The Cruel Mother by Sian Busby

Author:Sian Busby [Siân Busby]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781780721958
Publisher: Short Books
Published: 2013-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

The house was Cottons, built in the eighteenth century by a wealthy local family. It was a fine Georgian pile, complete with drive and portico, and it stood at the top of London Road, right by where Waterloo Road joins the High Street, and the point at which, one hundred years ago, the flat farmlands of rural Essex gave way momentarily to the smoking chimneys of the brewery and the bustle of the market town. Nowadays all that remains of the fine house where my grandfather was born is the Cottons Recreation Ground, opened in the 1920s after the council bought the fifteen acres of land on which the house once stood for £25 an acre (close to £1000 at today’s reckoning). Most of the rest of the land which once surrounded the house, and presumably the foundations of the house itself, today lies under the huge roundabout that links local routes to the A12 which curls around the north end of the town before dropping down to Southend.

Cottons had undoubtedly been a splendid house and afforded all the Woods (including Beth) an inspiring glimpse into the promised riches of the world. Small wonder, then, that my grandfather, who never owned his own home and died in a council flat, always gave the impression that life had somehow cheated him and that he had been born for better things.

Whether Beth went to Cottons as the family cook or as the fiancée of the eldest son and heir is unclear. Family legend has it that the couple were secretly involved, and came up with a ruse whereby Beth would come into the service of the Woods with the understanding that in due course Bert would pluck up the courage to tell his parents about their relationship. But it seems to me unlikely that Beth would have taken such a gamble, trading a good post, one where she was happy and secure, in order to throw her lot in with Bert on the strength of a slender promise. In their relationship, Beth always had the upper hand. It is possible that she made the move to Romford as cook, in the secret hope that she would be able to seduce the son and win round the rest of the family, but again that seems out of character – too risky and melodramatic a scheme for Beth.

Whatever the circumstances, the young couple were married very quickly, within two or three months of their arrival in Romford, at St Andrew’s Church (opposite Cottons) on July 7th, 1901. This, it seems to me, was no shot-gun affair (my grandfather was born a hair’s-breadth the right side of respectability almost exactly nine months later), but the predictable conclusion of a courtship which had been conducted for a couple of years or so and with the knowledge and apparent acceptance of the groom’s family. On the certificate Beth does not give an occupation, which she might well have done if she were until very recently, employed as the family cook.

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