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Authors: Richard Benson
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talks about the incident. When Millie brings the story to the Parkin sitting room, Walter shakes his head and tells Winnie that now she has parted from him, she should make sure she stays away.
Meanwhile, a young man from the chapel, Ernest Sutcliffe, who works at Highgate pit, asks if Winnie would like to go out for a walk and she accepts. They visit the cinema. They go for more walks. Millie says that Harry is asking why she doesn’t come out, and that Ernest is a wet blanket. She says Winnie should enjoy herself more, but Winnie feels Ernest is safe. She tells Millie not to tell Harry anything about her, although she knows she will.
Secretly, Winnie wants to marry. Most of the girls she knows are already wed and have got out of their in-laws’ homes and into houses with their husbands. The house at Gill’s Corner is too small for them all and their father’s illness makes it seem even smaller, and she is afraid of being held back at home if her sisters leave. Ernest could be a safe bet. Harry, as Walter says, could not.
7 The Knuckleduster and the Wedding Ring
Goldthorpe, 1930
Around this time, Annie takes Winnie with her to a séance for the first time. It is held in the front room of the house of an old lady called Mrs Harris on a late summerâs evening. Word has been passed around about it in the shops. A dozen women, from their mid-twenties to their seventies, gather in the sitting room and at about eight oâclock file through to the front room where Mrs Harris yanks the curtains across the grimed windows and the women sit down in a rough semi-circle. Annie, who is to be the medium, ushers Winnie to sit with them, and stands back, watching. When everyone is settled, Mrs Harris turns down the gas lamp and lights a candle with a red shade around it, and the room is hushed. Winnie feels very proud of her mam.
Annie says she is seeing some children, a boy and a girl. âHas anybody lost any children?â
A lady has, but she had just lost a little girl, not a boy as well.
âNo, I have a boy and girl,â says Annie. âTheyâve been away. They might have known someone here when you were a girl yourself.â
Although Annie finds no one trying to contact her, Winnie is enraptured by the séance. Later on, walking home with her mam, she says she would like to do it again. Two weeks later Annie takes her to a meeting place known as âThe Roomsâ in a side street leading off the main shopping street, down past the concrete Italianate church and the Sacred Heart Convent, under the black lour of the Hickleton colliery spoil heap.
The Rooms are in a narrow, windowless, brick building with a peeling green-painted door. There are two other mediums that night, and one â a fat, older woman in a shawl â sees the gypsy girl and says Winnie is lucky to have her. To Winnie, the spirit world seems more real and more meaningful than the world in which she lives. In the séances you donât have to be frightened of anything, and people think about what they can do for you, not what you can do for them.
*
A spring night in 1930. Winnie is preparing herself for a visit to the Empire cinema with Ernest. Millie, patting down the rouge on her pale cheeks in the sitting-room mirror, has argued with her, saying Ernest is a bore and that Winnie should come out with her that night. She is going to a dance at the Welfare with Danny Lunness. They are booked in to be married on 28 December and Millie is full of it; Danny not only has a well-paid job at the pit at Barnburgh, a village just east of Goldthorpe, but is also becoming sufficiently good at boxing for his manager at the gym in Bolton-upon-Dearne to plot a professional career for him. A local champion with cups and shields lining his mamâs sideboard, he has already had his first professional fight, against a boxer called Billy âBoyâ Yates, in front of a thousand people at the Plant Hotel, Mexborough.
Meanwhile, a young man from the chapel, Ernest Sutcliffe, who works at Highgate pit, asks if Winnie would like to go out for a walk and she accepts. They visit the cinema. They go for more walks. Millie says that Harry is asking why she doesn’t come out, and that Ernest is a wet blanket. She says Winnie should enjoy herself more, but Winnie feels Ernest is safe. She tells Millie not to tell Harry anything about her, although she knows she will.
Secretly, Winnie wants to marry. Most of the girls she knows are already wed and have got out of their in-laws’ homes and into houses with their husbands. The house at Gill’s Corner is too small for them all and their father’s illness makes it seem even smaller, and she is afraid of being held back at home if her sisters leave. Ernest could be a safe bet. Harry, as Walter says, could not.
7 The Knuckleduster and the Wedding Ring
Goldthorpe, 1930
Around this time, Annie takes Winnie with her to a séance for the first time. It is held in the front room of the house of an old lady called Mrs Harris on a late summerâs evening. Word has been passed around about it in the shops. A dozen women, from their mid-twenties to their seventies, gather in the sitting room and at about eight oâclock file through to the front room where Mrs Harris yanks the curtains across the grimed windows and the women sit down in a rough semi-circle. Annie, who is to be the medium, ushers Winnie to sit with them, and stands back, watching. When everyone is settled, Mrs Harris turns down the gas lamp and lights a candle with a red shade around it, and the room is hushed. Winnie feels very proud of her mam.
Annie says she is seeing some children, a boy and a girl. âHas anybody lost any children?â
A lady has, but she had just lost a little girl, not a boy as well.
âNo, I have a boy and girl,â says Annie. âTheyâve been away. They might have known someone here when you were a girl yourself.â
Although Annie finds no one trying to contact her, Winnie is enraptured by the séance. Later on, walking home with her mam, she says she would like to do it again. Two weeks later Annie takes her to a meeting place known as âThe Roomsâ in a side street leading off the main shopping street, down past the concrete Italianate church and the Sacred Heart Convent, under the black lour of the Hickleton colliery spoil heap.
The Rooms are in a narrow, windowless, brick building with a peeling green-painted door. There are two other mediums that night, and one â a fat, older woman in a shawl â sees the gypsy girl and says Winnie is lucky to have her. To Winnie, the spirit world seems more real and more meaningful than the world in which she lives. In the séances you donât have to be frightened of anything, and people think about what they can do for you, not what you can do for them.
*
A spring night in 1930. Winnie is preparing herself for a visit to the Empire cinema with Ernest. Millie, patting down the rouge on her pale cheeks in the sitting-room mirror, has argued with her, saying Ernest is a bore and that Winnie should come out with her that night. She is going to a dance at the Welfare with Danny Lunness. They are booked in to be married on 28 December and Millie is full of it; Danny not only has a well-paid job at the pit at Barnburgh, a village just east of Goldthorpe, but is also becoming sufficiently good at boxing for his manager at the gym in Bolton-upon-Dearne to plot a professional career for him. A local champion with cups and shields lining his mamâs sideboard, he has already had his first professional fight, against a boxer called Billy âBoyâ Yates, in front of a thousand people at the Plant Hotel, Mexborough.
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