Child from Home (11 page)

On first hearing the mellow, disembodied call of the cuckoo in the distance, Kitty said, ‘He is the welcome harbinger of summer.' Nature was coming into her own and the old horseman, Spaven, still a believer in the old country superstitions, showed us the thin hazel twigs, woven into the shape of a cross, which he wore under his shirt. ‘They ward off t'witches thar knows,' he said to Dad, before adding, ‘If yer turn t'coins in yer pocket yer'll allus 'ave money until t'cuckoo comes agen next yeer.' Dad called him ‘that owld gadgie'.

We usually wore short-sleeved smocks that had a pair of pockets in the front, just below waist level to protect our clothes, and these often bulged with all kinds of weird and wondrous items. We picked up many things, such as worms, twigs, leaves, dried-up acorns, conkers, cob nuts, marbles and bits of string. Kitty often said, ‘Waste not, want not.' So we took her at her word.

I loved the month of May when there were hardly any biting and stinging insects about. Mam visited us again, coming down with Eric's mam, Winnie. Masses of white mayblossom tipped with pink weighed down the boughs of the hawthorn bushes and, from a distance, it looked as though they were covered in a thick dusting of icing sugar. The rich, heavy scent permeated the warm, still air as wild briar and dog roses blushed pink and white in the burgeoning virescence of the hedgerows. Wild hyacinths were in flower as the tall spikes of foxgloves opened their spotted bells that we called Witch's Thimbles. Beside them tiny green fern fronds were unfurling and the air was full of musical birdsong, which we were coming to recognise. We loved to hear the song of the thrush; the gregarious pipit; the tiny brown tree creepers; the colourful coal tits and the pink-chested chaffinch, and other woodland birds that made up the daily choir. They had paired up and were laying claim to their territories as upright red and white candles of blossom adorned the chestnut trees down the lane.

Kitty took us to a nearby smallholding along the hard-packed earth of the forest paths to see the newborn calfs, which tried to suckle on our fingers. By now, we were becoming increasingly able to recognise our whereabouts by the different shapes and colours of the moss, lichen and algae on certain stones and trees. We were told that the frilly grey lichen on the trunks of fallen trees indicated that the air was very clean. Kitty took great care of us and tried to ensure that we came to no harm but, inevitably, the occasional fall resulted in a grazed elbow or a cut knee. One or other of us would trip over the exposed, raised roots of the spruce trees and the hurt needed to be kissed better, before being washed and smeared with Zam-Buk herbal balm.

On one occasion as we were out walking I tarried, wandering along in a daydream as usual, lagging further and further behind. Something caught my attention and I wandered off the path and into the gloom beneath the closely packed spruce trees. The further into the depths of the forest I ventured, the trees seemed to hold a deeper, more ominous darkness. To a child life is full of curiosity and wonder and I was searching for the red toadstools with the white blotches on them on which the elves and fairies sat. Kitty and Mam had shown us pictures of them when reading Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales.

The ‘other world' was very real to me and I suddenly found myself in a dark, twilight area where a deep chill seemed to emanate from the wild and primitive giants around me. The air was dank and drear as a brooding, menacing stillness reigned and a feeling of melancholy and apprehension crept up on me. The light grew ever dimmer beneath the dark overhanging boughs and I seemed to sense a low and growing, heavily breathing presence. I heard indistinct, stealthy movements; there were eerie echoes and strange whisperings in the air and faint utterances seemed to be coming from behind me. I felt that a dark mystical power was very close and that the aura of latent danger was not of
this
world. My heart was beating fifty to the dozen and chills ran up my spine as I sensed that someone, or something, malignant was very close and watching me. That was it. I froze; petrified with fear; my throat tightened in terror as the horror threatened to stop my breath. I could not shout out or bring myself to turn around – afraid to raise my eyes in case ghastly spectres hovered near.

At that moment, to my vast and utter relief, Kitty found me! Suddenly the voices were gone and a deep hush descended on the forest. It was like the deathly silence that followed the firing of the gamekeeper's gun and you could have heard a pin drop. All of the evil lurking things had fled at Kitty's approach. As she gave me a big hug and a cuddle, she tenderly wiped away the tears that burst forth to stream down my cheeks with the corner of her housecoat. I sobbed uncontrollably; trembling like an aspen on legs that had turned to jelly and they were still rubbery when we rejoined the others. Had the fire gone out at the
Saltergate Inn
letting the devil loose? Was it the voices of lost souls in limbo that I heard; an evil spirit of the woods; the old tramp; the gypsies (who were said to steal and sell children) or just a figment of my highly vivid imagination?

Adults tend to forget the wealth of a child's imagination: they often have the capacity to feel extremes of fear and excitement in response to what adults consider mere trifles. The world of childhood can be a place of frightening fantasy and strange happenings, and to a child unseen forces are still strong and readily accessible. They know the allure of witchcraft and magic and understand the eternal themes of love, truth, power and death, and some are able to
see
things that adults cannot. There are some things that can't be logically explained and, for a while after that terrifying experience, I did not sleep well and had bad dreams, peopled by ghosts, witches, hobgoblins, dryads and evil ogres. On future walks in the ‘enchanted forest' I made sure that I stayed close to Kitty and I never wandered off the beaten track alone.

On those late spring mornings the newly risen sun gently warmed and gilded the mellow old stones of the big house. When the blackout blinds were removed and the shutters were opened its rays warmed my bed and formed golden rectangles on the wall. I would lie watching as they crept, almost imperceptibly, across the flowery patterns on the expensive, embossed wallpaper, sedately measuring the relentless passage of time. I remember thinking that, because the sun could move by itself and did not have to be pushed like Eric's tricycle, it must be alive. It seemed to me that it must be intelligent because it wanted to do good things like making us warm and helping things to grow. I
knew
that God must have been controlling it.

Colourful chaffinches twittered as they decorated their nest with bark and lichen after building them from moss, feathers, grass and sheep's wool. As the sunny days lengthened and warmed up, the cows and horses were left out to graze overnight in the fields. In what seemed a never-ending task, little birds flitted back and forth with grubs and worms to repeatedly fill the gaping maws of their tiny, naked offspring. On one of our morning walks, we were upset to find speckled, broken eggshells in lovely pastel shades of grey and blue. Close by were the wrinkly-pink, featherless bodies of two tiny nestlings, their heads with their pale yellow beaks looked far too big for their scraggy necks. The poor things lay broken on the ground having fallen from the nest. We called all newly hatched birds ‘gollies'.

The breath of summer was touching the budding trees as the twigs of the ash trees belatedly opened their black leaf buds to put forth fresh, lime-green foliage. These and the red-leaved oaks were usually the last of the trees to do so. Soon, pendulous bunches of tiny single-winged seedcases, which we called keys, would form. The verges beside the lane became crowded with the tall, stemmed umbrellas of white-flowered cow parsley, and Spaven showed us how to dig out the soft white pith from their thick stems to make peashooters. As spring gently eased into early summer, the ‘owld gadgie' said, ‘Yer must never 'andle yon 'emlocks, or t'deadly nightshade that we call Devil's flowers. Yer see them giant 'ogweeds towerin' above t'others over yonder. Well, they 'ave tiny white 'air-like spines on t'stems that carry poisonous sap. Don't touch 'em, or yer skin'll cum out in 'uge blisters.'

On the following Sunday the mothers came out again and Eric's mother told my Mam that Miss Thorne had written to her again, asking, ‘Could you bring him a pair of leather, crêpe-soled sandals as sandshoes are no good on the rough, stony forest roads. Sandals are light and cool and protect the feet. The weather is simply lovely out here and the children are outside a lot of the time. They roam the fields gathering flowers and are as happy as kings. Could you bring Eric some cool summer clothes?' adding, ‘He was sick one day after his tea. Possibly the heat had upset him, as he has not ailed otherwise. He is a most intelligent boy and asks hundreds of questions like, Where does lightning come from? Why doesn't it strike trees? Why does God make the sun shine? and so on.'

Even in those austere times, hard-pressed working-class mothers, like ours, tried to maintain the old traditions. Although she was finding it hard to make ends meet, Mam still managed to bring us at least one item of new clothing at this time. It was a long-established Yorkshire custom to wear something new, and preferably white, in honour of Whitsuntide and that Monday, as the dreaming valley lay warm, calm and hushed, was to be no exception. Mam brought George and me a new white shirt. The sun beat down from a blue and cloudless sky that formed a perfect backdrop to the vivid, green foliage of the trees. The stillness and beauty of the place were overwhelming and on days like that it was hard to believe that there was a war on.

In the sunny dining room the windows were wide open and Miss Thorne had placed bunches of yellow-flowering broom in there. Yet another Whitsuntide custom in these parts, it was believed to bring good luck. We were served delicious roast lamb with freshly picked home-grown vegetables and the first, sweet-tasting, new potatoes of the year, all smothered in rich, brown gravy. This was followed by thick and steaming, creamy custard poured over a slice of hot, tangy, ‘goose-gog' pie that was two inches deep. ‘I have used only freshly picked, early fruits and have baked it specially for you little ones, so be good bairns and eat it all up,' Dinner Lady said. She maintained that gooseberries were good for the liver and stomach.

By late May, the rhododendron shrubs were coming into full flower beside the forest tracks, and the mauve and pink blooms were the size of my face. It had been decided that Sutherland Lodge, being so close to the newly opened army camp, might become a target for enemy aircraft. It was also too far off the beaten track making it difficult for our relatives to visit. As Mam had remarked, ‘It's a beautiful spot but it's too out of the way.' Plans were made to move us out.

On a fine, sunny day Robinson's motor coach and a pantechnicon arrived and took everything and everyone to the newly set-up nursery school at Grove House. This was about three miles east as the crow flies, but seventeen miles by coach along the winding country roads. Our journey took us south along forest tracks and narrow lanes to the main Pickering road. From there we travelled up the A169 Whitby road as far as the Lockton turn-off, where a narrow road dropped down from the wide sweep of the moors, descending into a valley and crossed a narrow stone bridge beside an old watermill. The coach then climbed the steep hill into the isolated hamlet of Levisham with its quaint stone houses, farms and wide grass verges.

From here we travelled along a narrow sunken lane between high earthen banks topped with thorn hedgerows and dry-stone walls, before traversing an open, unfenced grassy area where cattle grazed. Here the road swung sharply to the left and down a steep incline, becoming a leafy lane that emerged at a little railway station. We had passed this spot on the train eight months earlier. Grove House stood about a hundred yards to the east of the level crossing. It was tucked away in a beautiful wooded valley on the southern edge of the rugged North Yorkshire Moors. One elderly local, when asked, ‘Why was the station built so far from the village?', replied with laconic country logic, ‘Ah suppose they wanted it close t' t'railway line.'

The large, stone-built house was said to have been converted from an old farmhouse around the year 1856, the work being done on the orders of the Reverend Robert Skelton who was the Rector of Levisham and the Vicar of Rosedale. The house was built with locally quarried, golden sandstone, which had become blackened by the smoke from the steam trains that had passed close by for more than a century. The reverend gentleman had been obliged to sell his former residence, Levisham Hall, and most of his local properties to pay off his debts on becoming bankrupt. James Walker, an entrepreneur from Leeds, bought his former estate and by 1859 he, his wife and their six children were in residence at the Hall.

By 1881 Grove House had become the home of Robert Hansell, a local iron ore proprietor from Rosedale, who was married to Hannah, the daughter of the Reverend Skelton. At the time of the 1891 census the house was unoccupied, standing silent and sadly neglected. After it was reoccupied, a large two-storey extension was added at the eastern side and, at a later date, a female member of the Rowntrees of York bought it and used it as an occasional holiday home.

The gravelled lane crossed the railway line close to a brick signal box and the station buildings could be clearly seen from the house, as there were no trees to block the view at that time and we were able to watch the steam trains coming and going. There were two old, semi-detached, stone cottages almost opposite the booking office, which were set back behind small front gardens on the far side of the line. Jack Pickering, the junior signalman, lived in one of them, and a short distance north of his signal cabin there was another narrow, gated level crossing linking two farm tracks.