‘Well, if you’re sure. She’d have all her meals at home, of course, but if she could come round some nights just to sleep, that’d be a huge help, Lil. Ta, duck.’
Edie was sensitive to the fact that Lil didn’t have any spare money to be feeding her neighbour’s child, though the children ran freely between the two houses, always sure of a welcome, always sure they were loved by their adopted ‘aunties’. And happily, the children liked each other too. Though Laurence found playmates of his own age in their street and beyond, he was nevertheless a kindly boy and was not above entertaining his younger brother and sister and Irene too, who followed him about with the devotion of a little puppy. He was tall for his age, with fair hair like his father and blue eyes that, for the most part, twinkled merrily. But Laurence was no good with the baby, Shirley. With a bemused and wary expression, he would look at her in the battered pram that had served all the Kelsey babies, at her little red face screwed up, at her tiny fists waving and her feet kicking in anger. He just didn’t know how to cope with a screaming infant, but he would take Frank into the street and teach him to kick a football, he would play Ludo or Draughts with Frank, Beth and Irene, patiently explaining the rules.
‘But no cheating,’ he would say firmly, trying hard not to laugh, ‘else I won’t play.’
Watching them fondly, Edie would say, ‘He’s a good lad, Lil. He’ll make someone a lovely husband one day.’
God willing, Lil would think, but she was not going to voice such thoughts aloud. No doubt Laurence would be destined to follow his father into the fishing industry and they all knew what dangers that job held.
Despite Edie’s adamant pronouncement that her family was complete, it had been no surprise to Lil when, over five years after Shirley’s birth, Edie had come through the door in the fence between their two backyards one morning looking bemused and strangely sheepish.
‘Put kettle on, Lil, I’ve had a bit of a shock.’
‘Oh Edie, what is it?’ Lil was at once anxious. ‘It’s – it’s not Archie, is it?’
Edie gave a wry laugh that told Lil that the news, which Edie was about to impart, was nothing very terrible. ‘He’s got summat to do with it, yes, but not the way you mean.’
‘What is it, then? One of the kids? Or your Jessie? Don’t tell me – she’s fallen pregnant at last. Oh, how lovely—’ But Edie was shaking her head.
Jessie was Edie’s younger sister. She still lived in the same street, too, at the far end in the house where both the sisters had been born. She’d married a lumper. Harry Charlton worked nights unloading the fish from the trawlers, sorting it and preparing it for sale at the early morning auctions on the pontoon. He was a big, strong man, who said very little but who adored his vivacious, gregarious wife and shared her sorrow that they had not had children.
‘No, no, it’s not Jessie who’s been caught. It’s – me.’
Lil’s mouth dropped open. ‘But you said . . .’
‘I know what I said, Lil – me an’ my big mouth – but there it is. I’m in the family way – again.’
Lil sat down at the table and reached across it to touch her friend’s hand. ‘But you’re pleased, aren’t you, Edie? I mean . . .’
‘Oh, I expect I will be – once I’ve got used to the idea. But what Archie’ll say when he gets home, I don’t know. I’ve given all me baby stuff away. I’ll have to get new.’
‘Archie’ll be as pleased as punch,’ Lil tried to reassure her, though she couldn’t quite keep the note of wistfulness out of her tone. She’d have loved more children, but there was no way it was ever going to happen now. ‘He loves his kids and this one’ll be no different.’
Seven months later, Beth, at eleven and Irene, ten, had another little baby to play with, though six-year-old Shirley was not so pleased to see the arrival of a tiny infant who usurped her coveted position as the youngest of the family. Reginald, who swiftly became known as Reggie, was a placid little chap, quite the opposite of what the fretful Shirley had been. Shirley now scowled every time she heard his gurgles and saw his round, beaming face.
‘He never cries,’ she overheard Edie telling Lil with amazement and took it as a personal insult when her mother added, ‘Not a bit like Shirley was. As long as he’s warm, dry and fed, I don’t hear a peep out of him.’
So the two households grew, sharing their joys and troubles together as if they were all indeed part of the same family. They lived amongst fishing families and they all knew the hazards of that life; a hard life, but one the men wouldn’t change for the world. Out at sea in atrocious weather, Archie would yearn to be home sitting in his armchair by the fire, cossetted by Edie and with the chance to spoil his children of whom he saw little. But after two days ashore, he – and many fishermen like him – would long to be back at sea.
Edie never went to the docks when Archie left on yet another trip, though the children, Laurence, Beth and Frank and later Shirley and Reggie too – and usually with Irene in tow as well – would wave him off.
‘Don’t forget to look at the listings in the Grimsby Evening Telegraph to see when we’re due back,’ he would remind them as he boarded his ship. And they’d always be there to welcome him home, even if it was late at night, for Edie knew what it meant for all of them. They didn’t have long with him, his shore leaves were short, but for a day or two they had his full attention. They’d be waiting on the dock, ready to rifle through his sea bag for sweets and chocolate whilst he collected his settlings from the dock offices. If his catch had been plentiful, with his pay in his pocket, he would buy them gifts from the shops in Freeman Street, never forgetting to bring home something for Edie and even a little gift for Lil.
Freeman Street teemed with life; it was Beth’s favourite place in the whole of Grimsby. The street thronged with people; fishermen, dressed in their best suits, home for sometimes as little as thirty-six hours before they were out with the tide once more. Women trying to shop for that extra tasty meal for their menfolk, children on bicycles weaving in and out of the path of the trolley buses. Cars towing trailers and window cleaners with handcarts; a busy, happy street and Beth loved it.
‘Come on, Irene, let’s go down Freeman Street. You too, our Shirl.’
‘I’ve no money,’ Irene would say quietly.
‘Neither have I,’ Beth would say cheerfully. ‘But it doesn’t cost owt to look, does it? And we can all see what we want to buy the next time Dad has a good catch.’
‘I can’t keep taking presents off your dad,’ Irene said. ‘It’s not right.’
Beth would link her arm with her friend’s and say, ‘’Course you can. You’re like a member of our family, Irene Horton, and don’t you forget it. Next time he comes home, he said he’ll look out for two second-hand bikes – one for each of us. So there you are, you see. Dad always thinks of you too.’
‘What about me?’ Shirley had piped up. ‘Am I getting a bike too?’
‘I expect so, darling, but maybe not until you’re a bit older, eh?’
‘But I will get one?’
‘Of course you will. Dad wouldn’t miss you out, now would he? And when he’s old enough, he’ll get one for Reggie an’ all.’
‘What about Frank?’ Irene asked in a soft voice. ‘He ought to have one before me.’
Beth laughed, a merry sound that had the folks passing by them smiling at the sound. ‘Frank’s already got one. Dad got it after his last trip. He knows a chap in the next street who does up second-hand bikes.’
‘I haven’t seen it.’
‘It’s in the shed at the bottom of the yard, but he’ll not let you see him with it until he’s learned how to ride it properly. And he hasn’t yet. Laurence takes him up and down the street on it after dark. You watch out of your mam’s bedroom window and you’ll see them. But don’t let on I told you.’
And so Archie continued to spoil his children; they were the centre of his world for the few days he was at home, and he theirs.
‘I’m a
millionaire for a day,’ Archie would tell them with a deep chuckle, but he was a careful man and whilst he spent freely on the day of his return from sea, there was always enough saved for his wife who would have to manage the housekeeping until he returned from his next trip. And on the occasions when his catch was poor, he explained carefully to the children why, this time, there would be no presents. He’d say, ‘And I can’t afford to take you to the ice rink this time, but we can go to the park or to the beach at Cleethorpes. What would you like to do?’
Whilst Edie washed and ironed his clothes ready for his return to sea, Archie would spend time playing with his children. But she was careful never to wash on the day he left. Even fishermen’s wives were superstitious. But their mother, anxious that Edie and Jessie would know nothing of the life, had kept them cocooned from such tales, dismissing them as nonsense.
‘You’ll wash him to a watery grave,’ a new neighbour had told Edie when she was first married. ‘And you’ll see he’ll never sail on a Friday, it’s bad luck.’ The woman had jabbed her finger towards her. ‘You’d best get rid of that green jumper, an’ all. We don’t have owt green in Grimsby. Even the Mariners’ goalie never wears a jumper that colour. Green is for grief. And, when you’re cooking, don’t forget to smash your eggshells into smithereens.’
Edie had blinked. ‘Whatever for?’
The woman had cackled with laughter. ‘’Cos, duck, half an eggshell is big enough for a witch to sail out to sea and bring disaster to trawlers.’
Edie had laughed, but she knew better than to defy any belief no matter how ridiculous it sounded. She learned them all. She wouldn’t toy with Archie’s life; he was too precious to her.
And his time ashore was treasured too. But besides having fun with his children, Archie would make time for lessons too, teaching them Morse code and semaphore with his big torch and with flags. ‘It’ll come in useful if you go to sea, lads,’ he said to his sons, but Beth was not to be left out.
‘I want to learn it too, Daddy.’
Archie had smiled indulgently. ‘You’ll not be a fisherman, duck. Girls don’t go to sea.’ But when Beth had pretended to pout, he had relented and included her in the lessons. As it turned out, she had been the quickest learner of them all and soon she was sending perfect messages by both the flickering torch and the flags. She stood in front of her brothers and Irene, arms outstretched whilst Archie watched her. Pity she’s not a lad, he thought, but then he reminded himself sharply that she would not be his pretty little Beth if she were. But her quickness, her brightness and her eagerness to learn made his heart swell with pride.
‘Are you taking Laurence on your next trip, Archie?’ Edie had asked when their eldest son was nearing school-leaving age, but her husband had shaken his head adamantly. ‘No, love. You know I won’t ever take any member of my family to sea with me. The lads can go when they’re ready. I’ll find them a good skipper, but it won’t be me.’
Laurence had gone to sea twice before he left school and had found the experience harrowing. He suffered appalling seasickness.
‘It’ll disappear when you go to sea for real,’ Edie had tried to reassure him. ‘You’ll be far too busy to think about being ill.’
Frank, however, first went to sea with one of Archie’s trusted pals at the age of twelve. He came home, excited and elated. ‘I weren’t sick at all,’ he told them all proudly. ‘I want to be a skipper like me dad.’
Archie had laughed and ruffled his hair. ‘Well, you have to start as a galley boy and work your way up, but if it’s what you really want to do, lad, then I’ll not stand in your way.’
‘What’s Laurence going to do now he’s about to leave school?’ Lil asked Edie in the summer of 1932.
‘What else can he do? It’s no use him staying on to take examinations. He’s a practical sort of chap.’ Edie smiled fondly, if a little sadly. ‘He’s not one for book learning. I expect he’ll go to sea like most of ’em do.’
Lil eyed her friend. ‘But you don’t want him to,’ she said quietly, sensing that there was something troubling Edie.
Edie wriggled her shoulders. ‘I wouldn’t mind if only he could go with his dad, but Archie won’t hear of it.’
Lil blinked. ‘Why ever not?’
‘He doesn’t agree with folks from the same family going to sea together.’ Edie bit her lip, knowing she was touching on a painful subject for Lil, but it had to be said. ‘You know what it’s like, duck, don’t you?’
Lil nodded. On that dreadful night not only had Tom been lost, but two of his cousins had perished on the same ship. The whole Horton family had been devastated three times over. ‘I can see his point,’ she said quietly.
‘So can I, I suppose.’ Edie sighed. ‘But I just wanted to feel that someone was keeping an eye on the lad, you know. Anyway,’ she added, brightening a little, ‘he’s not going to sea straightaway. Harry’s found him work on the dock so that should keep him out of trouble for a bit.’
Three years later, in the summer of 1935 – the same year that Beth left school – Laurence went to sea as a member of a crew for the first time. Beth, reckoned by them all to be the clever one in the family, had stayed on at school to take her School Certificate. That summer she found work locally as a nursemaid to a Mr and Mrs Forster’s two young children, aged four and two.
Beth had grown into a lovely girl, with long brown hair curling to her shoulders and her dark eyes were soft and gentle. When she was anxious she would twist a strand of her hair round and round her forefinger. Yet, she did not look her age; she was slim and not very tall and many mistook her for a schoolgirl still. Perhaps this is what endeared her to young children; they felt she was one of them, not a grown-up at all.
‘The kiddies are so sweet, Mam,’ she told Edie and Lil when she arrived home after being interviewed for the position. ‘And Mrs Forster’s French – so pretty and dainty, but she can’t deal with two lively kids. You’d never believe it, Mam, how those two little imps run rings around their mother. They fluster her, but they seemed to take to me. I spent the afternoon with them and Mr Forster was ever so pleased with how I got them to do as I told them, and Mrs Forster’ – Beth laughed – ‘she just couldn’t believe it. “Why do they not do that for me?” she said.’ Beth imitated the French woman’s accent perfectly. ‘And,’ Beth added, her eyes sparkling with excitement, ‘best of all, I might get the chance to go to France to look after the children when they go to visit Madame’s parents.’
‘Oh dear,’ Edie moaned. ‘I’m losing my chicks. Laurence is going to sea and you’re going across the water too.’
‘You’ve still got Frank and Shirley and little Reggie. They’ll not be leaving home for ages yet. And there’s Irene too. She’s here more often than not.’
Lil and Beth laughed together, but Edie could only raise a weak smile.
‘And just think, Aunty Lil, Irene will have her bedroom all to herself.’ Beth had often continued to sleep next door even after Shirley’s restless nights had ceased. With Reggie’s arrival, Edie’s little house was overflowing.
Lil grimaced. ‘I don’t think that’ll please her. She’ll miss you, Beth, sharing her room with you, whispering and giggling way into the night. We’ll all miss you.’
‘I’ll come back often – every day I get off. But this is the perfect job for me. You know how I love looking after little ones.’
Whilst the Forsters still lived in Grimsby, Beth kept her promise, but the day came which Edie had feared. Mr Forster’s job – ‘something in imports and exports,’ Beth told her family – took him back to France and, with great thankfulness, his wife insisted that the family should move back to her home country permanently. And she was also adamant that Beth should go with them.
‘I cannot possibly manage without you,’ Simone Forster declared, her expressive hands fluttering in the air.
In the same week that Beth left for France, Laurence, who had done his best to overcome debilitating seasickness as a f
isherman, vowed he would go to sea no more.
‘I might be able to get a job down dock. Mebbe as a barrow lad.’
‘That’s hard work.’
‘It’s all hard work, Mam, but it pays a pound a week, don’t forget. That’s good money for someone of my age.’
‘Talk to your Uncle Harry. He’ll likely be able to put in a good word for you. Mebbe he could get you work alongside him as a lumper.’
Harry was willing to help, but warned his nephew, ‘It’s tough being a lumper, Laurence. It’s wet and cold and dangerous working on ice-covered boards through the night whatever the weather. Mind you,’ he added swiftly, ‘it’s better than going to sea, specially if you’ve got the seasickness bad.’
‘Did you never want to go to sea, Uncle Harry?’
The older man shook his head. ‘No, I didn’t. I lost me dad and a brother to the sea. I don’t like it. It’s a cruel mistress.’
‘Me dad loves it.’
‘Aye, well, there’s plenty of fishermen do and I suppose I can understand it. It’s in their blood, somehow. And your dad’s a good skipper. He’s well-liked and trusted. Blokes who get into his crew hang on to their place as long as they can.’
‘I guessed that. Several of them have been with him for years.’
‘Aye, his mate’s been with him ten years or more, I reckon. One little tip, lad, when you start as a lumper: wear gloves, else your hands’ll be red raw in a day.’ Harry grinned. ‘But you’ll soon get hardened to it.’
But Laurence did not take to the life on the docks any more than he had going to sea and not many weeks after Beth had gone, he left Grimsby to join the British Army.
Now, two of Edie’s fledglings had left the nest.
Two
Whilst it had been Laurence whom the infant Irene had followed devotedly, had idolized as the big brother she would never have, as they all grew older, it was Frank with whom she fell in love. They’d always been a threesome, Beth, Irene and Frank, though sometimes with Shirley in tow. But once Beth had gone to France with the Forster family, the two younger ones were thrown together even more.
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