Authors: Mary Gibson
As the police hustled Pat to his feet, he kept his head low, but at the doorway he turned suddenly and grinned at her. ‘See you in a couple of years!’
But she heard the constable holding him mutter, ‘You’ll be lucky to get away with ten for this one, Patsy.’
And out of the corner of her eye, Milly noticed a face peering through the grimy pub window. Barrel grinned at her, winked, then ducked out of sight.
Suddenly Bertie was at her side. ‘Strike me dumb, that’s livened things up!’ he said, putting his arm round her, and Milly leaned against him, filled with relief that Pat and his money could no longer do Bertie any harm.
The proceedings seemed to have given new life to the evening. Guests rearranged tables and chairs, glasses were refilled, Maisie started up on the piano, and soon the story was passing from table to table. It seemed that the police had raided the Donovans’ on a tip-off, and found several thousand pounds of stolen banknotes and two handguns, hidden in the outside lavatory. ‘The beauty of it was,’ Barrel told her later, ‘old Ma Donovan was sitting on the privy at the time!’
That year Amy started work. Her dream of making moisturizer and California Poppy perfume did not come true. Atkinson’s was laying off women, not taking them on. With money scarce, housewives were choosing to buy cheap bread and jam to feed their families, rather than cosmetics. So Southwell’s didn’t turn Amy away, and she became a jam girl, just like Milly. In the end, she was glad of the seven shillings and sixpence a week. Seven shillings went to her mother; the extra sixpence, more than she’d ever had to spend on herself, she kept. Amy seemed to flourish outside school. The jam girls appreciated the rebellious ways that had scandalized the nuns, and soon her wicked impressions of the foremen made her even more popular.
Milly had taken Amy to Southwell’s on her first day, showing her the cloakroom, standing next to her on the picking line, showing her how to sharpen the knife, teaching her what fruit was good enough to go into the jam and what needed to be discarded. Though Amy soon baulked at being in Milly’s shadow and switched to a team of her own friends, she and Milly would still walk to and from work together, and one evening as they returned to Arnold’s Place, Amy broached an idea.
‘Look at the state of this frock, Mill. I need more than sixpence a week if I’m going to look decent,’ she began. ‘And all my mates can afford to buy make-up and face cream. Look at me. I look like a bleedin’ nun!’ She pointed to her unmade-up face.
Milly knew she’d started to go out in the evenings with other jam girls and she’d seen her a few times in make-up borrowed from them. Her sister had turned from a street urchin into a burgeoning flapper almost overnight, and was relishing the new role.
‘It’s hard, love, but Mum needs every penny, you know that.’
Her mother, as she had threatened, now joined Milly for an early morning office-cleaning stint. Jam and chars were always in demand it seemed, and while jobs for men were disappearing, lower-paid women were holding on to theirs. Many more men were to be seen around Arnold’s Place during the day as unemployed men stayed at home, looking after the children, while the women worked.
‘Yes, I know that. I don’t want to keep any more of me wages. I was just thinking perhaps there’s a way I could help make more money on your clothes sales.’ The two sisters cut down tiny Farthing Lane and crossed Wolseley Street, rounding Hickman’s Folly.
‘How would you do that?’ Milly asked, not quite seeing how Amy, who was all thumbs when it came to sewing, could help.
‘Remember that time you bought a load of shirts from the wholesaler over the City?’
Milly nodded. ‘It made me a bit extra, but I just haven’t had the time to go back to De Jong’s. I’ve got to rush home for my shift after the charring. And then there’s the outlay to think of.’
‘Well, I was thinking I could go to De Jong’s Saturday afternoons for you... and I’ve got a bit put by I could use for outlay.’
Milly looked at her sister in astonishment. ‘A bit put by! When did you ever have any money to put by?’
‘Christmas sixpences and that...’ Her sister blushed as Milly scrutinized her. ‘And I used to run errands for Mrs Carney.’
Milly wasn’t sure she’d got all the truth, but daren’t probe further, for fear she might hear something about the neighbours’ gas meters.
‘So how much have you got?’
‘Five pounds.’
‘Five pounds! How long have you been saving up?’
‘Oh, ages, I was keeping it for me escape fund, in case the old man ever come back.’
How was it possible to live in the same house as someone for all those years and never really know them? She had to give it to Amy – she might have been the smallest of the set of jugs, but she was definitely the canniest.
‘Well, we could all do with the extra money... all right then, go and buy half a dozen shirts, but I can’t afford to hire a stall this week.’
As they turned into Arnold’s Place Amy grew more animated. ‘I’m not just talking about shirts. I thought I’d get a couple of men’s suits as well while I’m there. How many men do you know can afford a new suit straight off? But they might be able to pay two bob a week!’
‘But you’re talking about sixty bob for a suit, that’s all your money gone and more.’
‘No, it’d be nearer thirty wholesale, we could sell them for fifty-five and nearly double our money!’
‘But if they paid back two bob a week, we wouldn’t make anything for ages.’
‘Not on the suit, but the shirts wouldn’t take so long and the money from your clothes would tide us over.’
‘And what about the stall?’
‘We don’t even need one! We’d run it like a clothing club, Mill. We’ll just tell Mrs Carney and the neighbours’ll be round to Mum’s the next day, asking what we’ve got!’
Milly was trying to find something wrong with Amy’s plan, but she really couldn’t see any flaws. Amy had the money just sitting there and with her father long gone, there was no need for escape from anything except poverty.
‘Well, love, you said that money you’ve been saving was for your escape fund. Looks like we’ll all be escaping with you!’
January 1928
It was a steel-grey January morning in 1928. Milly had been up all night listening to a storm tearing over the rooftops and heavy rain beating on windows. That morning, peering out of the front-parlour window, she was alarmed to see a small river rushing down the road, overflowing the gutters with murky bubbling water. Bertie came to join her at the window and advised her to wait before leaving for work. In spite of her venture with Amy into the clothing club, she still desperately needed the eighteen shillings a week from Southwell’s, and she wouldn’t jeopardize that by being late, whatever the weather.
The Common Thread Clothing Club, as the sisters had decided to call it, had grown during the summer of last year, and by Christmas it had become a surprising life-saver, not only for Milly and her family, but also for many of the residents of Dockhead who’d been saved from the shame of being without a new suit for weddings or funerals. Many young factory boys had cause to bless the Common Thread too: those who’d worn ragged shorts to school were able to start work with a new pair of long trousers, or a hard-wearing working man’s jacket. Mrs Carney was proving to be an excellent saleswoman and was paid in kind for getting the word out, either with a bottle of gin or a made-to-measure dress from Milly. Amy’s five pounds was soon doubled and their profits, though small and intermittent, had been the difference between staying above the breadline or dipping below it into a life of misery and handouts. Bertie with his shopkeeping experience was the one who kept the books and opened a bank account in the name of the clothing club, and soon Milly had enough for a monthly stall as well.
She never ceased to be amazed that it was madcap Amy who had made it possible. True, it had needed her own desperation and skill with a needle to launch the endeavour in the first place, but without Amy’s nous and her escape fund, it would have stayed a mere life raft, instead of an ark to float them all above the floods of privation. They weren’t quite up on the mountain top yet, but Milly was hopeful that one day soon the dove would return with an olive branch and they would all reach dry land.
She threw on her mac and tucked the children warmly into the pram, with the hood up and the waterproof cover on. As she set off for Arnold’s Place, the rain seemed to be easing, but at Jamaica Road she was brought up short at the edge of the pavement. She had to wipe rain from her eyes to make sure she was seeing properly, for spreading out before her, as far as she could see, was a vast sheet of water. Olive-green and evil-smelling, it blocked her way at every turn, all the way across Jamaica Road and beyond, into the low-lying riverside streets. The whole of Dockhead seemed to have turned into a flood plain. She looked around to see what other people were doing and began to run with the pram to the end of Jamaica Road, searching for any way across. Many people in the same predicament began wading out into the road, shouting encouragement to those on the pavement to follow them. She was wearing her wellington boots, so with no thought but to get to Arnold’s Place, she pushed the pram forward. Soon the water was halfway up the pram’s big front wheels and as she pushed further out, she was alarmed to see the water getting even deeper. Now it had reached the top of the wheels and the pram was in danger of turning into a boat. She couldn’t risk going further; she had to turn back. Quickly pulling the pram back the way she’d come, she suddenly felt the swirl of the current tugging at the pram wheels. What a fool she’d been to blindly follow the others! She yanked at the pram handle, desperate to get back on to the dry side of the road, fighting the surging current with all her strength till she was back at the kerbside. Shaking with exertion and relief, she checked the children, making sure no water had found its way into the pram. Trying to quieten her panic, she stood still, breathing deeply, forcing herself to stop and think. But she could see no way through the flood to Arnold’s Place. Opposite her was Neckinger Street, named after the lost river that had once run into St Saviour’s Dock. For generations, the river had been nothing but a subterranean stream, running deep beneath Dockhead. Now, overnight, it seemed to have risen once more to the surface.
‘Oi, missus, don’t you try and get across there with that pram!’ A docker, with his trousers rolled up and boots hung around his shoulders, shouted from the other side.
‘What’s happened, was it the rain?’ she called across, not willing to believe she couldn’t get through.
‘Not just the rain. The Thames has burst its banks! It’s all flooded four feet deep back there.’ He indicated behind him towards Bermondsey Wall.
‘Me mum’s on her own over in Arnold’s Place. I’ve got to get over there!’ Her voice rose in panic.
‘Only way you’ll do that is if you get in the pram with the kids and paddle! Sorry, love, I’ve got to see to me own family, but I’ll go up Arnold’s Place and look in on your mother, what number?’
As the rain returned in great fat drops, she saw that he had floated an old door on the floodwater and was now stepping on to it. It toppled precariously as he balanced himself with a long pole. Another couple of dockers had joined him and were using boards of old fencing for similar rafts.
She gave the docker directions and he tried to reassure her. ‘Don’t worry, love,’ he shouted across the floodwater. ‘We’ll see that no one’s left trapped.’
And the men pushed off, navigating the old mill stream as the monks of Bermondsey Abbey must once have done, hundreds of years before, when the waters were pure enough to fish and the country round about was still marshland.
At least now she could be sure her mother and Amy wouldn’t be left alone in the flood, but she could only imagine their terror last night, when the waters had poured into the house. Much as she wanted to go to them, she had to think of the children. Jimmy, who at first had thought the paddling pool spreading round him was fun, now picked up on her panic and began to cry.
‘Mummy, I don’t like the water!’ He put his arms up, to be taken out of the pram. He was squeezed up under the hood with Marie and now his wriggling was upsetting his sister. Soothing him, she realized she had no choice but to return home. Spotting a policeman inspecting an abandoned car, she asked him how far the flood stretched.
‘It’s flooded all along the riverbank, right up to Hammersmith. It’s chaos.’
‘My family’s in Arnold’s Place, can’t you get me over there?’ Milly said, feeling fear scraping at her chest and throat.
‘We’ve got police going through the streets in boats. We’ll get your family out. Have they got an upstairs?’
Milly nodded, thinking miserably of her mother’s few remaining possessions, saved from the old man’s rages, only now to be ruined by Thames mud.
‘Well, that’s good, at least they’re not in a basement. They’ll be all right upstairs. Now you get your kids back home, love. There’s nothing you can do till the water goes down.’
Milly’s hands gripped the dripping pram handle and, leaning into the rain, she hurried back to Storks Road. All she could think of were her mother and sister, on the far side of that great lake. From what she’d seen of the houses beyond Jamaica Road, Arnold’s Place would be half submerged by now. When she got home she would ask Bertie to try getting through the floodwaters to them. She knew she couldn’t just sit at home doing nothing.
But when she returned, the house was empty and she remembered it was Bertie’s day for signing on. He must have already left for the labour exchange. Damn, it
would
be today, she thought, stripping off her wet mac before parking the pram in the passage. She felt marooned here and if she hadn’t had the children, would certainly have found herself a raft and paddled all the way to her mother’s.
She had been home for about an hour, busying herself with drying out her clothes, when there came a knock on the front door. Bertie! Thank God he was back. She ran out from the kitchen and down the passage.