Jack the Lad

Frank English

Description

A tale based loosely in reality, this story traces the fortunes of the Ingles family in the West Riding coal fields around Wakefield. Theirs is a saga that could be replicated time after time in an area where scratching a living wasn't easy, and where coal, drink, and occasional infidelity played integral parts in the life of the community. Their story starts in the mid-1940s and paints a picture of the privations endured, the dramas enacted, and the joys and sorrows shared, in a town where all understood how hard it was to break free from the shackles of a traditional coal mining community constraints Potentially fifth generation coal hewers, William and Jack Ingles did just that, but at what cost to them and to their close family? This is the first volume.

Sujets

• Sagas

Informations

• Publié par: 2QT Limited (Publishing
• Date de parution: 12 mai 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781910077924
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Volume 1


Jack the Lad
(Nowt Else for It!)




A childhood in Yorkshire’s West Riding
from the mid 1940s




Frank English




2QT Limited (Publishing)

First eBook Edition published 2016

2QT Limited (Publishing)
Unit 5 Commercial Courtyard
Duke Street
Settle
North Yorkshire
BD24 9RH

Copyright © Frank English 2016
The right of Frank English to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that no part of this book is to be reproduced, in any shape or form. Or by way of trade, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser, without prior permission of the copyright holder


Cover design: Charlotte Mouncey
Cover images: main photographs supplied by © Frank English
Additional images from iStockhoto.com



eBook ISBN 978-1-910077-92-4



Paperback version available
ISBN 978-1-910077-82-5












To me mam
Florence May English







Chapter 1

“W hat does tha mean, ‘mine’?” he asked, half hissing through clenched teeth. “It can’t be mine. Look at that neck. It’s like a bloody swan, for God’s sake.”
The ward seemed to stop and fall silent. Heads turned slowly towards this source of aggravation, this unseemly outburst.
“Can’t you keep your voice down?” she said through a forced whisper, casting her furtive and embarrassed eyes around the room. “Of course he’s yours. Who else’s could he be?”
“But he’s nowt like me,” he went on, only slightly less loudly than before, eyes fixed on the bairn, alarmed to be so close to such an ugly infant.
“He’s only been an hour in this world,” she tried to soothe. “He probably looks more like a monkey than anything else.”
She giggled nervously at the funny she felt might lighten the atmosphere. It served only to make him more aware of what she had produced.
He leaped to his feet, knocking over the chair next to her bed, pacing about urgently for a short while, then stamping out of the ward, the staccato echo from his hobnailed pit boots receding as he left.
She drew the baby closer to her breast, cooing and kissing its sparsely thatched head tenderly. Why had she married such an unforgiving and boorish man? Her father had warned her. Why hadn’t she listened to him? They often say father knows best. She hadn’t wanted to believe it, wanted to make up her own mind. He was handsome, though, wasn’t he? Too late now. Two children: one withdrawn and introverted, and the other newborn. Where to go from here? Only one place: back home, eventually. For now, rest and regain her strength. God knows she was going to need it.
“Is he yours?” chorused Doris and Izzy.
“Well, of course he is,” stammered Flo, puzzled at the question, drawing the infant closer. “I…”
“No, not the bairn,” explained Doris with a half smile, “yon bugger who’s just stomped out o’ t’ ward.”
Blood rushed into Flo’s pale cheeks, staining them bright crimson in her embarrassment, to cover her stupidity.
“You want to get rid of him , love,” said Doris, folding her arms across her ample chest, all the while Izzy’s head nodding vigorous assent to her left. “Mark my words, he’ll do you no good. Until you do there’s nowt else for it but to get on and meck the best of a bad job.”
How long had Flo known these two? Just a few hours … and they seemed to know him better than she did. Her dad’s words of warning flooded her already confused and racing mind.
“Tha’ll niver make owt on him, lass,” her dad Jud had said seriously the day before they wed, thumbs locked under his trouser braces. “He’s from an unpleasant father. I knew owd William almost all me life, and niver found owt good in him. Even Elizabeth, his wife, detested him. She were a bit like you, really: a decent sort who didn’t know what she were getting into until it were too late. Fortunately she had a few years of peace after he died.
“I remember t’ funeral as if it were yesterday. She were asked if she wanted to see him one last time in his coffin. ‘See ’im?’ she’d snorted. ‘See ’ im ? No bloody fear. Screw t’ owd bugger down, and let’s be rid once and for all.’ I don’t want you to get to that stage,” he added.
-o-
The couple of weeks Flo spent in Manygates Hospital getting to know her new son were the most restful and pleasant she’d spent in the ten years she’d been married to her pitman husband: no quarrelling, no aggravation about food, and no unpleasantness about his excesses, his demands, or his meanness. She had developed a rheumatic heart in her early teens, and Manygates was the only specialist hospital in her area in the mid forties that could cope with her type of difficult birth.
Long by any stretch for a second-time mother, her exhausting labour had produced a strapping eight-pound undemanding boy, whom she was determined to name after her much-loved late brother. His last moments on this world were spent in a Lancaster bomber over the Netherlands, returning from a raid on Germany’s industrial heartland just four years before.
He was the second love of her mother’s life to be lost in war: first her husband – Flo’s biological dad Herbert, in the war to end all wars – and now Jack. Not surprising, her views on conflict and its perpetrators.
An undemanding baby who needed little sleep, her new son shared many of the characteristics of his namesake from his early days. If anyone needed convincing about reincarnation they needed to look no further.
“He’s a bonny lad,” Flo’s mother would say on her daily visits, proud and convinced that her son had revisited this world once more. “It’s a pity about his sire. But then I suppose you’ve had enough of that from your dad. He’s galled he can’t make it. He’s on afternoons down t’ pit this week and next week.”
“Don’t worry, Mam,” Flo answered, an understanding smile creeping into her face. “He’s done more than yon.”
“Not been to see you yet?” Marion said, disbelievingly.
“Aye,” Flo answered, cradling her resting infant. “Only the once, and then he stormed out. Doesn’t believe he’s the father.”
“What?” Marion gasped, eyes flashing murderously, not believing what she was hearing. “The— Wait till I get my hands on him. I’ll—”
“No, you won’t, Mam,” Flo insisted. “Dad was right. He’s not worth it. The only thing I’m concerned for now is to look after my lads. If this one grows up to be like our Jack I’ll be happy.”
“And William?” her mam asked. “How do you think he’ll cope, both with a brutish father and with a new brother?”
“There’s a lot more goes on behind his eyes than we know about,” Flo answered. “He’s nearly ten, so he’ll cope. He always was the apple of his father’s eye. He can do no wrong, so there’ll be no worries there. Besides, he’s the image of him.”
“And Eric’s rejection of Jack is because…?” Marion asked.
“He doesn’t look anything like him,” Flo replied. “Can you believe it? Goodness knows what would have happened if William had looked nothing like him either.”
-o-
Early January was not the best time to bring new life into a freezing cold world. Flecks of snow carried on a keen northerly wind had been threatening to settle for several days before Flo was due to take home her bairn. She had decided against telling her mother the exact day for fear that she would organise a taxi, which she knew she wouldn’t be able to afford.
Manygates was an awkward place to get from – two buses and a five-minute walk – but she knew she would have it to do because she knew her husband wouldn’t take time off work to fetch her. Her worry was for her newborn, but she felt in her heart he would be strong enough as long as he was kept warm.
“Are you sure we can’t call you a taxi, Flo?” the nurse asked, concerned, as she opened the door on to thicker flurries of snow. “It’s wicked out there.”
“No,” she replied, wrapping her baby in more tightly and holding him more closely to her. “We’ll be OK.”
Thank goodness for the winter coat and stout boots her dad had bought her for her birthday in November. What would she do without him and his kindness? He would be enraged when he got to know his son-in-law hadn’t been man enough to collect them from the hospital. But she’d cross that bridge when she got to it. Her only concern now was getting her child home safely.
The blast of icy air as she crossed Bull Ring and headed for the bus station caused her to wince and to draw her coat more tightly around her baby. Blissfully unaware of the cold and people’s stares, he had slept from the hospital in the cocoon created by the warmth from his mother’s body and the gentle rocking of the bus journey to the centre of town.
Westgate bus station was almost deserted, which was to be expected for mid afternoon on a Sunday in early January. The deepening slushy snow hunched around the bus stands played its part, too, in creating this ghost town feeling. Had it not been for midwinter in the West Riding you might have seen ghostly tumbleweed balls drifting lazily across the concrete.
Flo reached her stand with difficulty against the freshening wind, trying forlornly to find shelter behind the lone bus stop pole, and hoping she might see her bus chugging around the corner before she froze. Fortunately for her, Sundays in winter didn’t generate many stops en route, so she didn’t have long to wait.
Recognisin