7,19 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
Kathy Leigh never knew her mother. Raised by her reserved father and loving aunt in 1950s' Blackpool, she has had a happy childhood. It is a time of glamour and excitement as families and individuals struggle to mend the bonds broken by the recent war. But then Kathy uncovers the shocking secret which threatens to blow the family apart and could take her far away from Blackpool and from everything she has ever known, all the way to America - if she is willing to take the chance.
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Seitenzahl: 547
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015
Ähnliche
Time Goes By
MARGARET THORNTON
This book is dedicated to ‘sand grown ’uns’ everywhere; those of us who feel proud to have been born in the amazing town of Blackpool.
And with love to my husband, John, and my thanks for his ongoing support and encouragement.
Contents
PART ONE
Chapter One
1950
‘Please, Miss Roberts … what shall I do? I haven’t got a mummy, you see.’
Katherine Leigh raised her hand a little timidly as she spoke to her teacher. She felt her cheeks turning a little pink as sometimes happened when she had to explain that she didn’t have a mother as had the other children in the class.
It had been all right at Christmas. When they had made cards to take home she had written her card ‘To Daddy and Aunty Win’. But it was different now because they were making cards for Mother’s Day. She felt sure, though, that Miss Roberts would help her to solve her little problem. She was a lovely teacher and Kathy liked her very much.
Sally Roberts smiled understandingly at the little girl. ‘Well, Katherine, dear … maybe you could make a card for your aunt instead. Aunty Win, isn’t it? Or for your grandma, perhaps?’
Katherine Leigh nodded, a little uncertainly, then she smiled back at her teacher. ‘Yes, for Aunty Win, I think. She’ll like that. But then … I can’t write “Happy Mother’s Day”, can I?’
‘Oh, I don’t see why not,’ said Miss Roberts, ‘because that’s what it will be on Sunday – Mothering Sunday, although everyone seems to call it Mother’s Day now. And you can write “To Aunty Win”, inside the card, “With love from Katherine”, or “Kathy”, if you like.’
‘All right, then,’ said Katherine.
Poor little mite, thought Sally Roberts, as she went round the tables of her ‘top class’ infants, giving out the paper required for the making of the Mother’s Day cards. She had grown very fond of little Katherine Leigh, who had been in her class since last September. How awful it must be for her not to have a mummy, like all the other boys and girls in the class. Sally knew that Katherine’s mother had died when she was a baby, only two years of age, so the little girl had no recollection of her at all. She was well looked after, though, by her father, and his sister whom she called Aunty Win, and Sally felt that she was well loved too.
She was always smartly dressed in a gymslip with a hand-knitted jumper beneath it, or a regulation white blouse in summer. School uniform was not compulsory, although most parents made an effort to conform.
Even in 1950, five years after the war had ended, there were restrictions, and many things were still in short supply. But Mr Leigh and his sister clearly did their very best for the child. Her dark curly hair was always well groomed and shining, tied back from her face in two bunches with red ribbons. Her father and aunt always came along on open evenings and other school functions and were pleased to hear of her good progress. They were, however, quite middle-aged; not old, of course, by any means, but considerably older than the parents of most of the other children, and Sally was sure that Katherine must notice the difference. She guessed that Mr Leigh would be in his late forties, and his sister maybe a few years older.
Katherine was not an outgoing child, but she seemed happy enough and got on well with the other children, especially with her best friend, Shirley, who sat next to her at the table.
There were nine tables in the large classroom, around each of which were four child-sized chairs. A class of thirty-six children – aged six to seven – was really more than enough for any teacher to cope with, but it was the norm in those post-war days, as it had been for many years before. There had been a ‘baby boom’, with more children than ever being born as a result of fathers returning home from the war, and so classes were expected to become even larger in the next few years. Unless, of course, many more schools were built by the Labour government, elected in 1945 and still holding on to power.
‘Now, boys and girls, listen carefully,’ said Miss Roberts. ‘The first thing we are going to do is write at the top of the card …’ She wrote on the blackboard, in clear printing, ‘Happy Mother’s Day’. ‘Now, pick up your pencils and copy this. Best writing, mind, because it will be going home … No, Graham, don’t turn the paper over, or the writing will be on the back, won’t it?’ There was always one, she reflected.
The children were then instructed to make up their own design of a bowl with flowers in it. In the centre of each table was a selection of gummed paper in bright colours: green, blue, red, yellow, orange, pink and purple; four pairs of scissors with rounded ends; and cardboard templates of bowl shapes, leaf shapes, and various types of flowers – daffodils, tulips and daisy shapes.
It was, in that year of 1950, the beginning of the heyday of ‘free activity’ in the classroom, when infants, for certain times in each day at least, were free to express themselves in all sorts of ways. Painting easels with jars of brightly coloured poster paints; tables with crayons and drawing paper, plasticine, jigsaws, and creative games; building bricks; a sand tray and a water trough; and a fully equipped Wendy house with a dressing-up box; these were to be found in most infant classrooms. And what chaos was left for the teacher, single-handedly, to clear away after each session! The children, of course, were supposed to do it themselves, but it was more often a case of ‘if you want a job doing, do it yourself!’
Sometimes, though, handwork had to be partially directed, and that was the case when cards – for Christmas, Easter, or other festivities – were being made. The children’s efforts would vary, helped in some instances by the intervention of the teacher, but parents would be delighted at the finished masterpieces, however messy they might turn out to be.
‘Why haven’t you got a mum, then?’ asked Timothy Fielding, one of the boys who was sitting opposite Katherine.
‘Because I haven’t, that’s why!’ she retorted.
‘Why? What’s happened to her? Has she run away and left you?’ he persisted.
‘That’s quite enough, Timothy,’ said Miss Roberts who was passing near to their table. ‘Leave Katherine alone, please.’
‘Well, that’s what my mum says when I don’t behave myself,’ retorted the irrepressible Timothy. ‘She says she’ll go away and leave me.’
‘I don’t suppose for one moment that she really means it,’ replied Miss Roberts. ‘Now, get on with what you’re supposed to be doing, and stop pestering Katherine.’ She reflected that some parents did not show a great deal of sense in some of the things they said to their children. Although it was doubtful that Timothy believed his mother either; no doubt it was an idle threat not meant to be taken seriously. Timothy Fielding could certainly be a pest; most likely he drove his mother to distraction sometimes, as he did with Sally if she didn’t sit on him hard when he became too troublesome.
‘As a matter of fact …’ Shirley Morris was saying, with a toss of her flaxen plaits as Sally moved away, ‘Kathy’s mummy died when she was a baby. Didn’t she, Kathy? Not that it’s any of your business, Timothy Fielding.’
‘Yes, she did,’ said Kathy, in quite a matter-of-fact manner. ‘But I’ve got a dad, and a very nice aunty who looks after me. Aunty Win; that’s who I’m making the card for.’
She didn’t feel particularly upset; it was certainly nothing to cry about. She had never known her mother; only sometimes, now and again, in the dim recesses of her memory, she seemed to recall a pretty lady with dark hair and a smiling face holding her in her arms. But she could not be sure whether it was a true recollection or something she was imagining. Only occasionally did she feel the lack of a mother in her life. Times such as now, when they were all making cards for Mummy, or when she was invited to tea at Shirley’s house and she realised what a difference it must make to have a mother in the home.
‘OK, then,’ said Timothy with a shrug of his shoulders, seeming for a brief moment to be a little subdued. But he soon bounced back. ‘My mum’s all right, I suppose. I’m glad she’s there, anyway; I wouldn’t want her to be dead. But she isn’t half bad-tempered sometimes, much worse than me dad. You should hear her shout!’
‘I’m not surprised, with you to put up with!’ laughed Stanley, the boy who was sitting next to him, giving him a dig in the ribs.
‘Shurrup you!’ countered Timothy, shoving him back. A scrap seemed likely to break out until Miss Roberts clapped her hands and demanded silence – or comparative silence, which was all she could hope to get from thirty-six infants – with a threat that those who couldn’t behave would have to stay in at playtime.
Peace reigned as they all settled down to creating their cards. Katherine chose blue for the bowl. She painstakingly drew round the template, then cut out the shape, licked the back of the gummed paper and stuck it to the bottom of the card. Then she cut out some yellow daffodils, red tulips and white daisies, and green leaves, and arranged them as though they were growing out of the bowl. Then she coloured in the stalks and the centres of the daisies with wax crayons. Each child had a box of these in their drawer beneath the table. Katherine’s were still in quite a good condition as she was a methodical little girl and she always returned them carefully to the container after they had been used. Timothy’s, though, were broken and several of the colours were missing.
‘Kathy, give us a lend of your green,’ he said. ‘I’ve only got this titchy bit left.’
‘That’s your own fault, then,’ Shirley told him. ‘Why should she? I know I wouldn’t.’
But Kathy uncomplainingly handed over her green crayon. She was amused to see Timothy stick his tongue out at Shirley.
‘Well, I wasn’t asking you, was I, clever clogs!’ he jeered.
Kathy quite liked Timothy really. He could be a bit of a pest, but she knew there was ‘no real badness’ in him, as her Aunty Win might say. He brightened up the day sometimes and made her laugh, recounting the jokes that his dad had told him. His shock of fairish hair stood up on end like ‘Just William’s’; in fact, he resembled her favourite fictional character in quite a few ways.
‘Ta, Kathy,’ he said. ‘I’ve gone and put too much spit on me bowl an’ all, an’ it won’t stick.’ He banged his fist on the table, but the red bowl refused to stay put. ‘Oh crikey! What shall I do?’
‘Cut another one out,’ said Kathy. ‘Miss Roberts won’t mind. I don’t suppose you’re the only one who’s made a mess of it. You have to lick it carefully, you see. Look, I’ll stick it on for you when you’ve cut it out.’
‘Gosh! Thanks, Kathy,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you one of my sherbet lemons at playtime.’
Shirley tossed her plaits and looked disdainfully at Timothy. ‘I don’t know why you bother with him,’ she said. ‘’Specially when he’s been so rude to you.’
‘He didn’t mean to be,’ said Kathy. ‘He didn’t know, you see … about my mother.’
She was pleased with the completed card and so was Miss Roberts. Her teacher told her it was very artistic and that her aunt would like it very much. Kathy wrote on the inside, ‘To Aunty Win with love from Kathy’. Then she put it away in her satchel to take home at the end of the afternoon.
Sure enough Timothy was there at playtime, true to his promise. He handed out a cone-shaped paper bag of sherbet lemons. ‘Here y’are, Kathy,’ he said.
‘Ooh, thanks!’ she said, popping a bright-yellow sweet into her mouth. ‘They’re my favourites, them and pear drops.’
‘Ta very much for helping me with my card,’ he said. ‘It looks OK now but it’s not as nice as yours. Me dad says I’m all fingers and thumbs when I try to help him, when he’s putting up a shelf, like, an’ all that.’
‘Never mind; it’s the thought that counts,’ Kathy told him, something that Aunty Win often said. ‘And your mum’ll like it, won’t she?’
‘’Spect so,’ said Timothy. ‘I’m gonna buy her a Mars bar an’ all. She likes them best.’ As an afterthought he held out the bag of sweets to Shirley who was standing at Kathy’s side, looking a little disdainful. ‘D’you want one, Shirley?’ he said.
‘No, ta,’ said Shirley, although Kathy suspected that she would like one really. She thought it was very generous of Tim to offer her one. Shirley cast him a scornful look as she skipped away.
‘Please yerself, then,’ said Timothy to her retreating back. ‘See if I care! … I’ve got a joke for you, Kathy,’ he went on. ‘It’s a good one; me dad told it me.’
‘Go on, then,’ she encouraged him.
‘What d’you get if you cross a kangaroo with a sheep?’ he asked, his grey eyes full of merriment.
Kathy frowned a little, then shook her head. ‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘What do you get?’
‘A wooly jumper!’ he cried, falling about laughing. ‘D’you get it? You get wool from a sheep, and a kangaroo—’
‘A kangaroo jumps – yes I know,’ she said. ‘You don’t need to explain. I get it …’ Although she was not sure that she did, not entirely, not the bit about crossing the animals. ‘It’s very funny,’ she told him. ‘I’ll tell it to my Aunty Win.’ Perhaps her aunt would be able to explain it.
She glanced across the playground to where Shirley was talking to another friend, Maureen, and at the same time looking a little crossly at Kathy. ‘I’d better go and see what’s up with Shirley,’ she said.
‘She doesn’t like you talking to me,’ said Timothy, ‘but I don’t care what she thinks. Ta-ra, Kathy …’ He dashed off to kick a football around with Stanley and some of his other mates.
Shirley was indignant. ‘I’ve told you before, I don’t know why you bother with him,’ she said to her friend. ‘You’d better watch out or else they’ll all be shouting out, “Kathy Leigh loves Timothy Fielding!”.’
‘Don’t be so stupid!’ retorted Kathy, feeling herself go a little pink. ‘He’s all right, though, is Tim. Anyway, we’re not going to fall out over a silly boy, are we? Here – you can have a lend of my skipping rope. I tell you what; Maureen and me can turn up, and you can be first in if you like, Shirley.’
‘All right, then,’ said Shirley, somewhat mollified. So whilst the other two girls turned the rope she jumped up and down. They all shouted in chorus, ‘Jelly on a plate, jelly on a plate, wibble wobble, wibble wobble, jelly on a plate …’ taking it in turns to be ‘in’ until the whistle was blown for the end of playtime. By the end of the afternoon Kathy and Shirley were the best of friends again.
‘My mum says you can come to tea on Monday, if you like,’ Shirley told her friend. ‘And me dad’ll see you home afterwards.’
‘Gosh, thanks!’ said Kathy. ‘I’ll ask my Aunty Win as soon as I get home.’
Chapter Two
Home for Katherine was a boarding house in the area of Blackpool known as North Shore, not too far from the sea, quite close to the north railway station, and about five minutes’ walk from the town centre.
The name of the house was Holmleigh. Her father and Aunty Win liked to describe it as a ‘private hotel’ rather than a boarding house. There was, in point of fact, very little difference between the two, excepting, perhaps, that the small hotels had names and the boarding houses didn’t. Aunty Win had told her that ‘Holmleigh’ was really just a posh way of spelling the word ‘homely’. That was what they hoped their hotel was, a home from home, and it also made quite a clever use of their surname.
Her father, Albert, and his sister, Winifred, ran the hotel between them. Kathy knew that it had been started in the beginning by her grandparents, way back in the early years of the century, which seemed to her to be ages ago. Grandma and Grandad Leigh – Alice and William – who were now well into their seventies, had retired a few years ago, at the end of the war in 1945, and now lived in a little bungalow in Bispham. That was when Albert and Winifred had taken over the responsibility of the boarding house and had given it a name.
Kathy knew that her father was a very good cook – he called himself a chef – and he did most of the cooking when there were visitors staying there. Aunty Win looked after everything else: all the office work and bookkeeping and the organisation of the domestic help. They employed waitresses and chambermaids when it was their busiest time, usually from the middle of May to the end of the ‘Illuminations’ season – commonly known as the ‘Lights’ – at the end of October. For the rest of the year they took occasional visitors, usually to oblige their ‘regulars’, and during the slack period they took the opportunity to catch up with any decorating or odd jobs that needed to be done.
When Kathy arrived home on that Friday afternoon in mid March her father was up a ladder papering the walls of one of the guest bedrooms, whilst her aunt was busy at a trestle table in the centre of the room putting paste onto the next length of paper.
‘Hello, dear,’ said her aunt when the little girl’s head appeared round the door. ‘Have you had a nice day at school?’ That was what she always asked, and as usual Kathy replied that yes, she had. She had never minded going to school, but it had been especially nice since she had been in Miss Roberts’ class.
‘Goodness, is it that time already?’ said her father. ‘I think it’s time for a cup of tea, Winnie. You go and put the kettle on, eh? Hello, Kathy love. Go and help your Aunty Win, there’s a good girl.’
Her dad was always saying that, and Kathy actually quite enjoyed helping out in the boarding house. When she was a tiny girl, before she started school, she had loved going round with her Aunty Nellie – not a real aunt, just a friend of Aunty Win – who came in once a week to ‘do’ the bedrooms. There were fifteen bedrooms on three floors, including two attic bedrooms. Kathy used to accompany her aunt with her own little dustpan and brush, and a duster, to help with the dusting and polishing. Aunty Nellie sometimes let her put a tiny amount of polish onto the surface of a dressing table, and then rub hard to make it all shiny and gleaming.
She helped Aunty Win, too, in the kitchen when she was making pies or fruit tarts. She had her own pastry cutters and rolling pin and could already make jam tarts that they were able to eat. She did not help very much, though, when her father was in charge of the kitchen; he was not quite as patient as her aunt. She realised, though, that at the moment she was only playing at helping. But Kathy also understood, with all the wisdom of her six – nearly seven – years, that this would eventually be her job of work. When the time came for her to leave school – a long time in the future – she knew that she would be expected to work in the family boarding house, or whatever they wanted to call it, just as Aunty Win and her father had taken over from her grandparents.
‘I’m coming, Aunty Win,’ she called. ‘I’m just taking my coat off, and I’ve got something to put away in my drawer. It’s a secret, you see.’
On the way home from school she had called in at the local newsagent’s shop and bought a small box of Milk Tray for Aunty Win for Mother’s Day. She had been saving up from her spending money each week until she had enough. She put the purple box and the card in her drawer underneath her knickers, vests and socks, then went down to the kitchen to join her aunt.
‘So what have you been doing at school this afternoon?’ Winifred asked her niece. ‘You don’t do much work on Friday afternoon, do you?’
In Winifred’s opinion they didn’t do much work at all in the infant classrooms of today. It all seemed to be painting or playing in the house, or messing about with sand and water, from what Katherine told her aunt. Not like it was in her day. She had been born in 1900 and when she started school at four years of age Queen Victoria had been dead for three years. Her photograph had hung in the school hall for many years, so Winifred’s parents had told her – they had both attended the same school – and then it had been replaced by one of Edward VII, her corpulent son. Winifred remembered his rather kindly face regarding them as they sang their morning hymns and recited their daily prayers.
She recalled, too, the rows of wooden desks where the children sat in formal rows – ‘Straight backs, boys and girls, no slouching’; the chalk and slates on which to write the letters of the alphabet; the map of the world on the classroom wall, with a goodly part of it coloured in red, showing the parts that belonged to the British Empire. She remembered a strict male teacher, too, with a long swishing cane; not that it was often used. The children of yesteryear knew they had to behave themselves; one look was usually enough.
Times had changed, she pondered, and not always for the best, although Kathy seemed to be getting on well since she went into that nice Miss Roberts’ class. There didn’t seem to be as much messing about, and she could now read very nicely from her book that told of the exploits of Janet and John.
‘No …’ replied Kathy, in answer to her aunt’s query. ‘Miss Roberts usually lets us do a jigsaw or read a book on Friday afternoon, while she does her register for the week. She has a lot of adding up to do, she says. But today we were making cards for—’ She suddenly stopped and put her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh dear! It was meant to be a surprise. Pretend I didn’t say that, will you, Aunty Win?’
‘Of course, dear,’ smiled Winifred. ‘I didn’t actually catch what you said anyway.’
The child had given the game away already, though, talking about hiding something in her drawer. Mother’s Day, Winifred had thought to herself. That was one of the times when she felt most sorry for the little girl, not that Kathy ever seemed too worried about occasions such as those.
Winifred poured the tea into three mugs and added milk and sugar. ‘Now, Kathy,’ she said. ‘Do you think you could manage to carry this mug upstairs to your daddy? Be careful, mind, but I’ve not filled it too full. And there’s a custard cream biscuit for him. Pop it into your gymslip pocket, then you’ve got both hands free. Off you go now.’
Winifred loved the little girl more than she could say. She had tried to make it up to her for not having a mother, and she hoped and prayed that she had succeeded. She felt that she had, to a certain extent, although she realised it could never be quite the same. She had wondered if her brother might marry again, but he had been so distressed at losing his beloved Barbara that he had never, since that time, taken any interest at all in the opposite sex. He was a taciturn sort of man who did not show his feelings. Winifred was sure that he loved his little daughter very much, but he found it difficult to tell her so or even to show her much affection. Any cuddles and hugs, or comfort when she was upset, came from her aunt or grandparents. It was only natural that she should sometimes ask questions about her mother – all her schoolfriends had mothers – and she was always told that her mother had died when she was only a baby, but she must never forget that her mummy had loved her very much.
Albert never spoke of his wife. He had settled into a comfortable little rut. He worked his socks off in the hotel. He was a first-rate cook – or chef, as he liked to call himself – and there was nothing he would not tackle when there were any jobs to be done in the off season. His only means of recreation was to go to the pub two or three evenings a week – he was a member of the darts team – and he was also an ardent supporter of Blackpool’s football team. He was there every Saturday during the winter months, in his orange and white scarf, taking his place on Spion Kop. But Winifred could not imagine him ever cheering and yelling encouragement – or even booing! – as many enthusiastic supporters did. She guessed he was as silent there as he was in other aspects of his life. Blackpool was a First Division club and boasted of their most famous player, Stanley Matthews. Albert looked forward to the day when they might – when they would, he was sure – win the FA cup. He filled in his football coupon regularly. Winifred was not sure how much he allowed himself to bet, but he had never, as yet, had a substantial win, only the odd pound or two. They had to be quiet every Saturday evening after the six o’clock news when the football results were read out and Albert checked his coupon.
Winifred was looking forward to the start of the holiday season in a few weeks’ time. It would begin slowly, with visitors coming for the Easter weekend and the following week – they were already almost fully booked for that period – but then there would be a lull for several weeks until the Whitsuntide holiday. It was then that the season would start in earnest and would, hopefully, continue until almost the end of October.
Blackpool was beginning to make its name as the foremost resort in the north, maybe in the whole, of England. The town had gained more than it had lost during the Second World War. Many of its competitors on the south and east coasts had been forced to close down for the duration of the war because of the threat of invasion or bombing. Admittedly, the curtailing of the Illuminations in the September of 1939 had affected the income of the Blackpool boarding house keepers and hoteliers. However, following on from that, many of these people were able to make up for their losses by accommodating RAF personnel who were training in the town. Over three-quarters of a million RAF recruits passed through the town during the war. There were also the child evacuees at the start of the conflict, but they did not all stay for very long; in fact, by 1940 the majority of them had returned home.
Later in the war there were American GIs stationed at the nearby bases at Weeton and Warton, and the Blackpool entertainment industry enjoyed a prosperity they had not seen since the end of the First World War.
The war had not deterred holidaymakers from visiting the resort, in spite of the wartime propaganda posters asking ‘Is Your Journey Really Necessary?’ Many families obviously thought it was still essential to take a holiday, and Blackpool was a relatively safe place in which to stay. The Whitsuntide holidays had been abandoned in 1940 by government decree, but the annual wakes holidays of the textile towns in Lancashire and Yorkshire recommenced in July and from then on Blackpool had never looked back.
The advent of rationing, rather than being a hindrance, had been quite a boon for the hotel keepers, and more especially for the boarding house landladies. They took charge of the visitors’ ration books, and this led to the change from the old system of lodging houses to that of full board. Winifred remembered only too well the old days, when visitors brought their own food, which was cooked for them by the boarding house staff. The visitors paid only for their lodgings and for services rendered, such as cooking, laundry, cleaning of shoes, and – in some lodging houses – the ‘use of the cruet’.
The system of ‘full board’ which had begun during the war years was now the norm. It consisted of cooked breakfast, midday dinner, and a ‘high tea’. In some residences, as at Holmleigh, supper was also served in the visitors’ lounge from nine o’clock in the evening.
In the previous year, 1949, the return of the Illuminations had marked a turning point from post-war austerity. The years of darkness and depression were over, exemplified by the return of the ‘Lights’. Blackpool had become the envy of many of its rivals. It was well and truly back in business, catering for a full cross section of the public, from the working classes to those who considered themselves to be the ‘elite’.
The hotel had become – almost – Winifred’s whole life, the focus of her existence and her ambition. She was proud of what they had achieved since the end of the war. They were coming to be known as one of the best of the small private hotels in Blackpool, with the same visitors returning year after year. She had never done any work outside of the boarding house. It had been taken for granted when she left school at the age of fourteen that she should work in the family business. That was in the year of 1914; the start of the Great War had coincided with the end of Winifred’s schooling.
It had been the height of the holiday season in Blackpool, but the initial disruption – when visitors trying to return home found that the trains had been commandeered for the fighting forces – proved to be of short duration. By mid August it was ‘business as usual’ in the resort. The holiday industry carried on and thrived throughout the First World War as, twenty years later, it was to do the same in the second conflict. It was an emotive issue, as to whether seaside holidays and leisure times, such as professional sport, should continue when the country was at war. The lists in the daily newspapers of deaths in action were becoming longer and more disturbing. But the ‘powers that be’ in Blackpool felt that it was good for morale that people should be encouraged to take holidays, as before. It was decided, however, that to continue with the Illuminations would be going too far, and so, despite their initial success, plans to make the Illuminations an annual event had to be cancelled, due to the outbreak of war.
And so the accommodation industry benefited, not only through the holidaymakers, but with the arrival of Belgian refugees, and then by the billeting of British troops. During the winter of 1914 to 1915 there were ten thousand servicemen billeted in the town, along with two thousand refugees.
The Leighs’ boarding house played its part in accommodating both the troops and the refugees. Winifred was fascinated and, at first, a little shy of these men who teased her good-humouredly. But as the war went on – with, regrettably, the loss of many of the soldiers they had known – she began to grow in confidence.
It was not until 1917, though, when she was seventeen years old, that she fell in love for the first – and what she believed was to be the last – time. Arthur Makepeace was a Blackpool boy; he was, in fact, almost the ‘boy next door’, living only a few doors away from the Leigh family. He was three years older than Winifred and had joined up, as soon as he was old enough, in 1915. After a few outings together, when he came home on leave, they had realised that there was a good deal more than friendship between them. They had vowed that, after the war was over, they would get married. Despite their age neither of their families had raised any objections. Many young couples were ‘plighting their troth’ in those uncertain days.
Arthur was granted leave in the early summer of 1918, then he returned to the battlefields of France. It was universally believed that the war was in its last stages and the young couple were looking forward to the time when they would be together for always.
Then, in the August of that year came the news that Winifred, deep down, had always been dreading. Arthur had been killed in one of the last offensives on the Western Front. It was his parents, of course, who had received the dreaded telegram, and they wept along with the girl who was to have become one of their family.
It was said that time was a great healer, and gradually Winifred picked up the pieces of her life and carried on with her duties in the boarding house. Like thousands of women of her age she had never married, had never even fallen in love again. She had settled down to a life of compromise. But there were compensations to be found: in her local church where she was a keen worker, and in the dramatic society – also attached to the church – where it was discovered that she was, surprisingly, quite a talented actress. And, above all, in her love for her little motherless niece.
Winifred was now fifty years of age and, by and large, she felt that life had not treated her too badly. She had missed out on marriage, though, and children of her own. And she still wondered, despite her quiet contentment with her life, what it would be like to experience the fulfilment of a happy marriage.
Chapter Three
‘That’s lovely, dear, really beautiful,’ said Winifred. She felt a tear come into her eye as Kathy proudly presented her, on Sunday morning, with the card she had made. ‘I love the flowers, such pretty colours. And this is your best writing; I can see that you’ve tried very hard.’
‘Miss Roberts said it had to be our very best, ’cause it was going home,’ said Kathy. ‘It says “Happy Mother’s Day”, and I know you’re not really my mum, but I couldn’t put “Happy Aunty’s Day”, could I? Because it isn’t. And Miss Roberts said it would be alright … And I’ve got you these as well, Aunty Win.’ She held out the small purple box she had been hiding behind her back.
‘Chocolates as well! And Milk Tray – my very favourites!’ exclaimed Winifred. She hugged the little girl and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Well, aren’t I lucky? That’s very kind of you, Kathy.’
She didn’t say, as she might have done, ‘You shouldn’t go spending your pocket money on me’, because she knew that it must have given the child pleasure to do so. She, Winifred, had always encouraged her to be generous and thoughtful for others; and she knew that Albert, despite his gruff manner, tried to teach her not to be selfish.
‘I shall enjoy these tonight while I’m listening to the Sunday Half Hour on the wireless,’ said Winifred.
‘All the class made a card,’ Kathy told her. ‘But Timothy Fielding made a bit of a mess of his. He licked his bowl too much and it wouldn’t stick on, so I helped him to make another one.’
Winifred smiled. That boy’s name often cropped up in Katherine’s conversations. She gathered that he could be rather a pest in the classroom, but she suspected that Kathy had a soft spot for him.
‘He told me a joke,’ Kathy went on, ‘but I didn’t really understand it, Aunty Win, not all of it, though I told him I’d got it.’ She told her aunt the joke about the kangaroo and the sheep and the wooly jumper, frowning a little as she did so. ‘But a kangaroo and a sheep, they couldn’t have a baby one, could they? I didn’t know what he meant about crossing them, but I laughed because Tim expected me to.’
Winifred laughed too. ‘It’s just a joke, love,’ she said. ‘Quite a funny one actually.’ Oh dear! she thought, knowing that it would be her job, when the time came, to explain to her niece about the ‘facts of life’. And already, it seemed, she was beginning to question things. ‘No; a kangaroo and a sheep wouldn’t be able to … er … mate, to get together,’ she began. ‘It would have to be two kangaroos, a male and a female, or two sheep, a ram and a ewe, to … er … to make a baby kangaroo or a baby sheep. Just like you need a father and a mother, a man and a lady, to … er … produce a baby,’ she added tentatively.
But Kathy’s mind was already off onto another tack. ‘Baby sheep are called lambs,’ she said. ‘Everybody knows that. But Miss Roberts told us that baby kangaroos are called joeys. That’s funny, isn’t it? There’s a boy in our class called Joey, and everybody laughed when she said it. Did you know that, Aunty Win, that they’re called joeys?’
‘Yes, I believe so,’ replied Winifred, relieved that the subject had been changed. ‘Come along now; let’s have our breakfast. Bacon and egg this morning because it’s Sunday. I’ll keep your dad’s warm for him and fry him an egg when he comes down. He likes a bit of a lie-in on a Sunday, when he can.’
Albert was usually up with the lark, summer and winter alike. During the summer months, of course, there were the visitors’ breakfasts to prepare for eight-thirty. And in the winter, too, he reckoned nothing to lying in bed when there were jobs to be done. On Sunday mornings, however – but only when there were no visitors in – he liked to take his ease for half an hour or so. Winifred took up the Sunday Express, if the newspaper boy had delivered it in time, and a cup of tea so that he could enjoy a little lie-in. It was something that the brother and sister had never been allowed to do as children, or even later when they had reached adulthood, and Winifred still did not think of ever allowing herself this little luxury.
Albert came downstairs just as Winifred and Kathy were finishing their breakfasts. He was washed and dressed – neither had they been encouraged to lounge around in dressing gowns – but not yet shaved, as far as Winifred could tell. She jumped up from the table to make some fresh tea and fry an egg, whilst Albert helped himself to cornflakes.
‘I had a lovely surprise this morning, Albert,’ she said, after she had placed his cooked breakfast in front of him. ‘Look what Kathy has given me.’ She showed him the chocolates. ‘And a lovely card too, see.’
‘Very nice,’ he replied. ‘So what is this in aid of? I haven’t gone and forgotten your birthday, have I?’
‘Of course not; don’t be silly,’ said Winifred. ‘You know very well it’s not till next month.’
‘No, Daddy; it’s Mother’s Day,’ said Kathy. ‘Look, it says so on the card. We made them at school, and because I haven’t got a mum, Miss Roberts said I should make one for Aunty Win.’
Albert’s face took on a morose look. He nodded soberly. ‘Oh, well then … Yes, I see. But it’s no more than you deserve, our Winnie.’ Then, suddenly, he smiled at his little daughter and his face looked altogether different. His blue eyes, still as bright as they had been when he was a lad, glowed with a warmth that wasn’t often to be seen there. Really, he was quite a good-looking fellow when he smiled, Winifred thought to herself. It was a pity he didn’t do it more often.
‘That was a very nice thought, Kathy love,’ he said. ‘Yes, your Aunty Win has been very good to you, and you must never forget it.’
‘I won’t, Daddy,’ replied the little girl.
‘Now, when you’ve finished, Kathy, you’d better go and get ready,’ her aunt told her.
‘Why? Are you two off somewhere, then?’ asked Albert.
‘To church,’ Winifred told him, although he must have known very well where they were going. ‘It’s a special service today, with it being Mothering Sunday.’
‘Oh, I see,’ he replied, looking morose again.
‘I’ll wash up before we go,’ Winifred told him, ‘and I’ll put the meat in the oven – I’ve got a shoulder of lamb for today – so you can see to it for me, if you will, please?’
‘Don’t I always?’ he replied a little gruffly. ‘I’ll do the veg an’ all, and knock up a pudding, no trouble. You go off and enjoy yourselves.’
There was a hint of sarcasm in his words, as Winifred knew very well. Albert didn’t go to church anymore, so she knew it was no use asking him, not even for special occasions now. He had never entered a church since he had lost Barbara. He didn’t understand, he said, how God could have been so cruel to him; in fact, he professed not to believe in him anymore.
Albert and Winifred had been brought up to go to Sunday school and church, as was the norm in those early days of the century. And the tradition was still continuing now, in the early 1950s, Winifred was pleased to see, though not to such a large extent. Winifred and Albert had both been confirmed at their local parish church, Albert and Barbara had been married there and Katherine christened. She, Winifred, still attended the morning service each Sunday, when there were no visitors in the hotel. During the holiday season, of course, it was more difficult and she was not able to attend regularly, but she felt sure that God would understand.
Kathy did not often go on a Sunday morning – she attended Sunday school, which was held for an hour in the afternoon – but today was a special occasion and she was accompanying her aunt there for the Mothering Sunday service. Winifred put on her best coat, made of fine tweed in a moss-green colour, with a fitted bodice and a shawl collar. It was mid-calf length, the style owing a lot to the ‘New Look’ brought in by Christian Dior a few years previously. She had bought it two years ago at Sally Mae’s dress shop. With the matching neat little turban hat and her black patent leather court shoes – the heels a little higher than she normally wore – she felt quite pleased with her appearance. She liked to look nice, although she didn’t overdo it; vanity was one of the seven deadly sins, wasn’t it? But the weekly visit to church was one occasion on which she dressed up a little more than usual.
‘You look nice, Aunty Win,’ Kathy told her, and she felt pleased at the compliment.
‘Thank you, dear,’ she said. ‘We must look our best to go to church, mustn’t we?’ There was no one else to dress up for, she pondered, a little wryly, so she might as well dress up for God; although she was sure he would not care one way or the other. Winifred had kept her slim figure and so the new fitted fashions suited her very well.
‘And I like your little hat,’ Kathy told her. It was a new one, from the stall in Abingdon Street Market. ‘The green matches your eyes, Aunty Win.’
What an observant child, she thought. ‘Yes, I suppose it does,’ she agreed, although she considered her eyes to be more hazel than green.
Just a little of her mid-brown hair showed below her close-fitting hat. She wore her hair in a short style which was easy to manage, as she had done for years. She had not, as yet, found any grey hairs, which she thought was quite surprising. Just the slightest dusting of face powder and a smear of coral-pink lipstick added the final touch to her Sunday appearance.
‘And you look very smart too,’ Winifred told her niece.
Kathy’s coat was quite a new one, bought just before Christmas from the Co-op Emporium on Coronation Street. Both Winifred and her mother were keen supporters of the local ‘Co-ops’. The ‘divi’ – the dividend awarded to each shopper on every purchase – came in very useful when it was collected each year, just before Christmas. The little girl had gone with her aunt to choose the coat. It was cherry red with a little black velvet collar, and complemented her dark hair and brown eyes. Her aunt had knitted her Fair Isle beret, fawn, with a pattern of red, green and black. A complicated knitting pattern, but Winifred had been determined to master it. Those woollen hats were quite the fashion amongst the younger girls and she liked Kathy to have whatever her school friends had. She had been delighted when she had received it on Christmas morning as an extra little present. Her black fur-backed gloves had been a Christmas present too, and her patent leather ankle-strap shoes that she wore with white knee socks.
‘Now, are we ready? You’ve got a clean hanky in your coat pocket? Righty-ho then, let’s go. We don’t want to be late … Bye then, Albert,’ said Winifred. ‘We’re going now.’
‘Bye-bye, Daddy,’ echoed Kathy.
Albert was ensconced in his favourite fireside chair in the family living room at the back of the hotel. He was puffing away at his pipe, engrossed in the sports pages, and he grunted from behind the newspaper. ‘Hmm … See you later, then. Have a nice time …’
It was only five minutes’ walk to the parish church, which had been built in the early years of Victoria’s reign; greyish-yellow sandstone with a square tower and a clock which now stood at twenty minutes past ten. The organ was playing quietly as they entered and took their places in a pew a few rows from the front. Kathy’s friend, Shirley, was in a pew on the opposite side of the aisle with her mother, but not her father, Kathy noticed. The two friends grinned and waved to one another.
At ten-thirty precisely the organist struck up with the opening bars of the first hymn, and the choir processed from the little room called the vestry to the back of the church, and then down the central aisle to the choir stalls. They were led by a man carrying a sort of pole – it was called a staff, said Aunty Win, and he was the churchwarden – and the vicar in his white gown and a black stole edged with green. In the choir were men, women, and boys and girls as well. The boys and girls were a few years older than Kathy. She recognised some of them from the junior school, especially Graham, Shirley’s brother, who was ten years old and had joined the choir quite recently. He did not even glance in his sister’s direction as they passed by, but kept his eyes glued to the hymn book. No doubt they had been warned not to wave or grin. Kathy reflected that he probably felt a bit of a fool with that ruffle round his neck.
The men and the boys all wore white gowns – called surplices – but it was just the boys who had the ruffled collars. The ladies and the girls wore blue sort of cloak things, and the grown-up ladies had squarish hats on their heads. Kathy liked singing and she hoped that she might be able to join the choir when she was old enough. ‘Awake, my soul, and with the sun, Thy daily stage of dutyrun …’ sang the choir and the congregation. Kathy tried to join in as well as she could. She could read quite well now and she soon picked up the tune, although she didn’t understand all the words. ‘Shake off dull sloth and joyful rise, To pay thy morning sacrifice.’ What was dull sloth, she wondered? She must remember to ask Aunty Win afterwards.
It was quite a short service, really, although there seemed to be a lot of standing up and sitting down again. Prayers, with the choir singing the amens; a reading from the Bible about Jesus and the little children; another hymn; then some more prayers … Kathy’s thoughts began to wander a little. She was fascinated by the windows of coloured glass; stained glass, Aunty Win had told her. The morning sunlight was shining through the one nearest to her, making little pools of red, blue, green and yellow on the stone floor. The picture on the window was of Jesus standing up in a boat, talking to some of his disciples: Peter, James and John, she guessed – they were the fishermen. And behind him the Sea of Galilee was as blue as blue could be …
Aunty Win nudged her as they all stood up for the next hymn. It was ‘Loving Shepherd of Thy Sheep’, and Kathy was able to sing it all as they had learnt that one at school. Then the vicar gave a little talk about families and the love that was to be found there. But he didn’t just talk about mothers; he mentioned fathers, sisters and brothers, and aunts and uncles as well. Kathy was glad about that, especially the bit about aunties.
Then the children were invited to go to the front of the church where ladies were handing out bunches of daffodils from big baskets. The children took them and gave them to all the ladies in the congregation, not just the mothers but the aunties and grandmas as well, and some ladies who might not even have been married. They all received a bunch of bright-yellow daffodils. ‘Here, Lord, we offer thee all that is fairest, Flowers in their freshness from garden and field …’ they all sang, and the organist carried on playing until all the flowers had been presented.
‘What a lovely idea,’ said Aunty Win, and Kathy thought she could see a tear in the corner of her eye, although she looked very happy.
Shirley dashed across at the end of the service. ‘Hello, Kathy … Have you asked your aunty if you can come for tea tomorrow?’
‘Yes, she has asked me,’ said Aunty Win, ‘and of course she can go … It’s very kind of you,’ she said to Mrs Morris, Shirley’s mother. ‘Thank you very much.’
‘It’s no trouble,’ said Mrs Morris. ‘We love having Kathy, and my husband will bring her home afterwards.’
They said goodbye and Kathy and her aunt walked home, leaving Mrs Morris and Shirley to wait for Graham.
‘It’s going to be a busy week, Kathy,’ Aunty Win told her. ‘You’re out for tea tomorrow; it’s Brownies on Tuesday; and on Wednesday the drama group is meeting to cast the new play.’
‘Are you going to have a big part, Aunty Win?’ asked Kathy. She had gone to see the last one with her daddy. Aunty Win had taken the part of the mother and had had a lot of words to remember. Kathy hadn’t understood it all, but she knew that her aunt had done it very well.
‘I’m not sure,’ smiled her aunt. ‘I’ll just have to wait and see. There are a lot more ladies as well as me.’
‘But they’re not as good,’ said Kathy, loyally.
Aunty Win laughed. ‘And then on Thursday it’s your open evening at school, isn’t it, dear? Your dad and I will be going to see Miss Roberts and find out how you’re getting on.’
‘Yes, we’ve been doing all sorts of special things to make a nice display on the walls,’ said Kathy.
‘Yes, I shall look forward to seeing that. All in all, a very busy week ahead,’ said Aunty Win.
Chapter Four
Kathy loved going to tea at Shirley’s home. It was a small house, nowhere near as big as the hotel where she lived. It was only a few minutes’ walk from Holmleigh in a street of what Shirley told her were called semi-detached houses; that meant that their house was joined on to the one next door.
There was a small garden at the front with a tiny rectangle of grass and flowers growing round it. The garden at the back was not much bigger, but Kathy thought it must be lovely to have a garden at all. At Holmleigh there was just a paved area at the front and a form where the visitors could sit. And at the back it was just a yard with a coal shed, a wash house and an outside lavatory. But they did have three toilets inside the house as well, which were necessary for the visitors.
There was a small bathroom upstairs at Shirley’s, and three bedrooms. One of them was very tiny and that was where Shirley’s brother, Graham, slept. Shirley said he grumbled because she had a bigger bedroom, but that was because she had to share with her little sister, Brenda, who was three years old. And Mr and Mrs Morris slept in the other one.
Kathy had slept in lots of different bedrooms at her home, depending on whether or not there were visitors staying there. During the winter she had quite a nice-sized bedroom on the first landing, but she liked it best in the summer when she sometimes slept in one of the attic bedrooms. The ceiling sloped right down to the floor at the front and you had to kneel down to look out of the window. It was a lovely view, though, right across everybody else’s rooftops. She could see Blackpool Tower, and the tiniest glimpse of the sea, sparkling blue if the sun was shining or a dingy grey if it wasn’t.
They had a bathroom now at Holmleigh, but it had only been built last year, onto the kitchen at the back of the house. It was just for the use of the family, but there were washbasins in all the visitors’ bedrooms. Aunty Win had told her that those had only been put in a few years ago. Until then the visitors had used big bowls and jugs that her aunt had filled with hot water every morning. There was still a bowl and jug in the attic room that Kathy used in the summer, very pretty ones with pink roses all over. And there was a chamber pot to match as well that went under the bed. Aunty Win called it a ‘gazunder’. It was just there for emergencies because there was no toilet up in the attic.
Kathy remembered that until last year, when the bathroom was put in, she used to have her weekly bath – on a Friday night – in a huge zinc bath in front of the fire. The rest of the time the bath had hung on a hook in the wash house. Kathy supposed that her dad and her aunt had used it too, perhaps, on different nights. She still had her bath on a Friday night. The new bath was gleaming white and shiny, but the bathroom was sometimes cold, and she missed the comfort of the fire and the big fluffy bath towel warming on the fireguard.
Shirley’s mum made the two girls a drink of orange juice when they arrived home from school on that Monday afternoon, then they played with Shirley’s doll’s house, which stood in a corner of the living room. They liked rearranging the furniture and putting the tiny dolls on chairs so that they could have a meal. Kathy had a doll’s house too. It had been her big Christmas present a few months ago. But this one of Shirley’s was a bit different, a more old-fashioned sort of house; Shirley’s mum said it was an Edwardian house, whatever that was. It was actually a bit bigger than Kathy’s, but not nearly as posh; in fact it was a little bit shabby but Kathy wouldn’t dream of saying so. She guessed it might have belonged to Shirley’s mum before it was given to Shirley.
‘I’ve called the girl Janet and the boy John, like those children in the reading books,’ said Shirley.
‘That’s nice,’ said Kathy. She didn’t tell Shirley that she had christened her doll’s house children Tim, after her friend, and Tina, because it sounded good with Tim. Shirley would only laugh and tease her about Timothy Fielding and say he was her boyfriend.
‘They’ve had their tea now. Let’s put them to bed,’ said Shirley, rather bossily. ‘Look, they’ve got a bedroom each, ’cause there’s a lot of bedrooms upstairs. Mummy says they used to have a lot of children in Edwardian times, and that’s when this house was made.’
Shirley liked to show off sometimes about all the things she knew. She was, actually, one of the cleverest girls in the class and usually came top in the spelling tests, and mental arithmetic – that was when you had to work out sums in your head. Shirley was in the top reading group too, and she, Kathy, was in the second one. Shirley was a bit of a ‘clever clogs’ – that was what Tim called her – but she was still Kathy’s best friend for all that.
