Shattered Dreams
Authors: Vivienne Dockerty
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
The Polish Connection
A Woman Undefeated
Dreams Can Come True
Ping Pong Poms
Innocence Lost
SHATTERED DREAMS
Vivienne Dockerty
Copyright © 2012 Vivienne Dockerty
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
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or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents
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Contents
To my niece Cathy, with gratitude for your support
and interest in my work.
I wrote this book with a lot of tears and heartache in the memory of my parents, who only looked for happiness as we all do, but their dreams were shattered by the Depression and the onset of the Second World War. They were a couple whose destiny was shaped by the decisions of weak and posturing politicians and a man named Adolph Hitler (the Devil Incarnate), who lived at that time on the earth.
I am grateful to my mother, Kathleen, an aspiring author, who left me a manuscript “Ted's story” written at my father's request. He said that there were so many recordings of the bare historical facts, that it would be good if a real soldier told his story. I have tried to adhere to it as much as possible, but some of the story has been fictionalised.
The young man turned his back on his father and walked to the door, temper making his body tremble whilst he fought to keep his feelings under control.
“I’ve told yer before, son, everything will be yours when I die. Now stop whining and get yerself down the lane and make a start on them footin’s.”
J.C. Dockerty, a small, grey haired, well-padded man in his fifties, sat back in his favourite chair and took a large swig from the glass of Guinness that his wife had placed on the table beside him. It had been a long day and he was looking forward to his dinner. Eddie, his eldest son, could be a right pain in the arse sometimes, always complaining about something or other. It had been the lorry this morning and now he was on about the deeds of the bungalow.
What more did the little bugger want? Everything that J.C. owned would be Eddie’s one day, with him being the elder son.
Though it wasn’t strictly true was it?
said the man’s voice of conscience. He had promised the bungalow that Eddie was building in his spare time to his older daughter, Caitlin, who was to be married in the autumn to the son of a farmer from over Shropshire way. J.C. couldn’t let it be seen that a wealthy man, such as himself, would be paltry in his wedding gift to the young couple. A brand new house was the least he could give, if he was to keep his standing amongst the other members of the Rotary Club.
Young people got it so easy these days, he thought to himself. When he was the same age as Eddie, he’d had to serve an apprenticeship in the family business too. Rising at cock crow to get over to the quarry, loading up the horse and cart with the small stones he had broken up himself, a process called ‘knapping’, from the rocks the previous day. Having the stone on the building site, used for the footings as there was no cement in his day, before the brickies arrived to start their work, then having to hang around in all weathers, whilst learning the tricks of the trade. At least Eddie got to ride around in the lorry, was paid three half crowns on a Saturday and had use of the family car. It was more than his other sons were getting. Terry, Sam and Mickey only got bed and board.
Eddie hurried down the dirt track to the plot of land at the bottom of the family’s garden. Anger had brought on a rush of adrenaline making him suddenly feel full of energy, even though he had been working since six that day. Though his father had just announced to him that everything was to be his one day (wouldn’t that wipe the smile off the faces of his siblings who all toadied up to their father), the fact was his father wouldn’t listen if he tried to talk to him man to man. It irked him greatly. He wasn’t a snot-nosed schoolboy, he was an adult now, capable of going out into the world and earning a man’s wage. But if he had to buckle down and take the curses and sometimes the blows from his tyrant of a father, so be it. His sisters and his brothers would all be dancing to their big brother’s tune when he inherited the lot in years to come. And it was a lot to inherit. Father had a large stone quarry, a big eight-roomed house here in its own grounds, row upon row of terraced houses in Birkenhead that he got the rents from and soon a large estate of middle class dwellings that his workforce was about to make a start on. That was without the two-seater Ford that his father had recently taken delivery of. The first one of its kind in the district and J.C.’s pride and joy. It was Eddie’s job to keep it maintained for his father. Keeping it topped up with oil and petrol, washing and polishing it, so that all J.C. had to do was jump in and drive himself anywhere he wanted.
Eddie had every reason to feel proud of himself. Being given a piece of land by his father was quite a responsibility, but as his father had said, if he was going to be the boss of the company in the future, he had to learn how to build a house from the bottom to the top. That meant digging out the footings, laying down the base and working on the brickwork. Later he would be given help by his brothers, as Terry had been trained in carpentry, Mickey was a plasterer and Sam, still a schoolboy, had recently been shown how to key in the roofing slates. All Eddie would have to do then was ask his girlfriend, Irene, the girl of his dreams, to marry him and then they could move in! He was certain she would say yes when he proposed to her. They had been courting for two years and it was time they settled down.
Eddie’s anger towards his father ebbed away as his mind dwelt on his beloved. He would have another word with his father tomorrow over the lorry. The tipper had broken on it and the loads had to be taken off manually, the back lights were not working and he’d been stopped by the police again. J.C. had called it whining when Eddie had broached him about buying a new lorry, but none of it mattered really. He would order a fleet of lorries, when the business passed to him.
In the kitchen of her aunt’s small bungalow a few miles away, Irene finished helping to clear away the dishes after their evening meal. She felt tired after her ten hour day working at Saltbury’s department store and was looking forward to an early night. Her job as an apprentice shop assistant was poorly paid and she was given all the chores that the older girls didn’t want.
Today had been a disaster from the very start. First the bus was late taking her into Birkenhead, causing her to be reprimanded by the floor manager. Then she was sent to assist the window dresser, a complaining, grumbling little man for whom she could never seem to do right. Then because he made her feel nervous, she had knocked over a pedestal, which in turn had crashed into some glass shelves. The sound of smashing glass and the man ranting and raving at her was still a recent memory resounding in her ears.
Irene was looking forward to doing what she always did when life at work got too much for her: a good book and a small bar of chocolate always seemed to do the trick, putting her in a relaxing mood when it was time to go to sleep.
“When are you going to see your young man again, Irene?”asked Aunt Miriam, a thin lady in her early sixties, with snowy white hair that she wore in a bun under a navy blue, Chinese style hat. They were sitting enjoying a pot of tea after the kitchen had been tidied and her niece had changed out of her shop uniform of a white long-sleeved blouse and black calf-length skirt, into a flowery poplin summer frock with short, puffed sleeves.
“I don’t know really, probably at the weekend. He’s very busy at the moment preparing the foundations of a house that his father has set him to building. Eddie sees it as a challenge, to show his father how well he can do.”
“I bet he’s a handsome boy, your Eddie. And fancy you having the attentions of the son of a wealthy local builder. One day you might be riding round in one of those big silver cars!”
“A Rolls Royce, I think you mean, Aunty, but I don’t think that will happen. He’s not even taken me to meet his parents yet and you’d think that he would have done, since I’ve known him for two years. Though I think Eddie may be wary of upsetting his father, because I’m a Protestant and his family are Roman Catholic, though they don’t seem to be practicing, as him and his brothers went to Thurstaston school. I suppose if we did get married one day we wouldn’t be allowed to marry in a church.”