Durham Trilogy 01. The Hungry Hills by Janet MacLeod Trotter

Author:Janet MacLeod Trotter
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: MacLeod Trotter Books
Published: 2011-10-01T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

During the next week, Sam threw himself into the organisation of relief for the villagers who were feeling the lack of earnings most. Bomber and John were in charge of clearing and chopping dead wood from the dene to provide fuel for the greedy kitchen ranges that were the only means of cooking and boiling up water. Sadie and her friends joined in the dirty game of picking over the spoil heap for cinders, going out with buckets of soapy water to soak the coal dust as it smouldered like a brooding volcano; only then was it cool enough for the children to handle.

After dark, Sam led nightly raids over the pit yard wall to gather the coal strewn around the tracks, dodging the watchmen and roaming policemen. He was fairly certain MacGuire knew of his activities, but as yet had not interfered. Since the clash with the pickets, relations between the pitmen and the local police had grown increasingly strained, and Sam guessed it was only a matter of time before another such incident cut the final strand of civilities between them.

The stolen coal was distributed around the village or sold at the tradesmen’s doors of the bigger houses where no questions were asked about its origins. The money raised in this way went to buy food for the relief centre set up in the chapel hall on North Street. This had been Louie’s idea.

‘Minnie’s talking about applying to the parish for money,’ she had told Sam one evening, as he was about to depart on a raid. Sam shot her a look of concern. No one went cap in hand to the Board of Guardians and submitted to their humiliating tests unless they were desperate. At the back of everyone’s mind lurked the horror of the workhouse in Durham from which there was slim hope of escape once admitted.

‘Bomber never told me things were getting that bad,’ Sam said.

‘They’ve got nothing left,’ Louie continued unhappily, ‘and Jack’s sickly, but they’ve got nothing to buy medicines with. I said I’d ask Eb to fetch them something from the allotment, but he’s already supplying the Dobsons and the Parkins as well as all of our family.’ She did not add that she had already lent Minnie the money they had put by for when the baby came. Sam did not need to know about that yet.

‘We can’t sit back and see our friends throw themselves on the mercy of the parish,’ Sam fretted.

‘We could set up a soup kitchen,’ Louie suggested decisively, ‘like they’ve done in other villages. At least the worst off can then get one hot meal a day, and their bairns can be fed.’

Sam had agreed and Louie had gone to her father, who’d approached the Reverend Stephen Pinkney at the chapel and arranged the use of the hall as a centre. Every day now, Louie, her mother and Iris, along with Minnie and her sister Margaret, Edie Parkin and the younger Dobson sisters, Susan and Eva, gathered at the chapel to scrub and chop vegetables and make up pans of steaming soup.

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