Hold on Edna! by Aneira Thomas

Author:Aneira Thomas [Thomas, Aneira]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Memoir/Health Services/Family
ISBN: 9781912624836
Google: DGY2zAEACAAJ
Publisher: Mirror Books
Published: 2020-06-11T14:00:00+00:00

Twelve

Finding a Way

Willie has never felt so exhausted in all his life, and that’s saying something. It feels as if they’ve been walking for years. His feet are blistered and raw where the walking boots Philip gave him – his own, and a size too small – have cut into his heels and toes. It doesn’t help that they spent quite so much time in the public house last night, either. He wishes he’d turned in a little earlier, but even as he thinks this – with the sun beating down on his head – he can’t help but laugh to himself. Turn in where? They slept in the old horses’ stables behind the pub, after closing time, and only started so early this morning because the landlord’s wife, a woman Willie last saw at 3.30am singing “Tipperary” on the long bar, came stomping outside to see why the stable door had been left open. They’d left in a bit of a hurry.

They’re feeling grumpy today, the 12 men walking. Willie considers taking his boots off, but the ground is so jagged and covered in stones he thinks he’d just make matters worse. He can’t afford to get an infection, not when he’ll soon be looking for work in London.

While he’s considering this, Edna May is glancing from side to side at Euston Station, anticipating pickpockets, murderers and conmen watching her. The thick, cloying air sticks in her lungs – she needs to get out of here. As she spots her cousin in the crowded throng of commuters and people waiting to greet their friends, she feels a little safer.

When Willie and his friends arrive just outside Basingstoke, they manage to book two cheap rooms at a small lodging with a decrepit-looking “Rooms Available” sign hanging in the front window. It’s here, over a dinner of eel pie and mashed potato, that their host overhears them discussing their plans for London.“I wouldn’t go to the city, boys,” he says jovially, pushing his chair back from the table and lighting a cigarette. “It’s been terrible since the strike. Shops cleared out, dock workers on leave. It’s not a pretty place to be right now.”

“We need work,” says Willie shortly. “There’ll be something we can do.”“Miners, were you?” says the landlord. He looks at them shrewdly. “Good on ya. I thought it was a travesty myself, what they done to you. An outrage.”The men murmur in response, looking down at their plates. There’s still an odd sense of shame about what’s happened recently. It’s a strange balancing act of pride and guilt they’re all walking, right now. On the one hand they know they were right to demand something better, to seek change. On the other, they’ve walked away from family traditions, from jobs their fathers and grandfathers did before them. A large part of them feels spoilt, babyish, like they couldn’t hack it and can never return to the villages and towns they’ve deserted. The country, they know, needs coal – and they are just a few of the hundreds who’ve downed their picks and shovels for the last time.

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