CHAPTER TEN

Gran told us she had met a very nice gentleman called David Simms, and that she was to be married to him. We were very surprised about this, but when we met him we found him to be a very agreeable gentleman. He was very smart in appearance, his hair well groomed in a very old, possibly Edwardian style. It was parted down the middle, the hair brought right down to his eyebrows, then turned up into a wave ending just above his ears. He did this with soap saying

“This makes it stiff and keeps it in place.”

Ron and I became very fond of him.

Gran who was now Mrs. Simms went to live at Wingate, this was another pit village about three miles away.

Later on that year Dad was hurt at the pit, suffering a broken leg and very bad bruises. They took him into hospital, but he was soon home with a plaster on his broken leg. I was so glad to see him as I was worried he might have died. Dad’s brother Uncle Eddy also had a very badly crushed leg in the same accident, they worked together as ‘Drillers’. This was Dad’s second accident, he had been buried under a fall of stone some years ago and was very lucky to survive. This had left him with a stretched left lung which gave him trouble from time to time, causing him to cough quite a lot. He said that this was nothing compared to his Marra (Mate) who had the top of his head cut off. He also told us about the buzzers blowing when there was a fatal accident down the pit, this brought everyone out running down to the pit head to find out what had happened and who had been killed. In those days the pit closed for the rest of the day after a fatal accident. There was no compensation either, but there was always a death levy of one shilling a man made the following week to go to the dead man’s widow or dependants. Dad said working conditions down the pit had always been bad, but did seem to be getting better now.

I was still afraid for Dad and Bernard as they both spent their working hours down that deep, dark, dirty hole. I had often heard the old men in the Reading Room recalling the danger and bad times they had experienced in the past. On one such day four men were sitting in a row on the bench by the door, they sat there with puffed cheeks hissing and blowing, they were waiting for one of their pals to come and read the paper to them as none of them could read. As they waited they talked of work and compared jobs. They reminded me of a row of toby jugs, each with coats of different kinds to accommodate their individual size. Their waistcoats bulging through carried watch chains stretched across their ample paunches. I did not think anything about this at the time, but now I realised what those old men’s working lives must have been like.

I remembered Dad once saying

“Sometimes we worked in very lar seams, only twelve to fourteen inches high. If ye tuk yer shull onter the face the wrang way up, yer had te craal arl the way back te the Main Gate te turn it ower, cos there wasne the height te turn it ower on the face. So ye had te mack sure that ye did it reet the fus time.”

Dad and Hannah often went to Gran’s in Wingate for weekends. We were considered old enough to look after ourselves. I was now nine, Ron was twelve and Bernard was seventeen. When they were away Bernard spent more time in the house and we loved this. We made nice things to eat and went to the pictures on Saturday nights. Ron and I sometimes went to stay with Gran and Granddad Simms, Gran was always happy and nice to us, much more than she had been before. I suppose that she no longer had the stress of looking after her shop and Granddad. In Gran’s front window on an occasional table stood a large glass dome with a magnificent glass ship inside. It was a sailing ship on a sea of glass which looked just like soap flakes. The large ship was accompanied by four little tugs. The rigging of the large ship had little sailors dressed in blue climbing up the ladders, all were made of glass. It was truly wonderful.

Gran said that this ship really belonged to Daddy, he had left it with her for safe keeping when we were small. Gran had kept it safely packed away until now, and Hannah told Gran that she might as well keep it as she had nowhere to put it, and did not want the responsibility of it.

About six months later when Dad arrived to visit Gran he found her in a chair sobbing, she had dropped the beautiful ship smashing it to smithereens. Dad was very understanding, and told her not to be upset about it.

“After all,” he said “it was made of glass and was destined to be broken sometime.”

On my next visit to Wingate, Gran was in a very good humour, so I ventured to ask about Grandmother Oliver. I knew nothing about her, being just a year old when she died, Ron could just remember her and being at her funeral. He remembered the coffin being displayed in the street and The Salvation Army standing around it singing. Gran was responsive and I spent the hour or so spellbound with interest of what she was telling me.

She began by saying

“Well I don’t think there is any harm in you knowing about her. Grandmother Oliver was quite a wealthy woman, and the money came from her mother’s side of the family.”

“That would be my Grandmother” I interrupted

“Yes and she was a very proud person, everything had to be just so. She dressed something like Queen Mary. She went everywhere in her carriage complete with footman and coachman, her parasol held over her head. She bowed and smiled only to the people she thought good enough to receive her attention. She was one of the very few people who owned a carriage and horses, and commanded great respect.”

My new Granddad who up to now had been sitting quietly pulled out his watch, and holding it by it’s beautiful gold chain said

“Lizzy, I think I’ll away and have a game of dominoes.”

“OK” said gran and without another word continued her story.

I think she was enjoying telling me as much as I was listening to her.

“Granddad and Grandmother Oliver lived in a grand house, they had four servants as well as the two coachmen, who also looked after the gardens and grounds. This was in Sunderland but I was never there, so I don’t know exactly where. Anyway when your Mammy Irene took up with your Dad Gran Oliver was outraged saying

“No daughter of mine will associate with a common miner”

Irene defied her mother and continued to see your Daddy, so she was banished from the house in disgrace. Your Daddy was a very good looking young man”

“Oh Gran, what did she do?”

“She came to me and lived with me until they were married. Then they moved into the house you live in now.”

“Did she ever see her mother again?”

“Oh yes, and I’ll never forget the day she came to my house in High Dyke Street. Mrs. Yates, a friend of mine, came running in to tell me that a fine lady in a coach was coming up the street. She guessed that it was Irene’s mother and thought I would like to know.”

“How exciting, Gran. What did she say?”

“I don’t know luv, I was ever so scared of meeting her, I locked the door and pretended to be out. She inquired where your Mam and Dad lived and went off to see them. What she had to say only your Dad can tell you, all I know is that they were reconciled.”

“Gosh, gran, I wish that I could have seen her”

Gran laughed saying

“Well hinney she died just a year or so after you were born. It’s because of her you have the Oliver in your name.”

“How Gran? how ?”

“Well realising that she had no son, and being an aristocratic snob she did not like the idea that the Oliver name would be ended so she asked your Mam if the name Oliver could be added to yours.”

I had often wondered why I had a boy’s name, or so I had always thought it to be a boy’s name. I had even thought that Dad had called me this because he wanted a boy. He had so often told me that he liked boys best.

“Wouldn’t it have been great Gran if she had made me her heir and I had been left all of her money? Granddad would not have gone and taken everything to his sister in Birkenhead. I suppose he willed the money to her.”

Gran laughed “Grandmother Oliver had intended you to use your name as a double name, like when someone asks you your name you would reply “Doris Oliver-Morgan.” The May was given to you after your Aunt Ethel, as she was called Ethel May”

“What a palaver” I thought. If she had left me her money then it would have made sense to call myself Oliver-Morgan, instead of just Morgan.

I had been at my new school two and a half years and was very good at Art and Home Crafts, like Sewing. I quite liked History and Geography, Religious Instruction and Writing, but my Arithmetic and Spelling left much to be desired. This was commented on in my school reports, also the comment

‘Doris writes wonderful compositions but they are ruined by spelling mistakes’

I always got a good telling off for this when Hannah read my school reports, but no one ever bothered to help me.

I liked nothing better than to gaze at the clouds through the classroom window, imagining them to be mountains far away in the blue water. On one such occasion teacher asked me

“What are you daydreaming about?”

I took her at her word, and told her, she was quite intrigued and told all of the other children to come and have a look.

The next day we were all given a large sheet of paper and instructed to draw what we had seen through the window in the clouds. I was overjoyed that the teacher did not think this to be a waste of time. I also enjoyed seeing pictures in the flames of the fire at home, when I told the teacher of this she asked all the class to do this that night, and to tell her the next day what they had seen.

One Friday night as I passed the Welfare Hall on my way home from school a crowd of children were clambering about trying to see through the door.

“What is it?” I asked

A man told me that all of those square boxes piled up high in rows, and filling the hall were for us.

“For us,” I replied “But what are they for?”

“Ah, that would be telling” he said and that was that.

Dad told us that shortly we would be moving to Fishburn into a new council house. It had three bedrooms and a garden, but best of all a bathroom with hot water which came straight out of the tap. Electric lights that came on at the flick of a switch. We had these lights in our school but could not believe that we were to have this in our own house.

“When are we going, Dad?”

“In a couple eh weeks.”

I told dad about the boxes in the Welfare Hall and also what the man had said.

“He’s aven yer on, now wher’s me tea am starvin?”

Mam brought out of the oven a pie for each of us, and put one by for Bernard. They were beautiful pies, we never had pies like this before Hannah came as they were her own recipe. These were made with alternate layers of grated potatoes and carrots, then topped with tinned pork in natural juices. The top put on then baked, each pie measured about six inches across and three inches deep.

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