Autumn Alley

by Lena Kennedy

Genres: Historical Fiction; Sagas; Fall & winter reads

Synopsis

Autumn Alley: where the East End's most fascinating call their home . . . Here you'll find Maud, the formidable Irish-American suffragette; sulky Patricia, whose unhappy childhood leads her to a dangerous love affair; vivacious, flame-haired Colleen; Mary, who struggles alongside her wayward husband to bring up children - and Arfer, whose quick mind lifts him out of the world of poverty in London's East End. ************* What readers are saying about AUTUMN ALLEY 'Wow!!' - 5 STARS 'Couldn't put it down' - 5 STARS 'Such a skilled storyteller' - 5 STARS 'The story captivated me' - 5 STARS 'I enjoyed it so much' - 5 STARS

Release date: April 25, 2013

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 394

Sample

Autumn Alley

It was 1894, the age of gaslights and horse-drawn buses, large flowery hats and trailing skirts. The country was witnessing the start of many exciting new enterprises. Some of them were great engineering projects, like the new tunnel that was to pass under the River Thames at Black Wall Point.

Once work had begun on this tremendous task it attracted hordes of immigrants from the poorer countries, and particularly Ireland. Here was work, highly dangerous but well paid; it would provide cash to send home to hungry families in Ireland, so many of which had been evicted from their small farms by the land-grabbing gentry. They came in droves. Some were exiled with a price on their heads, and some were just honest young men seeking a better living, but all were making for the East End of London to work on the new tunnel.

One Saturday night two such Irishmen sat side by side on the spray-washed deck of the cargo ship S.S. St Bridget as it battled with the huge waves of the Irish Sea. Both were twenty years old and they were cousins by birth. One was big and husky with a mop of red hair; the other, small, dark and thin, with very Irish blue eyes. The former was Timothy Murphy, and the latter, Daneal Fitzpatrick – known to all as Dandy Fitz. They had grown up together, from village school to farm, but now they had left their native land and sailed the ocean in search of work and success.

‘Be Jasas, pull yourself together, man,’ protested Dandy to Tim, who moaned and groaned beside him. Dandy’s voice was a deep, rolling brogue.

‘Oh, ’tis hell,’ cried Tim, ‘Every time she heaves the whole of me stomach goes wid her.’

‘Didn’t I tell you to stick to the hard stuff, not to keep on swilling all that cold beer?’ Dandy admonished.

‘By God, Dandy, you’ve the innards of an old donkey,’ groaned Tim.

When Tim and his cousin arrived in Liverpool they began the long trek to London, walking every step of the way, sleeping by the roadside to eke out the little money they possessed. Eventually they arrived, footsore, weary and broke.

Obtaining a job on the new tunnel was easy enough but holding it down on empty bellies was a harder task. All day, every day, they were up to their knees in wet clay, and each night they slept in the dosshouse run by the Salvation Army – men packed into a room on straw pallets on the floor, riddled with lice and bugs. They used their boots as pillows in case they should be pinched during the night. Drunken bullies were anxious to pick fights with these green young men. So many, many times that first week they longed for the bright peat fires and the hot potato cakes back home across the Irish Sea. Then Friday came and in their blistered palms were placed two golden sovereigns – almost a fortune, never had either one earned so much money in a week. They never forgot the warm feeling after that first visit to the coffee shop with its high-backed seats and its scrubbed wood tables, hot mutton stew and dumplings served by a roguish looking blonde.

‘This is real living, Dandy, me boy,’ exclaimed Tim, loosening the belt on his green corduroys.

‘Indeed, ’tis right ye are,’ replied Dandy mopping his lips carefully with a red spotted handkerchief, his bright blue eyes shining with satisfaction and pleasure.

‘Yes, ’twas foine,’ declared Tim. ‘Tastes almost like me old mother’s stew back home. Well now, ’tis toime for a few pints of porter, then I am away to find some new lodgings. Those darn bugs nearly ate me alive last night.’

‘Aye,’ agreed Dandy, ‘’tis no rest up there with those devils roaring and fighting all night.’ Then shyly he asked: ‘If you get a grand place will you bring Mary over?’ When Dandy thought of Tim’s lovely young wife Mary his heart always missed a beat.

‘Yes,’ said Tim, ‘I’ll bring her over, and the child, as soon as we get a decent place.’

‘It will be nice to settle here where there is good money to be made,’ said Dandy.

As they were leaving the coffee shop, the blonde proprietress, whose name was Rosie, counted out their change with her rough, red, work-soiled hands. A lovely smile was on her mouth showing white teeth and it lit up her merry brown eyes. It was a striking contrast to the pile of brassy blonde hair caught up in a white fish net snood.

‘’Ow was it?’ she enquired, with the flat intonation of a Cockney born within the sound of Bow bells.

Dandy remained silent – he was always awkward with women. But Tim, so polite and so good to look at, replied in his soft brogue: ‘It was a foine good hot meal, madam, and very nicely cooked.’

Rosie’s eyes twinkled, her teeth flashed another winning smile. ‘Get away wiv yer old blarney, but for that I’ll take a tanner orf the bill. Looking for lodgings, ain’t yer?’

‘Yes,’ replied Tim, ‘but I have in mind getting a house and bringing my wife over.’

‘Well,’ said Rosie, busily pouring tea for the next customer, ‘there’s a room upstairs you can have for a week. It belongs to a paddy that’s gone home to bury his ma, but you’re welcome to it.’

‘’Twill be better than the old dosshouse,’ urged Dandy.

Tim hesitated. His mind was set on getting a house for Mary.

Rosie’s eyes ran over Tim’s rippling muscles and red hair. ‘Wait a bit and I’ll take you up and show it to you,’ she suggested.

Rosie was as changeable as the wind in her love life. In business she was an astute hard-working Cockney, but in bed she was weak and very willing. Often she would be seen red-eyed and weeping as she filled the big mugs with tea, her tears falling for that last Irish laddie who had just left for home. But the next day she would be bright and smiling again, ready to welcome her new man. At the moment her mind was focused on the red head and strong arms of Tim.

She escorted them up the rickety stairs and showed them the narrow uncomfortable looking bed. ‘Don’t know if it’s big enough for both of you,’ she remarked, rolling her eyes roguishly. ‘Got a big double bed meself, next door.’

‘’Tis foine,’ said Tim, ‘we’ll manage nicely.’ With a provocative swing of her hips, Rosie went downstairs again.

That night Dandy slept tight, dreaming of himself with Tim’s Mary high up on another planet with God and all his holy angels. But Tim remained on a more earthly plane, for when Rosie tweaked his big toe he left the little bed to share with her fat comfortable shape next door, and Dandy did not even notice the extra draught on his back.

‘Me Gran’s got a lot of property around here,’ Rosie informed Tim a few days later. ‘I’ll see if I can get a house for you and Mary.’ She grinned. ‘After all, Patsy boy, you did earn it.’

On Friday she handed him a huge key. ‘Here ye are, Tim. It’s down the road in a little alley. It’s five bob a week and don’t let ’er put up the rent.’

Tim took the key, smiling his thanks to Rosie. She winked her eye. ‘I’ll be seeing you, then. Come in for dinner some time.’

Dandy was overjoyed and praised all the saints in heaven for this stroke of luck. There was a certain twinkle in his cousin’s eye as he thought how little the heavenly saints had had to do with this transaction. With their few possessions in a canvas bag, they set off down the road to find their new residence.

Autumn Alley was at the end of a long winding lane that ran beside the Regent’s Canal – or the Cut, as it was called for some unknown reason. It was no different from the hundreds of other alleys in the maze that was London before the First World War. It was a blind alley, its rear end blocked by the canal. Two round concrete posts were planted at the entrance to the alley. Their purpose was somewhat obscure; perhaps they were for hitching horses or for layabouts to lean on, no one ever found out.

There were six dwellings: three one side and three the other. The small windows stared out like sightless eyes at the cobbled stones of the street. Each front door had a round iron ring with a griffin’s head on it for a knocker.

Tim and Dandy stood at the entrance to the alley hesitating, very impressed by its neat orderliness. Directly on the corner was Rosie’s gran’s shop. It was an ordinary house but the front room window displayed fly-blown tins of toffee and several lop-sided packets of merchandise. All over and around the window were chalk-written signs: ‘Firewood sold here’; ‘lemonade sold here’; ‘bread and potatoes very cheap.’ It seemed that Rosie’s gran, who was known as old Sal, catered for all and sundry in her front parlour-cum-shop, and maintained a thriving business.

As the two men stood looking, a voice called from the dim depths of the shop.

‘Hi! there.’ It was a dry cracked voice but very loud.

Peering into the gloom they could just see old Sal sitting at the homemade counter which was just a couple of boards tacked together with a kind of flap to enter.

‘Come in ’ere,’ ordered old Sal. They went in at her invitation, through the small low doorway that almost scalped Tim. Old Sal sat on a stool behind the counter, so obese that for her to leave the premises would have been an almost impossible feat. Tim stared at the face that in its prime might have been like Rosie’s but was now wreathed in fat. Four chins hung below it, and wispy locks of hair stuck out around it, beneath a black woollen cap that Sal wore pulled well down over her ears. Her eyes shone out like black boot buttons. All about her the shelves were packed tight with a muddled array of merchandise – tins, bottles and packets. For many years old Sal had sat in this same spot with her beady eyes fixed on the wooden drawer in the counter that held the takings. And always there was the big blue jug beside her, full of beer.

‘Come in ’ere,’ she croaked. ‘Let’s take a good look at yer.’ She pulled Tim forward with the curved handle of the walking stick that she occasionally used to assist her ungainly shape to rise. ‘Micks, ain’t yer?’ She screwed up her face as she scrutinized them. ‘Renting No. 1 opposite. Don’t know as I like Irish, they’re trouble. Bring the bobbies down here Saturday nights with their fighting and arguing.’

Tim raised his cap politely.

‘’Tis a pleasure to meet you, madam,’ his soft Irish brogue rolled on, ‘and you’re as lovely as your granddaughter Rose.’

Old Sal smirked. ‘Bit of a ladies’ man, ain’t yer?’ she cackled. ‘Well, give me ten bob a week in advance, and you can sleep with whoever you bloody well please.’

Tim’s white teeth showed in a cheeky grin as his eyes rested on the blue jug. ‘Shall I fill the jug for you, gran?’ he asked as he handed her the ten bob.

Quickly old Sal grabbed the money and pushed it well down into the canvas pocket she wore about her waist.

‘Boy after me own heart,’ she chuckled. ‘Here’s two bob. Git me jug filled and have one on me. Quart of black beer, that’s me poison.’

Tim carried the blue jug across the main road to the local, the Railway Arms, which stood in the shadow of a big arch formed by the iron bridge that carried the new railway north. The huge steam trains roared overhead day and night shaking the little pub like earth tremors.

‘It’s not such a bad little alley,’ remarked Dandy to Tim as they waited for the blue jug to be filled and they drank a pint of porter each.

‘Come on, me boy, let’s go see our new house,’ said Tim, finishing his beer.

They returned the jug full of foaming liquid to old Sal.

‘Don’t suppose you got any furniture,’ she remarked. ‘There’s an old bed out in the yard. Bugs have left it by now – it’s been there all through the winter.’ She had taken a fancy to Tim, that was definite.

‘That’s most kind of you, madam,’ said Tim as they left. Once outside they youthfully gave way to their mirth.

‘Well now, if that’s not the funniest old gal I ever did see,’ announced Dandy.

‘By God, Dandy, you’re not joking,’ cried Tim, holding his sides and shaking with laughter.

They crossed the cobbles and put the key in the door of No. 1 Autumn Alley.

‘Well, if it ain’t me old friend the devil,’ jested Tim, giving the griffin’s head a friendly pat.

‘Hush now,’ whispered his superstitious cousin as he turned the key in the lock. Their heavy boots sent sounds echoing through the house as they trod the bare boards in the narrow passage.

‘Smells a bit,’ remarked the fastidious Dandy wrinkling his nose. The odour of stagnant water came up from the canal and pervaded all the houses in the alley.

‘’Tis a foine big front room,’ said Tim as he peeped in. ‘Holy Mary! Look at all this!’

In the corner of the room there were empty bottles by the dozen – beer bottles, wine bottles, medicine bottles, jam jars and pickle jars. There were also bundles of old newspapers and a terrible smell of tom cats.

‘Someone’s in the collecting business,’ muttered Dandy. ‘Get a farthing for jars and a penny on bottles. I wonder who it is?’

‘Whoever it is is moving out right now,’ declared Tim, taking off his coat. ‘This house is mine.’

Between them they cleared out all the rubbish and put it in the back yard. Worried little faces peered over the back yard wall at them. Suddenly a tousled head popped up and a squeaky voice asked: ‘Can we have our bottles back, mister?’

Tim’s long lean body bent over the low wall that divided the houses. Crouched down behind it were four young boys, pale-faced and ragged.

‘Oh, so you’re the businessmen then.’ He held out a big hand to them. ‘Come on, hop over.’

‘No, we can’t,’ whispered the eldest. ‘We don’t want our farver to see us.’

Tim’s blue eyes twinkled.

‘Well now,’ he said, ‘we’ll have to be a bit careful then, won’t we.’ Four heads nodded in agreement. ‘I’d better have your names,’ said Tim with mock seriousness, ‘seeing that we’re going into business.’

‘That’s John, he’s George, this is Billy and I’m Arfer,’ piped up the shrill voiced youngest.

Tim carefully placed a sixpence on the wall.

‘Here’s a bit to be going on with, and tonight when it gets dark you can come in and shift this lot. And mum’s the word.’ He put a finger to his lips and four pairs of youthful eyes gazed up at him in dumb gratitude.

While Tim had been negotiating with the boys next door, Dandy had been busy cleaning the room and lighting a fire in the rusty old grate. When Tim returned they carried the bed over from old Sal’s back yard, wading knee deep through rubbish to find it.

‘Don’t throw much away, these Cockneys,’ muttered Dandy. ‘Hope the bugs aren’t still in it,’ he added nervously.

The exuberant Tim only laughed. ‘Don’t be silly, man, them red devils only live where it’s warm. A drop of the old turps and she’ll be as clean as a whistle.’

Dandy looked as if he hoped it was true as they struggled to put the old mattress on the bed. Its four brass knobs were green with neglect.

Eventually they had it in position. ‘It’s not so bad,’ said Tim contentedly as they lay down on it, covered by their coats, for their first night in Autumn Alley.

They rose at five the next morning to walk the mile down the road to their work on the tunnel. Tim strode along whistling, his shirt open at the neck and his red hair waving in the breeze. Dandy walked more slowly, coughing slightly, for the smell and the damp of the alley had upset him, and he longed for the green meadows of the Emerald Isle. Tim gave him a terrific thump on the back. ‘Buck up, boy. I’ll send for Mary next week. She’ll look after us now we got a foine house.’

 

A month had passed and No. 1 Autumn Alley had received a new coat of paint inside and out. It was now a lovely battleship grey – the paint, unknown to them, had been acquired from the naval dockyard and their next-door neighbour, Bill Welton, had obligingly let them have it very cheap. His little sons had also been very helpful, offering to fetch newspapers or bottles of beer. But on this bright Saturday morning with all decorating complete and the bare necessities obtained, they were off to meet Mary. The train was due to arrive at St Pancras Station at ten o’clock.

Tim and Dandy stood together leaning on the parapet of the long iron bridge that spanned the brand new station.

‘’Tis like a palace,’ remarked Tim, staring up at the immense glass-domed roof and the network of iron girders. It was the first time they had ever been in a mainline railway station.

‘It’s a clever man that thought of all this,’ agreed Dandy. ‘That’s what I’d like to do, build a bridge, something indestructible.’

The train from Liverpool came puffing in and stopped with a shuddering crash at the buffers. Soon Mary’s tall slim figure was stepping off the train. She was quite an imposing sight, despite the confused scared expression in those lovely green eyes. Much careful planning had gone into the completion of her travelling attire. Her nimble fingers had spent many hours sewing in dim lamplight to make the navy serge dress she wore. Dainty hands had fashioned the lace jabot at the neck, and the smart straw boater, which had been left behind by a visiting American cousin, was now retrimmed and decorated with a scarlet rose.

It was the hat that Tim spotted first as he tore down the platform. Holding her little son by the hand and her straw travelling basket in the other, Mary stood looking anxiously about her in the milling crowd.

‘Mary! Mary, me darling!’

They fell into each other’s arms and stood in a silent embrace. The big knobbly pin that secured the hat fell out and her hair came loose as the boater rolled along the platform. It was retrieved by Dandy who then stood in embarrassed silence holding little Timmo by the hand. But Mary did not care. She walked along with her Tim holding his arm, her dark hair hanging free. Behind them trailed Dandy with the little boy as they all made their way home to Autumn Alley.

Neighbours

To the demure country-bred Mary, her next-door neighbours were a bit of a shock. Bill Welton often paraded up and down the alley. He was short, thick-set and very surly. With his hands clasped behind his back and a measured gait, he looked like a bobby patrolling his beat. Bill, however, had no desire to ape the cops – they were his deadly enemies. He thought himself a chap to be reckoned with and he ruled his family with a rod of iron; when provoked he was extremely violent. Lil Welton, his wife, had been only seventeen when she married this tough-necked man and after twelve years of poverty and four sons she had plenty of regrets. In the evenings she worked in the local bar to keep the home fires burning. Bill found it very difficult to hold down a regular job and, being a compulsive gambler, the bookie or the pub got what little he did earn. As his boys grew older they had begun to hate him, and Lil used to long for the time when he would disappear for a while and leave them all in peace.

Living next door to them, with only thin plaster walls to keep out the sound, was no joke. Mary used to wonder what on earth they all found to quarrel about. There was always someone getting a beating, Lil screaming insults or Bill returning them with blows.

On top of all this, a dreadful smell drifted out of their front door and travelled up the alley. It was quite a while before Mary discovered the source of it.

The mystery was solved one day when Lil invited Mary to join her for a cuppa. On entering the dimly lit passage way she almost turned and ran out again, for confronting her was a line of glassy staring eyes. To the simple Irish girl they looked like a line of supernatural beings.

‘It’s only the ole man’s ’addicks,’ the fair, faded Lil reassured her as she led her past them. ‘They don’t ’alf stink, don’t they?’ she remarked pleasantly.

Bill Welton loved fish. In fact, he believed firmly in its ability to keep him fit and virile. He would bring home fresh haddocks from Billingsgate and smoke them over a wood fire in the back yard and then hang them all along the narrow passage to dry. So when the front door was open the fishy smell almost knocked flat anyone passing. His boys would yell ‘fish face’ at him as he rolled home drunk, and they would dive over the canal wall to hide.

In the Weltons’ poor and bare back kitchen Mary drank the first of many cuppas made for her by Lil, and surveyed her new friend whose small square hands laid out the two best cups and saucers – the only survivors from a wedding gift. Lil’s dung-coloured hair was drawn back in a bun with one strand that always escaped and dangled against her faded cheek. She had probably been quite a good looker years ago, thought Mary, but as Lil herself explained, ‘Life with my Bill takes it out of yer a bit.’

Mary admired her straight features and her wide smile, though her teeth were yellow with decay. She was a little taken aback to see Lil drink her tea from the saucer with loud slurping noises, but she warmed to her happy-go-lucky approach to life.

Having seen Lil that morning in a shapeless, grubby blouse and skirt, Mary was amazed to see her in the evening on her way to work, arrayed in a fairly smart black dress, with a velvet choker around her neck from which a brilliant locket dangled. Her hair was piled high with two frizzy side burns, she wore large imitation pearl earrings and her lips and cheeks were reddened with carmine.

‘I just could not believe my eyes,’ Mary commented to Tim. ‘She looked a different person.’

‘It’s the old paint pot what does it,’ jested Tim. ‘Don’t let me catch you at it. I like my woman natural.’

Apart from little setbacks, Mary’s existence was bright and colourful down in Autumn Alley. It was very far from the peace and beauty of her homeland but Mary loved it. Each day she took Timmo down to the nearby Roman Road market and sometimes she brought back little knicknacks to brighten up her home. Then she would go next door for a chat and a cuppa with Lil after which she would return to her own home to cook for the two men in the evening.

Mary’s sweet personality radiated happiness and it began to spread through the alley. There were just three houses on the Irish family’s side: Mary’s on the end, Lil next door, and right at the end near to the canal lived an old man still brooding over the wife he had lost a year ago. He would sit outside, cat on his lap, his bald pate shining. He had bushy grey eyebrows and was known as old Charlie. He had time for no one except his old tom cat.

On fine days Lil would sit on the narrow window ledge of the front room window, arms akimbo, and hold long conversations with Mary who would stand in her front doorway with little Timmo on the step beside her. The younger Welton boys played down by the canal wall.

‘Who lives opposite?’ Mary asked Lil one afternoon as they watched the children play. The house directly facing hers, the only one with a brass knocker, interested her. She seldom saw the front door open but occasionally she caught a glimpse of the pale face of a young girl, peeping nervously out of the window.

‘No. 5, yer mean?’ asked Lil, sucking her teeth. ‘Them, they’re all potty over there,’ she declared. ‘Only come out on Sundays.’

Mary’s soft lips trembled into a smile at Lil’s forthright Cockney manner.

‘Do you mean they have all gone mad?’ she asked.

‘No,’ said Lil, ‘just barmy, religious barmy. He stands down the Roman Road market jawing about Jesus. Our boys pelt him with spuds.’

‘He’s a preacher, is that what you mean, Lil?’

‘Don’t know what he is,’ snorted Lil, ‘but to my mind he’s a funny old cuss and on Sundays the whole bloomin’ lot of them spend all day up at the Mission Hall.’

‘Everyone has their own creed, that doesn’t make them mad,’ countered Mary. ‘But who is the little girl?’

‘Ellen. Proper little skivvy, she is. Does all the housework. There’s two boys as well, a bit older than my John.’ Lil began to cackle very loudly. ‘Wait till yer sees them,’ she bawled. ‘Proper bloomin’ freaks, Peter and Paul, both as ugly as sin and like two peas in a pod.’

Mary stared across the road hoping for another sight of that little girl. Lil was off on a running commentary on the rest of the residents.

‘No. 4, that’s Becky and Sam Lewis. Jews they is. Don’t ’alf fancy ’erself. Got a fur coat and goes up west in a cab.’ This last remark was uttered in tones that conveyed Lil’s disgust.

Mary, however, was very impressed. Lil’s hoarse voice broke into her thoughts.

‘’Ere’s your men coming down the road. I’d better get ready for work. Gawd knows when my old sod will come ’ome.’

Tim and Dandy came down the alley looking very tired, their boots covered with wet clay.

After supper, when little Timmo was in bed, the men went to the local for a drink while Mary washed dishes, did her ironing and then wrote letters to her folks back home.

Hers was a happy house. But the atmosphere at No. 5, that house directly opposite, was far from convivial. The whole exterior seemed to shed gloom even though the knocker shone like glass. A small girl’s thin hands polished it vigorously each day. Without a glance in either direction, she stood there, dressed in a brown linen smock, reaching up to rub the knocker as hard as she could, before darting inside again. This was Ellen Brown, owner of the pale countenance that often peeped out of the window. For her the rest of the alley did not exist. She was not allowed out to play and she seldom went to school although her education was not neglected; many hours were spent studying and reading the huge family bible that was propped up on the parlour table, looking so unwieldy amid her mother’s dainty china, framed photographs, shell boxes and other bric-à-brac.

‘Evil clap trap,’ her father would snort as he surveyed the room, ‘one day I’ll destroy the whole lot.’

Ellen would shiver, and there would be a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. She knew that her mother’s sanity depended on those few treasures, remnants of her past, and she clung to them as the last vestiges of her youth. At forty Mrs Brown was old, her body and her mind shrivelled. She sat all day by the fire crocheting or just staring into space. Her hair was as white as the driven snow, and her shoulders rounded. From beneath her voluminous skirt stuck out a huge surgical boot and above it a thin twisted leg. Hannah Brown had been born a cripple. She had grown up used to the idea of not being able to run and play as others did. She had not wanted to marry, and had been happy in the protective bond of her Quaker family. But in her late teens her mother had died and a dogmatic father had insisted on her marrying. His belief was that it was right to continue the line of followers that had existed since the seventeenth century. Reluctantly she had wed Jacob Brown, also a Quaker, and unwillingly borne him children. Her thin twisted body had suffered the torture of hell as she gave birth to twin boys. They were lusty screaming babies and she had always hated them. Ellen had only been a tiny baby and had always been a great comfort to her. Now her health had broken down completely and she made no effort to get well; she just sat muttering her prayers in preparation for the next world.

Ellen swept, cleaned and dusted, cooked and waited hand and foot on her mother. She was now eleven and this had been her life ever since she could remember. Strict discipline and blind obedience were enforced on them all by their fanatical father. Ellen’s dark eyes and pale face showed no sign of rebellion as her brothers’ did, for behind that pallid look she lived in a fairytale world all her own and on tiny scraps of paper, hidden all about the house, she scribbled her innermost thoughts.

Just before ten o’clock each night Jacob Brown would arrive home from his preaching and so-called good works. He was a short stocky man with hair as black as jet matching the waxed moustache whose ends stuck out so stiffly that they received the nickname of winkle pickers. He always wore a dickey, sort of stiffened shirt front seldom seen in the working-class alley, and adorning the dickey was a small stiff black bow tie. A long tailed jacket, striped pants and a sombre looking bowler hat finished off this natty outfit. On his short legs he would march through the alley every evening.

To the boys sitting idly on the canal wall, Mr Brown was an everlasting source of amusement. They would call out to him and make rude remarks about his appearance. Little Arfer’s tousled head would pop up and his squeaky voice proclaim: ‘Hi, mister, yer dickey’s hanging out!’ As Mr Brown walked slowly and solemnly towards them, they chanted a street song that went: ‘We will arse ole Brown to tea’. Lewd titters and loud chuckles would accompany him to his front door. Mr Brown only smiled at them benevolently and raised his hand in the manner of a bishop giving his blessing. But if they had looked closer they would have noticed the glowing fires of hatred in his narrow eyes, signs of the volcano that smouldered beneath that seemingly calm exterior.

Once he entered his home, the front door would close quietly behind him and the silence it breathed combined with a sad melancholia as if the whole house cried out its woe.

On Sunday mornings the whole family would emerge from the house together: the father went first; his la