The Miner's Lass

by Glenda Young

Genres: Family Life; Historical Fiction; Sagas

Synopsis

'In the world of historical saga writers, there's a brand new voice' My Weekly

From the author of Pearl of Pit Lane, a dramatically powerful and romantic saga of tragedy and triumph.

If you love Dilly Court and Rosie Goodwin, you'll LOVE Glenda Young!

What readers are saying about Glenda's heartwrenching sagas:

'Better than a Catherine Cookson' 5* reader review

'Wonderful read, full of rich characters, evocative description and a touch of romance' 5* reader review

'Just wanted it to go on forever and read more about the characters and their lives' 5* reader review

'You're a Dinsdale lass, Ruby. Nothing and no one keeps us lot down.'

A life of poverty in a cramped pit cottage is all that seventeen-year-old Ruby Dinsdale has known. Even with her father and younger brother working at the coal mine, money is tight. Her mother Mary is skilled at stretching what little they have, but the small contribution Ruby makes from her job at the local pub makes all the difference. So when Ruby is sacked, and Mary becomes pregnant again, the family's challenges are greater than ever.

When charming miner Gordon begins to court Ruby it seems as though happiness is on the horizon, until she uncovers a deeper betrayal than she could ever have imagined.

But although the Dinsdales are materially poor, they are rich in love, friendship and determination - all qualities that they will draw on to get them through whatever lies ahead.

Praise for Glenda Young:

'I really enjoyed Glenda's novel. It's well researched and well written and I found myself caring about her characters' Rosie Goodwin

'Will resonate with saga readers everywhere...a wonderful, uplifting story' Nancy Revell

'All the ingredients for a perfect saga and I loved Meg; she's such a strong and believable character. A fantastic debut' Emma Hornby

'Glenda has an exceptionally keen eye for domestic detail which brings this local community to vivid, colourful life and Meg is a likeable, loving heroine for whom the reader roots from start to finish' Jenny Holmes

'I found it difficult to believe that this was a debut novel, as "brilliant" was the word in my mind when I reached the end. I enjoyed it enormously, being totally absorbed from the first page. I found it extremely well written, and having always loved sagas, one of the best I've read' Margaret Kaine

Look out for Glenda's other compelling sagas, Belle of the Back Streets, The Tuppenny Child, Pearl of Pit Lane, The Girl with the Scarlet Ribbon and The Paper Mill Girl.

(P)2021 Headline Publishing Group Ltd

Release date: May 13, 2021

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 384

Sample

July 1919

Ruby ran her finger down the Jobs Vacant column in the Sunderland Echo. ‘What about this one, Mam? It says “Girl wanted for housework. Must have good character.”’

‘Where’s it at?’ Mary replied.

‘One of the big houses in the village,’ Ruby said excitedly. Her voice sank as she read on. ‘But I’m not old enough. It says girls who apply should be aged at least eighteen.’

‘You will be in three months,’ Mary said.

‘But you haven’t got a good character,’ Michael piped up.

Ruby ignored her brother’s taunt and carried on with her search. Michael returned to the adventure comic he was reading, and it caught Mary’s eye.

‘Where did you get the money to buy that?’ she asked.

Michael pulled the comic up to shield himself from his mam’s question.

‘Michael?’ Mary demanded. ‘If I find out you’ve been wasting money when we barely have enough to buy food, I’ll give you what for.’

‘I got it off Bobby at work. He gives it to me once he’s read it.’

Mary knew she shouldn’t deny her bairns pleasure, even if it was just a comic, but the truth was that her family needed every penny they could get.

‘Here’s a good one, Mam,’ Ruby said. ‘“General serving girl wanted. Cleaning and cooking for small family. Wages eight pounds per week.”’

‘Eight pounds a week?’ Mary cried. ‘Why, that’s a small fortune!’

Ruby held the paper up and Mary peered at the ad.

‘The job’s at Ryhope Hall,’ she read. ‘But there’s a problem, as you know only too well. Cooking, Ruby? The amount of times I’ve tried to teach you to cook and bake, you should be able to do it by now.’

Nothing Ruby cooked came out right, no matter how hard she tried. She might have inherited her mam’s fair skin and bright eyes, but she’d missed out on her ability in the kitchen. Even under Mary’s expert guidance, when Ruby baked bread it came out of the oven unrisen. Her pastry was too hard and she didn’t think her mam would ever forgive her when she boiled a pan of potatoes dry.

‘She’s bloody useless, our Ruby,’ Michael quipped.

‘We’ll have less of your swearing, thank you very much,’ Mary said. She whipped a cloth from the kitchen table and flicked it towards Michael’s head.

‘Ow!’ he yelled.

‘What are you shouting for? It never touched you.’

Michael put his hand to his brow and swooned in an overly theatrical fashion. ‘I’m dying, Mam. You’ve killed me!’

‘You daft lump. I will flamin’ kill you if you don’t get off your backside and go and fetch water for your dad’s bath. He’ll be home from the pit soon. And bring the bath in from the yard.’

Michael’s bottom lip shot out. ‘It’s not my turn to fetch the water, it’s our Ruby’s. I did it at dinner time. Ah, Mam, it’s my day off today. I shouldn’t have to do her work for her on my day off. It’s not fair.’

‘Our Ruby’s busy looking for a job.’

‘She shouldn’t have got herself sacked from the Albion Inn.’

‘It wasn’t my fault,’ Ruby said defensively.

‘You gave the customer the wrong change, Ruby. Whose fault was it?’

‘For a little lad, you’ve got a big mouth.’

Michael puffed out his chest. ‘I might be little, but at least I’ve got a job, working on the pit top. And when I turn fourteen in November, I’ll be earning even more underground.’

‘Michael, there’s no need for that kind of talk yet,’ Mary said sternly. She dreaded the day when her son would join her husband hewing coal. It was dangerous, heavy work.

‘At least me and Dad are bringing money in,’ Michael said. ‘We’re not skiving like our Ruby.’

‘She’s never skived in her life, Michael. Don’t say that about your sister. None of us Dinsdales could ever be accused of skiving. And she didn’t give the customer the wrong change, so don’t go blaming her, you hear?’

‘It was the barmaid’s dilemma,’ Ruby said.

‘Which barmaid?’ Michael asked.

She shook her head. ‘It’s not a person. It’s what they call the old four-shilling coin. A fella in the Albion Inn passed it off as five shillings. It’s hard to tell the difference between the two coins, and because I was new in the job, I didn’t know. So I gave him change from five shillings instead of four, and Jack Burdon sacked me when he found the coin in the till at the end of the day.’

‘He’s a hard fella, that Jack,’ Mary tutted.

‘Hetty, his wife, defended me. Said she’d fallen for the trick herself years ago. But Jack wouldn’t budge and I was out on my ear.’

‘And now you have to find yourself another job. Get your nose stuck back in those ads, Ruby. Michael? What you waiting for, son? The bath’s not going to bring itself in.’

Michael did as he was told while Ruby returned her attention to the paper. Surely there must be a suitable job? As she read the ads, her bobbed brown hair fell over her face and she pushed it back behind her ears.

‘“House parlourmaid wanted, second week of July only”,’ she read.

Mary raised her eyebrows. ‘Just one week’s work? Keep on looking and we’ll come back to that one if you can’t find anything else.’

‘“Nursemaid wanted immediately to care for two children. Must have experience.”’

Mary shook her head. ‘No, lass. There are some things we know you’ve got experience in, like cleaning and washing and sewing. But looking after bairns? No. I can’t let you pretend you know how to do that, it’d be wrong. You’ve never done that sort of work. What else is there?’

‘“Strong, useful girl wanted for bar work. Apply the Queen’s Head, Ryhope.”’

Just then the tin bath appeared, with Michael walking behind it. He set it down on the kitchen floor in front of the roaring coal fire, for although it was a warm summer day, the fire was lit, as always. It was the heart of the Dinsdales’ small cottage in Tunstall Street. The kitchen was where the family spent most of their time. The room was small, filled with sticks of furniture: a rickety table with four chairs, and a battered old sideboard. Home-made rugs covered the floor. Upstairs were two bedrooms, one large one for Mary and Arthur and a smaller one that Ruby and Michael shared. Keeping them all safe, fed and warm was the coal fire. They depended on it wholly. One of Ruby’s many chores was to black-lead and clean the grate, while Michael’s was to bring in buckets of coal and keep the fire stoked. Mary made bread dough that rose on the hearth, and she and Ruby hung clothes to dry there on washing day if it was raining outside. Arthur liked to sit by the fire on an evening smoking his pipe with his feet on the fender, while Mary sat opposite sewing or knitting.

‘Strong and useful? Our Ruby?’ Michael laughed.

‘Michael, stop teasing your sister,’ Mary said. ‘Ruby, carry on reading the ad. It sounds perfect so far.’

Ruby shrugged. ‘That’s all it says.’

‘No mention of the wages they’re paying?’

Ruby shook her head.

‘Nothing about the hours or days of the week you’re to work?’

Ruby glanced again at the ad in case she’d missed something. ‘No,’ she said.

‘Well then, you’d best get yourself up to the Queen’s Head before any other strong and useful lasses in Ryhope get there before you.’

Ruby leapt to her feet. ‘What’ll I wear, Mam?’

‘You’re asking as if you’ve got a choice,’ Mary laughed. ‘Ever the optimist, our Ruby. Come here, turn around. Let’s have a look at you.’

Ruby stood in front of her mother, ready to be inspected. Mary looked deep into her eyes, seeing the girl she’d once been reflected in her daughter’s open face. Mary’s own face was lined now and her body thin; she was barely more than skin and bone and her clothes hung from her limbs. She’d not been feeling too good lately. It was too early yet to talk to Ruby and Michael about what she feared was wrong. Besides, she wouldn’t breathe a word to anyone until she’d spoken to Arthur, and she planned to tell him when he came home from work. A shiver ran down her back.

‘You all right, Mam?’ Ruby asked.

‘Think a ghost walked over my grave.’ Mary smiled as she pulled herself together. ‘Before you go, brush your hair and wash your face, and wear your grandma’s brooch for luck. When you get there, stand up straight and smile, don’t speak until you’re spoken to, and if they ask where you’ve worked before, tell them you worked for Hetty at the Albion Inn.’

‘I’ll not mention Jack,’ Ruby said.

‘Best not to, love. If the Queen’s Head need a character reference for you, tell them to ask Hetty. And whatever you do, don’t tell them about the carry-on with that coin, the barmaid’s wotsit.’

‘Dilemma.’

‘Well, whatever it was called, keep your mouth shut and don’t be cheeky.’

‘I’m never cheeky, Mam,’ Ruby said. ‘You’re getting me confused with our Michael.’

Mary put her hands on her daughter’s shoulders. ‘Now listen, there’ll probably be a lot of cleaning to do, not just serving at the bar. And if they’re asking for a strong lass, there’ll be beer barrels need moving. Tell whoever you talk to there that no task is too tough. You’re a Dinsdale lass, after all.’

Ruby pulled a brush through her hair, then ran up to the bedroom she and Michael shared. Under her bed was a cardboard box where she kept her special things. There wasn’t much in it. Just a couple of hairpins, a length of scarlet ribbon, and her precious copy of The Red Letter magazine. She’d found the magazine months ago lying on the colliery bank where someone had dropped it. It was full of fiction, love stories that gave her an insight into the adult world she was on the brink of. Under the magazine was her grandma’s brooch. It was worthless to anyone but Ruby. Just a tiny piece of red sea glass wrapped with a twist of metal that Mary’s dad had turned into a brooch for his wife. And when she died, it was passed to Ruby.

Once she’d pinned the brooch on, she headed into the yard to wash her face at the tap. Michael followed with the bucket in his hand, ready to fill it for their dad’s bath.

‘Good luck, Ruby,’ he said. ‘Knock ’em dead at the Queen’s Head.’

‘Oh, you’re a poet now, are you?’ Ruby laughed.

‘Seriously, I hope you get it. That job’s got your name all over it.’

‘Just because I’m useful and strong?’ she said.

‘And because you’re pretty. The older lads at work tell me about going in pubs. They say they like a good-looking barmaid – it’s the only reason some of them drink.’

Ruby looked at her brother, at his brown eyes and cheeky grin. They could fight like cat and dog some days, but she knew she wouldn’t trade him for the world.

‘Keep your eyes peeled, onion face!’ she called. It was their standard parting shot to each other, to which Michael replied as he’d done since they were small.

‘If I see you first, you’re the worst!’

Ruby walked along the back lane of Tunstall Street. The ground was uneven and rutted with mud. The cottages squashed in rows had been built by the Ryhope Coal company for the families of miners who worked at the pit. They were lime-washed dwellings, with small upstairs windows looking out to the lane. On Mondays, washing day, clothes were strung across the lane from each yard. Dresses and shirts blew in the wind and dried in the sunshine. Bloomers and drawers were hung up to dry for everyone to see and pass comment on. The men’s pit clothes – their trousers and shirts, jackets and waistcoats – had the coal dust beaten from them before being scrubbed and pegged up. But today the back lane was empty, for washing day was still a few days away.

Ruby was keen to reach the Queen’s Head quickly, bearing in mind her mam’s words that another lass might be on her way to apply. She walked as fast as she could, all the while remembering to smile and not speak until she was spoken to and all the other things her mam had told her to do. She kept her head down, watching where she put her feet on the uneven ground, avoiding the horse muck from the carts that used the back lane for deliveries. There was the Co-op grocery man with his horse, Meg the rag-and-bone girl with hers, the fish man, the meat man, the man who brought the eggs . . . They all used the back lane to deliver to the miners’ wives.

‘Where you off to, lass?’ a man’s voice called.

Ruby looked up and a smile spread wide when she saw her dad walking towards her. She recognised the stooped way he walked, as if he was carrying the woes of the world. He looked crumpled, small, as he always did when he came home from work. After he’d had his bath and his tea, though, he relaxed a little, uncurled, seemed to grow back into the strong, dependable dad she loved with all her heart. Every exposed inch of his skin was black. His eyes, ears and nose were thick with coal dust. His whole face and his hands were covered. No matter how much he bathed, or how much her mam scrubbed him clean after a hard day at work, coal remained etched in his skin. He smiled at Ruby and the lines around his blue eyes creased greasy and black.

‘There’s a job going at the Queen’s Head, Dad.’

‘Good luck. And if I were you, I’d keep quiet about that coin, the barmaid’s problem.’

‘Dilemma,’ Ruby laughed. ‘I know, Dad, I’ll try not to mention it.’

And with that, Arthur headed home, exhausted after working a long shift in a waterlogged seam of coal, while Ruby turned the corner and headed across Ryhope Street, towards the Queen’s Head.



The Queen’s Head wasn’t the biggest pub in Ryhope, nor the grandest. It was a two-storey building situated on the gentle slope of the colliery bank, easy to miss if you didn’t know it was there, as it was tucked into a terrace of shops. Mining was thirsty work, and with over two thousand men and boys working at the pit, Ryhope pubs did a roaring trade.

The entrance sat between bay windows, two on either side. A dark open passageway separated the pub from its neighbour and was where horses were led to stables at the back. The upstairs had four plain windows above the downstairs bays. Ruby saw curtains hanging and wondered who lived up there. Well, there was only one way to find out. She waited for one of the store’s delivery carts to trundle by, and as it did so, she recognised the driver.

‘Bert!’ she called.

Bert Collins was an old friend of her dad’s, a good-looking man with dark hair and a chiselled chin, a winning smile and muscled arms. He was a good man, a nice man, everyone said so. He was also something of an enigma. He was one of the oldest unmarried men in Ryhope, still a bachelor although he was in his mid forties. It was an age by which most men were married and settled down, but not Bert. He’d somehow managed to avoid falling into wedlock, though many local single women were attracted by his good looks and the polite way he had about him.

‘Morning, Ruby! You all right, pet? How’s your dad?’

But before Ruby could reply, Bert and his big black horse Lucky Star had already moved on. Across the road, Ruby caught sight of Elsie Hutton, one of two spinster sisters who had lived together since their parents passed away. Rumours flew around Ryhope that the women were worth a small fortune from money left to them by their father, who’d been a manager at the coal pit. Whatever the truth of the matter, they obviously had enough to live on comfortably, with no need for either to go out to work. They were often hard to tell apart, as they both had thick hair that was as black as coal and they always dressed in black. They both walked with a slight stoop, and if anyone saw them together, they were reminded of two crows pecking back and forth.

The two women were regular visitors to the Dinsdales’ house, and Elsie was Mary’s best friend. Ruby enjoyed listening in to their conversations when she got the chance. There was always a mischievous glint in Elsie’s eyes and a pink flush to her round, pretty face. Ruby guessed that she was in her late thirties, with her sister, Ann, a few years older. Ann always looked the more stern of the two, her lips pursed and her eyes darting from side to side in case she missed anything that might be going on.

Ruby waved to Elsie, but the woman’s mind was elsewhere, watching Bert Collins pass by. And was Ruby mistaken, or did Bert just blow Elsie a kiss? In broad daylight, too!

Ruby crossed the road, straightened her back and knocked hard at the door of the pub. Then she took a step back, stuck a smile on her face, as her mam had told her to do, and touched her sea-glass brooch for luck. She knocked again, harder this time. Still nothing, so she knocked a third time, this time so hard her knuckles hurt. She waited. She smiled wider, so wide that her face started aching. ‘Come on, you lazy lot, open up,’ she muttered. As she glared up at the windows, her smile finally slipped from her face. And that was when the pub door was flung open.

‘Oh!’ she cried.

In front of her was a man not much older than her dad. He wore a dark shirt buttoned to his neck with an even darker waistcoat on top. A pipe hung from one side of his mouth. He was clean-shaven, with a long, thin, pale face. His shirtsleeves were rolled to his elbows. He looked friendly enough, but still Ruby’s heart jumped in her chest.

‘Aye? What?’ The man’s pipe jiggled in his mouth as he spoke. Ruby was transfixed by it; she was waiting for it to fall, yet it just seemed to hang from his lip. She quickly found her smile, and remembered her mam’s instructions.

‘I’ve come about the job.’

The man eyed her keenly. ‘Aye?’ he said, and again the pipe wobbled. He made no attempt to take it from his mouth.

‘The job for a strong, useful girl that was in the Sunderland Echo,’ Ruby continued. She pushed her feet forwards in her worn, tattered boots. ‘That’s me. I’m just like it said in the paper.’

‘You’d best come in and talk to the wife. It’s her pub.’

This time the man took the pipe out of his mouth and used it to point upwards, to the name above the door. Ruby looked up and read: Licence Holder: Dorothy Hutchinson.

She followed him into a passageway that split into two. On the right it led to a snug, a small, cosy room, and to the left was a larger bar.

‘Sit in the bar, I’ll fetch her,’ he said.

It was the smell that hit Ruby first. The stench of beer and tobacco that was soaked into the soul of the place. She looked around the room but wasn’t too keen on what she saw. The pub didn’t have the friendly feel of the Albion Inn, where she’d worked last. The tables and chairs had seen much better days, and the paintwork on the walls and woodwork was chipped. But the place was clean, she’d give it that. She sat in silence, taking it all in. She recognised familiar brand names on the bottles behind the bar and saw pumps from local breweries Vaux and Castle Eden. They’d had the same ones at the Albion Inn. The bar till didn’t look too different from the one she’d used at the Albion either. The familiarity of it all eased her mind and calmed her racing heart.

‘Come about the job, have you?’ a woman’s voice barked.

Ruby leapt from her seat. Her mam’s voice roared in her head. Smile! Smile! She tried, she really did, but she was so terrified that she ended up grimacing. The stout woman in front of her had a generous bosom that strained against a white blouse. Her long brown hair was swept up in a bun at the back of her head, and wisps fell around her plump face. A pair of deep brown eyes glared at Ruby.

‘Cat got your tongue?’

Ruby shook her head as the woman continued.

‘I’m Polly Hutchinson. I run this place with my husband Jim and son Stan. I understand you’ve just met Jim. He says you saw the ad in the paper, is that right? You can read?’

Ruby swallowed hard. ‘Yes,’ she said.

‘Yes what?’

‘Yes . . .’ She paused. ‘Mrs Hutchinson.’

‘Call me Polly, everyone does.’

Ruby saw the tiniest smile flicker on the woman’s face. The name above the pub door had been Dorothy, and Ruby was heartened to be given permission to use the landlady’s less formal name. The mention of Polly’s son Stan rang bells in the back of her mind, which disappeared as Polly gestured for her to sit down then sank into a battered wooden chair opposite. Ruby sat with her hands in her lap, feet firmly on the floor.

‘Worked in a pub before?’ Polly demanded.

‘At the Albion.’

‘With Jack and Hetty?’

‘I worked with Hetty mainly,’ Ruby said with as much authority as she could muster. ‘She said you can ask her for a character reference if you need one.’ She hoped the conversation wouldn’t turn to why she’d left. But she knew that in a village as tight-knit as Ryhope, where gossip was rife, it could hardly remain a secret.

‘Why aren’t you working there now?’ Polly asked.

Silence.

‘Come on, spit it out. You know what Ryhope’s like. If you don’t tell me, all I have to do is go out there and find someone who will.’

‘I was sacked, but it wasn’t my fault,’ Ruby said quickly.

‘Then whose fault was it?’

She locked eyes with Polly. There was no point in being anything but honest. If Polly didn’t like what she heard, then so be it. There must be other jobs Ruby could find in the paper. Well, as long as they didn’t involve cooking.

‘I was sacked over a barmaid’s dilemma.’

Polly slapped her thigh, then rocked her head back and let out a loud and raucous yell. ‘You daft bugger,’ she said when she’d calmed down. ‘You didn’t fall for that old trick, did you? I can’t believe it’s still being passed around. I thought they’d all gone out of circulation. Well I never. And you, little Miss . . .’ She stared at Ruby. ‘What did you say your name was?’

Ruby knew she hadn’t been asked her name, but she also knew now was not the time to mention that. From Polly’s manner so far, it struck Ruby that the landlady of the Queen’s Head was a woman not to be messed with.

‘Ruby Dinsdale.’

‘Well, little Miss Ruby. If I take you on here, you won’t fall for that trick again, will you?’

‘I swear I’ll check every coin I get given. Twice.’

Polly sank back in her chair and eyed her keenly. Ruby knew she was being appraised. What she did or said in the next few minutes would determine whether she was given the job. She stayed still and quiet, but under her cotton dress her heart was going nineteen to the dozen.

‘So you’ve got experience working in a pub, we’ve ascertained that,’ Polly said. ‘And there’ll be cleaning to do, heavy lifting; that’s why I need someone strong.’

‘I’m strong,’ Ruby said. ‘And I can clean. I can do anything that’s needed.’

‘Can you cook?’

Her heart skipped a beat.

‘Course you can cook, every lass can,’ Polly said without waiting for a reply.

Ruby bit her tongue. She hadn’t had to lie. But just to be safe, she crossed her fingers to ward off bad luck.

Polly folded her arms. ‘It’s rough, this pub,’ she said sternly. ‘It’s got a bit of a reputation. You need to know that if you’re to work here. When a fight breaks out, my husband and son will see to it. You don’t get involved; stay out of it and you won’t get hurt. Does that scare you?’

‘No,’ Ruby said defiantly.

And the truth was, she wasn’t scared. She’d seen fights in the Albion Inn, men going at each other after too much ale. She’d kept out of the way there and she’d do the same in her new job. She knew her place was to serve beer and do what was needed behind the scenes. At the first sign of a fight she’d slip away to a snug or the yard and leave the pub hosts to sort things out.

‘Good,’ Polly said. ‘Because we’ve got the Peace Parade next week and it’ll be all hands to the pumps. We’re open all day from early morning until we run out of beer.’

Like everyone else in Ryhope, Ruby had been looking forward to the Peace Parade. And now here she was being given a role at the heart of the celebrations. She couldn’t have been happier. She locked eyes with Polly and straightened in her chair.

‘You’re a bonny lass, Ruby,’ Polly said. ‘The fellas we get in here are going to like that. A pretty face behind the bar could see our takings rocket. A good barmaid is an asset to a pub.’ She stuck her hand out. ‘I’ll speak to Hetty about your character. All being well, can you start tomorrow night?’

‘Yes,’ said Ruby.

The two women shook hands.

‘Then welcome to the Queen’s Head.’



Ruby returned home with a spring in her step and a warm glow in her heart. As she walked, she hummed a tune she remembered from school. She couldn’t wait to tell her mam about her new job. She knew the money she’d bring in was much needed for food, for the pantry shelves were bare. She hoped her news would cheer her mam up; she’d seemed distant lately, as if she had something on her mind that she couldn’t find the words to express.

Ruby knew how much her parents worried about paying the bills. Money had always been tight in the Dinsdale house, but recently things seemed to have been getting worse. She had watched them on an evening totti. . .