Prologue

The Whole Truth, and Nothing.

No, you will not pose in this, or any other family portrait. You do not belong! We are in the early 1920s, and in the Baxter household. The whole of the family had been gathered together from all around the world to pose for a full family portrait, a large comprehensive photograph for all of the family members to obtain copies, take home and cherish, they being all together in the same place for the first time in quite a long time, and of course they would be able to pass this historic picture on to their own families with the passage of time. The family had been taking up their nominated positions ready for the photographer to set their final poses, until this womans voice had shrieked out. It was a voice that was used to being obeyed, and everything stopped. There was one who had not been placed, or told where to stand or sit. All of them were in their position, with the exception of one of the children. Young Charlie, the youngest of them all. He was the target of this barbed comment that came with real poison within its delivery, I will not allow him to tarnish this photograph, I wont have it!!The voice was that of Margaret Baxter, the matriarch of the Baxter family at that time. She kept insisting, very heatedly, I will not have this evil child, this mortal sinner, this bastard child, ruin this photograph like he has our reputations!! From that moment on, everything changed. The familys dirty little secret had been brought into the open. What had been kept hidden for sixteen years was now about to be revealed, and even though Charlie knew it had something to do with him in some way or another, he had no idea what he had done to his mother and siblings, or how, to warrant such an outburst. He could only stand there and take the tongue-lashing full on, totally stunned. He was about sixteen years of age when this occurred, and he was totally confused. Up to now, to him his life had been perhaps a little rough, but that was to be expected, him being the youngest by over 7 years or so. Born on the 2nd of June 1907, he lived all of his growing up years with the large family of Baxters, and he knew and loved his siblings, as he had 8 brothers and sisters ranging from about 24 years old, down to about 7 years old when he was born, though not all of them lived at home at the time, in fact the eldest boy, Thomas Richardson Baxter had been disruptive in school some years before, and his father had taken him out and given him a career in the merchant navy as a mariner, the father himself being a Master Mariner. This meant the two of them were away from home for long periods of time. One of the twins, Nora Louise, died in 1908 aged about 12, when Charlie was only a year old. It is not hard to imagine the grief in the family at this, though Charlie was too young to understand the comments at the time, but he was told of them later in his life. His early childhood memories were a little vague, as most children find, and they usually start to lay down real memories from around 4 and 5 years of age so that anything that occurs to them from then starts to make real sense. For this family to lose one of their own, and for him to still be there, alive and well was wrong. These references to him from the many ranting sessions of the matriarch herself and the second eldest sister were all kept out of earshot of Charlie himself. This must have had an impact on him, and would have been something he would have been acutely aware of when he got to about 5. He must have known that he was the very black sheep of the family, but he didnt genuinely know why. He tried hard to please everyone, but it always seemed to no avail. This was his lot in life. Within his early life, and it is well understood from research received from persons who had lived within the family at some point in time, that he was treated no better than a dog, but to him it all appeared to be normal life having no comparison to work with, so this is how, to him, it should be. He was the youngest, and therefore, the lowest in the pecking order. He had felt in one way that he had been lucky and gained a little over his siblings in one respect as he was able to attend paid education, which was the only way to receive a good education at that time, and studied hard till he was about 12. He proved himself to be a quick learner, and was deemed clever enough to attend an over school, which was a little like a modern day Grammar School, but the cost of attending such a school would have been much greater, and therefore it fell beyond the finances of the family, so he had to settle for the usual state schooling from then on, thinking that his sacrifice would in some way ease the burden on his family. He had always felt himself as being a bit of a burden on the family, being the youngest by a good seven years from his next sibling up, and was often treat with disdain and severity from his parents, and, for some reason by his elder sisters, possibly because of his very low position in the pecking order, and a boy. Perhaps his parents would have had to postpone their retirement when all of the older children had flown the nest, or something of that nature because he was still living at home. His childhood nevertheless did had a small amount of love in it, though this was in very short supply and came more from the younger siblings who he interacted with, rather than the older ones who had moved out and were carrying on their own lives elsewhere, but very little from the actual parents themselves. Everything changed that day, the day of the photograph, both for the Baxter family in general, but especially for young Charlie himself. That was the day when the matriarch, Mrs. Margaret Baxter, refused to stay silent about the secret shame on the family any longer. This day was the day the truth came out about Charlie and their family. The oldest girl of the family, whom he thought was his elder sister, Margaret Violet Baxter, was not really his sister at all. She was really his birth mother!

Chapter One

The Web of Lies Untangles

Charlie was stunned by this news. He felt almost betrayed by the very people closest to him, as they had made him live a complete and total lie. He had been kept in the dark for nearly sixteen years, and only now were certain things that had happened to him in his early life began to make a lot more sense. He was after all, quite an educated man. Now he knew why other kids tended to shun or shy away from him, mainly on the instruction of their parents, at places like the park, school, and the many other public places he frequented. It was as if he had some contagious disease that could infect the whole population. He assumed that these childrens parents didnt like him for some reason, and his assumption was correct, but not for any reason he had assumed. The stigma attached to being born out of wedlock at that time was to have committed the worst crime that could ever be committed in the Christian world, there was none worse, so it was extremely and very severely frowned upon by all branches of the Christian faiths, and all churches. There were many families whose honour and reputation were worth more to them than the life of another human being or family, so they would take advantage of other peoples or familys mistakes, and because these puritan people existed, there would always be a great many people who would criticize these things happening, always trying to besmirch the reputation of any family they possibly feared or were jealous of, and so these gangs of gossips, this self appointed righteous brigade pounced on every opportunity to hammer home any tiny little indiscretion on that family. This would then eliminate the competition, and elevate their standing in the community. This is not Christian. It never was, and it never will be. He now knew the real reason he seemed so unpopular in adult circles too, with their constant glances, and the finger pointing; the hushed whispers behind theyre shielding hands in case he could read their lips. He had assumed that all of this was because of his mother having had him so late in her life, something else that wasnt deemed to be normal or natural, and also fell prey to the gossips, especially as her husband could spend months away at sea. This was the picture he had been fed all of his young life. Suddenly, as of now, he had something more evil than the Devil running through his veins, he bore the very spawn of Satan himself. He had been born out of wedlock. He was a BASTARD!

Chapter Two

The Story Begins?

To fully understand how all this came about, we must go back to around 1906. It begins with two men working in the same type of job, both keeping their respective families on the pay they could muster from their trade. They were two Master Mariners working out of the Port of Sunderland in the early years of the 20th Century, and they both lived within one street of each other, one of them in Canon Cockin Street, and the other in St Leonards Street, both in the Hendon area of Sunderland, with only a short walk away from one to the other. They knew each other through their work, and on occasion, visited each others houses. One of these men was the patriarch of the family, a Mr. Thomas White Baxter, born in 1857 that later became the husband of Margaret Baxter who was by coincidence also born in 1857, she being the matriarch we have already heard of from the photographic incident. The other Master Mariner was a Mr. Dixon, whose birth date is not relevant at the moment, and plays very little part in the rest of this story. However it was fair to say that these two men knew each other well through working out of the port. Thomas White Baxter was the head of the family living in Canon Cockin Street, the street itself comprising of three long rows of terraced, single storey buildings, with a scullery extension on the back, and a small yard. Mr. Dixon lived in St. Leonards St. the next street over, the houses in that street being of the same design as those of Canon Cockin Street. This Mr. Dixon had a married son, a pharmacist by profession, named Charles John Dixon, who lived at that time with his own wife and family in the Ashbrooke part of Sunderland; then a well to do area, and around this time he owned his own pharmacy business working out of a shop in Sunderland, and was doing very well indeed for himself. It was through the working together of the two Master Mariners, the two parents, that Charles John Dixon at the age of 35, met a young 21-year-old Margaret Violet Baxter, who was perhaps not as pure a young woman as some would have liked to believe. He was by no means her first lover, or indeed was certainly not her last either, but he was the man who made her pregnant, and for this to happen, in those days, was neither morally or socially acceptable. In those days, it was a Mortal Sin to become pregnant out of wedlock, and to avoid any possible scandal, the identity of the father must be kept secret at all costs, so as to maintain his reputation and his family name, even if this lead to the destruction of the reputations of other peoples lives or families. This was how it was. This was how it was done, and always had been. The mother also had to be protected from the tirade of religious comments and taunts that would follow if the news broke in these close-knit communities. Therefore, the child had to be hidden from the masses somehow, cloaked somewhere, and covered from view to protect the mother of being accused of having loose morals, as this would bring great shame to her family name. This is how it was. This is how it was done, and always had been. However, there is one player who suffers worse than both of the parents, and was never given a proper thought or consideration in this wild race of reputation self-preservation. The child. This child in this case was born a boy. If word of this got out, then the child would become a target and made to constantly bear the extremely heavy yoke of being born a bastard throughout his whole life, persecuted as much by his own family as the general public at large. The child, if his identity was ever exposed as being born a bastard, he would be constantly hounded, and ceaselessly reminded by all and sundry of being of evil birth, and would, upon his expected, in fact prayed for early death, be cast away from the Gates of Heaven by God Himself, and sent to spend all eternity burning in Hell for his sins. In this case however, and in a way a small blessing, the child was not cast out, but given over to his grandparents to bring up, something which was not uncommon in those days either, as a lot more of the daughters of the well to do could testify were it not for the shame. This would therefore hide the true identity and the true facts from the nosey and extremely vehement and unforgiving public, for the childs own benefit. This child, this boy, was therefore merged into the Baxter family, and the given name he had at birth was altered very slightly so as to tally with this highly engineered facade. He had been born and then named after his biological father, so he bore the name Charles John Dixon. He was never christened with this name for obvious reasons. The name had to be amended to add weight to the cover-up, and was changed to Charles John Dixon Baxter, a name he held for the rest of his life. His lack of a Christening would also exclude him from any chance of entering the Kingdom of Heaven, a fact he was also pointedly informed of many times when he eventually found out the truth following the photographic incident. To him, God had forgotten him. The cover-up worked well, and there had been some good damage limitation, the result of the engineering as opposed to just inventing the facade. It worked so well that even Charles himself was totally unaware of his true past right up until the photographic incident occurred. The size of the Baxter family, and there were quite a few of them, helped in this charade. At the time of Charless birth in 1907, the siblings, or as they really were, his aunts and uncles were; Thomas Richardson Baxter, then 24, then Margaret Violet, we already know was 22, George William Baxter, 20, and Sarah Ann Baxter, 17, The twins Nora Louise Baxter and Robert Louis Baxter, 11, followed by Martha, who suffered from dwarfism, 9, and finally Hector Redvers White Baxter, coming in at 7 years old. As I mentioned earlier, one of the twins, Nora Louise Baxter died the year after Charles was born, she being about 12. To try to keep what is a complicated branching out of a family tree in context, and to avoid confusion, we will look now at what became of his birth mother. Margaret Violet Baxter, the girl who had been passed off for years as Charless older sister in the dirty little secret, courted many times after Charless birth, passing herself off as a free agent. She eventually, after about 4 years of trying, found herself a husband, and she married a James Andrew Moffitt, in 1912. James Moffitt was born in 1881, so he married at the age of almost 31 years of age, with Margaret Violet being then around the age of 27. For reference, Charles was about 5 years old at the time. James and Margaret Violet Moffitt produced a child, a daughter, who was born in 1913, and they named her Nora. This marriage was destined to produce only one child, as their marriage was cruelly cut short, when James went to fight at the front in the First World War, and was killed in Northern France in 1915. His name is carved on the Loos Monument near Lens in France, and is there to this day. After Jamess untimely death on the battlefields of France, Margaret Violet was now a grieving widow with the young child Nora, officially the real parent this time, and she survived within the Baxter family, her baby becoming a junior by the time, then she met a Joseph William Bates, and they eventually married on the 13th May 1922, in Christ Church, Seaham. Joseph William Bates happily accepted Nora her daughter as part of their own new family, They all moved to Blackhall, as Joseph went to work at the mine there, and Nora continued to live with them in West Street, Blackhall, till she herself married. However, and worth mentioning here is that the first natural child to Joseph William, and Margaret Violet Bates, in this marriage was a daughter, who was named Margaret Violet after her mother. She was born in the summer of 1922, so that meant her mother must have been at least 6 months pregnant at the wedding. Her track record with men was proven once again. She went on to have another two children with her husband Joe, both sons, Joe and Tom, the second of which, Tom, born mentally retarded and deemed to be Mongolic so was kept hidden away from people and places. Yet another disgrace to the family, and all from the same daughter it seems. All of this earlier section of the story written above happened before the photograph incident, that is other than the birth of the two boys to the Bates family of course, so Charles was still totally unaware of any of this, he was happy to see his older sister married again and settled with who he thought were his two nieces, Nora and Margaret Violet Jnr. after the upheaval of the last few years. Margaret Violet Bates remained with Joe Bates, and their slow son Tom until their respective deaths living in Tenth Street, Blackhall.

Chapter Three

Behind Closed Doors

Charles, who by now was about 16, and old enough to be working, so, to all intents and purposes, a grown man, had just been told that the whole life hed lived so far had been a complete and total fabrication to protect him from the stigma of being born out of wedlock. This statement in itself he knew to be a blatant lie, because the older siblings who were really his uncles and aunts had taunted him relentlessly, though without detail so as not to expose the dirty little secret of course, into thinking he was lower than a second-class citizen and always would be. During this early period in his life, his confidence and self esteem must have been almost zero. The younger ones were less so in putting him down, as they did not fully understand the apparent alleged severity of his birthright, and therefore just treat him as a normal brother and playmate, until they themselves were old enough to understand the explanation of the dirty little secret, and even then, some of them chose to ignore this, and stuck with their younger brother Charlie, till the power of parental pressure was brought to bear, from none other than their mother. This was how it had to be, and this was how it was going to be. In truth, this whole manufactured lie, this whole charade, had been invented, and engineered to protect his biological father and mother from any scandal that could have followed his birth, and this it did. Since this little dirty secret of the family had now become public knowledge, Charles would now be left to God and Good Neighbours, both of which to him was in short supply, as after all, hed been told countless times after the secret had been exposed following the photographic incident that he would get no divine help from God, as he had been born of the Devil. The neighbours kept away from him too. He also found out that the few nice things he thought his family had provided for him, like paying for that special education till he was 12, was in fact part of the deal with Dixon on his birth, so was paid for by his biological father and not the Baxter family he lived with. At 12, when the amount was to go up because of the over-school charges, Mr. Dixon stopped paying. The Baxters had never paid any of it, and would not have done so anyway, though to perpetuate the cover-up they told Charles they had being doing so. This was also true of the non-existent piano lessons; He didnt have any as such, and relied on the siblings to pass on their knowledge from their classes to him. Charles was a very quick learner and became a really good pianist as time went on, and this would have a profound effect on his life later. Now that all of this information was in the open, Charles tried to make sense of what had happened to him so far in his life. He was intelligent enough to work his way through most of it. He now found he had no real family of his own, which he had always assumed he had, and now God Himself did not want him either, even though he had prayed to Him like everybody else in the family throughout most of his childhood while he was at school, though he was never allowed to attend church or Sunday School. The true feelings of his assumed parents, who were really his grandparents had been delivered to him by his grandmother in no uncertain terms and contained some long stored up venom, delivered as being well overdue it would seem, and his true biological mother was distancing herself as far as possible from him, having already abandoned him once in his past. It is extremely difficult to try to imagine how he felt at this time in his life. His whole world as he knew it, and everything he held dear within it, such that it was, had just collapsed around his ears, a world that had been built of pure fabrication and lies. With what was left of his confidence now totally shattered, and his faith in human nature lying completely in tatters, he knew he had to work something out to survive. But, still the questions kept coming. Why did they..? Why was it me..? Most importantly, what have I done to deserve this? When he was about 18 or so, and living in Seaham then, he decided to go and meet his biological father, face to face, in his huge house up in Ashbrooke. He only got as far as the front door; the family would not allow him any further into the house. Mr. Charles John Dixon came out to face him, at that front door, by now an old man of about 53 years of age. The meeting was certainly not a happy family reunion, Charles having to introduce himself, as Dixon had no idea who he was, but when he was told, Mr. Dixon then told Charles in no uncertain terms that he would not get a single penny from the family, and that he should leave the house now and never ever come back to darken the doors again. Charles looked at him straight in the eye, something he had been waiting to do since the photographic incident, and this made Dixon very uncomfortable indeed, he then informed him, also in no uncertain terms that he had not come here for money, he didnt want any of his money. All he had come to this house to do was to see his real biological father, face-to-face, in the flesh, and leave. He wanted to see the face of who had been responsible for giving him this dire existence of a life he had had, and he wanted to be able to put a face to the name. He turned around and left the grounds of the house without another word, without any argument at all, and without looking back. He felt something inside of him he hadnt felt in a long time. He felt pride in himself. The Baxter family had fed and clothed young Charlie throughout his childhood, another payment agreement with Dixon, though not always received, and deep down he now knew that this upbringing was probably due more to the family performing a moral Christian duty to the Church rather than that of a loving family. The scars he mentally received over those early years, and following the revelations at the photographic incident would remain with him throughout his whole life; every single mental scar, and they would shape him into the person he has yet to become. Life had been really tough; surely it could not get any worse.

Chapter Four

The Conjunction Comes

Around 1923, the remaining members of the Baxter household moved from Canon Cockin Street, in Sunderland, to 121 Station Road, in Seaham, living in rooms above a shop, since most of the older children now had their own families and their own houses in Seaham as the men were working in the mines there. Charles was still with them when they moved. George William, and Robert Louis, who lost an arm, worked at Seaham Colliery, though Robert Louis worked as a clerk, and not below ground. Hector Redvers White Baxter went to work at a colliery that had only opened in 1910, and was still under development, Dawdon Colliery. I will return to this colliery later. To understand what comes next, I have to go into another little branch of history again. In a town called Stanley, in the north west of the county, there lived a family known as the Martindales. The father, George, and his wife Ethel Jane (born 1888) had three daughters. Ethel Annie May, who was born in July 1908, then Marion in March 1913, and finally Gladys in autumn of 1919. They did have a son, who they named Stanley, but unfortunately he died young after breaking his leg playing football, and complications set in. This devastated George. They lived almost next door to a pig slaughterhouse, and had to endure the smell, not to mention the blowflies, on a seven days a week basis. George Martindale worked around then as a labourer, and more often than not, would receive his wages in his hand, and then drink it in the pub till there was none left. It was also not uncommon for Ethel Jane to be waiting at the front door for some housekeeping, and receive nothing but a beating for her trouble when he got back. In short, George Martindale was a bad tempered, alcohol fuelled bully, and let his family know who was in charge too. He had them where no one questioned his actions, and he ruled with a rod of iron. I have no particular detail of any one specific occurrence of his numerous outbursts, but I do have details of his general behaviour, and it was not good. It was because of losing his job in Stanley, and also possibly to get away from people who might want to exact some sort of retaliatory violence from the results of his drinking sessions, he decided, around 1920, to relocate the whole family to a town on the coast of County Durham, called Seaham. He had been able to get a job at Seaham Colliery, working the nightshift, which was his preferred shift, and managed to rent a house in Rutland Street, in Seaham, which is situated a couple of streets behind Station Road, and not far from the colliery he was to work in, and of course the nearest public houses too. The two younger girls, that is Marion and Gladys then started to attend school in Seaham. Things seemed to work out for them at first, till George went back into his old ways, to a point where the rent wasnt being paid on anything near a regular basis. Rather than change, George decided to sublet a room in the house, and that way he could get more money into the household, enabling him to keep more of the pay for his own requirements. At the same time as George Martindale was looking for a lodger, a young lad by the name of Charles John Dixon Baxter was looking for lodgings out of the Baxter household on Station Road, and this is the way Charles got out of the frying pan, but unfortunately ended up in the fire. George was still a bully, terrifying his family, and also now a vulnerable Charles, who dare not lift a finger to help, George leading them all a merry dance. This went on for quite a long time. He knew of Charless devil child history, and confronted him with it almost on a daily basis, and the more drink he had had, the louder and noisier the insults. During all of this, the girls were growing up, the eldest sister Ethel Annie May had been married and moved out, and it was not long after Marion had left school, there was a disaster in the household. In 1929 Ethel Jane, their mother, took ill, and died, aged only 41. This left George a widower, and the two remaining girls motherless. George only got worse around the house, muttering insults to all and sundry, but, outside of the home, at work or socializing in the pub, everybody thought he was a great bloke to get on with. Marion would now have to be the woman of the house. He said so. Ethel Annie May had married a Jack Cummings, also originally coming from the Stanley area, who worked as a builder with a company called Gordon Durham, working on house building or on projects like the then new promenade on the Seaham seafront. He was later made redundant, and started work for the NCB in their property repairs yard as a foreman. They had one child, a girl, named Joan, who was born in May 1935. More details about this branch of the family later. George now had what he needed, a housekeeper he could fully control by fear, and a male slave who paid for the privilege of being the fetch and carry man, and still he wanted more for himself, and this included that rent money. In one incident, he went with Charles and Jack Cummings, both members of the local Conservative Club on Station Road, and was forcibly ejected for saying in no uncertain terms what he thought of Tories. This was after drinking copious amounts of their beer first. As you would expect, the landlord of their house, a Mr. Oliver, whose shop stood on Station Road, was starting to get a bit fed up of the rent money which wasnt coming in regularly, so after making a lot of allowances for the sake of the young family, he decided it was time to let the property to someone else, and set about evicting George Martindale and the whole family. Before he could be evicted though, George had kept one step ahead, something at which he was well practiced in, and moved everyone to Heselden, a village near to Blackhall, and into 28 East Terrace Heselden, and both he and Charles, who was still lodging with them as he was by now courting Marion, got jobs at Blackhall Colliery. All of this time, Marion, without much help from the young socialite Gladys, had to keep house and look after two working men, one being her current boyfriend Charles, the other her tyrannical father George. The hand washing of their dirty pit clothes and the sweat stained undergarments for one would be a major task, but for two, it was daunting to say the least. George had to have clean and ironed shirts for his weekend drinking sessions too. They worked different shifts too, so meals coming in from work were at all times of the day or night, and hot water from the coal fired boiler in the scullery had to be constantly supplied for the tin bath in front of the fire as the returning miners would be covered in coal dust and sweat, exhausted from their labours. George still of course let no opportunity go by without taunting the hard working Marion about the bastard she was going out with, but didnt stop them from courting as the cash from Charles, in his eyes, more than made up for it, and he could still have a go at him any time he liked too. Charles was paying his board to George, and also spending his own money on the running of the house to make up the shortfall. In the early part of 1935, yet another calamity hit the Martindale family. Gladys, the youngest sister, then 15, had met up with a sailor by the name of George Gray, and she became pregnant by him. By law, the bride at a wedding must be 16 years of age or over, so the timing on this was crucial. She was married just after her 16th birthday in October 1935. Her son Alfred was born 24th March 1936. To save the confusion with the family tree again, I will tell you what happened to the Gray family before I continue with the story of Charles. George and Gladys continued to live in Heselden after the birth of Alfred, George gradually doing more land based or short range duties, from then. They also had a daughter they named Sylvia, born 1st November 1942 while living there in Heselden. On leaving the navy, George Gray and his family moved to the potteries at Stoke on Trent, where he had found a job working in the ceramic factories. While there they had another daughter around spring of 1946 that they named Joyce. He carried on working there for a short while after the birth of Joyce before returning to Blackhall, moving into 28 East Street, and started working at the mine there. Gladys died of leukemia in 1961 in that house in East Street, Blackhall. George Gray eventually remarried and because of his ailing health, went to live in Peterlee with his daughter Sylvia.Alfred lives in Knottingly area of Yorkshire, not far from where Joyce had lived. She unfortunately died in September 2006.

Chapter Five

Married Life Begins

Shortly after the suddenly arranged emergency wedding of Gladys to George Gray, the already previously planned wedding of Charles John Dixon Baxter to Miss Marion Martindale took place in Easington Registry Office on 23rd November 1935. It was a small, quiet affair, happily without any of the traumas of the wedding previously attended a few weeks before. They married in the Registry Office because of Charless complete avoidance of anything to do with the church or religion; after all, he might be struck down if he dared enter a church, of any kind. I suppose all women dream of having a white church wedding, the Father of the Bride giving her away, but Marion did not seem to mind, and her father George Martindale had no intention of giving her away to anyone. Hes had two of his daughters married within a month. All he cared about now was that Charles and Marion continued to live with him, which they did, so he still had his housekeeper and labourer. Within two months of being married, Marion became pregnant, and by the summer of 1936, she was having difficulty performing the tasks her own father expected of her. She tired easily, but had little time for rest, and certainly no time of her own. Her father George forbade any visitors to the house to see either Marion, or Charles, especially while he was asleep during the day after returning from the mine. This, in effect prevented either of them from having any friends at all. They still carried on as before until, on 18th of September 1936, Charles and Marion had a daughter, who they names Sheila. They were ecstatic at being a real family at last. However, George did not think so. A baby in the house meant noise when he was resting, and his peace was now going to be broken because of Charles making Marion pregnant. He expected the earth, and this baby meant he might only get a few grains of sand instead. Poor Charles got it in the neck again, and Marion too, though she had been getting it in the neck since she was a baby. Their happiness didnt count in Georges scheme of things. In an effort to try to make more money from the mines, both George and Charles found they needed to try another, different colliery, and to leave Blackhall to try to get a better cable, as different coal owners paid different rates of pay for the same work. In reality, George had decided to move, from whatever he had got himself into, and poor Charles and Marion had to fall in line. They moved from Heselden back to the town of Seaham again, moving into a house in old Viceroy Street, down near to the town shopping centre as was then, and the port and seafront. These houses were a little more spacious, but still quite cramped, though an added advantage to Charles and Marion was that Charless stepsister Nora Moffitt, who was by now herself married, to a Robert Robinson, and they lived quite close. She had always idolized Charles, and visited the Viceroy Street house whenever George was out. George applied and then started working again at Seaham Colliery, or the Nack as it was locally known because of the noise the winding engines made. Charles however, did not want to work with George, or get into any possibility of working with George, so he decided to try the now fully developed mine at Dawdon, where his uncle Hector was currently working, The newly opened Vane Tempest Colliery situated along the north end of the seafront, because of its newness, were not paying a good price for a cable. However, the family location may have changed by moving back to Seaham, but the living circumstances within the household did not. George would be working nights, which was his favourite shift because usually the work loads were a little easier during the night, at Seaham Colliery, come in to the house early on the morning, and promptly instruct Marion, who had been up since 5am to get the water heated, and his bath ready, clean clothes for him to pop on when dry, and made him his dinner, and really promptly instruct her that the child, that being Sheila at this time, should be taken out of the house so as not to disturb him while he slept. Most days he would get up at lunch time, go to the pub till afternoon closing, then come home and go back to bed till it was time to get up to go to work again. Sometimes, Charles, also by now a shift worker, would have to forgo some of his sleep time to take Sheila out in the pram, out of the way, so Marion could get the household chores done. This was certainly not happy families. Marion was still terrified of her dad, and Charles had to bite his tongue to keep the peace. In 1940, Marion became pregnant again, yet another child to make lots of noise to annoy George, or so it appeared to George. Britain had been at war with Germany for almost a year now, and the Government of the day wanted as much coal production out of the mines as it possibly could get, to fire the furnaces to make the steel for the ammunition and so on. So much so that no coal miner was ever conscripted by National Service Call-up in wartime into the British Army to fight. Some of the younger miners volunteered, and went off to fight, feeling this was their duty to their Country. The extremely unpopular conscientious objectors, those who thought that fighting this war was wrong, and were refusing to go away to France to fight, preferring to sit at home, in their own luxury, and let others take the bullets. To put a halt to these people of conscience escaping helping the war effort, a Mr. Bevan in the Government at the time sent all of these objectors to work in the various mines as Bevan Boys, throughout the whole country, taking them away from their lifestyle, the idea being that they would suffer as miners rather than let them sit at home and do nothing at all. This was perhaps the first recognition of the dirty and dangerous job that miners had, though unfortunately, for the wrong reasons. These Bevan Boys were very unpopular with the miners themselves, as they had little or no training in safety, or looking out for their marra, and did everything they could to be sent home as useless. It didnt work. In the September of 1940, Charles and Marion had a son, and they named him Gordon. Once again, George was not particularly taken to this new addition, this new thorn in his side, and amused himself by making barbed and very personal comments about the two children, Sheila by now being about 4 year of age. This was the time, due to this relentless peer pressure from George, that Charles and Marion decided they would have no more children. They had a girl and a boy and that was enough. This would be their perfect family. The money Charles was giving George to pay for him and Marions board was increasing because of the children, and the money he was making at the colliery was only enough to get by on. He did, however use his talents as a piano player, and made a little extra cash playing as resident pianist for the local concert party. This got him out of the house, usually on a Saturday night, and made life a little easier. Fate being what it is, Charles received word that his real grandmother, who he had always thought was his mother, the matriarch of the Baxter family, Margaret Baxter was very ill. He decided it would be nice for him to take Sheila as a 4 year old and Gordon as a babe in arms, both in a pram, up to see her in those rooms in Station Road, Seaham, possibly to show that he was managing since he left. This was just before Christmas 1939, and his greeting on arrival was not a nice one. He got there and went in. As soon as Margaret Baxter knew he was there with his children, she started to scream the place down with another of her tirades, terrifying poor little Sheila into crying, and screaming at Charles to take this unholy spawn of a bastard out of her house. Get them out! Charles, totally confused, but nevertheless keeping control of himself, left the house, with his two children, never to return. Within a short while of this happening, Margaret Baxter, the matriarch of the Baxter family died in those cramped rooms above that shop on Station Road early in 1940. However, there were others in that family, waiting in the wings, to take her place. The second eldest of the daughters, Sarah Ann took on the role, now herself married to a photographer called Walter Oughtred, living next to his studio in South Railway Street, still in Seaham. Her husband had had a son from a previous marriage, and it was discovered that Sarah Ann could not have children of her own. Her bitterness towards Charles would surface much later, and told to us from a very unusual source. Charles now knew that there could be no reconciliation with the real Baxter family, and knew that he was now on his own. There would also no reconciliation with the Martindale family either, with George up to his usual tricks. Perhaps the Baxter family had been right, and that he had been cursed to spend all of his life in a sort of never ending living hell. Whatever he thought would be right to do, fell flat, or was scuppered by either circumstances, or George, or both. Nothing seemed as if it would work out for him. God must not only have forgotten him, but made sure there were always as many obstacles in his way as possible to prevent him doing anything remotely leading to real happiness. He still had Marion, and that was a good start.

Chapter Six

Just When You Thought It Couldnt..

From the birth of Gordon, in 1940, the war started to make itself felt in Seaham. The German bombers kept flying over, trying to target both the three coalmines, and the gas works, in particular the gasometers, those huge expandable circular gas storage units that were situated between Dawdon Colliery, and the port. As luck would have it, in all of the German raids in the whole war, they were never any of them, but some of the houses short distances away were. The bombers also sometimes overshot their targets completely, and bombed up to a mile away further north from these gas storage units. They managed to bomb the eastern end of, but not all of, Viceroy Street, together with some houses in the surrounding streets. As part of the safety campaign, the people living in Viceroy Street had to be re-housed, and the old houses had to be demolished before they fell down completely. Charles and Marion, together with Sheila and Gordon were moved to 18 Clara Street, still in Seaham along with George Martindale. George was not a happy person at this new address, as some of his control had gone. This house was in Charless name and not his, so his contributions from Charles towards the housekeeping would cease. In fact, Charles should now be charging George board and lodgings. He was not a happy person at all. He had other options he could do of course. He could move to another address alone, and do for himself, paying all of the rent, preparing his own meals, and doing his own clothes, as no one else would be a slave as much as Marion had been. This to him was not an option. He needed to keep control of his little slaves, and Marion was his daughter and it was her duty to look after him. He had to swallow an awful lot of pride because now he was the one living in with his son in law, and not the other way around. Little by little, he was losing his grip and control over Marion, as she was now concentrating on her own husband and the welfare of her own children. He financially now had to contribute his board and lodgings to his own daughter, even though it was only 30 bob (1.50p) a week for his meals, his washing, his fetching and carrying, and to top it all, Marion paid his insurance policy for him. This arrangement still rankled him, even though it was a very low payment compared to what he had taken from them in the past. The advantage for him though was that this address was considerably nearer to his place of work than Viceroy Street had been, and was literally over the road from his old stomping ground. Charles however now had to travel further to get to his work at Dawdon. Once again, the address may have changed, but the living together never varied, same hell, just different inside walls. Clara Street is situated just off Station Road, in Seaham, and about 600 yards from where they all used to live prior to their move to Heselden, so George was able to meet up with his old drinking friends, and his favourite landlords, and soon fell into his old ways. The drinking, the trouble he got into, the noisy verbal exchanges outside the house, all added to Charles and Marions lot. He would come in drunk, with some of his so called mates, and sit till the early hours of the morning, drinking, smoking and making one hell of a racket with these cronies of his. As luck would have it, neither Sheila nor Gordon was woken up by the noise of revelry. Sheila was by now attending school, and that left only Gordon in the house to be kept quiet while George slept. He regularly would tell Sheila, who was still only a small child, to get out when he came in from work, and take Gordon with her. He was not a nice man. Just when they thought things just couldnt get any worse, in early 1944, Marion fell pregnant again. They were going to have an unplanned, so therefore a more or less unwanted child. You can imagine the comments from George, I mean, he used to tell Sheila she didnt need to bother using the tin bath, because it wouldnt make her look any better. Things had taken a turn for the worse; Charles was working all that he could to make ends meet, and only receiving peppercorn value rent and board from George, who still carried on drinking his way through most of his pay. Poor Marion was totally trapped, looking after two miners, with all that entailed, and two kids, with another on the way, and she was finding that, as this pregnancy moved on, it was getting more difficult to cope. Charles did what he had done before, and helped as best he could, keeping his family away from the routines of George or his cronies. Many people would think that Charles and Marion should take the children and flit off somewhere, but Marion knew that George would hunt her down till he found her, and may possibly kill Charles in the process. George was a violent man. They had never been allowed any real friends that they could have turned to. They had good neighbours, but no one wanted to cross George. By November of 1944, Marion had gone her full term, and she gave birth to another son, which they named David. They did not want this extra mouth to feed, or to clothe, and George certainly didnt like the idea of another noisy, crying baby in the house. To all intents and purposes, David was an unplanned and unwanted child, but he was not unloved. The birth of this baby would knock the peace deal between Charles and George inside the household back another few years, but they would get through it, they had to. David had been born with bright ginger hair too, something George was also fast to latch on to when hurling his insults at Marion around the house. Charles and Marion now had three children, Sheila now 8, Gordon now 4, and a babe in arms David. The house was now a bit too small for them to live separately as a couple in their own bedroom, and the kids were taking up more and more space. George made sure he was unaffected by the new addition, either by bed space or noise, and so the old routine of taking out the baby was re established, this time though, little Sheila was old enough to help in a limited way, making the pressure on the family a little easier. Up until this one, the houses they had lived in were all in Georges name, something he insisted on so as to keep control of everything, including his daughter and his son in law, who you can probably tell by now he hated with a passion, and to make sure they played the game his way, and his way only. Now the boot was on the other foot, so he became even more controlling, and in a word, disrespectful. However, in 1947, when Sheila was about 11, Gordon was about 7, and David was about 3, an opportunity arose where Charles and Marion could live in a house rent free, and this could make a big impact on the monies coming into the household. Charles was offered a colliery house in Dawdon, where, while he worked at the colliery, he could live there totally rent-free. This also meant for him, a short 10-minute walk to work instead of about 45 minutes, and the savings on the rent would help offset the cost of the extra child. It made perfect sense to all except George. This move to Dawdon would mean George would be the one with the 45-minute walk, or use a bus, to get to and from work, He was none to happy about it, but realized he could not stop it going ahead if he still wanted to be looked after. They moved from Clara Street to 17 Embleton Street, in Dawdon, with the Dawdon School being on the opposite side of the street at the bottom, and the corner shop on the same side as the house opposite the school. Schooling now would not be a problem for the younger ones, as they could walk there by themselves, as it was an infants and junior school, and less than 100 yards away. Sheila was quite able at her age to attend the senior school that was not far from their old address, on Station Road, the Seaham Independent School as it was then, or SIS for short. The house, terraced with two bedrooms upstairs, a small front sitting room with a small fireplace, a small dining room at the back with a huge fireplace with an oven built in, and a scullery extension from one side, and a pantry from the other of this room. A huge coal fired clothes boiler was built in at the far end of the scullery, and, as Charles received a free coal allowance as part of his working at the colliery, they always had heat and hot water. The back yard wasnt huge, but the walls were over six feet high, so did offer some privacy. In the bottom corner of the yard stood the coalhouse, and next door to it, the only toilet for the whole house. The Netty as it was always known. It was not luxury, but it was home. Charles and Marion occupied the front upstairs bedroom, with Sheila. The boys, Gordon and David shared the upstairs back bedroom, and George occupied the front downstairs sitting room as a bedroom. This made the coming and going during the day in the house difficult, and he would often shout as Marion or the children passed his door while walking through the entrance lobby during the day. It was, perhaps with the sudden increase in wealth created by the savings in the rent that Charles was able to afford some of the other little pleasures in life. He gambled on the horses a little, and had done so for some time, but the amounts staked also went up, and he was still able to make a little cash back playing the piano for the then popular touring concert parties around the Workingmens Clubs, playing most Saturday nights with the Jolly Boys, having their own touring concert party, which then was still based in the British Legion Club, the premises being behind Malvern Crescent in Deneside, and almost within the shadow of the winding wheels of Seaham Colliery. He had been playing for them for quite a while now, as his previous address of Clara Street as it was only a short walk away from there, over a footbridge, but when he moved to Dawdon, it meant he now had to catch a bus there and back, and this cost money. He always bought the sheet music for two or three new songs every month or so from The Arcade, in Sunderland, and would practice them in the house, on his piano. On his playing nights, he would pack the sheets of music into a little attach case, and carry it with him to the show, wherever they were performing that night. Marion usually stayed at home, as she only rarely drank alcohol, having seen the effects with her own father, but would, on a special occasion, go out with her husband if she could get the children looked after. In early 1950, she went on one of these Jolly Boy nights out, came home a little tipsy, with major consequences. She fell pregnant again. The dark clouds started to loom again on the horizon.

Chapter Seven

Enter the Black Sheep?

To say that this time the pregnancy was a total mistake, and this child was really, really unwanted would have been a massive understatement. Marion totted up the dates, and declared it was the result of her trip to the Jolly Boys night, and she must have let her guard slip. Charles just steeled himself into never having any money to do with what he wanted to do with it. This preyed on his mind, and as the day of the birth got nearer, he got more and more angry, not just about the pregnancy, but about life in general, and his life in particular. All of his and Marions plans for the future were now gone up in smoke. He was about 43 years of age and starting all over again. By the time this child got to be independent, Charles would be getting on towards 60. . They had gone for seven years without making a mistake, and then, suddenly this. The light at the end of the tunnel now started to seem like it had been only a mirage. All of his life he had waited to get to a position where he could be able to say that they were reasonably well off, no ties, and comfortable. Perhaps even a little savings, as the older ones started working, and started paying their way. Now, he would have to watch the pennies so he could get his Players untipped cigarettes, and he would have to restrict the amount of money available for the backing of the horses, something he was doing more and more, with bigger and bigger stakes. He had every annual edition of Horses in Training going a long way back, and could sit for hours weighing up the form of the runners and riders. In the back of his mind, he must still have still blamed God for dangling the carrot in front of him, and then taking it away again suddenly. He was devastated, and he said openly that they did not want this child. Marion however knew that they would have to accept it, after all it is really one of their own. I do not wish to draw a parallel here, but a child, seven years younger than the next eldest sibling, being born as unwanted, was life repeating itself? He must have sat down at sometime and thought of all of these coincidental circumstances, and could easily have assumed that God Himself was handing out the punishment. This time though, he was not taking it lying down. No matter what or how this expected child did, the child would never be good enough in his eyes, ever. George, as more or less expected, tore into Marion about being a hussy, legs always open, and baby factory, the lot, all of this she had to take on the chin. He said that this new child must not disturb him like the three before had, something that was never a reality due to the diligence of the parents to keep the children occupied or quiet. For the rest of 1950, things more or less remained the same, Marion doing the work of two, but this time with help from Sheila, then 14 and Gordon then 10, David was only 7, so only of limited help, until, on the 6th October; they had another son, who they named John. John was born in the front downstairs front room that was normally occupied by George when he was in, she having the help of the local midwife, as was done in those days. It was just after 6 am and George had not arrived in from work yet. I suppose he got a bit of a shock when he did! The next year or so was a turbulent one, and not without its little drama. Sheila, because of her age, being almost 14, and now almost a young lady, should have a room of her own, but was still sleeping in the front upstairs bedroom with Charles and Marion, and now, of course, baby John now joining them, sleeping in the cot. You would think that, as the bedroom was more or less crowded, then there would be little or no opportunity to get up what you do to make any more children, what with the noise and everything. Marion thought this too, so early in 1951, with Sheila doing the babysitting, a job she loved doing too, Marion went out for the night with her husband, to one of those Jolly Boys concerts, though she sat in the audience, he sat on stage, and as she had shown in the past, had little resistance to the alcohol, and got very tipsy. Well, she got more than tipsy, she got pregnant! Charles, when he received this news, was totally devastated. There were now going to be not one but two little ones running about the place, the dirty nappies, the extra washing, and all that came with children. They were tied to the merry-go-round even more so now. There was unfortunately, a down side for Marion too though. As she got to about mid term in the pregnancy, there was a concern expressed that there was a possibility of complications and so the midwife recommended that this child should be born in a hospital rather than at home, for the safety of both the mother and the child. Even in those days, the wellbeing of the child was paramount. There were many complications that needed to be addressed for this to happen from the family point of view. First of all, with Marion having to go into hospital for an unknown period of time, which could be in excess of a week, these periods of time were considered normal procedure in those days for having children, who would be left at home to run the household? The three children old enough to perhaps do so would be at school all day, though David, at 7 would be limited in what he could do, but he could still shop. George would want to be asleep all day, and Charles would be at work. It all came down to, who would look after baby John? It took a while for them to work it all out, and they did, but because of interference from George when it actually happened, this created a lot of unhappiness within the household when the time came. In November, Marion started to suffer from labour pains and was taken into Sunderland General Hospital, Maternity Ward. The rest of the family had to muddle on a little by using Sheila as a sort of part time housekeeper. John was sent to live at Ethel Annie Mays house, she as you remember being Marions older sister, who was then living in Earl St, just off Station Road, again in Seaham, with Jack, her husband. A friend of Sheilas by the name of Irene Watt, looked after John a little on the evenings, but this Irenes mother, Mrs. Watt took on the job, willingly, of looking after the infant John during the day, a job I am told she delighted in doing, and did again at odd times as and when needed. However, with the arrangements organized, one again George interfered. This arrangement was nowhere near good enough for him, so he demanded that his eldest daughter, that being Ethel Annie May, must come down to Marions house at Dawdon, and gave to her the housekeeping money, supplied by Charles and not him, and told her to run this house as Marion had been doing. This is why Mrs. Watt was called in to look after baby John in the first place, as Ethel Annie May was seconded to Dawdon. This really angered both Charles and poor Marion, to the point where Marion was in tears in the hospital. They knew that George cared very little for Charles, and not a great deal about his daughter Sheila either, but this was blatant selfishness on his part. He wanted his slaves around him, no matter what! Not wanting to cast any aspersions on Ethel Annie May, as she was a wonderful woman, but the job of running this household was Charless responsibly, and should have been left to him, and his children, to sort out. On the 10th November, Marion gave birth to a little girl, child number 5, and they decided to name her Marion after her mother. She was the only one named after one of her parents. John was named with the second given name of his father, or his real grandfather, and therefore, within this family, the only one whose name bears any sort of link to the past. At this point, it starts to get complicated again, so, to make it easier, Ill differentiate between the females. As the mother and daughter both shared the same name, and no second or third names, and for the ease of the reader to understand to which I am referring to, I will now refer to them as Marion Senior, or Marion Junior. They both eventually came out of hospital after about three weeks, though Marion Senior was not at all well. While she had been in there, they had sterilized her as this birth had weakened her heart, so she had had a major operation, which this procedure was then. She was very weak, but she was OK. These facts did not bother George in the slightest, and he had high expectations that the expected slave labour would carry on as before, but it was about to change. The last straw came when John was to be collected in his pram from Ethel Annie Mays house up in Earl Street, and brought back to his own house at Dawdon, something which had been organized between Ethel Annie May and George, using Sheila to do it, as she would finish school at about 4, then she could walk up to Earl Street, a matter of a five minute walk, collect John and his gear in his pram, then walk him back to Dawdon. There was one flaw with this plan. They forgot to tell the main player in the plan. The one person they forgot to tell was Sheila, so when she finished school, she went straight home, so the baby in the pram had not been picked up. All hell broke loose in the house. George was shouting at Sheila for not doing what she was told, and basically kicking off in general. This was where the line had been crossed. We were now at that point where Charles had just about had all he could take. He blasted George about May running the house instead of him, and about interfering in the planning of things within the family that did not concern him, and a number of other things I cannot mention here, sorry. He did this, and he must have thought to himself, bugger the consequences, because he then told George in no uncertain terms that he had absolutely no right to interfere with this family, in any way, and to never give the money for the housekeeping which was paid by Charles anyway, to anyone outside this family ever again. Charles was in charge of this house and thats the way it was! While this was going on, Sheila went off to pick John up from Earl Street, and George, muttering as he went about how useless Charles was, retired to that front room he called his, fuming, but not willing at his age to take on the younger and fitter Charles. He could wait. With John returned to the house, and then a couple of days later Marion Snr along with Marion Jnr home from the hospital, the first thing John did was to take the black shoe polish he had been playing with, which was all over his fingers, and feel his little sisters cheeks, putting black lines on her face. Why would you let your kids play with boot polish? Things were about to change again in this household

Chapter Eight

The Shackles are Unlocked.

The next year held as much promise as had the last few that had gone before. The tunnel was getting longer as the light at the end of it had been shown as a reflection of the beginning. Charles and Marion knew they would have to resign themselves to being parents to their own children till they were 60 years old, or thereabouts. The end of 1951 however provided a glimmer of hope to the couple. George got himself a girlfriend, doing the gentlemanly thing of courting this woman using that well-used silver tongue with his turn of phrase. This poor woman was called Sarah Scott, and, because of this courting, he wanting to look as dapper as possible, he needed his shirts to be ultra clean and ironed to perfection for his weekend get-togethers with his new sweetheart. This was of course on top of his normal meals and laundry requirements. Poor Marion Snr. was by now becoming demented. She had her own husband to look after, and five children at home, the ages ranging from about 15 down to 6 months. Sheila helped a great deal with the household chores as best she could, but she was due to leave school and start work soon, and would be out there trying to earn real cash for both her and pay into the household, so a pair of hands would be lost. Gordon had developed a love of football, playing on the Junior School team, and doing very well at it. He too would soon be attending the same SIS school as Sheila was going to. Charles, unfortunately, was starting to find that he could no longer be as active as he had been in the past, he had never been large or particularly muscular, but hewing at the mine was starting to tell on his health, even at this early stage. He needed the money, so he stuck at it. Then came the sound of music to Charles and Marion Snrs ears, and to the whole family too. George was going to marry his sweetheart, and move out. A glimmer of hope appeared on the horizon for the family, as, once the tyrant George was got rid of, they could settle down, and get on with living. George Martindale married Sarah Scott in late 1952, and moved out of the household, for good. Other changes came about in the next year or so too. The Coronation in 1953 brought a street party in the back street of Embleton Street, and Stavordale Street West, the older children attending; the younger ones watched it all from a pram. I think this celebration brought a little hope to the family. In 1954 Sheila started work at Ericssons, based on the north side of the River Wear in Southwick, Sunderland, with her school friend Irene Watt. Gordon started the big school, and David was at Dawdon Juniors School, with only John and Marion Jnr at home. The room allocation in the house had changed too. Sheila was now sleeping in the downstairs front room, as after all she was now a proper young woman, John went into the boys room, Gordon in the bed where George had been albeit very briefly, and David with young John in the double bed. Marion Jnr stayed in the front upstairs room with Charles and Marion Snr, in the family cot. Before I can go on any further, I must, once again, diverse onto the family tree, though this diversion is very short. This time, George Martindale. George, as I said earlier, married his sweetheart in 1952, and moved in with this new love of his life, Sarah Scott. However the marriage was short lived, as George Martindale died in January 1953. I feel that there were not too many tears shed with his passing. I have not been told of many. Back to the family Things started to move at a pace now, inside the household, though there was still some sort of shadow hanging over the family itself, and couldnt seem to be shaken off. Charles, for reasons known only to himself, and he took those reasons with him to the grave, he started to exact some sort of harsh and in some cases, brutal domination of the two youngest children, John, and Marion Jnr. Perhaps it all came from his own past, and the traumatic effect that would have had on his mind, or his rebellion against the shackles he has always had to wear for most of his life, after all, no matter what he earned, he got pocket money of 1 a week, and this looked like it would stay that way. Maybe it was time to show, once and for all, who was now the boss. For whatever reason, Charles began to change, and not for the better.

Chapter Nine

The Cracks Start to Appear

From around 1954 onwards, certain occurrences started to split the siblings, and underlying issues started to become apparent. However not everything was obvious at first. Sheila had started working at Ericssons, along with her school friend Irene, and while working there she was introduced to a friend of Irenes family, a young man by the name of Dennis Metcalf. They began courting, and Sheila was starting to get a little happier. On the other hand, John, at 4, tried to charge a young friend of his a penny to come and see his birthday cards, for which he received major chastisement, and bed with no tea or supper. After the turn of the year, into 1955 Gordon left school, and did not want to go to work in the mines, he wanted to do something better, and stuck it out as long as he could, until Marion Snr. took charge and told him he must go out and earn his keep. When he did eventually start at Dawdon Colliery, he barked at Marion Snr. that she should be pleased as she got her own way! David, on the other hand, had passed his 11+ exams, and was now going to Ryhope Grammar School, in the September. This meant money for uniforms, and other kit needed to but to go to this prestigious school. At the time, to be able to even go there was to be special, and David was certainly studious. In the same year, John started the infants school at the bottom of the street, leaving only Marion Jnr. to be looked after at home during the day. There was still little or no change to the financial situation. Every Friday, Charles would sign his pay slip for Marion to collect the money from the pay office. Everyone was paid in cash then, and then off to the shopping centre of Church Street to pay bills, and order groceries, which were delivered free from Broughs grocers shop, now long gone. Moving into the following year, this was full of change, as we now come to 1957. The family got its first television set, an Ecko 14, with one channel of BBC. The family had at last entered the electronic age, or at least it seemed like it to them all. Charles would spend hours watching the news bulletins, and of course the horse racing on it, and mainly all the other sports on a Saturday. The youngsters rarely bothered with it at that time. Sheila and Dennis had designed a clever little system of being able to be on their own when they were babysitting John and Marion Jnr. They would send the two of them to a shop about 10 minutes away, to get a particular kind of sweet, Terrys Neapolitans, and spend the change on something for themselves for going. They knew they had about 20 minutes on their own. Everybody was happy. Charles still kept his strict regime on the younger ones, once making John, who had commented on only getting one banana for tea when David had eaten three, he made him go to the corner shop, buy a pound of bananas, then made him eat the lot, with bread, in sandwiches. John ate then all out of defiance. Marion Jnr. was sometimes getting pains in her legs, still a bit young for growing pains, and he made her jump up and down on the spot for nearly 10 minutes, she was still crying, and she was visibly in agony too.I said earlier that the people were changing, and late autumn, in the house, Gordon and David were carrying on, making some noise or another. Charles reacted, and cornered the two of them in the back scullery, and was just about to deliver the second half of a good strong telling off, when Gordon took hold of him by the scruff of the neck, lifted him up, and sat him firmly down on top of the boiler cover. Charles was from then on very wary of Gordon, and Gordon new it. Maybe he took advantage. The celebration in 1957 was the marriage of Sheila to Dennis Metcalf. Dennis was at that time a gas fitter, working at the Northern Gas depot, by coincidence, at the end of Canon Cockin Street, on Commercial Road. The ceremony, on 27th July of that year, was in St Hild and St Helens Church in Dawdon, and the reception in the Dawdon Hotel, upstairs in the function room. They still had not been able, by the time they married, to save for the deposit on a house as they wished to buy a house rather than rent one having seen what landlords can do, so they had to live in with Charles and Marion Snr. for a little over 2 years, using that front downstairs room as their bedsit. The house had gained another resident. Marion Jnr. started the infants school in the September, so that was the last of the family that needed to be looked after during the day out of the house now. It was around this time that Charles was starting to notice he was having difficulty with the stairs in the house, sometimes pausing on the way up or down. Maybe he should cut down on the cigarettes, though he was not a heavy smoker.

Chapter Ten

Tempis Fugit

As the next couple of years rolled on, Gordon was finding it increasingly difficult to accept Dennis, and taunted Sheila on more than one occasion. He even pulled out a chair from under her as she sat down at the table saying that space was his, and his only. He knew Charles would say nothing, but he didnt take Dennis into account. Dennis was a quiet, polite, easy to get on with type of person, who never seemed to get upset about anything. He got upset at this, and pinned Gordon, by the throat, against the wall. Suffice to say that the taunts and silly tricks stopped abruptly. David fixed his old bike so John could ride it, though it was a little big at first, and the poor lad could only pedal it standing up. He grew into it though. In the Miners Fortnight, that year, as this was when all of the collieries closed simultaneously, Charles, both of the Marions, David and John went for their first ever family summer holiday week, the first of this type anyway, to Redcar, in a hired touring caravan. It was no coincidence that the date of the holiday was the same as the race week at Redcar Racecourse. Holidays prior to this type had been Runabout Rail tickets for Charles, Gordon, and David to roam about, with Marion Snr. staying at home with the two younger ones. Charles managed to get to the two main race meetings during the week, as the entrance to the Course was only about 100 yards along the road on the opposite side. Marion didnt object, as she mixed with other families on the site, with one from Seaham too, so the beach was always the order of the day, with or without Charles. The autumn of that year, held little change, either socially or financially for Charles and the family. John moved from the Infants into the all boys juniors, but still just down the street. With Sheila working at Ericssons, the Social Fund from the employees, with the help of the Company always put on a huge Christmas Party, a real Santa with presents, which were given out correctly as you had an age badge to wear, and for a few years, John and Marion Jnr. attended these, as they were the Christmas highlight. The winter came, and it was a really cold one, Charles suffered, having difficulty breathing. Things improved by the then spring, and then the summer again As the holiday to Redcar last year had been so successful, it would again a week in a touring caravan, in Redcar, to coincide again with the race week there. This van was bigger, and a little more posh. This time, David was not there, he stayed at home. Charles did manage a couple of days on the beach with the family, and he always wore the same clothing winter, or summer. The sun never got the chance to touch his skin. He would sit, even in really hot weather, in a full dress suit, shirt and tie, a waistcoat, and a cheese cutter cap, to keep the sun off his face, everybody else on the entire beach in swim gear. The biggest, and most exciting development for the year was the obtaining and installing of a set top converter, which allowed the television to also receive ITV too, the downside being it took nearly 10 minutes to change channels, which was a lengthy procedure. Towards the end of the year, Charles took John and Marion Jnr. down to Blackhall to see their real grandmother. All of the conversations were done almost in whispers, and the curtains were drawn till we left. Near the beginning of 1960, Sheila and Dennis had saved enough to put the deposit on a house, not far from where Sheila was working in Southwick. She now had a 200-yard walk to work. They moved into a bungalow in Broadsheath Terrace, in Southwick, and most Sundays, Charles and Marion Snr. would take the younger children through for tea there. David left school with a handful of qualifications, and started college in the September, to study metallurgy. Gordon was now courting a young lady too.

Chapter Eleven

Everybody Gets Older I Suppose

At the start of 1961, the weather started to take its toll on Charles, who by now was working the nightshift on a permanent basis, and had come off the coal face onto something called datal work, as he could not handle the workload as a hewer on the face. His wages went down by over 50 per cent. This was a financial blow to the family, so Marion Snr. applied for, and got a job working in the colliery canteen, doing a shift pattern to cover 24 hours, and then by the end of the year, working the nightshift with a Mrs. Malcolm. This made up a little for the drop in earnings from Charles. Once again, he felt that he was letting the side down, his health stopping him from doing the breadwinning duty that was his to do. Sometimes he lashed out, though usually verbally, at the young ones. In 1961, Charles, with Marion Snr, David, John and Marion Jnr., were visiting Marion Sen.s sister Gladys in Blackhall, as poor Gladys was now suffering from leukemia, and not expected to last very long. Gladys got the chance to say goodbye to all of Charles family, one by one, from her bed. She died soon after, peacefully. The July of 1961 saw Charles, both Marions and John have the family holiday at Beachholme Holiday Camp, in Cleethorpes, for a week in a chalet. Going up in the world. In September of 1961, Gordon married Margaret Duffy in St. Mary Magdalenes Church, in Seaham. Margaret was a Catholic, so they wanted to marry in a Catholic Church. No one objected. They lived in with Margarets widower father in Colling Ave, Deneside, also in Seaham till they bought a house in Camden Square, in Seaham, and moved into it after a year or so. Also in the September, Charles had to retire completely from the colliery due to ill health; he could not even manage to do simple tasks anymore. That was when Marion Snr. started to work the nightshift in the canteen, so there was always someone around for both Charles, and the children. Money was starting to get tight again, so David had to leave college in the November, and got a job, almost straight away, in Steels, a branch of Coles Cranes, in Sunderland, working in the laboratory. John took part one of the 11+, and passed. This shocked Charles as he had John down as being the one who would be the most useless in the family, and often told him so. Before anyone realized, it was 1962. And due to his ailing health, Charles moved his bed into the downstairs front room, which, by chance was the best thing for him to do. The two Marions used the front upstairs room, and David and John used the back room upstairs, up until the alterations to the house, then all except Charles were in the front upstairs room till the workmen had finished. The then NCB were modernizing the houses, taking a chunk out of the back upstairs bedroom to make a bathroom and toilet, putting a hot tank in an airing cupboard in the bedroom, and taking out the huge range fireplace from the downstairs dining room, replacing with smaller fire and oven, only this time with a back boiler that would give running hot water to the household. Talk about luxury. It took a while for the plaster dust to settle, and this, together with the painting were knocking bells out of Charless chest. The redecoration after the workmen had gone had to be done with precision. The scraping of the walls, the wallpapering itself, and, worst of all, the gloss painting, with all of the upstairs windows open. All of them wide open. John took part two of the 11+ exams, and passed, which didnt go down too well. He too would need the uniform and all of the equipment to attend that David had needed when he started, though Charles could see no reason for the expense, as he said John would not be there 5 minutes. In the summer holiday period, a really old friend of the family visited from High Barnet, in London, a lady known only as Auntie Rosie, with Uncle Ted. They were not real aunts or uncles, just longtime friends of Marion Snr. living in Stanley at one time as neighbours. They were surprised to find that Charles had had to take ill health retirement. When they left, all contact from them since ceased. The autumn came, John started the Grammar School in Ryhope, but it now had a fancy new name, because it was the first year it went co-educational, with girls allowed. It was now a Grammar Technical School. Charles expected nothing to come from John, however John surprised everyone when he had to go into hospital just before Christmas for an operation, and while in there, his report had to be sent by post to the house. John was top boy in his whole year!! The household had another mouth to feed that Christmas too. They were given a smooth haired fox terrier pup by the name of Paddy. Not as a Christmas present, the children only got one present each for Christmas, and had done since birth.

Chapter Twelve

Rounding The Final Turn

Charles health continued to deteriorate in 1963, to the point where there were to be no more Jolly Boys trips, and very little movement outside of the house. The family holiday that year was a holiday involving all of the family, Sheila with Dennis, Gordon with Margaret included. The venue was Butlins Ayr, Scotland, for a week, the whole family together. It was a crazy week, and all of the family enjoyed it, as there are lots of photographs to show. John won a camera on a bingo, and used it. Alas it would be the last holiday away for Charles. He continued to pressure the two younger children into the same position of servitude that George Martindale had kept him, not wanting to lose control of his only lifeline to help make his life bearable. In the January of 1964, Sheila and Dennis moved from Southwick to a new build house in Regent Road, Ryhope, which is part of Sunderland. Charles and Marion Snr. with John and Marion Jnr. went to see it. Charles had to leave within about 10 minutes or so, as he could not breath! The Sunday tea visiting for the family was cut short from then. Also in 1964, John suffered a mild nervous breakdown, and from then on, the schoolwork suffered. What was the point of trying, and succeeding when it doesnt count? In the March, David got the chance of going to play in one of the countrys leading brass bands, these positions come with a job too, so he moved away to live and work in Leeds, and to play for the then Yorkshire Imperial Metals Band. On perhaps one of the last times Charles left the house to go shopping, he took John with him to Sunderland on the bus, to an electrical retailer shop, and bought a Grundig reel-to-reel 4-speed tape machine. While it had all of the specifications Charles wanted, he didnt take the weight into consideration, and it was quite heavy, so being unable to carry it himself, John had to, and it got home. The family also got the new fangled electric blankets, to try to live in real luxury. Also, family holidays more or less stopped, as there was no way Charles could manage to walk about, and the younger ones sort of accepted this. In the November of 1964, David went from Leeds to Oxford, to play for the then Morris Motors Band, which toured Europe as a car advert. By 1965, Charles was almost bedridden, his chest heaving and nothing happening. The medical people said it was a touch of Emphysema, which is an infection of the liquid that surrounds the lungs, and maybe, just maybe, a bit of pneumoconiosis, that is coal dust on the lungs. Pneumoconiosis, if proven, would mean compensation, so the NCB never owned up to anyone having it. His love of music never really waned though, and when he heard that the Morris Motors Band, with three other bands were doing a special radio broadcast, with Owen Brannigan as the main baritone singer, he sat, with John as the recording engineer, at a little single speaker Rediffusion radio, something we would now refer to as cable, and recorded the live performance of The Trumpets using a single moving coil microphone. Charles had a sort of affinity with David, as when David came home on most weekends, he would arrive at the house well after midnight, and Charles would wait up, the two of them chatting for a couple of hours about music, in particular brass music before David would turn in. John won the Juvenile Instrumental Brass Soloist of County Durham that year. Not even commented on. In early 1966, Charles was at a point where he was not only almost bedridden, but could hardly breath at all. By mid 1966, oxygen cylinders were being delivered to the house on a regular basis to enable him to breath. As the only people in the house during the night were Charles himself, John and Marion Jnr., this meant that the cylinder changeover had to be done by John, who was by now 15, as Marion Jnr. was not strong enough to turn the huge spanner key to do the cylinder change over or move the empty one out of the way, this all happening at around two in the morning. These cylinders were being changed every day and night, seven days a week, for many months. To try to ease the burden on the two children, Marion Snr. got the chance to change from working the nightshift in the canteen at the colliery to working as a cleaner in the office, the hours being a little shorter, working a little on a morning and a little on an evening but would give her more time at home during the day with Charles while the children were at school. This worked, although the cylinder changing still fell on Johns shoulders at two and six in the morning, it now meant that Marion Snr. could look after Charles during the day, as she didnt go to work till about seven in the morning, and four in the afternoon, both John and Marion Jnr. in from school by then, and she would be back home by about 8.30pm. Charles has a strict routine for his tea, at 5pm. He wanted, Monday to Friday, two slices of brown bread, both butter and jam to a precise thickness, and a large pot of tea, served up on a tray by Marion Jnr. to him in his bed. You would think that there would be no problem, but there was. Marion Jnr. was to prepare, and serve his tea, totally by herself. This on one occasion proved impractical, as Marion Jnr. wasnt in from school that day, so John made it, as he always had anyway, unbeknown to Charles, but served it himself. The tray, the cup, the bread with the butter and jam hit the wall at the other side of the room, and Charles went off it. Only Marion Jnr. is to make and serve his tea. Perhaps he thought John was out to poison him, even though he didnt realize it was John who was making it all for him anyway. As, due to circumstances already mentioned earlier, John didnt do too well at school, so they kept him down a year. Sleep may have helped, but something deeper was wrong. By the October of 1966, Charless health was really starting to be a concern, the oxygen levels of delivery were raised, so the bottles had to be changed more often. John was changing cylinders every four hours, and, as the school had kept him down a year, he left straight after his 16th birthday, so he could do this little duty. Charles pulled himself out of bed one evening, he must have crawled to the piano, and that must have taken a lot of effort, and started playing it. It came as a shock to the children in the back room to hear the piano start up. He only wanted to see if he could still do it. He played half of Clair De Lune, and crawled back into bed. In the November, David returned home permanently from Oxford, seeking, and getting a job quite quickly, to help out with the financial situation. However by mid November, the family, through almost sheer exhaustion, and no verbal respite from the patient either, just could not cope any more with this care regime, so Charles was admitted to the Seaham Hall Hospital, a facility that dealt with chest ailments of all kinds. He did not want to go. As the ambulance crew picked him up, he accused Marion Snr. of putting him in there so she could spend his bank book, so he was taking it with him, and her crying her eyes out saying it was not the money, she wanted him back healthy. In the first two weeks of December, his health improved quite a bit as he was receiving the right treatment for his condition, and he knew that he was better now than before as he could feel the difference. Visiting was a bit of a nightmare, as Marion Snr. was at work during the evening visiting times, so Sheila used to visit on the daytime visits, and John, with his friend Joh