Valentine george, p.1
Valentine George, page 1
VALENTINE GEORGE
Copyright ©2022 by Pat Backley
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination and any resemblances to actual events, places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other commercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Pat Backley
www.patbackley.com
Paperback ISBN: 978-0-4736180-5-6
EPub ISBN: 978-0-473-59902-7
Audiobook ISBN: 978-0-473-59904-1
Edited by Colleen Ward
Cover design and formatting by formattedbooks.com
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1 1934 Morden, England
Chapter 2 1899 Hampshire, England
Chapter 3 1913 East End of London
Chapter 4 1914 London
Chapter 5 1914 Lily Rose Scarborough
Chapter 6 1914-18 The War Years
Chapter 7 1921 Camden Town
Chapter 8 1925 Finchley
Chapter 9 1929 Camden Town
Chapter 10 1930 London
Chapter 11 1931 Battersea
Chapter 12 1932 London
Chapter 13 1933 Morden
Chapter 14 1934 Back to the Beginning
Chapter 15 1935 Morden
Chapter 16 1939 Camden
Chapter 17 1946 Morden
Chapter 18 1953 Edgware
Chapter 19 1960 Morden
Chapter 20 1963 Edgware
Chapter 21 1968 Morden
References
Author Biography
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book is dedicated to my ancestors, most of whom I never had the chance to meet.
They were ordinary people living ordinary lives, and I am proud to weave some of their memories into my books and share them with the world.
They had no voice, so I will make sure their stories can be heard.
Of course, as always, I also dedicate this book to my beloved daughter, Lucy.
MORDEN, ENGLAND
FEBRUARY 1934
Valentine George slumped down into the old oak Windsor chair. It was the only stick of furniture remaining in the house.
He wept.
And wept.
And wept.
He stared at the battered old clock on the wall and watched the minutes as they ticked by.
And still, he wept.
Before he knew it, the light was going. It was a gloomy afternoon in mid-winter, so it got dark quite early.
Blinking through his tears, he noticed it was almost 2:30 p.m. He slowly and very reluctantly got out of the chair, walked into the shabby little kitchen, and put the kettle on to boil.
A few minutes later, the shrill whistling stirred him from his dark thoughts. The kettle had boiled and was telling him to get a move on.
If only he was all alone, he could end it all. There was plenty of rope in the cellar.
But he knew that wasn’t an option.
They would be home from school soon–his two beloved children. Motherless yet again.
While he drank the strong sweet tea, he thought about the last few years.
He had been so happy; he thought she had been, too. Obviously, he had been wrong.
In an effort to cheer himself up, he thought about his childhood and the first time he ever drunk a cup of tea. He had been just five years old then; life had seemed so simple.
ONE ACRE COTTAGE, ALTON, HAMPSHIRE,
ENGLAND
1899
“Now, now, Valentine, don’t gulp it down like that! You’ll burn your throat.”
His mum, Martha, was always such a worrier.
Although he had been christened George Valentine, his mum always called him Valentine. She had argued for months with her husband over the name–he thought it was far too namby-pamby for a boy–but she loved it. She found it rather romantic and much more appealing than the sensible, but rather stuffy names her other boys had been given: Robert, Albert, John, Jack, and Edward, all named after their ancestors. She knew it was traditional to give children the names of other family members, but after bearing seven children, she felt justified in arguing to choose at least one of their names. George Valentine had been christened in the same little church as his siblings, the old stone church in the East End of London, where generations of his mother’s ancestors had been christened, married, and then buried in the little graveyard.
Prompted by his mother, he became known as Valentine George. Most people soon forgot that it had ever been the other way round; even Dad called him Valentine, eventually.
He was five years old and the youngest of Martha’s seven children. She loved them all dearly and still tried to wrap them in cotton wool. It made his dad mad, especially when she fussed over his big brothers.
“For God’s sake woman! You’ll turn them into sissys, treating them so soft. The lad knows how to drink a cup of tea without burning himself.”
His dad, Robert, spoke harshly, but really he was a gentle man, just a bit worn out from trying to keep his big family fed and clothed on a labourer’s wage. He also understood why Martha was so protective of her children; two of their sons, Jack and Edward, had both died in infancy, both snatched away by tuberculosis. He remembered their last awful days–the night sweats, the blood-tinged coughing.
Robert hadn’t always been a labourer.
He had been a bright boy, apprenticed at the age of 14 to the town clerk in the little market town in Hampshire, where he had grown up. He lived on the farm that had been worked by his family for generations. They were tenant farmers, each generation passing the space down to the next, and hundreds of his ancestors were buried in the churchyard nearby. He didn’t want to work on the farm like his brothers and had been so happy to get the office job, but after a few years being stuck behind a desk doing menial paperwork, he became bored.
He wanted more from his life.
Thus, at the tender age of seventeen, Robert left his hometown, bound for the bright lights of London.
The first few years had been good.
He had found lodgings in an old tenement block in the East End, sharing with another couple of lads he knew from home. He landed a good job in the city working in the offices of a big printing company in Shoe Lane, off Fleet Street. He often walked to work, enjoying the stroll along the river, past the Tower of London and St. Botolph’s Church. Many times he stopped to peer into the old graveyard, which was rumoured to be the burial place of Tudor rebels. He discovered a real love of history and enjoyed learning about the ancient buildings and alleys surrounding his new home. It was so very different to the life he had known growing up. In the country there had been no big buildings, no dark alleyways lit by gas lamps, no constant noise and crowds, no overpowering human smells. He often took a detour off Cable Street and down Graces Alley so that he could pass Wilton’s Music Hall. Robert would peer into the dark, cavernous space, imagining how different and exciting it would have looked in its heyday. It had closed down in 1881 and was apparently going to reopen soon as the East London Methodist Mission.
Robert worked long hours and his boss was pretty unpleasant, but the job paid quite well–well enough for him to go out with his mates every weekend to the music hall, the pub, or dancing.
He was a good dancer; his mum had taught him how to waltz when he was just a young lad, whirling him round their big farmhouse kitchen.
“One, two, three, one, two, three.”
“Just keep saying that in your head, lad, then you won’t forget the steps. One, two, three, one, two, three.”
He thought of her every time he danced with a young lady. They may be younger and prettier, but he had yet to find one who could dance as well as his old mum.
By the time Robert was twenty, he was well-established in his London life.
He had a good job, good mates, and plenty of pretty young girls who adored him. But even with all this, he wanted more.
Then one day, quite unexpectedly, he found her. His more.
He had gone to the music hall like he did most Saturday nights. He and his mates always sat in the gods–those were the cheapest seats. They were so high up that sometimes, you had to strain to hear what was being said on stage. But there were always plenty of pretty girls to look at up there. They all got all dressed up in their best, especially for a night out. He glanced around, taking in all their finery–the pretty lace collars brightening up their drab gowns, the multitude of fancy hats, some adorned with feathers, flowers, or even bunches of artificial fruit. He admired their beauty below the bonnets. And then, he caught one of them staring at him. She looked away quickly, embarrassed to be caught, but not before he had time to register that she was exceptionally attractive.
When the show was over he dawdled behind his mates, desperate to catch another glimpse of her. He hung around the foyer of the hall, staring at every girl who wal ked past.
“C’mon Rob, we want to try and get a pint in at the Rose and Crown before it shuts. Hurry up, man.”
He had to admit defeat. It was too late, he had missed her.
For the next month he went to different music halls every single Friday and Saturday night hoping to see her, but she never appeared. He had all but lost hope. Then, coming out of the printers where he worked one wet and windy afternoon,, he saw her, crossing the road to catch the omnibus. He ran across the road too, intending to leap on board and surprise her, but he didn’t make it on time; the bus pulled away. The next night he stood by the bus stop for two hours willing her to show up, but of course, she didn’t.
The next weekend he went alone to the music hall, promising to meet his mates at the pub afterwards. That night, his waiting ended. She was there and she smiled at him!
He courted her for seven months.
Her name was Martha Patmore and she lived with her large family in Commercial Buildings, a rundown tenement just off Commercial Road in the East End. Her family was poor but very loving, and they soon accepted him. She had three elder sisters who worked at the Bryant and May Match Factory, and her four brothers all worked on the docks.
Martha had always known that she would rather die than join her sisters at the factory. It was such hard, dismal work. The girls who worked there all ended up looking grey and ill and often died way before their time, thanks to the constant inhalation of noxious fumes.
She decided when she was just seven years old that she wanted to be a dressmaker instead. She had spent hours with their neighbour, a Russian lady called Olga, watching her sew and learning how to make beautiful garments. Olga worked in her shabby little room by candlelight mostly, as the tenement had such tiny glass panes that barely any natural light could slip through the grimy windows. She made garments for the smart establishments of Bond Street–fancy showrooms where ladies would go to dress in the latest fashions and be fawned over. These ladies assumed that their new clothes would be made in smart workshops, hidden behind the glossy façade of the showroom, but they were wrong. Most of their fine dresses were sewn by hand by women like Olga, women living impoverished lives, wearing their fingers to the bone for a very small return while the owners of the dress shops made a very good profit off their labour.
Over the years, Olga had told little Martha her story. She and her parents and siblings had escaped from the pogroms in Russia, only to find themselves in the East End of London facing starvation. By the time Martha met her, Olga’s parents were long dead, as were three of her sisters and one brother. They had all died of disease and despair, leaving only Olga and her youngest sister, Svetlana, to cope with life in this strange new land.
Svetlana grew to be very beautiful, but sadly, she had severe epilepsy. This meant Olga had never gone out to work; she never wanted to leave her sister alone in case she had a bad seizure. Instead, she took in piece work, sewing beautiful gowns for strangers–rich ladies she would never meet.
Martha loved Olga and Svetlana. To her, their lives seemed so different and colourful than hers. In their company, she saw beyond the dinge and grime of the little room. She saw instead, the steppes of Russia; she saw St. Petersburg, Kiev, and Odessa.
She learnt to sew. Olga taught her so well that when she was just thirteen years old, she was accepted by the big new department store, Selfridges in Oxford Street, as a junior apprentice in their workshop. For them she did alterations, took up hems, and added a dart or two here and there. It was simple, repetitive, and rather boring work, but Martha loved it. She was thrilled to have the job. The store was such an exciting place to work. Of course, as a mere apprentice, she was never allowed into the store itself–the closest she ever got was peering through the shop windows on her way home at night–but she knew how lucky she was. How lucky to have got a job “up West.” A job that all her friends and her sisters envied. She was poorly paid, but the job gave her some sort of social standing; everyone thought she was very posh because she worked at Selfridges.
She was just seventeen years old when she met Robert. Robert, whom she realized very quickly was the love of her life. He treated her like a lady, not just a poor young girl from the slums. He courted her properly. For months, he would walk from Fleet Street to Oxford Street to meet her after she finished work. They would catch the omnibus home together and he would walk her right to her front door. He never tried to kiss her. He was always respectful, behaving like the perfect gentleman, and as he walked away, he always turned back and tipped his hat at her, a big smile on his handsome face.
It took him seven months to pluck up the courage to propose. Seven of the longest months when he longed to kiss her, but didn’t, because he wanted it to be special. He didn’t want to be just another suitor, another man who took what he wanted from a girl and then walked away. Even though it was 1887 at the time, he still had old-fashioned ideas–ideas that his mum had taught him about always behaving like a gentleman and treating every girl as if they were your own sister.
By the time he eventually plucked up the courage to ask Martha’s dad for her hand in marriage, no-one was surprised. It had been obvious to everyone that he adored her, that he worshipped the very ground she walked on.
They decided not to wait. They were both desperate to be together, to start sharing their lives, so the church was booked and the banns were read. Martha planned to wear her best dress, her Sunday dress. It was a simple, pale-green cotton dress which she trimmed with a bit of cream lace Olga had given her. Most of the girls in the East End, like Martha, were much too poor to even dream of having a new dress just to get married.
The girls she worked with had other ideas, however, and unbeknown to her, they visited Olga and hatched a plan.
A week before the big day, Martha got a message.
“Martha, I know you’re really busy, but could you pop in to see me tonight after you finish work? I really need your help with something.”
Martha was surprised. In all the years she had known Olga, the older woman had never asked for any sort of help before. She was fiercely independent and proud, and so Martha was worried. She hurried home that evening, gulped down the cabbage soup and bread her mum had prepared and rushed to the Russian woman’s room on the next floor.
As she approached the closed door, she was surprised to hear several voices, laughing and giggling. Olga never had visitors. Occasionally she might have a messenger come from one of the big fashion houses to collect some finished dresses, but apart from that, the little flat was always quiet.
She knocked and waited patiently for Olga or Svetlana to open the door.
“Hello Martha, surprise, surprise!”
The little room was full to bursting, or so it seemed. She blinked, just to be sure she wasn’t imagining it.
Everywhere she looked there seemed to be piles of lace, ribbon, and satin.
“What do you think? Do you like it?”
It took her a few minutes to recover her senses. To register that three of the girls who worked with her at Selfridges were standing in the room with huge smiles on their faces.
“Oh Martha, we couldn’t wait to show you. It was so hard to keep the secret, especially when you talked about having to get married in your old green dress. We’d already popped in to see Olga and your mum to put together our plan, and as soon as you announced your engagement we got on with it. We’ve all been pretty busy and between us we’ve stitched all this for you. We hope you like it.”
Martha struggled to keep her tears in check as she looked around the little room.
“We thought we’d make you a whole trousseau. Olga had your measurements, so she cut everything out and then we all took things home to sew in our spare time. It was a bit hard sometimes making sure we could sneak up here without you spotting us!”
One by one they excitedly showed off their handiwork. The lace undergarments, threaded with pale blue ribbon. The cotton nightdresses, trimmed with pretty lace. The handkerchiefs embroidered with her initials and the pale-pink dress, edged with black satin, that would be her “going away outfit.”
She suddenly noticed her mum and her sisters crowding ‘round by the open front door, big smiles on their faces.
