Ironmonger's Daughter by Harry Bowling Read Free Book Online Page B

she should not keep asking those sorts of questions.
    Connie was chatting to her cousin on their way home from school one day when Molly suddenly asked, ‘Why ain’t yer got a dad, Connie?’
    ‘Me dad’s dead,’ she said.
    ‘’Ow did ’e die?’
    ‘I dunno.’
    ‘When did ’e die?’
    ‘I dunno, Molly. Me mum didn’t say.’
    ‘What did ’e look like?’
    ‘I dunno.’
    Molly turned her dark eyes towards Connie and said, ‘It mus’ be ’orrible not to ’ave a dad.’
    ‘Oh it’s all right, I s’pose.’
    ‘We could share my dad,’ Molly said suddenly, her eyes sparkling.
    ‘We share ’im now, silly, I’m always stayin’ in your flat.’
    Molly thought for a time and then said, ‘I know. Why don’t you ask my mum about your dad? My mum knows everyfink.’
    That same evening when the two girls were sitting in front of the coal fire in the Bartlett’s flat, Molly looked up as her mother came into the room and nudged her cousin. ‘Go on. Ask me mum.’
    ‘Ask me what, Molly?’
    Connie put down her colouring book and looked up at Helen. ‘I asked me mum about dad, Auntie ’Elen. Mum said’e’s dead. Did you know ’im?’
    Helen sat down in her fireside chair and stared down into the enquiring eyes of her niece. She wanted to tell the truth. She knew that it was not right to keep such a thing from the child. She had a right to know, but Kate was still adamant that Connie was not to be told anything about her father, and Helen realised that she would have to go along with her wishes. ‘I’m sorry, Connie. I didn’t know your dad. ’E died when you was a baby.’
    ‘Didn’t mum ever bring ’im round ter see yer, Auntie?’ she asked.
    ‘No, she never did,’ Helen said truthfully.
     
    In 1929 the Wall Street crash made headline news. Shares tumbled everywhere and there was talk of a world-wide depression. Unemployment rose to three million. A blight quickly struck all the large industrial areas and thousands of factories closed; almost everywhere workers were put once again on the dreaded short-time working. In Bermondsey, folk realised that the times were going to get even harder as more and more workers received their notices and the docks and wharves ground almost to a standstill. Over the next few years the effects of the economic slump bit deeply everywhere and a grey, depressing gloom overhung the whole of the docklands. During 1931 Ironmonger Street lost one of its most loved characters. Fran Collins died two months after her husband Tom, and the whole street turned out to pay their last respects. Many of the families who stood at their front doors sobbing quietly into handkerchiefs had good reason to be grateful to old Fran. She had slapped the breath of life into many of the street’s kids, and right up until the end she had retained her cheerfulness and good-natured attitude to everyone. One middle-aged lady stood sobbing loudly. Fran had delivered all of her seven children and for the last birth the payment was still owing.
    In that same year the Armitage Factory closed for a whole day in mourning for George Armitage who had died in his sleep. In his will he had stipulated that all his workers were to be given a day off with full pay on the day of his funeral. But, in these times, the closing of the factory for a day seemed almost ominous to the workforce rather than a special boon.
    ‘I dunno. It’s bin a bad year, what wiv one fing an’ anuvver,’ Joe Cooper said one day to old George Baker. ‘There was ole Fran goin’, an’ ole Armitage. It seems ’alf the characters round’ere are leavin’ us ter get on wiv it.’
    George sucked on his pipe and looked up the street. A slow smile spread over his grizzled face as he watched the antics of the man who had just pushed a battered old pram into the turning. The contraption was laden down with bits of old iron and, as the man struggled to keep it on a straight course, pieces of scrap fell from the load and bounced