he entrusted them to the Matron, who swore on the bible, that she would give them to Minerva, when she left the home.

  Minnie replaced the precious photographs in the O.X.O. tin and concealed it in the hiding place. She heard the Sykes’s leave for the pub so immediately ran down to the kitchen and brought in the tin bath from the back yard. There was plenty of hot water, so first she poured some on dried camomile, ready to rinse her beautiful blonde curls. She locked the doors and filled the bath with a bucket and then undressed. She was conscious of her nakedness and blushed, when she saw her reflection in the side board mirror. She knew that her clothes, skin and hair were impregnated with the smell of the mill.

  ‘Wow I stink,’ she told her reflection. ‘We all take the smell for granted we all smell the same.’ She lowered herself into the warm water and sighed. Then she rubbed the soap into her hair vigorously, before rinsing it with the camomile infusion. The gentle perfume soothed her and she sank back into the water. Her breasts peeped out like tender pink rosebuds. Again she began to daydream about her parents. She knew how she had been conceived by hearing the conversations of the mill girls. It sounded so furtive and dirty when they shrieked with laughter and made vulgar comments. She was sure that it must be more beautiful, when you truly loved each other. She explored her private secret place and shivered. She sat up guiltily and began to scrub herself clean. Reaching for the warm towel, she stood on the rug in front of the kitchen fire and towelled herself dry. Next she bailed out the water into the sink until the bath was light enough to lift. Wearing her clean nightdress, she piled coal onto the fire, to make sure that the water was hot enough for the Sykes’s bath and replaced the fire guard. After drying her hair in front of the fire she brushed her curls until they shone like gold and soon she was snuggled in her bed fast asleep.

  Next morning Minnie awoke, as the sunbeams flickered through her curtains. She stretched luxuriously remembering the glorious week of peace and quiet in front of her. Quickly she dressed in a blue checked gingham dress and brushed her curls, then tiptoed down into the kitchen, where she raked out the fire grate and took the ashes to the dustbin, in the back yard. After lighting the fire she washed her hands and face in the kitchen sink, then placed the kettle on the fire place hob, while she cut a slice of bread and spread on butter and jam. Soon she was sipping a cup of tea and enjoying her breakfast. It was only 7- 30 a.m. the time she normally clocked on at the mill. She smiled at herself in the sideboard mirror.

  ‘Enjoy yourself Minerva, you have a week of freedom, well almost,’ she said, remembering the housework and the washing. ‘Never mind, tomorrow is another day my girl. She let herself out of the back door.

  Minnie tripped lightly down the empty back alley. The air smelled fresh and clean. The mill chimneys in the valley were dormant today and not many house chimneys were smoking. She continued along Manchester road, which led directly over the Pennine moors. She loved the smell of the peat and the heather and the eerie silence. Sometimes she could not remove the tremendous noise of the clattering looms out of her head. She strolled along the canal path, until it disappeared into the tunnel under the Pennines, and then clambered up the steep rocky path.

  Suddenly she stopped and gasped and took refuge behind a large rock. Carefully she peeped out. A man was sitting on top of a large rock, shading his eyes from the bright sunshine as he looked down the valley.

  ‘Oh my goodness it’s Martin Moxon,’ she whispered. Minnie stood gazing, with rapture, as she watched the sun beams glistening on his thick black hair, which shone like Whitby jet. He had undone his shirt and she could see the black hair shining on his chest, in the sunshine. He was wearing football shorts, his knees were bent and his arms were clasped around them. Her eyes travelled from his feet upwards along his magnificent legs, to where his thighs disappeared into his shorts. Minnie swallowed hard, her mouth was dry, her knees and legs trembled and her heart fluttered like a caged bird. He always smiled at her when he passed her loom and she remembered his startling blue eyes and his merry smile. All the girls adored him. He was not like his father or his brother, but even so he would not fall in love with a mill girl. It would not be acceptable in his circle of society. Her feelings for him were so exquisite, it was almost unbearable.

  ‘I’ll just walk past him he won’t recognize me,’ she thought, but her heart was thudding so loudly, as though it would burst.

  Martin turned his head, aware of movement as Minnie appeared from behind the rock. He gasped and swallowed. He felt his heart beat and his manhood stirred, as he was astonish
ed by her beauty. The sun shone on her blonde curls, which glistened like spun gold. As she approached nearer, he was enchanted by her large brown eyes and thick black lashes, in contrast to her golden hair. She appeared fresh and young and her blue check cotton dress was innocent and delightful.

  ‘Where have you sprung from? Are you real or ethereal?’ Martin whispered.

  Minnie laughed, ‘Ethereal indeed! I can assure you that I am neither heavenly nor sprite like. I am a Yorkshire lass,’

  ‘What is your name then, if you’re a real life Yorkshire lass?’ Martin teased.

  ‘My name is Minerva,’ Minnie replied.

  ‘Minerva!’ Martin exclaimed’ what an appropriate name, your parents named you well. Do you know who Minerva was?’

  ‘Oh yes my teacher at Heatonfield school lent me books about Greek and Roman Mythology, because she said that I reminded her of the Roman Goddess Minerva, who was also the Greek Goddess Pallas Athena. She was the virgin Goddess and daughter of the mighty Jupiter.’

  ‘Minerva had golden curls like you,’ Martin replied and again he felt an embarrassing stirring in his groin, as he imagined running his fingers through their shining beauty. Minerva blushed, causing Martin to be even more captivated.

  ‘Where do you live Minerva, Goddess of poetry and music, medicine and wisdom and much more?’

  ‘Here I must use my wisdom. You don’t want to know. I live over yonder.’ Minerva replied as she waved her arm vaguely in the direction of the town. Before Martin could speak she turned round and fled down the steep path, along the canal and out into Manchester road, where she almost collapsed, as her lungs were nearly bursting. She took refuge in the telephone box in order to compose herself. She peered into the small mirror, and now out of the sunshine, her curls appeared normal.

  ‘He’ll never recognize me back at the mill and I’ll keep away from the cricket field and the football match,’ she told her reflection. She knew that he played cricket for Colne Field Cricket Club and football for Colne Valley United and on the field the men treated him as an equal, but the same did not apply to the women.