by Beezy Marsh
Kitty couldn’t be doing with all that whalebone and lacing, mind you. She wore her skirt shorter, so that her ankles and her woollen stockings were just visible, and she preferred a longer, looser belted jacket to go with her sailor-collar blouse, so that she could get through a day’s work without feeling faint. She’d been a shorthand typist and secretary for a firm of accountants in the city for the last few years. It was steady work, boring really, but at least she didn’t have to spend long hours in a factory or stand around in a shop trying to sell things to those silly, flighty women who made a career of acquiring fripperies. They dressed in gauzes and silks, trussed up in their corsets, waving their gloved hands at whatever took their fancy. Despite all that, they had nothing between their ears.
The three of them climbed aboard the No.11 tram with a huge Bovril advert emblazoned on the front and, of course, Lord Kitchener plastered on the back. Mum sat next to Harry, clasping his hand, and Kitty sat behind them, rocking gently from side to side with the movement of the tram as it clattered over the cobbles and against the metal rails. It took them down Jesmond Road, through the leafy suburb and past the cemetery and the park, where they’d spent so many happy hours when they were younger – when they were still a real family.
Kitty would have traded places with her brother, if only she could, so that Mum wouldn’t have to lose him. She should have been born a boy; that’s what Dad used to say when she was kicking up her petticoats to run about in Jesmond Dene with Harry when they were bairns. Dad hadn’t minded; in fact, he’d encouraged her. He always laughed when she and Harry played rough and tumble, his hazel eyes shining with delight. But there were limits, like the time Harry tied her to a tree in the back garden with her skipping rope and cut a lump out of her fringe in a game that got out of hand. Dad had thrashed him for that, even though she’d begged him not to.
As a schoolteacher and a working woman, Mum had encouraged her to have her own thoughts and never to be afraid to speak her mind. She was friends with Mrs Harrison Bell, who’d been a primary school teacher in Heaton, and when she became a leading light of the Newcastle and District Women’s Suffrage Committee, Mum went along to her meetings at Fenwick’s Drawing Room Cafe.
‘Off to your tea and cake chinwag again?’ Dad would tease Mum, who’d roll her eyes at him and bang the front door shut. Kitty was just turning sixteen when she was allowed to go along to those gatherings for the first time and she listened, transfixed, as Mrs Harrison Bell – who looked like she wouldn’t say boo to a goose with her little round glasses and warm expression – expounded her views on women’s emancipation with zeal, to an eager audience.
Before long, the Newcastle suffragettes had moved from the tea room of the department store and church halls to the streets. Mum and Kitty went along to listen to the speakers and to march alongside well-to-do women, wearing sashes of green, white and purple, the colours that Mrs Pankhurst wore; they signified purple for dignity, white for purity and green for hope – Kitty had learned that off by heart.
What’s more, there was a group of young women, not much older than Kitty, who were in favour of direct action to force the men in power to listen.
‘Making a nuisance of themselves’ Dad had called it. Mum wasn’t in favour of that either and she made it clear to Kitty why: ‘Breaking the law is never the right thing to do. We are law-abiding people, Catherine. You must never forget that. We can’t win this battle by getting into trouble with the police. It’s about calm and reasoned argument and political change.’
But there was a spark in their eyes which ignited something in Kitty. She sewed her own little rosette to wear at meetings and on marches, but she had to pin that on her lapel when Dad wasn’t looking, or he wouldn’t be best pleased; in fact, he’d make her take it off.
Kitty began to idolize the suffragettes who carried placards and wouldn’t be shouted down by the Bigg Market thugs. Instead, they resolutely insisted that they should have a voice and rights at the ballot box, the same as men, and when it didn’t happen, they were prepared to take matters into their own hands.
Dad had put his foot down after the Battle of Newcastle in 1909. That was what the papers had called it, after suffragettes broke windows all over the town and one even took an axe to a barrier in Percy Street. The city had never seen anything like it. Lady Lytton, who was so posh she spoke like she had a mouth full of plums, chucked a stone at Chancellor Lloyd George’s car and got sent to prison, along with ten other women that Kitty had come to know so well. There were hunger strikes, and force feeding, and, in Lily Avenue, the most almighty row between Mum and Dad.
Raised voices were not something Kitty was used to. Yes, Mum might get cross when Dad had spent too much money betting on the horses or when he’d come home one over the eight after a big win, but that was about the extent of it. Until that cold night in January of 1910, just a few months before he went away for good, that is. Her parents were having a late supper together in the dining room and Kitty was upstairs in bed when she heard them rowing.
‘You cannot let her go near those bloody women again!’ he yelled. ‘I will not have my daughter involved with criminals, do you hear me?’
‘Please, Jack, don’t be so angry with me,’ Mum sobbed and then Kitty heard Dad’s murmured apologies and no more was said of it. Kitty just wasn’t allowed to go to meetings any more. After he left, she did, of course, because he was no longer there to stop her. Besides, she felt so full of rage that he’d gone, it was good to channel that anger into doing something positive.
She was only too happy when the pavilion at Heaton Park got burned down shortly before the war and she didn’t feel a shred of remorse about the attempt to set fire to Heaton station. In fact, it was a shame when the stationmaster smelled burning and found the large cardboard box filled with tins of oil, rags and a candle in one of the ladies’ lavatories because the whole timber structure would surely have gone up in flames. Not that she knew anything about it at the time, of course, but that is just what she read in the papers.
Once, she had even wanted to throw a brick through a police station window, like the suffragettes, but she’d thought better of it. Yet she could have done it. Just knowing that was enough to get her through the days in which her dreams were reduced to keystrokes at her typewriter, her ambitions boxed and filed away in buff-coloured envelopes. She still wanted more. She couldn’t help it, even if she was a woman; she was a woman with ideas and Mrs Harrison Bell, Lady Lytton, the Pankhursts and all the rest had fanned the flames of something in her and they would not be quenched. A little ember was still burning inside her. Kitty knew it could never be snuffed out, not even by this war.
The tram trundled on past the big houses, where the grocer’s van was delivering to servants. There’d been plenty of talk about the wealthiest in the city stockpiling food despite the higher prices, and while shopkeepers might close their doors and say they’d run out of eggs and flour, there always seemed to be plenty for the better-offs, Kitty had noticed that much.
Approaching the city, the buildings grew taller, blackened from years of smoke and dirt and soot. Coal and steel were the lifeblood of Newcastle but there was something elegant about it too, with the neatly laid-out gardens of Eldon Square and the imposing statue of Earl Grey at its heart, towering high above the bustling shopping streets below. They got off the tram and walked down Grainger Street to the town hall, where a crowd of young men had gathered as a recruiting officer waded through them, armed with a clipboard and pencil.
‘Now then, lads, we’ll have you sworn in in groups of ten,’ he said, his moustache bristling as he ushered the first lot inside to take the oath. ‘And you will then report to barracks in the morning.’
Mum clutched Harry’s arm. ‘Are you sure you want to do this, son?’
He turned and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘It’s my duty.’
Harry joined the Royal Field Artillery and his first month was spent dressed in a Kitchener
Blue standby uniform of the scratchiest serge, doing his basic training on the Town Moor in Jesmond.
Half of the moor had been dug up by miners who were practising their trench-digging skills and the other half was used to drill the new recruits. He was given leave every Sunday and came home to tea, to a hero’s welcome from Mum, even though he was yet to see a shot fired in anger.
Mum always made him his favourite bread and butter pudding, even if it meant she went without during the week to have enough leftovers. She poured him endless cups of tea and drank in every last detail of his life as a gunner.
He was based at No.1 Depot on Barrack Road and had quarters in a temporary hut at St James’s Park, the football ground across the way. The horses that would be used to pull the guns into battle were stabled underneath the stadium and Harry couldn’t hide his love for the animals and how he’d learned to ride them. There was a sense of their training being a bit like an extended holiday with the boy scouts for the new recruits. Many of them were around Harry’s age and they found humour where they could.
‘We had to fix bayonets and attack sacks stuffed with straw yesterday,’ he laughed, through mouthfuls of pudding. ‘I just sort of growled at them to keep the drill sergeant happy, but you’ve never seen ’owt so daft as a horde of us charging across the moor screaming our heads off.’
He travelled to the shooting range in Ponteland to learn how to load shells and fire them from the eighteen-pound guns and howitzers. ‘It took seven men to move the big gun into position and, oh good Lord, the noise of the shells when they exploded. My ears are still ringing,’ he said. All the fresh air and exercise seemed to have turned him into a man, and he had muscled arms from all the heavy lifting. Kitty thought he looked more handsome than ever.
But she knew that his time in Newcastle could not go on forever and so it came as no surprise one Sunday afternoon in late June when he turned up in a smart new uniform and announced excitedly that he would be leaving for France in the morning, where he was to join the 55th Lancashire Regiment of the Royal Field Artillery.
Mum and Kitty met him on the platform at Newcastle Central Station to say their farewells, amid a seething mass of khaki and weeping women. So many young men were leaving. Families were losing husbands, sons, brothers and cousins, all travelling on to an uncertain future on the fields of France and Flanders.
‘No tears,’ said Harry, hugging Kitty tightly as she handed him a little parcel containing chocolate, biscuits, tobacco, some warm socks she’d knitted and some tins of corned beef. ‘Promise me.’
‘I promise,’ said Kitty, who despite not wanting him to leave, felt so much pride in what he was doing. She’d come to accept it over the past few weeks and she was determined to keep positive. He would survive because she was willing him to.
‘Well, I won’t promise not to cry,’ said Mum, clutching him to her. ‘So just you come back safely to me, Harry.’ And she sobbed on his chest until it was time for him to go and join the other volunteers.
The carriage door slammed shut and the last Kitty saw of her brother was his hand, still waving goodbye from the window through the steam blowing down the line, as the train took him away from Newcastle and off to war.
9
Kitty
Newcastle upon Tyne, September 1916
‘It’s a man’s work, on a man’s wage, so do you think you’re up to the job?’
The editor of the Shipbuilder peered over his half-moon spectacles as Kitty stood, hands clasped in front of her, in the dusty office which was strewn with paper and stuffed to the gunnels with leather-bound copies of his publication. He must have been forty, perhaps, and he dressed in tweeds with a little handkerchief neatly folded in his breast pocket, but he had a boyish look about him.
‘I do,’ she said, looking him straight in the eye while trying not to tread on the plan of an ocean-going liner which was laid out on the floor. ‘I’m a fast learner and I have excellent shorthand and typing skills . . .’
‘I’m not looking for a secretary,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘But I suppose you’re the best of a bad lot. I’ve lost so many men to this blasted conflict in the last six months it’s a wonder I haven’t got my own mother on the payroll.’
‘I’m not afraid of long hours and hard work,’ she said, ignoring his put-down.
‘Not got a boyfriend away at the front, then?’ he said, stuffing some tobacco in his pipe and patting his waistcoat in search of some matches. Kitty spotted the box he was looking for, hidden underneath some documents at the edge of his green leather-topped desk. She handed it to him.
‘No, I certainly have not,’ she said indignantly, glaring at him. ‘I’ve no time to waste on affairs of the heart. I’m a working woman, with bills to pay. I help support my mother, and my brother is away in France with the Royal Field Artillery.’
‘All right, all right,’ he said, striking a match and putting it to his pipe. ‘It’s only fair of me to ask, you see, because the last thing I need is to spend months training you up only for you to run away up the aisle at the first opportunity or get yourself in the family way.’
‘Well, that sort of thing definitely doesn’t apply to me,’ said Kitty. The very idea was patently absurd. She had no time for romantic dalliances.
‘How old are you?’
‘I will be twenty-four later this month.’
‘Hmm,’ he gazed at her thoughtfully. ‘You’re leaving it a bit late to get married anyway, aren’t you? So, I suppose I’m minded to believe you.’ He put down his pipe and rapped his fingers lightly on the desk. ‘Remind me of your name again?’
‘Catherine, but everyone calls me Kitty.’
‘Well, I can assure you that in my office, you will be known by your Christian name, Catherine,’ he said with a laugh. She looked at the floor. It had been a mistake to tell him her pet name – it made her sound silly and girlish.
‘All right, Catherine, you can start on Monday. Eight thirty sharp, and on deadline days you’ll be working until the journal is put to bed, do you understand? We are a monthly publication and we have the highest standards of accuracy. Our readership includes the captains not just of ships, but of industry.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Kitty. ‘I won’t let you down.’
‘Very well,’ he said, returning to a sheaf of papers on his blotting pad. He dipped the nib of his pen in a pot of ink and began to write. She stood there, not knowing whether the interview was at an end. He glanced up. ‘Still here? You can run along now. I don’t need any help with my editorial.’
‘Yes, of course,’ she stammered. ‘I will see you first thing on Monday!’ She practically skipped out of his office and into a bigger room, which was filled with middle-aged men in varying states of decay. A portly, grey-haired gentleman was quietly snoozing at his desk in the corner, while another, skinny with a bald pate, was frantically scribbling some notes. A third man, gangly, with a squint, was leaning back in his chair, idly blowing smoke rings into the air which was already blue with the fug of tobacco.
None of this mattered to Kitty. The words ‘a man’s work on a man’s wage’ were ringing in her ears. She emerged onto the street, her heart pounding with excitement. She had done it. She had got herself a proper job.
Somewhere in France
17th September 1916
My dearest Kitty,
I am writing to you from my dug-out at the front. We face a tough road ahead to crack the Hun’s defences, but I have every faith that we will do it, and so must you. I’m wearing the red rose of Lancaster on my uniform with pride and we have been training for this moment, so please do not worry.
I hope you are both in good health. Please tell Mum not to fuss too much around the house and to rest when she can. Well done to you on the sub-editing job! I always knew you were clever, Kit, but imagine how proud Dad would be. Next thing we know, you’ll be running the country. Just don’t expect me to salute you next time we meet!
We’ve had an awful lot of ra
in, which makes life a misery because the trenches fill with water and then we’re up to our necks in mud, rolling around in it like cattle in the fields. Mum would have a fit if she saw the state of me, all clarty. The horses find it tough-going when it’s like this, but they are as brave as the men. I ride up front driving the big guns into position, on a black stallion called Domino. He’s a fine animal, stands more than seventeen hands high and has smart white socks. His best mate is Top Hat, black as the ace of spades but with a white blaze down his nose, so he looks like he should be going for a night out on the tiles at the Assembly Rooms. I swear those two spend time plotting what jinks they’re going to get up to next when we come to get them in the gun harness. And Domino’s got a memory like an elephant. When the sergeant slapped him round the chops, he waited for his moment and kicked him up the rear! The sly devil. I had to laugh. Sergeant didn’t see the funny side, though.
Well, Kit, I’ll close now. We’re back on it bright and early, giving the Hun a pounding with our shells to help our brave boys break through the German lines. I’m sending all my love to you and Mum.
Godspeed,
Harry xxx
Kitty stuffed the letter into her jacket pocket and returned to the work in front of her before her boss could spot what she was doing. She’d only just had time to skim over it on the tram on the way in this morning and it wasn’t enough to read his words once. She wanted to pore over it, again and again, especially now he was at the front. She’d heard about people getting a letter from their loved one in the morning only to have a telegram from the War Office in the afternoon, bringing them bad news.
‘What’s that you’ve got there, Catherine?’
She hadn’t even realized that the editor was lurking over her shoulder. Honestly, she’d learned the hard way over the last few weeks, it was as if he had eyes in the back of his head and the ability to appear and disappear, like the Scarlet Pimpernel.
