Feller's in Cut (1/2) By Maurice Fairfield

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Well that's her gone. You don't remember me do you? I'll have a pint while you're thinking about it. It's me Jack, Harry Fergus's son. Here for the funeral. Thought I'd see her get put under. Not sure why. It's always a laugh though, watching a parson doing a service on somebody they hardly ever saw before. Trying to think of something to say about them. Weddings, funerals and christenings that's our lot. Oh and churchings. Woman has a kid she goes to church. Once. It's a working class habit, nowt to do with Christianity. Probably goes back to summat... something they did in rhe stone age. (laughs.) Listen to me working class.

The others were there. They didn't recognise me at first. Our Dorry and our Edie were crying. Not the lads though. Not much love lost even for me Mam. My... She never dared say a word to him and he used to lay around with that belt of his whenever he felt like it. He only had to put his hands to that buckle and we'd all jump. Her as well. Ah well, it's different now. They all got jobs away, and the lasses got married. I was just the first to leave. They all left, you know and it was the end of him when the pit closed. He was a changed man after that. Our Dorrie wrote and told me He wasn't earning any more and she had the upper hand.

She wouldn't let him stay in the house most of the time after he retired. I've always had the place to meself, she used to say. I can't manage with 'im under me feet all day. Pushed out in his overcoat and gloves and woolly muffler. You'd see him sitting in park with some of the others while she cleaned the house. One pint in here and make it last. But you know that.

Do you remember the feller that drowned in the cut? I was on my home from school when I was ten and I heard somebody shouting and splashing. I ran to the lock near the pithead and looked down and there he were. It's ten feet deep just there and it's a good ten feet down from the edge of the water. He were shoutin' and cryin' and tryin' to get his finger ends in't cracks in't brickwork to save himself. I ran home as fast as I could. Me Mam were getting tea ready and I said, our mam, feller's in cut and can't swim. She took no notice. I said, our Mam, feller's in cut and can't swim louder like. She wouldn't listen. She boxed me on't ear. I've no time for your nonsense, she said and shoved me out o't door.

I ran down to't Police station and they got ropes and ladders an' all but it were too late. Water were black wi' coal dust just there near't pit and they took a long time to find him. When I got home I said, our Mam, that feller in't cut drowned. She said, I don't know what you are talkin' about but she were looking somewhere else when she said it.

I never worked it out from that day to this. I mean she was me Mam and she didn't seem to care. Or could she just not hear what I was saying?

She used to be run off her feet you know. The old man and all the lads to run after, the cooking and the cleaning, and the shirts to iron for when they went out. She had that house shining like a mirror. She worked after them. Never stopped. But she never respected them. They had their brass band and their pigeons and their club. She had the telly in later years. Nowt much before that: I think she really believed that everything men did was a plot to waste her time.

She didn't like them much. Men, that is. Worry about some poor sod she didn't know drowning? I don't think so. I should have thrown him summat to float on but I was young and daft.

Continued ... next page,

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