A Sense of Duty

by Sheelagh Kelly

  He retained his helpless air. ‘I can’t intervene in private battles.’

  ‘It’s not private, the whole of Yorkshire’s involved – probably your constituents too, as far as I know. And if they’re typical of the men in our village they feel they’re being let down by the Government – the Government they helped to elect.’ Kit stared him in the eye, making sure he knew exactly what she meant. ‘I have to tell you, Val, you won’t be able to rely on the working men’s vote again if you stand by and let them be evicted.’

  He cocked his head and offered smiling rebuke. ‘Kit! Can it be that you are trying to blackmail me? If so, it’s not a very clever ruse. If the miners have no homes they’d be effectively disenfranchized anyway.’

  Feeling she was being patronized, Kit moved three inches along on the sofa, replying coolly, ‘So you only care about the men with votes. Seem to have lost your philanthropic edge, Mr Kitchingham – or was that just to get into my good books?’

  He did not rise to the bait, wagging a finger as if to a naughty child. ‘If there’s anyone being mercenary here, Kit, it’s you. I’m rather hurt – you only came back to curry favour, didn’t you?’

  ‘No.’ She remained firm in her lie. ‘But if that’s what you think, then I’ll bid you good night.’

  In a remarkably good mood due to their earlier lovemaking, Valentine began to tease her, picking away at the cool edifice until she was forced to laugh. Thence, he told her he would speak to other members of the cabinet and see what could be done – but she must expect no miracles. This said, he coaxed her into remaining in the capital for a few days longer than she had planned. In truth, Kit needed little enticement. It would be a wonderful release after the three grim months in Yorkshire. And she hoped by the time she got back her reason for coming here would have borne fruit.

  * * *

  April showers interspersed a bitterly cold north-east wind as Kit arrived back in Ralph Royd a week later. Hunched into her coat and fur boa after what seemed like an endless walk from the nearest station, she was grateful to reach Main Street at last – but upon seeing the mob gathered outside the Robin Hood’s Well and the vast array of police uniforms, she faltered in her step. Surely the evictions had not begun already?

  Hurrying onwards through the crowd to her brother’s house, she saw the steep road ahead crammed with people and furniture, her first glimpse of Savile Row producing a similar scene. Yet there was no violence, the police merely being there to observe, those evicted standing amongst their belongings and wide-eyed children, unsure of where to go.

  Mingling with the crowd, her eyes searched for Monty but not for long for his red hair shone like a beacon on this bitterly cold afternoon. Helping to pile his household goods on to one of the many handcarts provided by local tradespeople, she went with the family to deposit their furniture in the mission hall. Then, whilst Monty went off to find Owen, who was organizing accommodation for the rest of the evicted strikers, she went ahead to prepare her cottage for the influx of bodies.

  By nightfall the streets were almost deserted, but the chapel and mission hall, barns and sheds were stuffed with dispossessed families, and the pasture looked like a gypsy encampment. Peggo’s upstairs room which normally held union meetings had been given over to more of the evicted. Almost every person in the village with a roof over their head gave succour to the unfortunate.

  Squashed into the cottage with her two brothers and their wives, and their six large offspring, Kit apologized and said she had tried her best with Valentine, telling them word for word what the politician had said. Owen replied that he had not really expected anything to come of it. There was no glory in it for Kitchingham. But the time would come, he promised, when the working man would have his say.

  During the week that followed there was plenty of opportunity for Owen to have his say in the daily open-air meetings that took place in the field near the colliery, hundreds in attendance, men, women and children.

  ‘Let me tell thee just what sort o’ man we’re dealing with!’ His voice rang across the misty pasture to accuse those who had evicted them. ‘Latimer doesn’t just use the miners but uses miners’ womenfolk as well!’

  Kit was aghast. He couldn’t be going to tell them that!

  ‘I have it on very good authority that he threatened a young woman to prevent her marrying his son! That’s how highly he thinks of us! And that’s not all. When she showed a bit of spirit and said she’d take the lad to court for breach of promise, the old man bribed her with five hundred pounds!’

  Trying to reduce her height, Kit felt the blush rise up her throat and across her cheeks. Even though he did not mention her name everyone in the village would have heard the gossip, but she could do naught to prevent her brother from continuing.

  A colliery official who had come to observe shouted out, ‘Slander!’ Owen turned on him, as did the crowd. ‘Then tell Latimer to sue me! How much brass d’you reckon he’d get?’ With great drama he displayed his empty pockets. ‘I’ve got a witness to testify in court that all I’ve just said is true! And now he thinks he’ll have his money back by taking it out of miner’s wages. Well, I’ve got news for him – he won’t!’

  The angry crowd cheered. Kit just wanted to die.

  Later, in her overcrowded parlour, she reproached Owen for his words. ‘I could’ve flattened you! What if I have to go to court?’

  He showed disdain. ‘You won’t! He doesn’t want that sort o’ publicity. Anyroad, it were all true what I said, wan’t it?’

  ‘Yes, but it was Mrs Latimer who gave me the money!’

  ‘You can’t tell me he didn’t know about it.’

  Fearing that her actions could be construed as obtaining money by false pretences – for she had intimated to Mrs Latimer she had been expecting a child – she appealed to her brother not to raise the matter again. ‘Whether he did or he didn’t, it’s not something I care to be reminded of, and I’m sure Monty and Sarah don’t either.’ She glanced at them for support and received it by way of their tart expressions. ‘Just be thankful the Latimers did give me all that money and I’m able to help you now.’

  Fortunately, Owen conceded that his words had been thoughtless – he had just been attempting to rally the miners in any manner he could. ‘Aye, you’re right. Just because he’s stooped to underhanded means to fight us, doesn’t mean we have to sink to his level.’

  Kit thanked him and offered her total support for as long as the strike continued. Whilst her money lasted her family would never have to go begging for food as had befallen others less fortunate.

  * * *

  Owen detested having to rely on his sister’s benevolence, as did his brother – especially knowing the source of the funds that kept them alive. But charity or no, it gave him the strength he needed to maintain the struggle, to rally those who would have caved in to Latimer’s demands.

  It was now almost the end of April. Through the miners’ valiant efforts and public support the strike had been the longest on record, though it had crippled the whole village, and the grocers and butchers so previously supportive were now refusing to put anything further on tick. Worse still, word had come that colliery agents had been recruiting men in other parts of the country. If the strike persisted, these would be brought in by the trainload.

  Kit’s cottage being located on the edge of the village, its occupants were the first to see a band of such outsiders arriving at the sidings and marching to the pit, accompanied by a dozen police officers. Owen took immediate action, instructing his wife and Kit, Sarah and the youngsters to run and summon the strikers, whilst he and his son and Monty hurried after the immigrants.

  Within minutes a crowd had gathered and was tearing after the intruders, showering them with stones and earth and anything else the strikers could lay their hands on, shouting abuse, fighting to get past the wall of police who, because the mob was so disorganized, eventually beat its members back, allowing the foreigners to enter the shaft to cries
of ‘Black sheep!’

  Though allying herself with their cause, Kit chose not to mimic the band of jeering women, some with babies on their hips, alarmed at their violent antics. However noble the objective it was not right to indoctrinate tiny children with such hatred.

  ‘They’ll have to come out some time!’ panted Owen to the crowd. ‘And when they do, we’ll be ready for ’em!’

  Upon the cheer of agreement, he led the angry strikers back to the village to co-ordinate their next move.

  That afternoon, when the foreigners emerged warily from the shaft they were met by a hail of abuse and a shower of accurately aimed stones. Only by the aid of police truncheons did they manage to escape, but even then the mob broke apart and its separate factions began to pursue the frightened interlopers, men women and children calling for blood. This time Kit watched from a distance, concerned that members of her family might be hurt, especially Probyn.

  With insufficient police to control such a large number, the foreigners found themselves surrounded and blows began to rain upon their crouching backs. Before the violence got out of hand, however, Owen appealed to the mob to stand back and give the incomers a chance to hear their case, for they surely would not have broken a strike intentionally. Protesting their ignorance, the foreigners said they had been duped into coming here, their Cornish spokesman announcing that they would refuse to go down the pit tomorrow and would back the strikers. There was a spontaneous cheer from the crowd. To a shrill burst on a tin whistle, the spokesman and others were hoisted on to shoulders, now the best of friends, and the mob of men, women and children paraded round and round the muddy field in a state of triumph, banging pan lids, waving handkerchiefs to show the police and colliery officials that they had won.

  Next morning, true to their word, the foreigners joined with strikers at the colliery gates in a display of solidarity, a victorious Owen leading the crowd in hymn and prayer, thanking God for His help in their fight against evil.

  * * *

  The battle might have been won, but the war was to continue into the summer. For every foreigner who was persuaded to go home another took his place, thereby enabling the Ralph Royd Coal Company to keep the pit open. However small an amount of coal they turned out, its production was an arrogant sign to the strikers that they could never hope to win.

  With new men arriving by the trainload, the strikers became more desperate to persuade them to go home, bombarding them with stones and heavy missiles, their confrontations becoming more and more fraught, the violence coming to a head when one of the new men fired a revolver at his assailants, injuring two miners. Had the police not charged the crowd and arrested the man, the strikers would have torn him apart.

  At the next gathering outside the colliery Owen tried to calm matters by using shock tactics of his own, hurling a bucketful of pig’s blood at the colliery gates and saying that this was the only blood he wanted to see spilt. The coalmasters had set miner against miner, but they must not allow the likes of Latimer to destroy them. But as if in a show of contempt his voice was drowned out by the colliery engines, telling him exactly who would win.

  One by one, throughout the Yorkshire coalfield, miners on the brink of starvation were forced to capitulate, conceding the ten per cent reduction and drifting back to work. A few of the Ralph Royd miners began to return – though the vast majority had yet been persuaded to stay out and their daily attendance at the pit-head was merely to pour scorn on those who broke the strike. Owen, still determined that those who had perished in the smallpox and measles epidemics – occasioned by the cold-hearted evictions – should not have died in vain. He formed a deputation to put new resolutions that would at least allow his union members to return with dignity.

  Sensing triumph, the company refused all demands. Furtherto, it became even harder, threatening to close the pit for an indefinite period unless sufficient miners resumed work on their terms of five shillings and sixpence a day.

  The tension that had been building up in Kit’s house over the last two months in particular was now threatening to overwhelm her. Her brothers and indeed their wives were so very different, it was inevitable that there would be petty disagreements. The house no longer felt like hers. She felt totally trapped and helpless. Staring out of the window on this sunny June morning, the only ones getting ready for work being Wyn and Merry, the others sitting despondently round the breakfast table, she noticed the little speckled thrush who came regularly to feed in her garden. The sight of him perched at the top of a hawthorn bush trilling his heart out struck a sudden chord in her heart. Never once whilst feeding him crumbs had she recognized the incongruity before, only now equating him with the lifeless creatures who served as decoration for her hats.

  ‘Father, what’s the age of consent?’ Probyn was tucking exercise books into his school bag.

  This drew everyone’s attention, even interrupting his mother’s bout of coughing. ‘Where did you learn such a phrase?’ demanded Sarah.

  ‘As if we didn’t know!’ Failing to prevent Kit from buying her News of the World, Monty had pleaded for her at least to keep the filthy journal hidden. Not well enough by the sounds of it. ‘It’s how old you have to be before you can get married,’ he explained to Probyn, at the same time gesturing to his daughters. ‘You’re all going to be late if ’ee don’t get going! We’re relying on you, remember.’

  Once the younger element had been removed from the house, Owen’s fifteen-year-old son being considered adult enough to hear this, Monty threw an accusation at his sister.

  ‘I hide the paper as best I can!’ replied Kit. ‘It’s not my fault if he goes rooting round and finds it.’

  ‘If it wasn’t there in the first place, he wouldn’t be able to find it.’ A pained Sarah coughed again into her handkerchief. ‘I don’t know why you waste your money on the filthy thing when others can’t even afford food.’ .

  Unusually, Kit flared. ‘I don’t see you going without – and I’ll spend my money the way I like, thank you very much.’

  ‘It’s all very well for those with money to spend!’

  ‘This is my house and I’ll do as I please!’

  ‘You’re absolutely right! And I shall do as I please too.’ Her black hair scraped unflatteringly from her haggard face, Sarah shoved the handkerchief into her apron pocket and gathered the breakfast pots noisily. ‘Monty, you’re going back to work.’

  ‘How can he go back?’ Owen’s black eyebrows formed a line of dissent in his high pale forehead. ‘He’s paid by us miners.’ His wife, Meg, supported him.

  ‘Nobody says he has to be check weighman. He can go back underground,’ wheezed Sarah. ‘God knows, there are plenty of jobs going. I can’t stand any more of this – and if you’ve any sense, Meg, you’ll do the same. I don’t know how we let ourselves be talked into it in the first place!’ As always in a strike it was the women who suffered. Monty and Owen could go out and play in their allotments, enjoy their stupid games – but they still expected to be fed, and it was the women who had to make ends meet.

  ‘Are you going to stand there and let your wife tell thee what to do?’ Owen demanded of his brother.

  Monty responded with bitterness. ‘Well, I’ve let ’ee tell me what to do for long enough, ain’t I? Listened to all your claptrap – and what good has it done me? I’ve got no house, no food, no money save for the few bob the girls earn. What sort of a man is it relies on his sister to house him?’

  Owen tightened his lips over the implied insult. Meg stood at his shoulder, where in her opinion a wife should be, not running him down.

  Kit relented over her previous outburst. ‘I don’t mind, honestly.’

  ‘But I do,’ insisted Monty. ‘So we’ll be going home as soon as I can arrange it. Thank ’ee for your help, Kit, we’re most grateful.’

  Owen offered grave warning. ‘If you break this strike, that’ll be the end of thee and me.’

  Monty looked his brother in the eye. You ungrateful l
ittle sod, came his thought. It was my sweat that earned you the luxury of being able to pick and choose, my toil that put you through school. But all he said was, ‘Do as you must.’

  * * *

  That same day, Kit’s elder brother walked up to the manager’s office and asked for a job. It was immediately granted. He also received the key to his old house. By nightfall he and his family were out from under Kit’s feet.

  Whilst Owen remained stubborn, he had been rankled enough by Monty’s remark to tell Kit he would leave too if she wanted. He had no wish to impose further. His sister told him not to be proud, he could stay here as long as he wished, though she feared Monty might view this as an indication of where her loyalty lay. Accordingly, she made sure to visit her elder brother regularly, even if it did make her unpopular with others.

  The preponderance of dwellings in Savile Row now housed the new men, providing company for those like Monty who had chosen to fight his way through the jeering mob that attended the pit-head every morning. Yet he still found it a dreadful ordeal to run the gauntlet of erstwhile friends, the hardest part to bear being his brother’s contempt.

  Whilst the rest of the mob threw punches and sneered and sang

  ‘Ba ba black sheep have you any pride?

  No sir, no sir, I’d lick t’master’s backside!’

  and

  ‘Old King Coal was a stingy arsehole

  and a stingy arsehole was he!’

  Owen simply moved back to allow his brother to pass, offering none of the violence he bestowed on others, that vitriolic glare being even more efficient than blows, his black eyes following Monty’s every move until he disappeared from sight.

  Day in, day out, the strikers continued to intimidate the black sheep, undaunted by the summonses brought by the owners. Owen was amongst those dragged before the court, bound over in a sum of ten pounds to keep the peace for three months.