My Secret Sister: Jenny Lucas and Helen Edwards' Family Story (3 page)

The golf clubhouse was about half a mile back from the beach. At that time it was a corrugated-iron building, but it has since been replaced by a purpose-built brick bungalow complete with a terrace and bar, a far cry from the glorified shack I remember. This was the nearest access point. We had to park our car by the clubhouse every Friday evening and embark on the tricky walk with bags of shopping and possessions across half a mile of gorse-strewn dunes, up a steep hill and across the links to our bungalow. While I was a small child, my parents had a little wheelbarrow and I can recall my pleasure at being bumped along in the barrow, cushioned by clothing and buffeted by groceries, all the way from our car to the bungalow, my parents beaming at the thought of a relaxing weekend on the beach and a bracing game of golf.

It was a fantastic place – peace on earth – a natural playground and a great environment for children. The older ones looked after the little ones and everyone was friendly. We had a brilliant time, all of us together, carefree, living a healthy outdoors life in all weathers, safe and happy.

There was a little hill, almost a cliff, from our bungalow down about fifteen feet to the beach, with a flight of wooden steps from the top down to the sand. I can remember as a toddler, or perhaps my mother told me, that coming outside to find me one day she saw that I had disappeared from our bit of grass. She looked out and spotted me on the beach below.

‘How did our Jen get there?’ she asked an older child.

‘She went bumpy down the steps.’

I was so determined to join the children playing on the sand that I’d managed to bump down every step on my bottom.

My parents took turns to play their rounds of golf, so there was always one of them there to watch over me, usually from a distance, as I played with the others, and then to welcome me back with loving hugs and a hot meal of my favourite foods.

When I was three years old, my dad cut some old wooden golf clubs down to a size I could use and showed me how to hold them. I tried not to get my hands in a muddle. He taught me how to hit a ball and we practised together on the rough grass behind our bungalow. Obviously I couldn’t play golf yet – I couldn’t hit the ball very far – but my father would take me onto the course at night, after all the serious golfers had gone home and practise hitting golf balls while I watched. Then he’d let me hit them as well, with my special cut-down clubs. I was very proud of them. My dad loved having me with him, and I adored him.

From about this age, in our weekday home at West Jesmond, I started to develop some very chesty coughs in the winter-time. I can remember lying in bed at night listening to my own rasping breath. Every night my mother lit a vaporizer candle to moisten the air in my bedroom and soothe my breathing, but some nights I just coughed and coughed. She used to make little balls of butter rolled in sugar for me to suck on when the cough was really bad, but they didn’t always help.

Eventually, Mam took me to the doctor’s. ‘There’s a new drug called penicillin,’ he said. ‘I think we should give her some injections of it to stop any chest infections.’

So my godmother, Auntie Connie, who was a health visitor, came along to give me these injections in my bottom every day. The trouble was that she wasn’t at all gentle and they really hurt. After a few days of this, when she arrived and took down my pants I backed up into the corner of my room with my hands covering my bare bottom-cheeks and wailed, ‘
No
,
Mammy. Not today
,
please
.’ This happened every time amid floods of tears until eventually the deed was done.

It was only much later, when my mother herself had to have a series of injections given by Auntie Connie, that she turned to my dad and said, ‘No wonder the bairn didn’t like them!’

When I was three and a half I was taken by my mother to begin my first day at nursery school. It was a small, private nursery in Newcastle, part of Church High School for girls. Mam held my hand as we walked up the path that first morning – I remember feeling rather apprehensive, though I couldn’t explain it. She gave my hand a squeeze as we got closer, which transferred a bit of her strength to me. I tried to look cheerful and keep the tears at bay.

‘Be a good girl, pet,’ my mother said to me as we approached the door. ‘I want you to be a very good girl. You’ll have a lovely time playing in the sandpit and with the little cookery things. Try not to be shy,’ she advised.

‘Yes, Mammy.’

‘You have to be a good girl and not cry while you’re here.’

I nodded and bit my lip.

‘If you try hard and you’re very good, mind, they will let you go on to the next class. Church High is a lovely school where they will teach you to have good manners and help you to gain confidence so that you’ll not be frightened to speak to anybody. Your dad and I would like you to stay there, so do your best, pet.’

Miss Brewis, the nursery class teacher, was a lovely woman. A homely sort, but very correct. She wasn’t married and had no children of her own, yet she was full of cuddles for us all. If a child cried or fell over, she would sit them on her ample knee and soothe them.

‘Now, now, don’t worry, pet. It will be all right,’ she’d say, and it always was. She oozed sympathy and warmth. I’m sure she loved every one of us.

Obedient to my mother, I didn’t let anyone see when a tear fell that first day. I remember even then feeling a quiet determination, a strong sense of working towards something. I was learning how to get on and succeed at what I set my mind to. Of course I couldn’t foresee then how this attitude, along with the support of my parents, would open opportunities for me, nor the successes I would find in my future career. But there were a few obstacles to navigate along the way first.

CHAPTER 3

Helen

Grandma

In the early fifties, most of the men in Seghill worked down the mine, and most of the women and children walked everywhere – to school, to the shop, to church. In the summer, the whole of our extended family went for walks together down the country lanes on Sunday evenings, and occasionally in a straggly column down to Seaton Sluice beach for the whole day, where we children ran wild till it was dark and then all walked home together again.

The pit was easy to reach on foot or by bike. Most of the men would cycle around wearing caps, bicycle clips on their trousers, and pipes hanging out of their mouths. There were usually a lot of old pushbikes standing outside the working men’s club of an evening, but hardly anyone had a car in those days.

My father Tommy had come from a self-made family who had earned plenty of money from their building business, and he had his own Bullnose Morris car before the war until his father’s bankruptcy forced him to sell it. At that point Tommy split with his family and joined the RAF as a fitter. By now he worked as a brick-lorry driver, which was better paid and enabled him to save up enough to buy his own car again. I remember it well. It was a 1936 Singer Bantam. He polished it every Sunday and sometimes we would go out for a drive. It only had a small engine, so my mother and I had to get out at the bottom of a hill and walk all the way up while my father drove up and waited for us at the top.

One Sunday, my father came in from working in his shed. George and I were sitting at the table in the living room when we heard our parents talking in the scullery and then start an argument, their voices rising.

‘You spend all your time in that shed!’ shouted my mother. ‘Can you not take me out for a drive?’

‘Oh, stop your nagging! It’s my day off and I don’t feel like driving.’

‘Tommy, I work my fingers to the bone for you. I’ve never worked so hard in my life till I met you.’

‘I drive all day every day at work. I’m not driving today.’

‘That’s right, just think of yourself, as usual.’

The voices rose, punctuated by the sounds of pots and pans being crashed down on the gas stove. George and I looked at each other in silent beseeching, but we knew it had already escalated too far. Their noise boomed through the house and the familiar, sick feeling of fear gripped my stomach. We both knew we would be next in line.

‘You’re the selfish one,’ yelled my father. ‘All you want to do is to sit in my car and be driven around when you feel like it!’

‘No chance of that, man!’ Her shout was now a shriek. ‘I’m just a skivvy as far as you’re concerned.’

‘That’s all you’re fit for. You’re just a pit yacker!’ he gloated.

She picked up a pan of potatoes from the stove. ‘And this is all you’re fit for!’ With a mighty heave, she threw it across the kitchen at him. It missed. The pan and its contents hit open the door to the living room and landed with a clatter all over the floor between the two rooms.

‘Bloody hell, woman,’ he bellowed. ‘What on earth are you doing?’ He stepped towards her. ‘Clean that up
now
!’

She turned away. ‘Go to hell!’ she retorted and made a move to walk out of the room.

‘Oh no you don’t,’ Tommy yelled, grabbing her arm and pushing his face into hers. He lowered his voice to a cold bark. ‘I said
clean it up
!’

‘I will not!’ she shouted.

He gave her a hard slap across her face. She reeled backwards.

‘
Get out of here
,’ he bawled. ‘
NOW!
Or I will not be responsible for my actions.’

She spat at him as she stomped out of the room, marched past us and flew upstairs.

Now I was trembling, and George and I exchanged a fearful glance. We knew it was our turn. I tried to tidy away my colouring book and crayons, but it was no use.

Tommy stormed into the living room and with one swipe sent them flying. ‘
You!
’ He pointed at me. ‘Get in the scullery and clean up that mess!’ He turned to George. ‘You too!’

I shrunk back, frozen with fear. This angered him even more.

‘I said, clean up that mess
now
, madam!’

I slid down from my chair and tried to squeeze past him, careful not to stray too close. As I passed, he turned and whacked a heavy blow across my back, so hard that it sent me to my knees.

‘Don’t hit her,’ shouted George. ‘She hasn’t done anything!’

Tommy grabbed George by the shoulder and dragged him out to the scullery. ‘Get it cleaned up, both of you. What I say goes in this house.’ He turned. ‘If it wasn’t for
her
,’ he pointed at me with a shaking fist, ‘this wouldn’t have happened.’ He about-turned, marched through the living room and out of the front door, slamming it behind him.

George and I exchanged weary looks and set to. Well, he did most of it and I helped him, as much as a four-year-old could. We cleaned up the mess of the boiled potatoes all over the walls, the door and the floor, then mopped up the water. All the while, Mercia was upstairs, crying in great, noisy sobs.

With Tommy gone, our mother in a state upstairs and our lunch spoiled, George and I toasted some bread on the fire with a toasting fork and sat, the two of us, emotionally drained, to eat our toast in silence. It was just an ordinary winter Sunday in our house.

Mercia eventually came downstairs. By this time, George had gone out to see his friends and I was alone in the living room. She slumped down at the table, white-faced and red-eyed.

It seemed to be up to me to try to make her feel better. ‘Are you all right, Mam?’

Silent at first, she then glared at me as if I were an alien. ‘I suppose you think you’re better than me because you cleaned up the kitchen?’

‘No I don’t. Dad told me I had to do it.’

‘Aye,’ she sneered. ‘Everybody has to jump when the master speaks, don’t they?’

I didn’t reply.

‘You have no idea what a terrible life I have with him.’ Her voice rose with anger. ‘He’s an
animal
!’ She paused for effect. ‘I wasn’t brought up by a good family to have the life I’ve got with
him
. I hope he doesn’t come back.’

I sat quietly, wanting to try and say something helpful, but afraid of making her worse; trying to understand what she was feeling, but unable to comprehend.

‘
I’m leaving him
,’ she shrieked as she stood up and took a couple of steps towards the stairs.

‘What are you doing, Mam?’

‘I’m going to pack ma case. I’ve had enough. When he comes back, I’ll be gone for good.’

‘No, please, Mammy. Don’t go . . . What will I do?’ I followed her upstairs and watched as she dragged an old suitcase down from the top of the wardrobe and opened it out on the bed. She yanked open the wardrobe doors and began to throw her clothes into her case.

‘Please don’t go, Mam.’ I was distraught. ‘Please, please . . .’ My voice tailed away as she ignored me and carried on packing her case.

‘You’ll be all right,’ she snapped. ‘You can stay with
him
.’

Suddenly, I heard Tommy’s car pull up outside. He stormed back into the house, slammed the front door and ran up the stairs two at a time, as he always did when he was angry. I shrank back against the wall, overcome with terror.

‘
Where the hell are you going?
’ he shouted at her.

‘I’m leaving
you
.’

‘Right, off you go, then. I’ll get your coat for you. But remember, you’re not taking her.’ He pointed at me as I tried to make myself as small as possible.

‘She’s
mine
!’ she snarled.

‘Maybe so, but I’m her father, so she’s staying here, and that’s that!’

A few moments later I managed to escape and left them to it. My mother must have backed down eventually and decided to stay. But they didn’t speak to each other for weeks.

I liked having the extended family around us – it gave me a feeling of warmth and safety. Our house was on a V-shaped corner overlooking the street behind, where Grandma and most of my aunties and uncles lived. I often used to play with my cousins in the road, with the aunties looking out every now and then to make sure we were all right – something my mother never did. The older cousins skipped and played ball. They taught us younger ones to play hopscotch, and sometimes they organized games we could all play together, like Grandmother’s Footsteps or ‘What’s the time, Mr Wolf?’