Sally Wragg's Blog
January 8, 2022
Scatterbrook
Scatterbrook
'It was pitch-black and Tilly Cartwright had no idea where the ship had gone down, with such a shriek and roar of tortured metal, it masked the screams of the drowning, a sound that would haunt her for the rest of her life.
‘Steady the boat there!’
The command rang into the shocked silence. In the light of a rag set ablaze by a crewman, the man precariously balanced on the upturned lifeboat, clambered thankfully aboard.
‘Dear God, please tell me it’s John.’ From the back of the boat, a woman’s voice tailed off helplessly. It wasn’t John and never likely to be, even Tilly knew. Titanic, the unsinkable had sunk, marooned at the bottom of the ocean, leaving the occupants of the lifeboats to call helplessly across the black expanse of water for family members they must know they would never see again. They were marooned, cast away with no light, food or even water. Never in anyone’s wildest dreams did they think the pride of the White Star Line would sink...'
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Scatterbrook...
'It was pitch-black and Tilly Cartwright had no idea where the ship had gone down, with such a shriek and roar of tortured metal, it masked the screams of the drowning, a sound that would haunt her for the rest of her life.
‘Steady the boat there!’
The command rang into the shocked silence. In the light of a rag set ablaze by a crewman, the man precariously balanced on the upturned lifeboat, clambered thankfully aboard.
‘Dear God, please tell me it’s John.’ From the back of the boat, a woman’s voice tailed off helplessly. It wasn’t John and never likely to be, even Tilly knew. Titanic, the unsinkable had sunk, marooned at the bottom of the ocean, leaving the occupants of the lifeboats to call helplessly across the black expanse of water for family members they must know they would never see again. They were marooned, cast away with no light, food or even water. Never in anyone’s wildest dreams did they think the pride of the White Star Line would sink...'
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Scatterbrook...
November 19, 2019
Honeystone Summer
What does feisty Lily Armitage do when her life becomes too much? What would you do? Her grown up sons refuse to leave home, her feckless husband Ryan insists on treating her like the proverbial doormat, and she’s struggling to hold down too many jobs simply to keep a roof over their collective heads. She walks out and gets on a bus, any bus. And with no clear idea where she’s headed, or how far she should travel to avoid her family dragging her back again, what she finds when she finally reaches her destination, helps her re-discover her joy in life, if leaving her with a whole fresh set of problems…
November 5, 2019
Honeystone Summer
SUMMER WILL SOON BE HERE! The publishing date for my new book Honeystone Summer is Friday, November 15th and it will be available in both book form and on Kindle :-
'On the spur of the moment, with no idea where she's going or what she'll do when she gets there, Lily Armitage runs away from her unhappy family life and everything she's ever known. When she finally arrives at her random destination, it turns out to be a blissful and unexpected sanctuary, but then she's faced with a mystery and a whole new set of problems...'
'On the spur of the moment, with no idea where she's going or what she'll do when she gets there, Lily Armitage runs away from her unhappy family life and everything she's ever known. When she finally arrives at her random destination, it turns out to be a blissful and unexpected sanctuary, but then she's faced with a mystery and a whole new set of problems...'
May 3, 2019
Historical Novel Society Review
Historical Novel Society Review for The Miner’s Wife.
‘The Miner’s Wife begins in last-century Britain, with the burial of Hannah Spendlove’s mother, which sets in motion the decision that forever changes Hannah’s future. Her marriage is made more difficult by the setting—an impoverished mining community in Derbyshire. There is great disparity between the owner and the workers, and the appeal of dangerous flirtation. Disaster in the mines, a fracture in relationships, unplanned pregnancy, and guilt work together to push a young wife to the edges of despair, proving that small-town life and dynamics are universal across time and geography…broken vows, surprise mends, and the ultimate test of marriage’s endurance…Hannah’s resilience is admirable. The research and setting were quite thorough. Recommended.’
The Miner's Wife
‘The Miner’s Wife begins in last-century Britain, with the burial of Hannah Spendlove’s mother, which sets in motion the decision that forever changes Hannah’s future. Her marriage is made more difficult by the setting—an impoverished mining community in Derbyshire. There is great disparity between the owner and the workers, and the appeal of dangerous flirtation. Disaster in the mines, a fracture in relationships, unplanned pregnancy, and guilt work together to push a young wife to the edges of despair, proving that small-town life and dynamics are universal across time and geography…broken vows, surprise mends, and the ultimate test of marriage’s endurance…Hannah’s resilience is admirable. The research and setting were quite thorough. Recommended.’
The Miner's Wife
December 1, 2018
The Christmas Tree (a short story)
The Christmas Tree
It wouldn’t be the same without Andrew this Christmas, never mind the paraphernalia of the black outs and rationing and the appalling reality that Mrs. Spencer’s chickens were needed for layers this year. Christmas without a bird of some kind was hard to envisage. Imagining Andrew contemplating much of the same fayre, or lack of it, wherever he was, Lyn Prendergast’s face clouded over. The prettiest face in Belchester, Andrew told her, even if Lyn, more accepting of the truth, saw it for what it was, a plain to middling face and only her eyes, long lashed and midnight blue, shining below her thick, coppery hair, raising it above the ordinary.
News of the tree was the final straw.
‘Mother we simply have to have a tree!’
‘I’m afraid my darling, a tree is something else we must do without.’ Ever pragmatic, Audrey Prendergast turned away from the window where she’d been watching the snow settle, large fat flakes drifting at random, multiplying until the sky was white over. ‘How could we get it back here?’
‘We could manage between us.’
The moment the words left her mouth, Lyn knew it was hopeless. Impossible to imagine two women struggling all the way from Top Fell Pike with a tree, never mind the thoughts of her dear, fastidious mother doing anything quite so strenuous. The picture it suggested nearly undid her. Her smile was the first that morning.
By lunch-time, everything was white over. Curling up on the window-seat in the front room, Lyn thought of Andrew and how long it was since his last leave in September, the skies clouding over, leaves fading from their summer brilliance, the evenings already drawing in. He hadn’t been himself, the war and his involvement in it, preying on his mind she suspected, though he’d never said as much. She had no idea why she hadn’t asked. Because he wouldn’t have told her anyway, came the instant, undeniable answer. Steady, kind, reliable Andrew, never good with words, who could be anywhere, where the fighting was heaviest, she assumed when she thought about it, which she tried so hard not to do. She read the papers avidly.
Last year, knowing that Christmas together might be their last, a fact unspoken but painfully recognised, they’d gone together to fetch the tree, Andrew lifting it into the back of his father’s furniture van, together with a smaller version for his mother.
She jumped up and went through into the kitchen and busied herself with the lunch. They simply had to have a tree, the focal point of Christmas! She felt if only there was a tree, everything else would fall into place, cancelling out what was happening in the rest of the world. Husbands, fathers, ripped from their loved ones, families torn apart.
Such unimaginable horrors. Cracking into a bowl the two eggs Audrey had fetched from Mrs. Spencer’s that morning, she forced her mind back to the problem of the tree. If they didn’t have a tree, she wouldn’t be able to make a wish and that didn’t bear thinking about.
Lyn’s Christmas wish, the family joke.
Every year when the candles were lit on the tree, she made a wish, a ritual she’d carried out right from when she was a little girl, only old enough to lisp whatever it was she so longed for. Then of course, her wishes had been of the small, easily satisfied variety. A new doll, a pram to push it in and, as she got older, other more complicated wants and needs, once a pair of bright red shoes, with shiny plastic buckles she’d seen in Mr. Meyers shoe-shop window. How old had she been, ten, eleven? At the time, she’d simply ached for those shoes! That their miraculous arrival on Christmas morning might have had more to do with Audrey seeing her daughter staring longingly through the shoe-shop window, rather than any action on Lyn’s part, Lyn had been wise enough to acknowledge, even then, even as young as she was. Of course, she didn’t really believe in it, it was only a bit of fun.
If she never wished, there’d never be a chance of her wish coming true. The thought decided her, that and the snow and thinking of her old school friend Evelyn and knowing, instantly, she’d be happy to lend a hand. Evelyn, now a colleague in the munition’s factory, the other side of town, where she and Lyn worked.
‘We must be crazy! Or am I the only crazy one allowing you to talk me into this?’
Evelyn grinned good-naturedly.
It was bitter cold on Top Fell Pike even in summer, never mind now, the depths of winter and the wind piling snow against the rocks and into the crevices. It looked pretty, shrouding the plantation of fir trees with a burden so heavy, their drooping branches swept the ground. Like icing on a Christmas cake, or an impossibly festive Christmas card she would have loved to send to Andrew if only she’d known where to send it!
They selected a decent sized tree, lugged it onto the sledge and fastened it down with rope. The sledge had been a brainwave. Lyn’s brainwave. She straightened up, gasping at the bitter wind filling her eyes with tears.
‘Stop and have tea with us. Mother won’t mind.’
‘Is that a bribe?’
‘A threat more like!’
Both girls laughed. Tea would be whatever Audrey could scratch together, leftovers from the pantry, same as always, even on Christmas Eve. They’d been in high spirits since they’d got here, laughing in the face of adversity. Each taking a rope end, heads bowed against the wind, even now hurling tiny, stinging shards of ice against their faces, they set off, dragging the sledge, slowly and carefully back down the valley.
‘Isn’t it splendid?’ Lyn cried, some long while later, jumping down from the chair on which she’d been so precariously balanced and stepping back to admire their efforts.
The tea, consisting of fish paste sandwiches and eggless cake, had been consumed amongst much hilarity, after which Evelyn had stayed on to help dress the tree. Both girls gazed in awe at the battered, ancient fairy, wand askew, lodged on top of the Prendergast Christmas tree since time immemorial, the same tired old chipped baubles, spinning from branches wrapped round with tinsel. Shortly they’d light the candles. It was Christmas Eve, of course they’d light the candles and afterwards, just as always, Lyn would make a wish. This Christmas, it was more important than ever. Was she being fanciful or even worse, ever so slightly ridiculous? What did it matter if she made a wish or not!
She blinked furiously.
‘He’ll be safe, don’t worry.’
Evelyn squeezed her hand. Her John was safe in an office job in Cairo. He wouldn’t be home for Christmas but at least she did know where he was. Not knowing was worse, harder than anything. If only Lyn knew where Andrew was!
Audrey fetched the matches from the ledge in the scullery and did the honours. Evelyn switched out the light. The effect was magical, turning the room into an enchanted palace of glittering stars, catching at the brilliance of the ancient shiny balls and giving impression of the tree gently swaying, as if it was still up on Top Fell Pike, the winter wind whistling through its branches.
Please keep Andrew safe from harm. Please bring him safely home for Christmas! She hadn’t meant to add this last, but the thought sprang unbidden from her longing to see him, now, this very instant, overriding this wretched war keeping them apart. Like a mantra, she repeated it, over and over, even when she knew it was impossible. She’d spoiled it, spoiled everything! This time, for the very first time, she’d made a wish no amount of longing could ever turn into truth.
But then, miraculously, to Lyn’s amazement, it felt that for one glorious moment, Andrew really was present, standing beside her and gazing down laughingly into her face, as tangible a truth, as if, shaking snow from his coat, throwing off his cap onto the hall table, he’d opened the door and sauntered in, happy as ever. She swayed, frowning slightly, unable to understand it or what was happening to her. A mirage or hallucination, a longing brought to wonderful, brilliant life! And there he was, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he smiled, his hand lifting to brush a stray curl from her cheek before he kissed her.
Her hand flew to her lips and reality hit her. It had been no more than a dream created by her desperate longing to see him again. She gazed round, seeing only steady familiarity, the battered sofa, the bowl of Christmas roses on the inlaid table, even the wretched Christmas tree, the very presence of which had caused this heartache.
‘Have you made a wish, darling?’ Audrey enquired, her smile fading. As if even she knew, this year of all years, Lyn’s wish couldn’t possibly come true.
‘Are you sure you’re alright?’ Audrey demanded, a little sharply.
It was Christmas morning and the church bells were ringing out over the valley. Lyn had hardly slept a wink. She took her tea and did her best to smile, meanwhile gazing out of the parlour window onto a world so white and pure, it was impossible to think, a few short miles across the channel was such bloodshed and carnage.
They spent their day doing the ordinary Christmas things, it was Christmas after all, except there was no Andrew and no young men in church either, conspicuous by their absence and the lack of deep voices to join in with the carols. Walking home, they discovered it was snowing again, wind-blown flakes stinging their faces, so they were glad to reach sanctuary and the joint of pork Audrey’s thrift had provided for Christmas lunch. Neighbours popped in, partaking of a glass of sherry before just as quickly popping out again. In the evening, they sat by the fire and read for an hour. Audrey finished her knitting. Lyn made cocoa. The day passed. There would be other days, other Christmases when she and Andrew could be together, Lyn assured herself, hanging onto the thought, the one obvious thought holding her together. There would be other Christmases. She went to bed, waking early, forcing herself to remain in bed and rising at the usual time. Normality would get her through this, or as normal as life could ever be with this wretched war. Downstairs, she drew back the curtains and as light flooded the room, averted her gaze from the Christmas tree that she felt, ridiculously, had so badly let her down.
It was amazing how quickly another year passed. A whole year and here she was, applying the finishing touches to the decorations yet again, paper chains, holly and mistletoe and of course, the tree to dress. It hardly seemed possible this morning she’d been up to Top Fell Pike, selecting a tree with Andrew, not as tall as the one she and Evelyn had brought home last Christmas but a decent enough tree for all that.
Andrew had been subdued all day but perhaps he didn’t feel the same this year either. Lyn reached up and placed the battered fairy carefully on the topmost branch. One wing broken, the dress ripped, its wand at a rakish angle, Christmas wouldn’t be the same without it. She turned to Andrew, hoping to elicit some response. He’d been so quiet since his demob, as if he were a stranger, albeit a polite and pleasant one. He hadn’t talked much about the war, though she sensed it would do him good if he could. She stepped back, her joy in the moment evaporating. Things weren’t the same, how could they be after everything he’d been through, but couldn’t he at least try?
‘Very nice,’ he muttered unconvincingly, glancing up from the evening paper. The right words but how empty they sounded. Was it the war or something else entirely, a worry she’d pushed to the back of her mind? This time she faced it. Had their time apart dulled his feelings towards her and it was only that he didn’t know how to tell her? She went through into the kitchen and mashed tea, frowning through the window at the world white over. What a terribly traumatic, ultimately wonderful year it had been. The weeks of waiting, then the stupendous news they’d been so longing for that Andrew was safe. She’d never forget the joy of that moment.
He was back working in his father’s furniture firm, as he’d always meant once he’d left college, if only for the war. Meanwhile, Lyn had fixed herself up with a job at a firm of solicitors in town where she was already learning shorthand. She meant to get on. They both meant to get on and they had everything going for them.
He did all the right things, said all the right things. Said nothing, Lyn thought suddenly, savagely, an unexpected tear rolling down her cheek. Hastily she brushed it away. Audrey said be patient, he’d been through so much and that he’d talk when he was ready. It was only important she be around when that moment arrived.
She toasted bread, spread butter, poached the eggs that were in such wonderful abundance, as if even the hens were glad the war was over. Later, after they’d eaten, they sat on the sofa by the fire. Night fell. She got up and drew the curtains.
‘Aren’t you going to light the candles and make a wish?’ he asked.
‘Later!’ she replied, more sharply than she’d intended but it seeming to her now, brimming as she was with post-war sensibilities, that making a wish on a Christmas tree was an impossibly childish thing to do. She sat down again. They desperately needed to talk, and she refused to put it off a second longer.
‘Do you love me, Andrew?’ she blurted out, not at all as she’d intended and only too painfully aware of his start of surprise.
‘Of course I love you. What ever made you think I didn’t love you?’
‘You’ve been so quiet, I thought…’
‘What? What did you think?’
‘You were quiet because of us, that you’d changed your mind about us, being together, I mean, and it was only you didn’t know how to say.’
‘But it didn’t mean…it doesn’t mean… I can’t believe you thought that! Oh hang it Lyn! You know I’m no good with words!’
‘Try Andrew, this is important,’ she urged.
His eyes filled with a quiet desperation.
‘It’s been hard getting back into the routine that’s all. Putting what’s happened behind me, the war, I mean. Life’s felt unreal, like I can’t escape the past. It’ll take time, I expect,’ he finished lamely, as if, even now, he couldn’t comfortably explain himself. ‘It’s nothing to do with how I feel about you. I thought you understood.’
Relief and happiness flooded through Lyn in equal measure.
‘I needed you to tell me.’
He turned towards her, a curious light shining in his eyes.
‘Knowing you were here waiting for me, was the one thing kept me going.’
‘I wanted to be with you so much, Andrew. That’s why this Christmas is so special! I don’t know how we got through the last one.’
He took her hand and stroked it gently. ‘And you think I didn’t miss you? Last Christmas was a prime example!’
‘You’ve never told me anything about your war,’ she pointed out.
‘Do you want me to tell you?’
‘It would do you good.’
She shouldn’t have had to point this out either and his shoulders lifted in complicity. A log fell, sending a burst of sparks up the chimney back. ‘Most of it’s a blur but…some things stick,’ he began pensively, his face warmed by fire-light. ‘Last Christmas Eve for one. Just because it was Christmas, it didn’t mean to say the fighting had stopped. Our company was on its way to re-take a bridge we’d lost the day before, only just our bad luck the snow worsened the moment we set off. Hard to see a hand in front of a face, never mind the detachment of enemy soldiers we met on the way! Our troops scattered, taking cover where they could until the order came through the exercise was cancelled, and we were to make our own way back to base. I’ve no idea how I lost my bearings but unfortunately, that’s exactly what I did. I was lost, disorientated and wandered too close to enemy lines. I was hit by a sniper, target practice, I think.’
‘Oh God, Andrew, why have I never heard this before?’
‘It was nothing, nothing serious. The bullet grazed my forehead, but I fell and cracked my head and knocked myself out, I’ve no idea how long for.’ His thumb stroked her hand rhythmatically, as if even now he wasn’t sure he should be telling her this. He stumbled on. ‘When I came too, everywhere was white over and I’d no idea where I was, where to find my unit, or the enemy come to that! Night was drawing in and I was so damn tired, all I wanted was to lie down and go to sleep again and…and…hope I never woke up. I couldn’t see the point of it anymore. The whole blasted war and everything with it! I hope you can understand that, but all the men were miserable. It was Christmas. All we wanted was to go home to our families.’
His voice ground to a halt.
‘Oh Andrew, of course I can understand! Tell me the rest,’ she insisted when nothing else appeared forthcoming.
His head lifted. ‘Out there, in the cold and the dark, I started to think about you and what you’d say, if I didn’t get home. And then suddenly, amazingly, I heard your voice, as clear as I can hear it now, as if you were there, beside me, your presence seemed so real!’ His voice was tinged with bewilderment as if even now, a whole year later, he still couldn’t understand it. He frowned. ‘You know that silly old tradition you have that I’ve always rather loved you for? You’d just wished on the Christmas tree and you’d come to tell me what you’d wished for, that you wanted me home, and that Christmas wasn’t the same without me.’
‘But Andrew, how strange.’
‘I felt I was letting you down because I couldn’t get home, no matter that was what I longed for. But then I thought of all the Christmases when we would be together, when the war was over. Even though we were together then, too, in an odd kind of way.’
What was Lyn to make of this? And yet, what had happened was hardly surprising. She always made a wish on the tree on Christmas Eve and it was only natural Andrew would think of her, exactly as she’d thought of him. But for each to feel the other’s presence as if the miles between had never existed?
‘It helped bring me to my senses. The thought of you, wanting me home.’
‘Oh Andrew! I did, so very desperately and oddly, possibly at the very same moment you were thinking of me. I felt you were here with me, too. As real as I see you now.’
‘It must have been our mutual longing.’
‘It must.’ She had to agree. But how strange she’d imagined the tree had let her down when all along, in such an unexpected way, it had brought them together again. ‘What happened then?’ she asked curiously.
‘I headed off in what I hoped was the right direction. I’m still not sure how I got back to my unit. A guardian angel guiding me, I think.’
‘I could have lost you.’
The enormity of the thought took Lyn’s breath. Was it true then? Had the fact of making a wish under the Christmas tree reached out to Andrew across all those miles? As if the distance between had never existed!
Some things were best not deliberated on, only accepted as what was meant to be.
‘I wanted to tell you about it, but I thought you’d think me foolish.’ Touchingly embarrassed, he stopped and shook his head. “Light the candles woman!” he growled and typical of him, turning the situation into a joke.
Lyn fetched the matches, Andrew switched out the light, plunging the world, their world, into a shimmering beacon of light.
The candles burned steadily. Like their love, Lyn thought, unprompted and tears springing into her eyes. Despite it all, despite everything. How could she ever have doubted it was there all along? And this time when Andrew kissed her, she knew, with a burning certainty, wishes under the Christmas tree really did come true.
It wouldn’t be the same without Andrew this Christmas, never mind the paraphernalia of the black outs and rationing and the appalling reality that Mrs. Spencer’s chickens were needed for layers this year. Christmas without a bird of some kind was hard to envisage. Imagining Andrew contemplating much of the same fayre, or lack of it, wherever he was, Lyn Prendergast’s face clouded over. The prettiest face in Belchester, Andrew told her, even if Lyn, more accepting of the truth, saw it for what it was, a plain to middling face and only her eyes, long lashed and midnight blue, shining below her thick, coppery hair, raising it above the ordinary.
News of the tree was the final straw.
‘Mother we simply have to have a tree!’
‘I’m afraid my darling, a tree is something else we must do without.’ Ever pragmatic, Audrey Prendergast turned away from the window where she’d been watching the snow settle, large fat flakes drifting at random, multiplying until the sky was white over. ‘How could we get it back here?’
‘We could manage between us.’
The moment the words left her mouth, Lyn knew it was hopeless. Impossible to imagine two women struggling all the way from Top Fell Pike with a tree, never mind the thoughts of her dear, fastidious mother doing anything quite so strenuous. The picture it suggested nearly undid her. Her smile was the first that morning.
By lunch-time, everything was white over. Curling up on the window-seat in the front room, Lyn thought of Andrew and how long it was since his last leave in September, the skies clouding over, leaves fading from their summer brilliance, the evenings already drawing in. He hadn’t been himself, the war and his involvement in it, preying on his mind she suspected, though he’d never said as much. She had no idea why she hadn’t asked. Because he wouldn’t have told her anyway, came the instant, undeniable answer. Steady, kind, reliable Andrew, never good with words, who could be anywhere, where the fighting was heaviest, she assumed when she thought about it, which she tried so hard not to do. She read the papers avidly.
Last year, knowing that Christmas together might be their last, a fact unspoken but painfully recognised, they’d gone together to fetch the tree, Andrew lifting it into the back of his father’s furniture van, together with a smaller version for his mother.
She jumped up and went through into the kitchen and busied herself with the lunch. They simply had to have a tree, the focal point of Christmas! She felt if only there was a tree, everything else would fall into place, cancelling out what was happening in the rest of the world. Husbands, fathers, ripped from their loved ones, families torn apart.
Such unimaginable horrors. Cracking into a bowl the two eggs Audrey had fetched from Mrs. Spencer’s that morning, she forced her mind back to the problem of the tree. If they didn’t have a tree, she wouldn’t be able to make a wish and that didn’t bear thinking about.
Lyn’s Christmas wish, the family joke.
Every year when the candles were lit on the tree, she made a wish, a ritual she’d carried out right from when she was a little girl, only old enough to lisp whatever it was she so longed for. Then of course, her wishes had been of the small, easily satisfied variety. A new doll, a pram to push it in and, as she got older, other more complicated wants and needs, once a pair of bright red shoes, with shiny plastic buckles she’d seen in Mr. Meyers shoe-shop window. How old had she been, ten, eleven? At the time, she’d simply ached for those shoes! That their miraculous arrival on Christmas morning might have had more to do with Audrey seeing her daughter staring longingly through the shoe-shop window, rather than any action on Lyn’s part, Lyn had been wise enough to acknowledge, even then, even as young as she was. Of course, she didn’t really believe in it, it was only a bit of fun.
If she never wished, there’d never be a chance of her wish coming true. The thought decided her, that and the snow and thinking of her old school friend Evelyn and knowing, instantly, she’d be happy to lend a hand. Evelyn, now a colleague in the munition’s factory, the other side of town, where she and Lyn worked.
‘We must be crazy! Or am I the only crazy one allowing you to talk me into this?’
Evelyn grinned good-naturedly.
It was bitter cold on Top Fell Pike even in summer, never mind now, the depths of winter and the wind piling snow against the rocks and into the crevices. It looked pretty, shrouding the plantation of fir trees with a burden so heavy, their drooping branches swept the ground. Like icing on a Christmas cake, or an impossibly festive Christmas card she would have loved to send to Andrew if only she’d known where to send it!
They selected a decent sized tree, lugged it onto the sledge and fastened it down with rope. The sledge had been a brainwave. Lyn’s brainwave. She straightened up, gasping at the bitter wind filling her eyes with tears.
‘Stop and have tea with us. Mother won’t mind.’
‘Is that a bribe?’
‘A threat more like!’
Both girls laughed. Tea would be whatever Audrey could scratch together, leftovers from the pantry, same as always, even on Christmas Eve. They’d been in high spirits since they’d got here, laughing in the face of adversity. Each taking a rope end, heads bowed against the wind, even now hurling tiny, stinging shards of ice against their faces, they set off, dragging the sledge, slowly and carefully back down the valley.
‘Isn’t it splendid?’ Lyn cried, some long while later, jumping down from the chair on which she’d been so precariously balanced and stepping back to admire their efforts.
The tea, consisting of fish paste sandwiches and eggless cake, had been consumed amongst much hilarity, after which Evelyn had stayed on to help dress the tree. Both girls gazed in awe at the battered, ancient fairy, wand askew, lodged on top of the Prendergast Christmas tree since time immemorial, the same tired old chipped baubles, spinning from branches wrapped round with tinsel. Shortly they’d light the candles. It was Christmas Eve, of course they’d light the candles and afterwards, just as always, Lyn would make a wish. This Christmas, it was more important than ever. Was she being fanciful or even worse, ever so slightly ridiculous? What did it matter if she made a wish or not!
She blinked furiously.
‘He’ll be safe, don’t worry.’
Evelyn squeezed her hand. Her John was safe in an office job in Cairo. He wouldn’t be home for Christmas but at least she did know where he was. Not knowing was worse, harder than anything. If only Lyn knew where Andrew was!
Audrey fetched the matches from the ledge in the scullery and did the honours. Evelyn switched out the light. The effect was magical, turning the room into an enchanted palace of glittering stars, catching at the brilliance of the ancient shiny balls and giving impression of the tree gently swaying, as if it was still up on Top Fell Pike, the winter wind whistling through its branches.
Please keep Andrew safe from harm. Please bring him safely home for Christmas! She hadn’t meant to add this last, but the thought sprang unbidden from her longing to see him, now, this very instant, overriding this wretched war keeping them apart. Like a mantra, she repeated it, over and over, even when she knew it was impossible. She’d spoiled it, spoiled everything! This time, for the very first time, she’d made a wish no amount of longing could ever turn into truth.
But then, miraculously, to Lyn’s amazement, it felt that for one glorious moment, Andrew really was present, standing beside her and gazing down laughingly into her face, as tangible a truth, as if, shaking snow from his coat, throwing off his cap onto the hall table, he’d opened the door and sauntered in, happy as ever. She swayed, frowning slightly, unable to understand it or what was happening to her. A mirage or hallucination, a longing brought to wonderful, brilliant life! And there he was, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he smiled, his hand lifting to brush a stray curl from her cheek before he kissed her.
Her hand flew to her lips and reality hit her. It had been no more than a dream created by her desperate longing to see him again. She gazed round, seeing only steady familiarity, the battered sofa, the bowl of Christmas roses on the inlaid table, even the wretched Christmas tree, the very presence of which had caused this heartache.
‘Have you made a wish, darling?’ Audrey enquired, her smile fading. As if even she knew, this year of all years, Lyn’s wish couldn’t possibly come true.
‘Are you sure you’re alright?’ Audrey demanded, a little sharply.
It was Christmas morning and the church bells were ringing out over the valley. Lyn had hardly slept a wink. She took her tea and did her best to smile, meanwhile gazing out of the parlour window onto a world so white and pure, it was impossible to think, a few short miles across the channel was such bloodshed and carnage.
They spent their day doing the ordinary Christmas things, it was Christmas after all, except there was no Andrew and no young men in church either, conspicuous by their absence and the lack of deep voices to join in with the carols. Walking home, they discovered it was snowing again, wind-blown flakes stinging their faces, so they were glad to reach sanctuary and the joint of pork Audrey’s thrift had provided for Christmas lunch. Neighbours popped in, partaking of a glass of sherry before just as quickly popping out again. In the evening, they sat by the fire and read for an hour. Audrey finished her knitting. Lyn made cocoa. The day passed. There would be other days, other Christmases when she and Andrew could be together, Lyn assured herself, hanging onto the thought, the one obvious thought holding her together. There would be other Christmases. She went to bed, waking early, forcing herself to remain in bed and rising at the usual time. Normality would get her through this, or as normal as life could ever be with this wretched war. Downstairs, she drew back the curtains and as light flooded the room, averted her gaze from the Christmas tree that she felt, ridiculously, had so badly let her down.
It was amazing how quickly another year passed. A whole year and here she was, applying the finishing touches to the decorations yet again, paper chains, holly and mistletoe and of course, the tree to dress. It hardly seemed possible this morning she’d been up to Top Fell Pike, selecting a tree with Andrew, not as tall as the one she and Evelyn had brought home last Christmas but a decent enough tree for all that.
Andrew had been subdued all day but perhaps he didn’t feel the same this year either. Lyn reached up and placed the battered fairy carefully on the topmost branch. One wing broken, the dress ripped, its wand at a rakish angle, Christmas wouldn’t be the same without it. She turned to Andrew, hoping to elicit some response. He’d been so quiet since his demob, as if he were a stranger, albeit a polite and pleasant one. He hadn’t talked much about the war, though she sensed it would do him good if he could. She stepped back, her joy in the moment evaporating. Things weren’t the same, how could they be after everything he’d been through, but couldn’t he at least try?
‘Very nice,’ he muttered unconvincingly, glancing up from the evening paper. The right words but how empty they sounded. Was it the war or something else entirely, a worry she’d pushed to the back of her mind? This time she faced it. Had their time apart dulled his feelings towards her and it was only that he didn’t know how to tell her? She went through into the kitchen and mashed tea, frowning through the window at the world white over. What a terribly traumatic, ultimately wonderful year it had been. The weeks of waiting, then the stupendous news they’d been so longing for that Andrew was safe. She’d never forget the joy of that moment.
He was back working in his father’s furniture firm, as he’d always meant once he’d left college, if only for the war. Meanwhile, Lyn had fixed herself up with a job at a firm of solicitors in town where she was already learning shorthand. She meant to get on. They both meant to get on and they had everything going for them.
He did all the right things, said all the right things. Said nothing, Lyn thought suddenly, savagely, an unexpected tear rolling down her cheek. Hastily she brushed it away. Audrey said be patient, he’d been through so much and that he’d talk when he was ready. It was only important she be around when that moment arrived.
She toasted bread, spread butter, poached the eggs that were in such wonderful abundance, as if even the hens were glad the war was over. Later, after they’d eaten, they sat on the sofa by the fire. Night fell. She got up and drew the curtains.
‘Aren’t you going to light the candles and make a wish?’ he asked.
‘Later!’ she replied, more sharply than she’d intended but it seeming to her now, brimming as she was with post-war sensibilities, that making a wish on a Christmas tree was an impossibly childish thing to do. She sat down again. They desperately needed to talk, and she refused to put it off a second longer.
‘Do you love me, Andrew?’ she blurted out, not at all as she’d intended and only too painfully aware of his start of surprise.
‘Of course I love you. What ever made you think I didn’t love you?’
‘You’ve been so quiet, I thought…’
‘What? What did you think?’
‘You were quiet because of us, that you’d changed your mind about us, being together, I mean, and it was only you didn’t know how to say.’
‘But it didn’t mean…it doesn’t mean… I can’t believe you thought that! Oh hang it Lyn! You know I’m no good with words!’
‘Try Andrew, this is important,’ she urged.
His eyes filled with a quiet desperation.
‘It’s been hard getting back into the routine that’s all. Putting what’s happened behind me, the war, I mean. Life’s felt unreal, like I can’t escape the past. It’ll take time, I expect,’ he finished lamely, as if, even now, he couldn’t comfortably explain himself. ‘It’s nothing to do with how I feel about you. I thought you understood.’
Relief and happiness flooded through Lyn in equal measure.
‘I needed you to tell me.’
He turned towards her, a curious light shining in his eyes.
‘Knowing you were here waiting for me, was the one thing kept me going.’
‘I wanted to be with you so much, Andrew. That’s why this Christmas is so special! I don’t know how we got through the last one.’
He took her hand and stroked it gently. ‘And you think I didn’t miss you? Last Christmas was a prime example!’
‘You’ve never told me anything about your war,’ she pointed out.
‘Do you want me to tell you?’
‘It would do you good.’
She shouldn’t have had to point this out either and his shoulders lifted in complicity. A log fell, sending a burst of sparks up the chimney back. ‘Most of it’s a blur but…some things stick,’ he began pensively, his face warmed by fire-light. ‘Last Christmas Eve for one. Just because it was Christmas, it didn’t mean to say the fighting had stopped. Our company was on its way to re-take a bridge we’d lost the day before, only just our bad luck the snow worsened the moment we set off. Hard to see a hand in front of a face, never mind the detachment of enemy soldiers we met on the way! Our troops scattered, taking cover where they could until the order came through the exercise was cancelled, and we were to make our own way back to base. I’ve no idea how I lost my bearings but unfortunately, that’s exactly what I did. I was lost, disorientated and wandered too close to enemy lines. I was hit by a sniper, target practice, I think.’
‘Oh God, Andrew, why have I never heard this before?’
‘It was nothing, nothing serious. The bullet grazed my forehead, but I fell and cracked my head and knocked myself out, I’ve no idea how long for.’ His thumb stroked her hand rhythmatically, as if even now he wasn’t sure he should be telling her this. He stumbled on. ‘When I came too, everywhere was white over and I’d no idea where I was, where to find my unit, or the enemy come to that! Night was drawing in and I was so damn tired, all I wanted was to lie down and go to sleep again and…and…hope I never woke up. I couldn’t see the point of it anymore. The whole blasted war and everything with it! I hope you can understand that, but all the men were miserable. It was Christmas. All we wanted was to go home to our families.’
His voice ground to a halt.
‘Oh Andrew, of course I can understand! Tell me the rest,’ she insisted when nothing else appeared forthcoming.
His head lifted. ‘Out there, in the cold and the dark, I started to think about you and what you’d say, if I didn’t get home. And then suddenly, amazingly, I heard your voice, as clear as I can hear it now, as if you were there, beside me, your presence seemed so real!’ His voice was tinged with bewilderment as if even now, a whole year later, he still couldn’t understand it. He frowned. ‘You know that silly old tradition you have that I’ve always rather loved you for? You’d just wished on the Christmas tree and you’d come to tell me what you’d wished for, that you wanted me home, and that Christmas wasn’t the same without me.’
‘But Andrew, how strange.’
‘I felt I was letting you down because I couldn’t get home, no matter that was what I longed for. But then I thought of all the Christmases when we would be together, when the war was over. Even though we were together then, too, in an odd kind of way.’
What was Lyn to make of this? And yet, what had happened was hardly surprising. She always made a wish on the tree on Christmas Eve and it was only natural Andrew would think of her, exactly as she’d thought of him. But for each to feel the other’s presence as if the miles between had never existed?
‘It helped bring me to my senses. The thought of you, wanting me home.’
‘Oh Andrew! I did, so very desperately and oddly, possibly at the very same moment you were thinking of me. I felt you were here with me, too. As real as I see you now.’
‘It must have been our mutual longing.’
‘It must.’ She had to agree. But how strange she’d imagined the tree had let her down when all along, in such an unexpected way, it had brought them together again. ‘What happened then?’ she asked curiously.
‘I headed off in what I hoped was the right direction. I’m still not sure how I got back to my unit. A guardian angel guiding me, I think.’
‘I could have lost you.’
The enormity of the thought took Lyn’s breath. Was it true then? Had the fact of making a wish under the Christmas tree reached out to Andrew across all those miles? As if the distance between had never existed!
Some things were best not deliberated on, only accepted as what was meant to be.
‘I wanted to tell you about it, but I thought you’d think me foolish.’ Touchingly embarrassed, he stopped and shook his head. “Light the candles woman!” he growled and typical of him, turning the situation into a joke.
Lyn fetched the matches, Andrew switched out the light, plunging the world, their world, into a shimmering beacon of light.
The candles burned steadily. Like their love, Lyn thought, unprompted and tears springing into her eyes. Despite it all, despite everything. How could she ever have doubted it was there all along? And this time when Andrew kissed her, she knew, with a burning certainty, wishes under the Christmas tree really did come true.
October 23, 2018
The Miner's Wife
The Miner's Wife
As three of my four grandparents grew up in mining families, I’ve been especially interested in writing and researching my latest novel (published today) and set in a mining community, in a fictional Derbyshire town, at the turn of the last century, mining once being a common occupation amongst the working class in Derbyshire. Life was tough and very often precarious. A paternal great-uncle was killed in a pit accident at the tragically young age of fourteen and I can remember my grandfather saying, his mother never got over the shock. All the incident warranted was a couple of lines in the local paper. It happened too often, alas, inexperienced young lads in such dangerous occupation.
There was little money to go around. When my grandfather was a boy, he fell down a flight of stone steps, and fractured his skull and given his family could only scrape together the few pennies for the most basic of medical care, he was reduced to lying in bed at home, for the months it took until he was well again. He bore the scars until his dying day. Families were large, and my great-grandmother kept chickens and a well-stocked vegetable garden to help eke out their housekeeping. There was no room for sentiment. Once a chicken stopped laying, it went in the pot! My grandmother, on my mother’s side, was sent from Burton into service in Belper, at the tender age of thirteen, another common happening in mining families where boys were viewed more favourably, if only for the money they could earn. Girls were simply another mouth to feed and thus surplus to requirements.
Neither of my grandfathers went into mining, so in that respect, they could be said to have improved their lot. But what I remember most about my grandparents, on both sides, was the rich seam of small, local happenings, around which their world revolved, the never malicious gossip about people they knew and the readiness to lend a helping hand should anyone have need of it. Nowadays, the world is a small place, but I think we’re the poorer for the loss of contact and warmth. Folk looked out for each other and in the mining community especially.
This novel isn’t based on my family in any way and yet because of my family background, I think it’s helped me to enter the spirit of life in those days.
As three of my four grandparents grew up in mining families, I’ve been especially interested in writing and researching my latest novel (published today) and set in a mining community, in a fictional Derbyshire town, at the turn of the last century, mining once being a common occupation amongst the working class in Derbyshire. Life was tough and very often precarious. A paternal great-uncle was killed in a pit accident at the tragically young age of fourteen and I can remember my grandfather saying, his mother never got over the shock. All the incident warranted was a couple of lines in the local paper. It happened too often, alas, inexperienced young lads in such dangerous occupation.
There was little money to go around. When my grandfather was a boy, he fell down a flight of stone steps, and fractured his skull and given his family could only scrape together the few pennies for the most basic of medical care, he was reduced to lying in bed at home, for the months it took until he was well again. He bore the scars until his dying day. Families were large, and my great-grandmother kept chickens and a well-stocked vegetable garden to help eke out their housekeeping. There was no room for sentiment. Once a chicken stopped laying, it went in the pot! My grandmother, on my mother’s side, was sent from Burton into service in Belper, at the tender age of thirteen, another common happening in mining families where boys were viewed more favourably, if only for the money they could earn. Girls were simply another mouth to feed and thus surplus to requirements.
Neither of my grandfathers went into mining, so in that respect, they could be said to have improved their lot. But what I remember most about my grandparents, on both sides, was the rich seam of small, local happenings, around which their world revolved, the never malicious gossip about people they knew and the readiness to lend a helping hand should anyone have need of it. Nowadays, the world is a small place, but I think we’re the poorer for the loss of contact and warmth. Folk looked out for each other and in the mining community especially.
This novel isn’t based on my family in any way and yet because of my family background, I think it’s helped me to enter the spirit of life in those days.
August 10, 2018
My Home Town
‘Near the throbbing heart of England,
In a spot so very fair
That it charmed the men who found it,
And they named it Beaurepaire…’
This extract is taken from the Herbert Strutt School Song, written by R.Sutton, about my home town Belper, in Derbyshire. I didn’t know R. Sutton, a teacher at Strutt’s Grammar School a long time before I was a pupil, but I remember his song from our annual Founders day, just as I recollect that we muddled the words, thereby converting the charming old name of ‘Beaurepaire’ to ‘Beyond Repair’. We were young, we would, wouldn’t we…?
The Normans knew Belper as ‘Belle Piere’ – Fair Stone, after the whiteness of the locally quarried stone. In 1266, the Earldoms of Derby and Nottingham, passed from the de Ferrieres family to Edmund Crouchback, son of Henry III, and this part of the Royal Forests became his unofficial hunting retreat. He was probably the first to find inspiration in the description of Beau Repaire – Beautiful Retreat. I dare say he wouldn’t have thought much of our translation either.
Is Belper still beautiful? It’s certainly changed over the years, especially within my lifetime. I’ve never thought of it as exactly beautiful though it has its beautiful spots, if you know where to find them. It’s the place where I live and has its own charm. The Belper of my childhood isn’t the Belper I live in now, it’s grown and spread itself out, like a large maidenly aunt. The Belper I remember, the idealised Belper that probably existed nowhere outside my imagination, has long since vanished, changed in the way all industrial towns of the midlands have changed. Thriving industries have long since disappeared whilst infrastructures groan under the weight of an expanding population. It still has plenty going for it, however.
Belper’s history is irreversibly linked to its initial industry of nail making, dating back to the 12th century – Belper Town F.C. is still nick-named The Nailors incidentally - and the subsequent major role the town played in the Industrial Revolution. This was largely down to the exertions of one Jedidiah Strutt, who built the first cotton mills here in the late 18th and the 19th century. Jedidiah was a successful Derbyshire farmer and factory owner, who took out a patent for stocking frames in 1759 and never looked back. Eventually, he got together with Richard Arkwright, and a wealthy Nottingham hosier named Samuel Need, and built the world’s first water-powered spinning mill at nearby Cromford. Looking to expand, Belper seemed the obvious choice for a new site. Nestled cosily in the valley, by the River Derwent, it had the required water power and already possessed a skilled work-force. The timber framed North Mill built in 1786 – rebuilt in 1804 after a fire – together with its linking gangway, still stands today. If you take a moment to idle by the triangle and look towards the Talbot Inn, you can see the gun loopholes added to the gangway in 1810 so the local militia could defend the mill from the luddites. Thankfully they were never used!
Incidentally, Jedidiah’s apprentice, Samuel Slater, who was Belper born and bred, took the knowledge he’d gleaned from his master, to the USA and became the founder of the American cotton textile industry. Jedidiah’s three sons, William, George Benson and Joseph meanwhile formed the company of W.G. and J. Strutt which eventually evolved into the largest cotton spinning company in Britain. By the late 19th century, this had become the English Sewing Cotton Company. In 1912, the company was responsible for building the imposing East Mill which still dominates the entrance to Belper along the A6 from Matlock and Cromford, if, alas, nowadays fallen into a sadly derelict state. The North Mill is now the site for the Derwent Valley Visitor’s Centre and a museum depicting the evolution of cotton spinning, with displays of both original and replica machinery and, amongst other effects, the Jubilee Bell, produced in 1887 to celebrate the Jubilee of Queen Victoria.
The influence of the Strutt family, who were a caring, if a paternalistic bunch, can be discovered throughout Belper but there was method in their madness, as a well-cared for workforce was also a productive one. Examples of the terraced cottages they built for their workers, with three full floors and a larder for the food, bought at the mill and deducted from their pay-packets, can be viewed along the cobbled street of Long Row. Long Row school, built by Jedidiah’s sons in 1831, came into being initially to educate mill-workers children. It’s a long haul from here up Mill Street and Chesterfield Road, onto Far Laund, for a child with a big appetite and only a short lunch break. Believe me, I remember it well and no wonder the old Belper saying that wherever you go, there’s a hill to climb!
Arguably, the one Strutt whose influence reaches furthest into the fabric of Belper, was Jedidiah’s great, great grandson, George Herbert Strutt whose largesse included the creation of the River Gardens, situated alongside the Mill – still a thriving attraction and where Belper folk congregate at times of public celebration - a public baths, the cricket ground, church bells, the Unitarian Chapel and The Herbert Strutt School, opened on the 8th May, 1909 by the then Duke of Devonshire. The latter is located further along the A6, and opposite the Babington Hospital. These two gems are surely the most beautiful buildings Belper possesses. Being a teenager obsessed with tennis, hockey and netball, I have very many happy memories of the Strutts School playing fields, situated behind the back of Babington. I suppose the teachers assumed, a mite optimistically I have to say, that if we burnt off our boundless energy in this way, we might eventually settle to work. I always preferred the view through the window over lessons but if we weren’t running ourselves senseless round the sports fields, we had the added attraction of Strutts School swimming baths – now closed alas. After a welcome after school swim, me and a friend, Olivia, would take the short-cut through Prospect Drive to her house on Derby Road, where her mother used to do us the best mushrooms on toast ever. I can taste it still!
Babington Hospital is on the same site as the Babington Workhouse, built in 1840, after the Poor Laws Act of 1832 gave care of the unemployed and destitute to local authorities. It even had the added attraction of a ‘Tramps Ward’, where any poor wayfarer passing through was required to pay for his temporary board and lodgings by breaking up stone and passing the pieces through the metal grilled mesh windows. The Workhouse was amalgamated into the Hospital in 1930 but because of its connections with the work-house, Belper people were initially reluctant to have much to do with it. I can’t say I blame them.
Set adjacent between Mill and Hospital is the main shopping centre, King Street, which grew out of its proximity to the railway station. George Stevenson directed the North Midland Railway through Belper in 1838 but Mr. Strutt was adamant it should be kept out of sight, so the trains were made to run in a deep, stone-lined cutting, which passes right under the town. Indeed in Long Row, you can see where some of the terraced housing was demolished to make way for it. People hopped off the trains at King Street station and enjoyed a browse in the shops. Nowadays, even if the station house has long disappeared, come Saturday morning, the Street is still thronging and it’s virtually impossible to progress its length without seeing a friendly face and have a catch up on local gossip. A thriving farmers market is held in the market place across the top of King Street, every second Saturday of the month, where you can purchase food that tastes like food and, whilst you’re about it, imagine yourself in a more sedate and deliberate time.
Further up the road still, and located off High Pavement, to the South-East of the Mill, lies Belper’s oldest landmark, St. John’s Chapel, built by William de Ferrers, the Earl of Derby, circa 1250, as a social centre for the local foresters. The porch was added in 1634, the bell-cote in 1699. Recent alterations have adhered as closely as possible to its original construction. To anyone of a fanciful disposition, walking quietly through the Chapel grounds, can easily lead to illusions of centuries slipping into reverse. What kind of life did these foresters lead? What a hard life they must have lived and how grateful they would have been for this focal point, giving them the chance to be with fellow workers. Their presence – and more saliently – that of their horses, led directly to the development of the Belper Nail industry. Nails were needed for horse-shoes, whilst the iron-stone for the nails was available locally. Another knock-on effect of this is the number of local pubs, for a nailer’s life was indeed a hard one. They were a thirsty lot and are said to have kept the local court busy with their various misdemeanours whilst under the influence of too many pints! Their labour continued until the early 20th century, when factory-made nails banished the industry to obscurity. A nail-makers cottage can still be found in Joseph Street.
Being in the grounds of St. John’s Chapel brings back memories of my grand-father Sam Horsley, who used to walk through it in the evenings, on his way to the pub, The Nags Head, found at the top of the market place. Having lost his sight in his early twenties, he knew exactly the number of steps it took from Spencer Road to his reserved chair at the Nags. I shut my eyes and try to imagine how he did it – and still find it impossible.
Should you fancy a stroll, the most panoramic views of Belper can be found along the Chevin. Cross over from the mill to the bridge, taking in the magnificent horseshoe weir as you go, and drop down onto the bridle path by the river. If you’re exceptionally lucky, you might even see a flash of bright blue as a kingfisher swoops down over the water. Walk along this path by the meadows for a mile or so before following the directions upwards, then, once you’ve recovered your breath, stop and look back towards Belper. It’s some sight and well worth the effort. To the other side of the valley, lies the little copse of Bessalone surrounded by endless green fields and quiet views towards Matlock and Crich Stand. It’s a stress-buster this one, should you need peace and quiet.
The River Gardens offers a relaxing stroll for those who prefer their exercise to be of a gentler nature. Here you can muse on the fact The River Gardens was used for the filming of ‘Women in Love’, written by local author D.H.Lawrence, generally accepted as one of the greatest English novelists of the 20th century. One of the film’s stars, Alan Bates was educated at Strutts School – as were Timothy Dalton – he of 007 fame - and Graham Haberfield who went on to play Jerry in Coronation Street. I can remember seeing Timothy Dalton in a production of ‘Tiger at the Gates’ at Strutts School and you could tell he was talented even then. We all knew he’d go far.
Perched on the edge of the Peak district, with all its stunning scenery, Belper is within easy distance too of Chatsworth, Hardwick and Haddon Hall. Its historical importance – along with the whole of the Derwent Valley – has been recognised with its elevation to a World Heritage site.
In a spot so very fair
That it charmed the men who found it,
And they named it Beaurepaire…’
This extract is taken from the Herbert Strutt School Song, written by R.Sutton, about my home town Belper, in Derbyshire. I didn’t know R. Sutton, a teacher at Strutt’s Grammar School a long time before I was a pupil, but I remember his song from our annual Founders day, just as I recollect that we muddled the words, thereby converting the charming old name of ‘Beaurepaire’ to ‘Beyond Repair’. We were young, we would, wouldn’t we…?
The Normans knew Belper as ‘Belle Piere’ – Fair Stone, after the whiteness of the locally quarried stone. In 1266, the Earldoms of Derby and Nottingham, passed from the de Ferrieres family to Edmund Crouchback, son of Henry III, and this part of the Royal Forests became his unofficial hunting retreat. He was probably the first to find inspiration in the description of Beau Repaire – Beautiful Retreat. I dare say he wouldn’t have thought much of our translation either.
Is Belper still beautiful? It’s certainly changed over the years, especially within my lifetime. I’ve never thought of it as exactly beautiful though it has its beautiful spots, if you know where to find them. It’s the place where I live and has its own charm. The Belper of my childhood isn’t the Belper I live in now, it’s grown and spread itself out, like a large maidenly aunt. The Belper I remember, the idealised Belper that probably existed nowhere outside my imagination, has long since vanished, changed in the way all industrial towns of the midlands have changed. Thriving industries have long since disappeared whilst infrastructures groan under the weight of an expanding population. It still has plenty going for it, however.
Belper’s history is irreversibly linked to its initial industry of nail making, dating back to the 12th century – Belper Town F.C. is still nick-named The Nailors incidentally - and the subsequent major role the town played in the Industrial Revolution. This was largely down to the exertions of one Jedidiah Strutt, who built the first cotton mills here in the late 18th and the 19th century. Jedidiah was a successful Derbyshire farmer and factory owner, who took out a patent for stocking frames in 1759 and never looked back. Eventually, he got together with Richard Arkwright, and a wealthy Nottingham hosier named Samuel Need, and built the world’s first water-powered spinning mill at nearby Cromford. Looking to expand, Belper seemed the obvious choice for a new site. Nestled cosily in the valley, by the River Derwent, it had the required water power and already possessed a skilled work-force. The timber framed North Mill built in 1786 – rebuilt in 1804 after a fire – together with its linking gangway, still stands today. If you take a moment to idle by the triangle and look towards the Talbot Inn, you can see the gun loopholes added to the gangway in 1810 so the local militia could defend the mill from the luddites. Thankfully they were never used!
Incidentally, Jedidiah’s apprentice, Samuel Slater, who was Belper born and bred, took the knowledge he’d gleaned from his master, to the USA and became the founder of the American cotton textile industry. Jedidiah’s three sons, William, George Benson and Joseph meanwhile formed the company of W.G. and J. Strutt which eventually evolved into the largest cotton spinning company in Britain. By the late 19th century, this had become the English Sewing Cotton Company. In 1912, the company was responsible for building the imposing East Mill which still dominates the entrance to Belper along the A6 from Matlock and Cromford, if, alas, nowadays fallen into a sadly derelict state. The North Mill is now the site for the Derwent Valley Visitor’s Centre and a museum depicting the evolution of cotton spinning, with displays of both original and replica machinery and, amongst other effects, the Jubilee Bell, produced in 1887 to celebrate the Jubilee of Queen Victoria.
The influence of the Strutt family, who were a caring, if a paternalistic bunch, can be discovered throughout Belper but there was method in their madness, as a well-cared for workforce was also a productive one. Examples of the terraced cottages they built for their workers, with three full floors and a larder for the food, bought at the mill and deducted from their pay-packets, can be viewed along the cobbled street of Long Row. Long Row school, built by Jedidiah’s sons in 1831, came into being initially to educate mill-workers children. It’s a long haul from here up Mill Street and Chesterfield Road, onto Far Laund, for a child with a big appetite and only a short lunch break. Believe me, I remember it well and no wonder the old Belper saying that wherever you go, there’s a hill to climb!
Arguably, the one Strutt whose influence reaches furthest into the fabric of Belper, was Jedidiah’s great, great grandson, George Herbert Strutt whose largesse included the creation of the River Gardens, situated alongside the Mill – still a thriving attraction and where Belper folk congregate at times of public celebration - a public baths, the cricket ground, church bells, the Unitarian Chapel and The Herbert Strutt School, opened on the 8th May, 1909 by the then Duke of Devonshire. The latter is located further along the A6, and opposite the Babington Hospital. These two gems are surely the most beautiful buildings Belper possesses. Being a teenager obsessed with tennis, hockey and netball, I have very many happy memories of the Strutts School playing fields, situated behind the back of Babington. I suppose the teachers assumed, a mite optimistically I have to say, that if we burnt off our boundless energy in this way, we might eventually settle to work. I always preferred the view through the window over lessons but if we weren’t running ourselves senseless round the sports fields, we had the added attraction of Strutts School swimming baths – now closed alas. After a welcome after school swim, me and a friend, Olivia, would take the short-cut through Prospect Drive to her house on Derby Road, where her mother used to do us the best mushrooms on toast ever. I can taste it still!
Babington Hospital is on the same site as the Babington Workhouse, built in 1840, after the Poor Laws Act of 1832 gave care of the unemployed and destitute to local authorities. It even had the added attraction of a ‘Tramps Ward’, where any poor wayfarer passing through was required to pay for his temporary board and lodgings by breaking up stone and passing the pieces through the metal grilled mesh windows. The Workhouse was amalgamated into the Hospital in 1930 but because of its connections with the work-house, Belper people were initially reluctant to have much to do with it. I can’t say I blame them.
Set adjacent between Mill and Hospital is the main shopping centre, King Street, which grew out of its proximity to the railway station. George Stevenson directed the North Midland Railway through Belper in 1838 but Mr. Strutt was adamant it should be kept out of sight, so the trains were made to run in a deep, stone-lined cutting, which passes right under the town. Indeed in Long Row, you can see where some of the terraced housing was demolished to make way for it. People hopped off the trains at King Street station and enjoyed a browse in the shops. Nowadays, even if the station house has long disappeared, come Saturday morning, the Street is still thronging and it’s virtually impossible to progress its length without seeing a friendly face and have a catch up on local gossip. A thriving farmers market is held in the market place across the top of King Street, every second Saturday of the month, where you can purchase food that tastes like food and, whilst you’re about it, imagine yourself in a more sedate and deliberate time.
Further up the road still, and located off High Pavement, to the South-East of the Mill, lies Belper’s oldest landmark, St. John’s Chapel, built by William de Ferrers, the Earl of Derby, circa 1250, as a social centre for the local foresters. The porch was added in 1634, the bell-cote in 1699. Recent alterations have adhered as closely as possible to its original construction. To anyone of a fanciful disposition, walking quietly through the Chapel grounds, can easily lead to illusions of centuries slipping into reverse. What kind of life did these foresters lead? What a hard life they must have lived and how grateful they would have been for this focal point, giving them the chance to be with fellow workers. Their presence – and more saliently – that of their horses, led directly to the development of the Belper Nail industry. Nails were needed for horse-shoes, whilst the iron-stone for the nails was available locally. Another knock-on effect of this is the number of local pubs, for a nailer’s life was indeed a hard one. They were a thirsty lot and are said to have kept the local court busy with their various misdemeanours whilst under the influence of too many pints! Their labour continued until the early 20th century, when factory-made nails banished the industry to obscurity. A nail-makers cottage can still be found in Joseph Street.
Being in the grounds of St. John’s Chapel brings back memories of my grand-father Sam Horsley, who used to walk through it in the evenings, on his way to the pub, The Nags Head, found at the top of the market place. Having lost his sight in his early twenties, he knew exactly the number of steps it took from Spencer Road to his reserved chair at the Nags. I shut my eyes and try to imagine how he did it – and still find it impossible.
Should you fancy a stroll, the most panoramic views of Belper can be found along the Chevin. Cross over from the mill to the bridge, taking in the magnificent horseshoe weir as you go, and drop down onto the bridle path by the river. If you’re exceptionally lucky, you might even see a flash of bright blue as a kingfisher swoops down over the water. Walk along this path by the meadows for a mile or so before following the directions upwards, then, once you’ve recovered your breath, stop and look back towards Belper. It’s some sight and well worth the effort. To the other side of the valley, lies the little copse of Bessalone surrounded by endless green fields and quiet views towards Matlock and Crich Stand. It’s a stress-buster this one, should you need peace and quiet.
The River Gardens offers a relaxing stroll for those who prefer their exercise to be of a gentler nature. Here you can muse on the fact The River Gardens was used for the filming of ‘Women in Love’, written by local author D.H.Lawrence, generally accepted as one of the greatest English novelists of the 20th century. One of the film’s stars, Alan Bates was educated at Strutts School – as were Timothy Dalton – he of 007 fame - and Graham Haberfield who went on to play Jerry in Coronation Street. I can remember seeing Timothy Dalton in a production of ‘Tiger at the Gates’ at Strutts School and you could tell he was talented even then. We all knew he’d go far.
Perched on the edge of the Peak district, with all its stunning scenery, Belper is within easy distance too of Chatsworth, Hardwick and Haddon Hall. Its historical importance – along with the whole of the Derwent Valley – has been recognised with its elevation to a World Heritage site.
July 16, 2018
'Villa Cassiopeia'
I'm highly delighted 'Villa Cassiopeia' has been selected for the WindyCity Greek Summer Reading Guide 2018 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1phep...
Villa Cassiopeia: A mysterious story set in Greece - the perfect summer read.
Villa Cassiopeia: A mysterious story set in Greece - the perfect summer read.
September 3, 2017
'Villa Cassiopeia'
With autumn fast approaching and the last hazy, lazy days of summer fast disappearing, why not snuggle down with a good book and enjoy the sunshine of Paxos in the company of Bryony and her madcap family? 'Villa Cassiopeia' is now available in paperback and by following the link below:-
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/197456867...
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/197456867...
August 7, 2017
Villa Cassiopeia - online launch party!
Seumas Gallacher has been very kind and let me do a blog on his wonderful webpage. If anyone's interested, the link is :- https://seumasgallacher.com/2017/08/0...
