New Neighbors for Coronation Close, page 1
NEW NEIGHBORS FOR CORONATION CLOSE
LIZZIE LANE
CONTENTS
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Historical Notes
More from Lizzie Lane
About the Author
Sixpence Stories
About Boldwood Books
This book has to be dedicated to my mother, Gladys May Wills. When first married, she lived in a couple of gas-lit rooms in a shared house in Bedminster, but in the early thirties was allocated a council house in Newquay Road, Knowle West, Bristol. A proper house with indoor plumbing, electric lights and a gas stove. It was like moving into heaven. They could plug their radio into a power point; no more dragging a heavy accumulator (battery) up to the local garage to get it charged up. There was even a telephone box at the end of the street.
And they had gardens in which they could grow their own food. A number of people, including her, kept chickens and grew vegetables. Some neighbors kept goats, to which the council turned a blind eye.
My mother-in-law who grew up in the Dings recalls a pig being brought through the house to be slaughtered out in the backyard. Growing and rearing your own food was not only a necessity but profitable. The neighbors were all willing to purchase the most nutritious meat they’d see all year.
They were tough times. My mother clothed her children from jumble sales, reusing adult garments and redesigning some old-fashioned items for herself – just like Thelma Dawkins
INTRODUCTION
In 1936, Great Britain was an empire and the city of Bristol one of its bustling ports. Despite the harrowing ordeal of the Great War from 1914 to 1918 when three quarters of a million men had died, and despite hunger marches and poor housing, patriotism was a way of life.
King George V and his wife, Queen Mary, a former princess of the German province of Teck, presented themselves as a family and changed their name from Saxe-Coburg Gotha to Windsor.
The government was composed of a Tory elite led by Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin.
One occurrence shook the very foundation of empire and privilege.
King George V died on 20 January 1936. His eldest son was declared King Edward VIII and the coronation date set for 12 May 1937.
The new king was known as something of a playboy to those closest to him. They were also aware of his obsession with twice-married American socialite, Wallis Simpson.
Though international media printed the story, the British press were ordered to say nothing. The public were left ignorant.
Political unrest had followed the Great War. In Germany, a new regime was marching. In Britain, too, there were marches for change from both left and right of the political spectrum. An appetite for change was in the air.
An important sign of change for the working class was the building of council estates on the outskirts of the city. The houses had indoor sanitation, electricity and gardens front and rear. The first of these estates in Bristol was called Hillfields. There followed Knowle West and Southmead. All these suburban estates were a far cry from the gas-lit slums where water was pumped from ancient culverts or hauled from even more ancient wells.
Tenements hundreds of years old predominated in the centre of the city, their twisted floorboards creaking beneath the weight of too many people, rooms divided up to accommodate the poorest of the poor. The living space was often shared with rats, mice, cockroaches and fleas. As the old buildings were demolished, the occupants were moved out to houses with gardens and modern facilities. Their world seemed to be changing, but some things had not.
Set on one of those new estates was a quiet little cul-de-sac called Truro Close, which as a mark of respect for the new king, Edward the VIII, was renamed Coronation Close. The act of homage turned out to be a little premature. King Edward was never crowned but chose to abdicate so he could marry the woman he loved.
The name Coronation Close survived and a close-knit community evolved from the debris of the one that had existed in the city centre in an improved environment that inspired hope for the future.
1
THE PITHAY, BRISTOL JANUARY 1936
That morning of 20 January 1936 seemed very much like any other morning for Jenny Crawford who lived with her husband Roy and daughters Tilly and Gloria on the top floor of a ramshackle tenement in Blue Bowl Alley in a place called the Pithay.
She felt tired. She always felt tired and knew she looked it. Not that she took time to study herself in the handsome mirror that hung above the fireplace, the only thing of beauty and value her parents had left her. She knew without looking that her features still held the attractiveness inherited from her mother, the dark grey eyes, the glossy, dark hair and creamy complexion. Mary Webster’s good looks had attracted a man of means, a tradesman who had called regularly on the elegant house in Clifton where she’d been employed as a lady’s maid. Once married she’d moved into her husband’s house in Montpelier. All had been well until the Great War from which he’d returned a broken man. Perhaps if things had been different Jenny wouldn’t have married Roy Crawford who had also joined up and came to work for her father, Henry. Not that it did much good. Her father lost interest in the business just as Roy became interested in her. The war was to blame for him losing his mind and the business failing.
Falling in love and marrying Roy Crawford had been a form of escape. He’d promised her the world, but instead a life of genteel shabbiness had changed into outright poverty.
Montpelier where she’d lived with her parents was a palace compared to Blue Bowl Alley in the Pithay, the place where Roy had been born and sworn to end his days.
They inhabited a living room and two bedrooms on the top floor of the house. The main kitchen was on the ground floor, where a fearsome Victorian cooking range heated the water for baths and its oven provided the means to cook meals. A zinc bath intended for the use of all the residents occupied the smallest room on the ground floor, where moss grew between the flagstones and mice scuttled across the floor. The ground floor was taken up by a lean-to with a deep sink and a copper – a round, deep tub with a small fireplace beneath it. This was where everyone in the block was expected to do their laundry. Once washed it was hung out on one of the profusions of washing lines that criss-crossed the yard. Larger editions of the cats’ cradles that her girls made from wool or string.
Rivers of condensation ran down the windows when the laundry was boiling away in the copper and hand washing done at the sink. In wet weather, the steam rose and condensed on the glass roof, adding to the humid atmosphere and leaving dirty puddles between the flagstones. It wasn’t much better even when it wasn’t raining. Black mould spattered the windows and green moss hung in ribbons from the cracked tiles of the sloping roof.
The other two rooms on the ground floor were in a bad way and barely useable and certainly not liveable. One was used as a coal cellar, the other was left to the fungus growing out of the walls. The living room of their flat was gas-lit and had a very small fireplace, the coal for which had to be manhandled from the coal hole out in the backyard and up six flights of stairs to the top floor.
The water pump was also out in the yard and buckets were needed to fill the flowery bowl in which they washed or to fill the kettle that sat permanently on the hob.
It seemed to Jenny that all she ever did was fill buckets and carry them up the stairs.
Before the children had arisen from their shared single bed in a room eight feet by four, she’d cracked the ice on the enamel bowl and washed her face. The water in the kettle, not yet even warm, she’d leave for her daughters.
In their absence, she patted on talcum powder to hide the bruise beneath her eye, the other reason she’d avoided looking in the mirror. Face powder would have been better, but she hadn’t had enough money for such luxuries for a very long time. Talc would have to do.
Once the fire was going, she tore pieces of newspaper to stuff into the gaps in the window frames, the panes of which were patterned with frost.
She might have been privy to the momentous event that had happened if the wireless had been working. Roy had smashed it the night before, the toe of his boot ripping into the metal mesh protecting the fragile innards: the wires and glass tubes that lit up when it was turned on.
Around five o’clock the previous evening, she’d been humming along to the music, singing in places where she knew the words. According to Roy, the volume had been loud enough to ‘wake the bloody dead’. He’d been on an early shift that morning and crashed into
Normally, he would have slept through until seven or so, then gone to the pub, then home and bed again. On this occasion, he’d volunteered for the night shift. A freighter was due in that night requiring a swift turnaround.
‘Extra money,’ he’d said to her. ‘She’s bringing in wood pulp for papermaking and suchlike. I weren’t turning it down.’
‘Of course not,’ she’d said, though knew without asking that it wouldn’t mean an increase in housekeeping.
He’d slumped into a chair and pointed at his boots.
She’d got down on her knees and began unlacing each one. Once she’d pulled them off, he’d staggered into the bedroom, pausing at the door, jerking his head towards the bed.
‘Come on to bed.’
A tight knot had formed in her stomach, though she knew better than to let fear show on her face. Be amenable. Be submissive. That’s what a wife was supposed to be. Even so, a small spark of reluctance caused her to shake her head. ‘You’ve just come home from work. You’re tired.’
His expression had darkened. ‘I ain’t that tired.’
‘But the girls will be home soon.’
‘Get in yer.’ He jerked his head again, his expression leaving her in no doubt of the consequences of a refusal.
He’d jammed a chair against the bedroom door. ‘That’ll keep the kids out.’
The act of bodily intimacy was short-lived, the chair removed just before she’d heard the girls tramping up the stairs. She’d left him there snoring, glad he would sleep through until he was off for work again, glad he wouldn’t be back until the morning. BBC music had taken her out of herself, away from this place, away from him. If only she’d kept the sound down.
He'd stumbled out of the bedroom, eyes red-rimmed and a surly grimace on his downturned lips.
Her apology was very necessary.
‘Sorry. I didn’t realise it was that loud. Anyway, I thought you were already waking up.’
‘Well, you thought wrong!’
Knowing the girls were out playing, he’d raised his voice.
She attempted to laugh it off. ‘No need to get like that Roy. It’s only a bit of music. Soft music too. Should have helped you sleep.’
That was when he had lashed out at both her and the wireless. The wireless had come off worse, the music silenced.
Jenny had been heartbroken. The wireless had been her lifeline to the outside world. There was no electricity in the crumbling tenement, but with the aid of an old orange box fitted with pram wheels, she’d regularly dragged it up to the garage to have the accumulator – its inbuilt battery – charged up. That’s how it was in a gas-lit property with an outside lavatory and no running water. Getting the wireless set repaired would have to wait until she had some money and that wouldn’t be forthcoming until Roy got paid. If he got weighed on that is. That’s how it was at the docks – if your face fitted…
Just as she was filling a bucket which she intended using for hand washing underwear, someone shouted at her from the tunnel that led from the alley and into the yard.
Lifting her head, she saw Isaac Jacobs coming through the opening, the sound of his footsteps echoing over the rough cobbles. As usual at this time on a weekday, a heavy sack weighed heavily on one shoulder. Isaac worked for a relative who ran a business in St Nicholas Fruit and Veg market. He started work early and was home by late morning. Leftover fruit and veg were shared out amongst those who worked there – a small bonus that helped supplement their low wages.
Isaac’s bent legs, a consequence of childhood rickets resulting from malnutrition and lack of sunlight, gave him a swaying gait, like a ship caught in rough seas. Roy had said, unkindly, that a pig could run through Isaac’s legs and not knock him over. Roy seldom said anything good about anyone these days, especially anyone foreign or different from himself. He’d taken on a morose disposition. She couldn’t recall now when he’d first changed but concluded it had been gradual. Jobs hadn’t come easy either. He’d had big plans way back when she’d first fallen in love with him. If she’d followed her mother’s advice, she would not have married him. But the foolishness of youth and the hammering of her heart had overruled her advice and she now rued the day she’d married him. His dreams had come to nothing. Like many other working class men Roy laboured long hours for low wages. The strain of poverty had taken its toll on their marriage.
‘Had a good day, Isaac,’ Jenny asked, already wiping her hands on her apron, readying herself to receive a few bits and pieces from his sack. No matter what Roy said, Isaac was a generous man.
‘It’s not been a good day today, Jenny. Not good at all. The news took us all by surprise. Yes indeed!’ He shook his head disconsolately as he placed the sack on the ground between his bowed legs.
Jenny feared he was going to say that he only had mouldy cabbages today – bits and pieces squashed beneath the wheels of a costermonger’s barrow. He took a deep breath and stood with his fists clamped to his waist, his chest thrust forward like that of a pigeon. ‘You could have knocked me down with a feather. I was shocked from my heels to my head, I was.’
He kept on shaking his head and muttering whilst dipping into the sack.
‘Here,’ he said. He passed her a swede, a turnip, two onions and a bunch of carrots. ‘Those carrot tops should stew up well. Nice and green they are.’ He went on making comment, shaking his head all the while. ‘Shocked to me boots. I wasn’t expecting it. Didn’t even know he was ill.’
Jenny was too busy imagining the simmering stew she would make to take in what he was saying. The mutton bones she had left from the Sunday roast would add a bit of flavour though little meat. It was a challenge to make a joint of meat last five days, but she did her utmost to stretch the housekeeping Roy gave her. Sometimes the cheap joint, mutton, brisket or breast of lamb only lasted three days. A shoulder of mutton went the furthest and having come from an old sheep needed a good stewing. Still, she thought, even though there was little flesh left on the bones, it should be tasty enough once the vegetables were added. She hoped that Roy would think so and shuddered at what he might say: ‘A working man needs better than this.’ It was often on the tip of her tongue to say that the little housekeeping he gave her didn’t run to much better.
‘Mr Jacobs, I can’t thank you enough. Let me give you something. You deserve payment.’ She had about three shillings in coppers in her purse. Some needed to be kept back for the gas meter, but she could just about manage a few pennies. Four should do it. ‘Here,’ she said, the pennies in her hand.
He responded the way he usually did, flapping his hands in front of her. ‘No, no, no. I do not take payment from friends and neighbors. Anyways, as I told you before, I get it free. It’s what’s left at the end of the day. And I am not out to make a profit as some believe of my people. It was free to me so is free to you.’
Isaac was more generous than a lot of others she knew. His heart was big. Giving her free produce had long been his habit, from the time he’d caught her sitting on the stairs tossing a penny from one hand to the other. On that particular day, she’d been working out whether to go and buy some scrag end for supper, begging the butcher if he had anything going cheap. Mid-morning was not a likely time for that. Selling off cheap happened at the end of the day. But there’d be hell to play if Roy came home at the end of the day and she was not there.
Isaac had worked a long day. St Nicholas Market began at about two in the morning and went on until nine or ten. Isaac was a wise old owl who stayed on to sweep up until mid-morning at least, knowing there would be leftovers. There was always some produce not likely to last another day and the leavings were shared amongst the men who worked there. All had families and made use of what they could glean to keep body and soul together. Some of whatever was in the sack went to him and Ruth, his wife. He also shared some with other neighbors in the same yard, and he always found something for her. To that end, he was her lifeline.
