The Urchin's Song Part 1

The Urchin's Song.

Rita Bradshaw.

Rita Bradshaw was born in Northamptons.h.i.+re, where she still lives today with her husband, their children and two dogs.

When she was approaching forty, Rita decided to fulfil two long-cherished ambitions - to write a novel and to learn to drive. She says, 'The former was pure joy and the latter pure misery,' but the novel was accepted for publication and she pa.s.sed her driving test. She went on to write many successful novels under a pseudonym before writing for Headline using her own name.

As a committed Christian and fervent animal-lover, Rita has a full and busy life, but she relishes her writing - a job that's all pleasure - and loves to read, walk her dogs, eat out and visit the cinema in any precious spare moments.

Rita Bradshaw's earlier sagas, ALONE BENEATH THE HEAVEN, REACH FOR TOMORROW, RAGAm.u.f.fIN ANGEL and THE STONY PATH, are also available from Headline.

For our first grandchild, Samuel Benjamin Thompson, born 18th October, 2001 - the most gorgeous, beautiful and precious little baby in the world. Thank you, Cara and Ian, for letting us share the day of his birth so generously. We love you all so much.

Acknowledgements.

As always, thanks to all the staff in the many wonderful libraries and museums authors rely on for research material, but especially Sunderland's City Library and Arts Centre's great Local Studies department; Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens' Archive department; the Beamish Museum; and Phil Atkins, librarian, at the National Railway Museum, York. Lastly, a sad farewell to The Big Bookshop in Sunderland - thanks, Steve, for all the great research material your books have provided through the years.

It would be impossible to list all the resources and books I've called on for the history of the music hall in Britain, but the following were particularly useful: The Northern Music Hall by G.J. Mellor; British Music Hall - An Ill.u.s.trated Who's Who from 1850 to the Present Day by Roy Busby; Music Hall in Britain by D.F. Ches.h.i.+re; The Last Empires - A Music Hall Companion by Benny Green; A Hard Act to Follow by Peter Leslie.

A special thank you to my lovely husband, Clive, who somehow manages to track down the most obscure facts and dates for me, and who will never accept defeat!

The Urchin's Song.

Give me a song that touches the soul

From a heart that is tender and true,

A song that transcends this dark mortal vale

And reaches to heights unseen.

A song of beauty and sweetness and light.

With words yet only dimly perceived,

And I'll give you a song from the heart of a child

That makes kings and queens of us all.

Anon.

Prologue.

1890.

The night was bitterly cold, but the big blowsy woman who was just about to enter the Mariners' Arms on Custom House Quay was well padded against the icy mist rising off the river. Not so the two little girls huddled in front of the wooden barrels standing on the filthy, muck-strewn cobbles.

In spite of the raw winter chill, they wore only dirty ragged dresses, with tattered strips of sacking round their thin shoulders pa.s.sing as shawls. Their legs and feet were bare and they wore no underclothes, but the eldest one, a little sc.r.a.p of nothing who looked to be about five or six, managed to speak despite her wildly chattering teeth. 'Spare a farthin', missus?' Her tone wasn't hopeful. She knew from experience the regulars of the riverside pubs were more generous when they left, normally heavily intoxicated and merry and therefore inclined to throw the odd coin or two her way.

'Ee, this is no night for bairns to be out.' The child sank back against the questionable protection of the barrels; she recognised a refusal when she heard one. But then, instead of the 'You get yerself home now, la.s.s,' she saw the plump face peer closer, and the voice was softer when it said, 'You're one of s.h.i.+rl's bairns, aren't you? s.h.i.+rley Burns? I grew up next door to your mam in James Williams Street, although she was s.h.i.+rl Pearson then. Good friends at one time, me an' your mam were.'

The woman smiled, but when there was no answering smile on the child's face and the little tot just put a skinny arm round her sister, drawing the smaller child in to her, the stout figure straightened. 'Worst thing s.h.i.+rl ever did, marryin' Bart Burns,' the woman muttered to herself, before she said, her voice louder, 'You waitin' for your da, hinny? He inside then?'

The child shook her golden-brown curls, limp with months of grease and dirt and clearly harbouring vermin, and now her great brown eyes with their thick lashes looked down at the black slimy cobbles as she whispered, 'Me da . . . me da'll skin us alive if we go home. We've not got enough yet.'

'Enough?' And then as the small girl raised her gaze again the woman understood. 'By . . .' It was said on a long, slow exhalation of breath.

Vera Briggs was a hard-headed, pragmatic woman and not given to sentiment, but the plight of these two small infants who dared not return home until they had begged enough pennies to satisfy their drunken thug of a father couldn't be ignored.

Of course bairns like these ones were ten a penny in Sunderland's notoriously squalid East End, where the rank odours of excrement and slow decay were rife summer and winter amid such diseases as consumption, dropsy, rickets and a hundred and one other culling devices that took the weakest - but these were s.h.i.+rl's little la.s.sies, Vera reminded herself, as she stood on the greasy step of the pub hesitating.

The beginning of icy drops of sad winter rain drumming on the barrels made up her mind. 'You hungry, hinny?' The dark eyes were answer enough. 'Look, la.s.s, our Horace is meetin' me here in a minute or two an' he's bringin' a bite with him. You an' your sister come with me an' at least you'll go home with full bellies the night.'

Vera's magnanimity did not run to putting any of her hard-earned wages from the corn mill into Bart Burns's pocket, but at least this way she could do something for a couple of poor s.h.i.+rl's bairns. She held out an encouraging hand to the children, and when an icy little paw answered the gesture, Vera's big full mouth tightened. Ee, he wanted shooting, that Bart Burns. If ever there was an out-and-out wicked so-and-so on G.o.d's earth, it was that man.

As Vera opened the door of the pub, her hand still clasping that of the child, who had the smaller tot hanging on to her skirt, the smell and noise were overpowering. The air was thick with s.h.a.g tobacco smoke from myriad pipes, and the filthy sawdust on the floor was congealed with black globs of spittle, dried urine from the skinny little mongrel dogs that accompanied their masters, and bits of this and that which had been carried in on boots from the quayside.

Vera's narrowed gaze under her faded black bonnet swept over the cauldron of humanity, and her popularity was evident by the number of voices which greeted her. She replied to one or two as she made her way to the far corner of the crowded room, and on reaching a wooden bench set against the wall, pushed at one of the occupants, saying, 'Move over, Ray, an' let us have a seat, man. Me legs are killin' us the day. An' get us a gin, an' a couple of squibs for the bairns. Horace'll make it right with you when he comes.'

'Aye, all right, la.s.s.' The man was short and thickset, with a droopy moustache stained orangey-yellow at the edges from the regular soaking it got in Burton's ba.s.s, but his tone was not unkind as he nodded at the children pressed against Vera's legs. 'Who're they then? One of your brothers' bairns?'

'You think any of my flesh an' blood would let their bairns out on a night like this, clothed in rags an' lousy?'

Vera's voice had been sharp and Ray scuttled off to the bar without further pleasantries. Vera was a grand la.s.s, none better, but she had a tongue on her that'd cut steel, he told himself, allowing a full minute to elapse in the hope that she would have cooled down before he asked the landlord for the measure of gin, along with two tiny gla.s.ses of the same spirit known as squibs sold specially for young children.

'There you go, la.s.s.' He handed Vera her gla.s.s and then brought his tubby frame bending towards her, saying in an undertone as if conveying a secret, 'An' here's the squibs for the bairns.'

'Ta, thanks, man.' Vera's tone was conciliatory, and rea.s.sured, Ray said, 'You lookin' after 'em or summat?' nodding at the two little girls as Vera placed the miniature gla.s.ses in their hands.

Vera swallowed half the contents of her gla.s.s in one gulp before shaking her head, saying briefly, 'I used to know their mam years ago, an' they were beggin' outside.' And then they both laughed as the eldest child, having taken a tentative sip of her drink, coughed and spluttered until her eyes streamed.

'You get it down you, hinny, her an' all. It'll put fire in your belly an' keep the cold out, an' there's not many as needs it as much as you. Eh, Ray?'

'Oh aye, Vera, aye. You're right there, la.s.s.' Ray nodded his head, his grimy cap sitting like a pancake on top of his wiry hair. 'Poor little blighters.' But it was said without any real feeling. For every bairn that reached five, one or two died, that was the way of things and nowt'd change it. Why on earth Vera had taken it upon herself to waste good money on these 'uns who looked to be on their last legs, he didn't know. Barmy, he called it.

However, when Horace - a tall, thin man who was the very ant.i.thesis of his plump wife - appeared, and on Vera's instructions handed over a hot meat pie to each child, even Ray was moved at the children's stunned bewilderment and delight. They ate so quickly that Vera was compelled to reach out a restraining hand, saying, 'Slowly, hinnies, slowly does it. You'll be makin' yerselves sick now,' as she glanced at the two men and shook her head.

Replete for the first time they could remember in their short lives, the two small girls sat docile and quiet in the sawdust at Vera's feet. They had licked their grubby fingers clean of every little morsel and taste of food; the younger one falling immediately to sleep as she sat propped against the security of her sister's bony shoulder. Not so the elder; her huge brown eyes were wide open as she stared at the scene in front of her, which grew louder and more bawdy as the night progressed.

It was a good two hours later when, after 'The Rocky Road to Dublin' had been sung enthusiastically at least five or six times to the accompaniment of a merry fiddle, Vera seemed to suddenly remember her old friend's offspring. She bent down to the eldest child who had twisted round to face her. 'They're well oiled the night, hinny,' she said softly, her voice full of meaning. And when the child didn't answer her but continued to stare steadily into her eyes, Vera said, 'You know any songs, la.s.s? You sing 'em a tune an' you'll soon get a few pennies to take home to your da, the mood they're in.'

A number of seconds elapsed before the whisper came. 'Me sisters, our Dora an' Ada, sing sometimes if me da's not in.'

'An' can you remember what they sing, hinny? The words an' all?' Vera's mouth had tightened briefly. From what some of her former neighbours in James Williams Street had told her, this one's older sisters didn't have much to sing about. If what she'd heard was true - and she'd bet her eye-teeth it was - Bart had put the two la.s.sies on the game when they were nowt but nine or ten. Evil swine.

'I know "Father, Come Home" an' "The Boy I Love is Up in the Gallery".'

'You do? That's a canny la.s.s.' Vera stared into the little face for a moment. 'Father, Come Home' was a good one. Vesta Tilley had been about this one's age when she'd entreated a drunken father to come back to his wife and reduced her half-boozed audiences to maudlin tears. Aye, that should do very well. If this didn't get the bairn enough to avert a good hiding she'd eat her hat. 'Look, hinny, Horace'll set it up for you an' you don't be shy, eh? Don't matter if you can keep a tune or not, you just belt it out an' they'll love it. All right? An' have another sup to warm you up a bit. What's your name, la.s.s?'

'Josie.'

'Josie Burns. Well, Josie, you heed what I say an' you'll do just fine.'

By the time Horace beckoned the child over to where the fiddler was standing, the little body was trembling, and when Vera's husband reached down and lifted her on to a battered table, Josie gave a partly smothered squeal of alarm that made those nearest guffaw into their gla.s.ses.

But within a few moments they weren't laughing any longer. Emboldened by Vera's confidence that she could earn some pennies, and aided by the food she had eaten and not least the fortifying effects of the gin, Josie closed her eyes to shut out all the slack-mouthed, grinning faces and began to sing. Note after crystal clear note silenced the pub and brought even the most inebriated revellers upright in their seats, aware that they were privileged to hear something rare.

Those who were still sober enough to be able to think sensibly might have expressed amazement that such a voice could spring from this tiny, undernourished frame, but for once the Mariners' Arms, one of Sunderland's most ribald dockside pubs, was so silent you could have heard a pin drop.

The absolute stillness continued for a moment after the child had finished singing, and when Josie opened her eyes she gazed around bewilderedly, frightened she had done something wrong and disturbed by the staring faces. From her vantage point on top of the roughly hewn table she searched out Vera's face. Her mother's old playmate was weeping unashamedly, but had time to give the child a rea.s.suring nod and smile and thumbs-up before the place erupted in a roar of clapping and whooping and cheering.

Three songs later Josie had made more money in half an hour than she had been able to collect in whole days spent begging. At just seven years of age, she had taken the first steps to grasping control of her life.

Part 1.

Breaking Away 1895.

Chapter One.

It seemed like weeks and weeks since the sun had shone. Josie adjusted the collar of her old blue serge coat more securely round her neck, wrinkling her face against the whirling snow as she slipped and slid on the packed ice beneath her boots. Only November and already everything was frozen up; it was going to be a long, hard winter. They'd had to push pieces of burning paper up the tap in the yard to get a trickle of water for days now.

And then she thought of the big pile of scrag ends and six pigs' trotters rolled up in newspaper in her shopping bag, and smiled to herself. Mr Duckworth was nice, oh he was, saving them for her, and she'd managed to get three penn'orth of pot stuff for a penny just because the cabbages were browning and the taties and onions had gone over. They'd be fine in a stew though.

She pa.s.sed another butcher's shop, gas flares burning amid the joints of meat, but, owing to Mr Duckworth's generosity, she didn't stop to look in. She needed the rest of her money for flour, yeast and fat anyway. They had no bread at home.

The pavements were crowded and it was hard going, but it was always the same late at night when the market stalls began to pack away. Bruised fruit and spotted vegetables could be picked up cheaper then, and for some families it meant the difference between eating and going hungry. Every evening saw raggedy little urchins fighting and rolling about under the stalls for a half-rotten apple or squashed orange or two, kicking and biting until they drew blood.

Public penury and private ostentation meant conditions were grim in Sunderland's wretched East End. Back-to-back tenements, noxious chemical works, breweries, brickworks, foul-smelling abattoirs and the like, all coexisted in rabbit warrens of filth and human misery. Homes which had originally been built for prosperous merchants were now notoriously overcrowded, with whole families living in one or two rooms, and the area was a breeding ground for all manner of unsavoury activities and crime.

And still, in the midst of it all, good, decent folk struggled to bring up their children the best they could. The desperately respectable housewife and mother, working eighteen-hour days taking in was.h.i.+ng or carding linen b.u.t.tons and sewing endless hooks and eyes by the dim light of a tallow candle, and all the time trying to ignore the goings-on in the brothel across the way.

And fathers, enduring gruelling ten-hour s.h.i.+fts unloading iron-ore boats at the dockside, trousers wet and cold up to the thighs and every day an accident of some kind, whilst men they had grown up with - sometimes brothers or friends - stole and murdered for their living and taught their children to do the same.

One such individual, a crony of Josie's father, now lurched out of a gin shop a few yards in front of her and stood swaying slightly as he surveyed the pa.s.sers-by with bleary eyes. Josie's stomach tightened, but she forced herself to continue without checking her stride. For a moment she thought he was too drunk to recognise her, but then a bony hand reached out and fastened on her coat-sleeve. ' 'Tis the bonny Josie.' The stink of his breath almost knocked her backwards. 'An' how're you, me little la.s.sie?'

'Fine, thank you, Mr Duffy.' She was staring into the mean sallow face without blinking and her voice was flat. She didn't like any of her father's a.s.sociates but this one, a small wiry Irishman with hard black eyes and a vicious temper, was a particularly nasty piece of work. She would rather have died than let him see it but this one frightened her.

'That's right.' His eyes crawled over her and she wanted to rub where they had touched. 'You bin doin' a bit of shoppin' for your ma? That's a good la.s.s.'

She continued to stare at him but she said nothing, her face blank. He always wanted to touch her, this man. Whenever he called for her father at the house he would find some excuse to pat her arm or brush against her, and the smell of him - a mixture of acrid body odour and stale alcohol - was as repugnant as the man himself. That he had some hold over her father she didn't doubt. Bart Burns's normal bullying ways were replaced by a sickening obsequiousness in Patrick Duffy's presence.

'Your da tells me you're doin' well for yerself at nights then, in the pubs? I said to him, "There's no flies on your Josie. Knows how to give 'em what they want," eh, darlin'?'

In spite of her determination to show no emotion Josie drew back, her face expressing her distaste. Her work in the rough riverside pubs for the last five years had brought her into contact with all sorts, and she couldn't have failed to pick up the hidden meaning in the last words, even if he hadn't emphasised the s.m.u.tty innuendo by winking at her.

'I just sing, Mr Duffy, that's all,' she said bluntly, and pulled her arm free. He was horrible, he was, and she didn't care if her da said they'd all got to be nice to Mr Duffy or he'd knock them into next weekend. She was tired of smiling and pretending not to mind when he touched her, or said what a big girl she was growing into with his eyes on her chest, like he'd done the other day.

She saw the ferret face straighten as he blinked rapidly, obviously surprised at her temerity, but in spite of the way her stomach had turned over, she schooled her face to show no fear when she said, 'Me mam's waiting for the shopping so I've got to go. Goodbye, Mr Duffy,' as she backed away from him.