Like Father, Like Son
Page 28
Danny Harper stood in the dark on the freezing-cold station at Hawes Junction. It was a case of déjà vu. He’d been there before, waiting for the early mail train, with his father’s money in his hands. He lit his fag and rubbed his hands together to keep warm. He’d be glad to see the back of this bloody spot; he couldn’t call it home any more. He picked up his bag of belongings and heard the mail train coming over Mallerstang viaduct.
‘Bloody hell, mate, I didn’t think you were going to make it.’ He turned round to hear the heavy breathing of Bill Sunter behind him.
‘I wasn’t going to stop and let the bloody bailiffs in. Bugger that! They can throw her on the street, but not me.’
Danny patted him on the back. ‘Well, you’ve only just made it, because the old iron horse is here, and it won’t wait.’
‘By hell – a new life, just what we both want. Glad you’ve decided to come with me to America. You want nothing with being tied down with a wife and bawling kids.’ Bill threw his kitbag on the train.
‘Aye, Teresa will fetch them up and they’ll fend for themselves. They’ll soon be grown, like those two here.’
Danny looked around at the dale of his birth for one last time. This time he was going to go, and this time he never would return, of that he was sure. Why return to Liverpool and a life of misery, when he could do what he wanted? He was a free man with brass in his pocket, and that was all that mattered.
Author’s Notes
Hawes Junction Rail Crash
One of the worst rail crashes on the Settle-to-Carlisle railway line happened on 24th December 1910 at 5.49 a.m. (I have altered the date in my novel to correspond to the families that I write about). The crash was caused when a busy signalman forgot about a pair of light engines waiting at his northbound signal, to return to Carlisle. They were still waiting there when the signalman set the road down for the Scotch express. When the signal cleared, the light engines set off, in front of the express, into the same block section. Since the light engines were travelling at low speed from a stand at Hawes Junction, and the following express was travelling at high speed, a collision was inevitable. The express caught the light engines just after Moorcock tunnel, near Ais Gill summit in Mallerstang, and was wholly derailed. Casualties were made worse by the telescoping of the timber-bodied coaches and by the fire that broke out in the coaches, fed by the gas lights. Twelve people lost their lives as a result of the accident, some of whom were trapped in the wreckage and burned to death.
This accident was followed by another on 2nd September 1913 at 3.04 a.m., when a signal was passed on red as a steam engine struggled up the gradient at Ais Gill and was hit from behind by a second train. A total of sixteen people died that night. A memorial to the people lost can be found in the small village of Outhgill.
The Cow-Keepers of Liverpool
Cow-keepers and milk houses were commonplace in Liverpool. The movement of Dales people to Liverpool had its origins in the hard economy of the upland farming areas, and the fact that the families in these areas could be large. A study of Everton alone in 1901 revealed that more than thirty cow-keepers’ surnames originated in the Yorkshire Dales. The cows were held in purpose-built shippons – barns where tethered cows were kept for milking, adjacent to the owner’s dwelling house – which could usually hold up to twenty cows, as well as having space for a horse. Most of the cattle in Liverpool did not graze on a single blade of grass, but were turned into urban beasts. The one cow-keeper who was an exception was a Christopher Ewbank, who was able to let his cows out onto what is now Everton football ground.
Many of the Liverpool dairy families were supplied with milk by their relatives who still lived in the Dales, and this was made easier by the use of the railway. However, it isn’t hard to imagine the state of the milk when it arrived at its final destination, especially during the summer months. Cow-keepers were a way of life in Liverpool from the mid-1850s until as late as the 1940s. The bombing of Liverpool in the Second World War finally brought the occupation to a close.
Like Father, Like Son
Diane Allen was born in Leeds, but raised at her family’s farm, deep in the Yorkshire Dales. After working as a glass engraver, raising a family and looking after an ill father, she found her true niche in life, joining a large-print publishing firm in 1990. Having risen through the firm, she is now the general manager and has recently been made Honorary Vice President of the Romantic Novelists’ Association. Diane and her husband Ronnie live in Long Preston, in the Yorkshire Dales, and have two children and four beautiful grandchildren.
By Diane Allen
For the Sake of Her Family
For a Mother’s Sins
For a Father’s Pride
Like Father, Like Son
First published 2015 by Macmillan
This edition published in paperback 2015 by Pan Books
This electronic edition published 2015 by Pan Books
an imprint of Pan Macmillan
20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-1-4472-4602-2
Copyright © Diane Allen 2015
Cover design by Gordon Crabb
The right of Diane Allen to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, organizations and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Pan Macmillan does not have any control over, or any responsibility for, any author or third party websites referred to in or on this book.
You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Visit www.panmacmillan.com to read more about all our books and to buy them. You will also find features, author interviews and news of any author events, and you can sign up for e-newsletters so that you’re always first to hear about our new releases.