Families and Friendships

by Margaret Thornton

  ‘It all worked out well for her, though, didn’t it?’

  ‘Yes; she married a man who was a doctor, rather older than herself. They had two more children, but he always regarded Gregory as his son, and Greg still refers to him as his father, which is only right. He died a few years ago, and that was when Greg found out the truth and decided to find Simon. Fortunately they get on like a house on fire, Simon and Greg. They’re more like brothers or friends, really, rather than father and son. And Yvonne’s friendly with a man she works with now … so all has ended happily.’

  ‘It’s strange, isn’t it, that the same thing should have happened to you and to Simon? That Stella is … well, she’s really the second child for both of you, isn’t she?’

  ‘Yes … and you could say that Greg turning up when he did was very fortunate for me. Excellent timing as it happened, because Simon’s story took the heat off me for a while. Well, for good, I should say. The folk in the congregation seem to have accepted me as I am now, warts and all! Simon told them all about Greg turning up and who he was, which I thought was very brave of him. But he wanted them to know the truth before the gossip-mongers started up again, like they did with me.’

  ‘They all seem to be very supportive of you and Simon, from what I could see of them this morning,’ said Diane. ‘I’m sure you have lots of friends in the congregation as well as Joan, don’t you? She’s rather older than us, I gather?’

  ‘Yes, Joan and Henry are in their late forties. Joan has been a real friend to me. She was the one who stepped in and read the riot act, so to speak, when the gossip started about me. It soon stopped, I’m glad to say. And as I’ve told you, Greg arriving when he did gave them something else to talk about!’

  Certain members of the church, mainly the older women, who should have known better, had tried to start a smear campaign, ostracizing Fiona for a while when it was discovered that the baby she was expecting was not her first child. But Simon’s revelation, coming hard on the heels of the first one, had rather taken the wind out of their sails. Simon was very quickly forgiven for his misdemeanour. He had always been a popular rector ever since he had come to the parish some seven or eight years previously.

  ‘You’re happy here, in Aberthwaite, aren’t you?’ said Diane. ‘You must have found it a great change from the grime and smoke of Leeds. We’ve noticed the difference in the air. It’s so fresh and clean, and the people all seem very friendly.’

  ‘Yes, so they are, on the whole. It’s mainly a farming community, and a market town, of course, that has developed over the years. There’s a market twice a week in the town square, and it’s a real gathering of the clans. I enjoy going there to do most of my shopping. But you’re always regarded as an outsider if you weren’t born and bred here. I got to know a lot of people, though, when I worked in the library.’

  ‘And now you’re the rector’s wife!’ said Diane. ‘Goodness! Who’d have thought it? D’you remember the Reverend Cruikshank? Your Simon’s a far cry from him, isn’t he?’

  ‘I should certainly hope so!’ Fiona gave a mock shudder, remembering the strait-laced and judgemental vicar at the church they had attended in Leeds. ‘Don’t remind me! … D’you still go to St Luke’s?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, but it’s very different now. Old Cruikshank left years ago, and the new vicar is much easier to get on with. He’s more like your Simon. He really tries to understand everyone. There are none of those ‘holier than thou’ cliques like we used to have. We had some good times, though, didn’t we, despite old Cruikshank?’

  ‘Yes … so we did.’ Fiona was thoughtful for a moment before saying, a trifle hesitantly, ‘Do you still hear from Dave?’

  ‘We still get a Christmas card from them every year,’ replied Diane. ‘And Andy gets an occasional letter. Very occasional! Blokes aren’t much good at letter writing, are they? But yes … we keep in touch. That doesn’t worry you, does it?’

  ‘No, why should it? Dave and Andy were good friends, weren’t they? Just like you and me. And he’s far enough away. Philadelphia, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. They came over here two years ago, Dave and Patsy and the two children, and they called to see us. Patsy’s a very nice girl – well, woman, I suppose I should say now. She’s a real Yankee Doodle, of course; very friendly and bubbly. Dave said he still misses Yorkshire. I don’t suppose he would have gone over there except for his parents emigrating. And he managed to get a job there when he left university; he’s an industrial chemist. But I think you know all that, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I remember. I’m glad he’s happy. Does he … did he ever ask about me?’

  ‘Yes … He was very concerned when you disappeared off the scene; we all were. So I let him know when you and I met up again. I thought it was only right. He doesn’t know about … well, about the baby. There would be no point. As far as he knows you were ill, and then you had a sort of breakdown and went to relatives up north to recuperate.’

  ‘And that’s more or less the truth of it,’ said Fiona, ‘apart from one small detail! But as you say, it’s best if he never knows about it.’ She sighed. ‘He was a nice lad, though, wasn’t he?’

  And somewhere, possibly not too far away, there was a girl of fourteen – nearly fifteen – with the same dark hair and, maybe, the same winning smile.

  Two

  Debbie Hargreaves had known from an early age that she was adopted. The word Vera had used, however, was ‘chosen’. When the little girl was four years old, just before she started school, Vera decided she should tell her the truth in case she might hear about it from someone else. It was more or less common knowledge in their neighbourhood that Vera and Stanley Hargreaves had been married for several years, longing for a child that never appeared, before they decided to adopt a baby girl. Not that Vera really thought any of her friends would be so indiscreet as to say anything to Debbie, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

  Vera told her one night after she had read her a bedtime story – the one about the gingerbread man was the current favourite – that she had a true story to tell her. The child listened attentively, her brown eyes wide with curiosity, as Vera told her how she and Daddy had gone to a big house in the country to choose a baby girl.

  ‘We had waited a long time, you see, Debbie,’ she said, ‘and we’d asked God to send us a baby of our own but … well, it didn’t happen.’

  ‘Why not?’ asked the little girl. ‘Why didn’t God do what you wanted? Our teacher told us at Sunday school that if you want something very badly, and you asked God about it, then he’ll answer you.’

  ‘But God sometimes says no,’ replied Vera. ‘He doesn’t always say yes, because he knows what’s best for us, you see. And I think he wanted us to be your mummy and daddy.’ It was a very simplistic way of putting it. Vera wasn’t altogether sure that she believed it, but it seemed to satisfy the child. Debbie nodded seriously as though she understood. Vera thought at times that she was wise beyond her years.

  ‘Anyway, Daddy and I went to this big house,’ she continued. ‘Your grandad took us in his car because it was quite a long way. And we went into a room where there were some cots with babies in them, very tiny babies.’

  ‘And one of them was me!’ said Debbie excitedly. ‘Was it, Mummy?’

  ‘Yes, it was. The other two babies were boys. But Daddy and I thought we’d like a little girl. And there you were, fast asleep. And on the pillow at the side of you was a little pink teddy bear.’

  ‘Rosie!’ cried Debbie. ‘It was Rosie, wasn’t it?’ She pointed to the teddy bear that sat on a shelf with her collection of toys: a floppy-eared rabbit, a panda, and a baby doll. Her constant companion, a rather shabby bear called Joey was in the bed beside her where he always was at night. But Debbie had always seemed to understand that the little pink bear was a bit special, not really to be played with but given her own place on the shelf where she wouldn’t get too dirty. Vera had told her that the little bear had be
en given to her when she was born, a sort of christening present, and that she must take great care of it.

  Now Vera told her what she believed to be true. ‘You see, darling, the lady whose baby you were at first couldn’t keep you. She wasn’t able to look after you, and so she decided that you should go to another mummy and daddy who would be able to look after you much better. And I think that the little teddy that you call Rosie was a special present from her, because I’m sure she really loved you very much.’

  ‘But you’re my mummy and daddy now, aren’t you?’ asked the child.

  ‘Yes, of course we are. And we love you very much.’

  ‘And what happened to the lady?’ Debbie always wanted to know the ins and outs of everything. ‘Didn’t she want to see me again?’

  ‘I’m sure she thought about you a lot,’ said Vera, ‘but she knew you’d be happy with us and that we’d take good care of you. She must have been very sad to lose you, but I’m sure she’s happy again now. Maybe she has another little boy or girl now. But we’ve got you, haven’t we? You were a very special baby, and now you’re our own special little girl.’

  ‘I think that’s a very nice story, Mummy,’ said Debbie, in a matter-of-fact way. ‘And I hope the lady is happy now.’

  Vera’s eyes misted over a little as she kissed Debbie’s cheek and tucked her up in bed. ‘Goodnight, darling,’ she said. ‘Sleep tight, and God bless.’

  ‘Goodnight, Mummy,’ she answered.

  Vera was sure in her mind that Debbie would not worry about what she had been told. She was a very practical little miss sometimes. She had never been a clinging sort of child or one who cried very readily. She was affectionate and lovable to a degree, but Vera guessed she might not be over sentimental when she grew up. Already she was developing a mind of her own. Vera’s mother said she was a ‘right little madam’.

  She was well-loved, though, by all of them: by Vera and Stanley, Vera’s parents, and her brother and sister and their families. She had brought a lot of joy into their lives.

  Stanley and Vera’s home, since 1950, had been in the little town of Whitesands Bay, on the Northumberland coast, not far from the city of Newcastle. The skyline of Northumberland was dominated by the symbols of the coal, iron and steel, and shipbuilding industries – the winding gear, slag heaps and the tall factory chimneys – that had made the region an important centre of the industrial revolution. But the landscape was predominantly rural, and within sight of the collieries with their rows of miners’ houses there was green pastureland and pleasant farms and villages. Parts of the coastline were beautiful, with long sandy beaches and rocky cliffs around which the seaside resorts had developed. Whitesands Bay was such a one; a pleasant place to live, the nearest colliery being several miles away.

  Many of the lads who had attended school with Stanley had become coal miners, or had gone to work in industry or at the docks. But Stanley’s parents, Bill and Dora, had not wanted their son to go down the mine. Bill was a miner and suffered every so often with bronchitis, until he died in his early sixties with emphysema, soon after the end of the Second World War.

  Bill and Dora had been blessed with only the one child, Stanley, and they had been anxious to do the very best they could for him. They lived in a mining village in a two-up, two-down cottage in a row that opened on to the street. At the rear, however, there was a small piece of land, communal to the row of cottages, and Bill loved to work on his plot when he was not too weary after his shift at the colliery. He grew vegetables – potatoes, carrots, cabbages, onions, lettuces – as much as the small plot would allow; and even managed to grow flowers in tubs – marigolds, Sweet Williams and night-scented stock – grown from seeds. Stanley enjoyed helping his father in what they liked to call their garden, although it was hardly worthy of the name. It was soon clear that Stanley had a natural bent for working with the soil, and his parents agreed that when he left school he should, ideally, work in the open air instead of down the mine.

  Stanley and his father sometimes cycled out into the surrounding countryside on a Sunday afternoon, on a pair of rusty ramshackle old bicycles. There was hardly any traffic on the roads, especially on the country lanes, and they looked forward to their brief excursions into the green and pleasant farmlands, not all that far from the soot and grime of their own cobblestoned street.

  There was one farm they passed that was more of an arable farm, concentrating on growing crops rather than rearing livestock. They kept a pig, and hens and a cockerel. Some of the hens were fattened for sale at Christmas time, and they also sold their own new-laid eggs. Bill and Stanley sometimes called at the farmhouse and bought a half dozen eggs, and so they got to know the farmer and his wife quite well.

  The land was cultivated for the growing of potatoes, sugar beet, Brussels sprouts and other kinds of vegetables in their season. There was also a small orchard with apple and pear trees, and greenhouses where they grew tomatoes and cucumbers and flowers for sale, mainly chrysanthemums and dahlias. The farmer, Alec Pritchard, employed only a few full-time workers, but several more on a temporary basis when help was needed with the potato harvest or for picking the Brussels sprouts for the Christmas market. But some were permanent; and so it happened, fortuitously, that when Stanley was fourteen years old and ready to leave school, a vacancy occurred at the farm. One of the farm hands was getting married and moving away from the area. Alec had known Stanley for a couple of years and realized how much he loved the land and the open air. When he offered him a job at the farm Stanley and his parents were overjoyed at the turn of events.

  He started his employment at the farm in 1929, and continued working there for eleven years until, in 1940, he was called up for war service. By this time he had married Vera, the girl he had been courting since their schooldays. He did not serve overseas, neither at the start of the war, which culminated in the evacuation from Dunkirk, or later in the D-Day landings. He spent his time at a camp in the north of England, not far from his home, by which time he had been promoted to the rank of sergeant. In some ways he felt cheated, always conscious that he could not say, in honesty, that he had ‘done his bit’. All the same, he hoped he had done a worthwhile job in charge of the supply depot, and he was delighted to resume his married life with Vera. They were hoping that very soon they might be blessed with a child.

  In 1950, when they had been married for fourteen years, they both knew that they were ready for a change of scene. They had managed to scrape enough money together soon after their marriage to buy – or at least to secure a mortgage – on a little cottage not far from the mining village where they had been brought up. It was quite near to the farm where Stanley was still employed. He was by now the second-in-command there, virtually Alec’s right-hand man. Vera’s earnings as a shop assistant – she had worked in the general store in the village for many years – had helped with their finances. They had always been thrifty, and they felt it was time for them to make a move. And maybe, in a new environment, the child that they both longed for might appear at last.

  Vera fancied a complete change. As a child she had loved the little town, Whitesands Bay, where her parents had taken her and her brother and sister for occasional visits, and she knew she would love to live there, and bring up the child they hoped to have in the clean fresh air of the seaside. Stanley was willing to go along with her idea, provided he could find a job there. He was experienced only in working on the land, and having worked in the open air for so long would not want to have an indoor job.

  Luck was with them. Stanley applied for, and was offered a job in the parks department of the seaside town, helping to tend the flower beds and rock gardens that were a feature of the promenade, and the colourful displays at the roundabouts in the town. There was also a small park on the outskirts, at the very end of the promenade. They found a house that suited them and which they could afford; a two-bedroomed terraced house with a small paved area at the front, but with enough land at the rear to be cultivat
ed as a garden, and even enough room for a small greenhouse.

  And so it was there, in the May of 1952, where they brought their newly adopted baby daughter. They christened her Deborah Mary – the Mary after Vera’s mother – but she was always known as Debbie.

  Three

  Debbie had been born in Burnside House, a home where unmarried girls could stay for a few months before the birth of their babies, the children usually being given up for adoption. It was quite a pleasant place, all things considered; a large house in its own grounds in the Northumbrian countryside, midway between Newcastle upon Tyne and the market town of Hexham. It had once belonged to a wealthy family, then had been taken over by the nearby Methodist churches.

  Vera and Stanley Hargreaves had been friendly with one of the auxiliary helpers there, a young woman named Claire Wagstaff. She was a near neighbour of theirs in the village where they had spent the first years of their married life, and they still kept in touch when they moved to Whitesands Bay which was not all that far away. When the longed for baby did not arrive and they had decided that they would like to adopt a child they approached Claire to see if it was possible for her to help them. She agreed that she would do what she could, and would put in a good word for them. The adoption was carried out legally through an accredited society; but it helped that Claire, with the agreement of the superintendent of the home, had recommended the couple as being an ideal choice for parents.

  Claire, only thirty years old at the time, was nearer in age to the girls at the home than were some of the staff members. She sympathized with them and tried to understand their problems, although the nurses and helpers were warned not to get too friendly with the girls, especially with any one more than the others. Claire had, however, formed an affinity with Fiona Dalton who arrived at the home in the January of 1952. She understood that Fiona had been staying with an aunt and uncle for a while. Her parents, finding out about her pregnancy, had been shocked and ashamed of her and could not wait to banish her to relations in the far north of England, as far away from Leeds as possible. Fiona was such a nice girl, friendly and polite and so pretty. She often confided in Claire, who knew she would be heartbroken at parting from her baby. The girl had desperately longed to keep her daughter once she had set eyes on her, but with such intransigent parents it had been out of the question.