Child of the North. Piers Dudgeon

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СКАЧАТЬ movements startled her into springing forward, whereupon the monkey flew into the air, emitting a series of jabbering squawks and chatters, before landing squarely on the side of the barrel organ.

      Pre-eminent amongst the street traders was, of course, the rag-and-bone merchant. Take This Woman, set in Blackburn in 1947, presents us with Laura Blake, who makes a canny living out of ‘tatting’, as it is known. She collected from a lumbering wooden cart, manoeuvring it by settling herself between its long curved shafts, and taking a firm grip with each hand. She’d collect from the smart area of town, along the Preston New Road, and then wend her way back towards Remmie Thorpe’s rag-and-bone shop, where she might exchange some of what she had collected for a few shillings. But Laura found a better welcome in her own part of town, as this extract shows:

       The women, all turbaned, laughing or talking, and nearly all pregnant, were busy white-stoning the steps, washing the windows, or watching young ‘uns, who spent their days sitting on the kerbs with sugar butties; sailing matchstick boats down the gutters; and dropping loose stones into the stinking drains.

       ‘Hey up!’ Smiling Tilly Shiner was the first to spot Laura and her cumbersome cart. ‘It’s young Laura!’

       ‘Tongue ‘anging out for a brew, I expect.’ The broad-faced Belle Strong waved a fat dimpled arm towards Laura. ‘Get your arse into my kitchen, young ‘un!’ she shouted coarsely, her numerous chins waggling and bright round eyes laughing. ‘Leave yon cart agin the kerb. They’ll ‘ave it filled in no time, lass!’

      And what does Tilly intend to give her? A pair of brown, iron-clad clogs. In Her Father’s Sins, Jo recalls the occasion when, as a youngster, she took her dad’s boots out to another rag-and-bone lady. Maisie Thorogood was as much part of the street scene ‘as the gas-lamps and the shiny worn cobblestones. In real life she was really quite bad, which was why I called her Thorogood in the book.’ In the continuation of Queenie’s story, Let Loose the Tigers, Maisie and her daughter, Sheila, are charged with keeping an immoral house in Lytham St Annes, and Sheila is sent to prison for five years. In real life, Maisie’s great weakness concerned the Yanks. The American GIs came to the town in 1944. They arrived to prepare for the invasion of Europe and were accommodated in the then disused Brookhouse Mill. ‘Maisie liked them a lot,’ Jo’s mother had informed her, ‘and when the Yanks left, she was left behind with twins, called Raymond and Sheila in the book. I grew up with them.

      ‘Maisie had connections with everything. She was amazing. She was wonderful! She was like fairyland! She had this cart that she had painted, and she attached balloons to it. You thought the whole thing was going to take off! You couldn’t miss her. Big peroxide-blonde hair. A voice like a sergeant major. Great sense of humour. She’d have everyone in stitches. The men used to tease her and torment her and she’d give ‘em as good as she got, swore like a trooper!’

       Clutching George Kenney’s old boots, Queenie hopped and skipped the few flagstones which separated her from the rag-a-bone wagon. Its presence within the excited screeching throng of children was pinpointed by the numerous clusters of waving balloons. Every colour of the rain-bow they were, dancing and jiggling towards the sky in erratic fits and starts, as the ticklish breeze played and teased the restraining strings.

       There were sausage-shaped ones, round ones, egg-shaped and twisty ones; all wriggling and singing as they rubbed together gleefully. Queenie had often imagined Maisie Thorogood sitting in her parlour blowing up the balloons. The magnitude of such an operation had prompted her on more than one occasion to ask Maisie where she kept all that wind, and if it took her all week to get the balloons ready. Maisie would roll about and scream with laughter. ‘Bless your ‘eart, Queenie darlin’,’ she’d shout, ‘didn’t you know I keeps a goblin in me shoe. It’s ‘im as blows ‘em up!’ So frustrated and perplexed had Queenie grown at this regular answer that eventually she told Sheila, ‘I think your Mam’s as daft as a barmcake!’ Sheila had agreed most fervently.

      The laughter and squeaky chatter of the delighted children filled the air, bringing the women to their doors to smile appreciatively at Maisie, with her rag-a-bone wagon and her little following army. Queenie muscled her way in, pushing and shoving with such deliberation that the deep barrier of small bodies reluctantly gave way to let her through. Not graciously though, judging by the angry snorts, sly sharp kicks, and loud abuse.

       ‘Give over snotrag! Wait yer turn!’

       ‘Hey! Who do you think you are?’

       ‘Cor! Them bloody boots don’t ‘arf stink!’

       Stink they may have done but Queenie didn’t care! Not if that was why they’d all moved aside to let her in, she thought.

       Her strong grey eyes widened in amazement as they lit on the appearance of Maisie’s wagon!

       The spill of bright colour and treasure fair blinded her. The low sides of the wagon were painted in Catherine wheels of gaudy reds, yellows, and blacks; the big wooden-spoked wheels made a body dizzy as the zig-zag lines which wound about them screamed first in gold, then green and ended up in a delightful mingling of black and yellow blobs. The whole wonderful marvellous ensemble was entrancing. The inside of the wagon was filled to bursting and, at the shaft end, where the scabby little donkey tucked noisily into his oversized hay-bag, the piles of old rags and varying artefacts were stacked sky-high.

       The remainder of the wagon was loaded down with penny-whistles; bundles of clothespegs; goldfish swimming about in little fat plastic bags; big blocks of white stepstone, and small tidy bundles of wood-stick for the fire. Around the rim of the wagon hung more cherry-red yo-yos than Queenie had ever seen in her life. Handmade they were, as Maisie was quick to point out; and polished as shiny as a still pond. They clattered against the clusters of metal-tipped spinning-tops, which also hung in groups of twenty or more from the crowded rim. Then all along the shaft arms dangled hundreds of coloured soft balls, gleaming and winking as the daylight caught the glinting lashing colours within. Finally, every spare inch of space was taken up by the myriads of brightly coloured balloons; so many that Queenie wondered why the donkey, wagon and all, hadn’t been clear lifted off the ground to be swept away forever.

       ‘Right then little Queenie! You’ve shoved your way affront o’ these other brats, so what’s it to be, eh?’ demanded Maisie.

      Although Jo’s fictional characters are not always based on real people – ‘sometimes I put two or three people together to produce a character’ – names are often a guide to particular characteristics. If the name ‘Molly’ is used, we can be fairly certain of the sort of woman to expect. Besides Molly Davidson in Cradle of Thorns, who is Jo’s mum, there are a number of Mollies in the novels, and in a particular Dedication, Jo refers to a Molly who had known her as an urchin and had watched her grow up and get married. ‘Molly was every woman who looked after the children in the street we were in,’ she explained. ‘She was the epitome of the granny if you like. She’d be in her sixties and she’d be small and round and she’d have a kind face and grey hair and tin curlers…’

      My personal favourites amongst the old-world characters that Jo fingers in the novels are two fine ladies of mature years, Tilly and Fancy Carruthers. ‘They were always in bed,’ Jo laughs, as she brings them to mind. ‘They would have been deemed lesbians today. They lived right up the top in Montague Street. I knew them because I had a friend who lived next door, Sheila Bullen. Poor Sheila, she married a man called King…It was in all the papers – I heard it on the radio – her husband shot her! He shot her while she was holding the baby and the bullet went right through and killed them СКАЧАТЬ