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  BILL BAILEY’S DAUGHTER

  Catherine Cookson

  Table of Contents

  The Catherine Cookson Story

  Bill Bailey’s Daughter

  Part One

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Part Two

  One

  Part Three

  One

  Two

  Part Four

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  The Catherine Cookson Story

  In brief:

  Her books have sold over 130 million copies in 26 languages throughout the world and still counting…

  Catherine Cookson was born Katherine Ann McMullen on June 27th, 1906 in the bleak industrial heartland of Tyne Dock, South Shields (then part of County Durham) and later moved to East Jarrow, which is now in Tyne and Wear.

  She was the illegitimate daughter of Kate Fawcett, an alcoholic, whom she thought was her sister. She was raised by her grandparents, Rose and John McMullen. The poverty, exploitation, and bigotry she experienced in her early years aroused deep emotions that stayed with her throughout her life and which became part of her stories. Catherine left school at 13, and after a period of domestic service, she took a job in a laundry at Harton Workhouse in South Shields. In 1929, she moved south to run the laundry at Hastings Workhouse, working all hours and saving every penny to buy a large Victorian house. She took in gentleman and lady lodgers to supplement her income and took up fencing as one of her hobbies. One of her lodgers was Tom Cookson, a teacher at Hastings Grammar School, and in June 1940, they married. They were devoted to each other throughout their lives together. But the early years of her marriage were beset by the tragic miscarriage of four pregnancies and her subsequent mental breakdown. This took her over a decade to recover from, which she did, often by standing in front of a mirror and giving herself a damn good swearing at!

  Catherine took up writing as a form of therapy to deal with her depression and joined the Hastings Writers’ Group. Her first novel, Kate Hannigan, was published in 1950. In 1976, she returned to Northumberland with Tom and went on to write 104 books in all. She became one of the most successful novelists of all time and was one of the first authors to have three or four titles in the Bestseller Lists at the same time.

  She read widely: from Chaucer to the literature of the 1920s; to Plato’s Apologia on the trial and death of Socrates (she said that here was someone who stuck to his principles even unto death); to history of the nineteenth century and the Romantic poets; to Lord Chesterfield’s Letters To His Son and the books and booklets that abounded in her part of the country dealing with coal, iron, lead, glass, farming and the railways. She disliked it when her books were labeled as ‘romantic.’ To her, they were ‘readable social history of the North East interwoven into the lives of the people.’ For the millions of her readers, she brought ‘an understanding of themselves’ or perhaps of their dear ones. Her stories do not bring in a realism in which the worst is taken for granted, but a realism in which love, caring, and compassion appear, and most certainly, hope. ‘This type of realism does exist,’ Tom Cookson said of her writing. There is nothing sentimental about her writing; she is unrelenting in the strong images she invokes and the characters she portrays. They were born of her formative years and her personal struggles. Many of her novels have been transferred to stage, film, and radio with her television adaptations on ITV, lasting over a decade and achieving ratings of over 10 million viewers.

  Besides writing, she was an innovative painter, and she believed that her father’s genes fostered the strength to work hard, but also, in rare moments of freedom, to strive to better herself. Catherine was famed for her care of money but had given much to charities, hospitals, and medical research in areas close to her heart and to the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, who set up a lectureship in hematology. The Catherine Cookson Charitable Trust continues to donate generously to charitable causes. The University later conferred her the Honorary Degree of Master of Arts. She received the Freedom of the Borough of South Tyneside, today known as Catherine Cookson Country. The Variety Club of Great Britain named her Writer of the Year, and she was voted Personality of the North East. Other honours followed: an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1986, and she was created Dame of the British Empire in 1993. She was appointed an Honorary Fellow at St. Hilda’s College, Oxford in 1997.

  Throughout her life, but especially in the later years, she was plagued by a rare vascular disease, telangiectasia, which caused bleeding from the nose, fingers, and stomach, and resulted in anemia. As her health declined, she and her husband moved for a final time to Jesmond in Newcastle upon Tyne to be nearer medical facilities. For the last few years of her life, she was bedridden and Tom hardly ever left her bedside, looking after her needs, cooking for her, and taking her on her emergency trips, often in the middle of the night into Newcastle. Their lives were still made up of the seven-day week and twelve or more hours each day, going over the fan mail, attending to charities, and going over the latest dictated book, with Tom meticulously making corrections line by line, for Catherine’s eyesight had long faded in her 80s.

  This most remarkable woman passed away on June 11th, 1998 at the age of 91. Tom, six years her junior, had earlier suffered a heart attack but survived long enough to be with her at her end. He passed away on 28th June, just 17 days after his beloved Catherine.

  Catherine Cookson’s Books

  NOVELS

  Colour Blind

  Maggie Rowan

  Rooney

  The Menagerie

  Fanny McBride

  Fenwick Houses

  The Garment

  The Blind Miller

  The Wingless Bird

  Hannah Massey

  The Long Corridor

  The Unbaited Trap

  Slinky Jane

  Katie Mulholland

  The Round Tower

  The Nice Bloke

  The Glass Virgin

  The Invitation

  The Dwelling Place

  Feathers in the Fire

  Pure as the Lily

  The Invisible Cord

  The Gambling Man

  The Tide of Life

  The Girl

  The Cinder Path

  The Man Who Cried

  The Whip

  The Black Velvet Gown

  A Dinner of Herbs

  The Moth

  The Parson’s Daughter

  The Harrogate Secret

  The Cultured Handmaiden

  The Black Candle

  The Gillyvors

  My Beloved Son

  The Rag Nymph

  The House of Women

  The Maltese Angel

  The Golden Straw

  The Year of the Virgins

  The Tinker’s Girl

  Justice is a Woman

  A Ruthless Need

  The Bonny Dawn

  The Branded Man

  The Lady on my Left

  The Obsession

  The Upstart

  The Blind Years

  Riley

  The Solace of Sin

  The Desert Crop

  The Thursday Friend

  A House Divided

  Rosie of the River

  The Silent Lady

  FEATURING KATE HANNIGAN

  Kate Hannigan (her first published novel)

  Kate Hannigan’s Girl (her hundredth published novel)

  THE MARY ANN NOVELS

  A Grand Man

  The Lord and Mary Ann

  The Devil and Mary Ann

&nbs
p; Love and Mary Ann

  Life and Mary Ann

  Marriage and Mary Ann

  Mary Ann’s Angels

  Mary Ann and Bill

  FEATURING BILL BAILEY

  Bill Bailey

  Bill Bailey’s Lot

  Bill Bailey’s Daughter

  The Bondage of Love

  THE TILLY TROTTER TRILOGY

  Tilly Trotter

  Tilly Trotter Wed

  Tilly Trotter Widowed

  THE MALLEN TRILOGY

  The Mallen Streak

  The Mallen Girl

  The Mallen Litter

  FEATURING HAMILTON

  Hamilton

  Goodbye Hamilton

  Harold

  AS CATHERINE MARCHANT

  Heritage of Folly

  The Fen Tiger

  House of Men

  The Iron Façade

  Miss Martha Mary Crawford

  The Slow Awakening

  CHILDREN’S

  Matty Doolin

  Joe and the Gladiator

  The Nipper

  Rory’s Fortune

  Our John Willie

  Mrs. Flannagan’s Trumpet

  Go Tell It To Mrs Golightly

  Lanky Jones

  Bill and The Mary Ann Shaughnessy

  AUTOBIOGRAPHY

  Our Kate

  Let Me Make Myself Plain

  Plainer Still

  Bill Bailey’s Daughter

  In this, the third novel of a trilogy, the atmosphere in the Bailey household was alive with anticipation. It was not only because Christmas was approaching, or even that Bill Bailey was tackling the biggest project of his career. No, all the excitement was because in two weeks’ time, Fiona Bailey would give birth to a baby, the first arrival since Bill had married Fiona as a young widow, already mother of Mark, Katie and Willie, and with the adopted Mamie now part of the family circle.

  But however much they looked forward to the event, there was the niggling concern of emotional adjustments to be made and how this new arrival would stretch the established relationships that had been so carefully nurtured. Suppose something went wrong? The Baileys were to learn about such considerations in the time ahead, and their experiences make this novel a most fascinating study of human relationships.

  Copyright © The Catherine Cookson Charitable Trust 1988

  The right of Catherine Cookson to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  This book is sold subject to the condition it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form.

  ISBN 978-1-78036-038-6

  Sketch by Harriet Anstruther

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described, all situations in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  Published by Peach Publishing

  Part One

  The Birth

  One

  ‘It’s my turn to listen.’ The six-year-old Mamie pushed Willie, her adoptive brother, to one side and he returned the gesture with more force as he said, ‘It’s always your turn; you’ve always got to be first.’

  ‘Stop it! Both of you.’ Fiona Bailey hitched herself up on the couch and, looking from her adopted daughter to her youngest son, said, ‘I’m tired of you two squabbling. What’s the matter with you these days?’ She looked at the round-faced, curly-haired child whom she had spoilt somewhat more than her own children because of the circumstances under which she had come into the house. Her father had been one of Bill’s men, a lad he had trained himself in the building business and in whom he had taken a most fatherly interest, seeing in the boy a replica of himself when young. And when a car accident had wiped out the little family with the exception of Mamie, who was then three years old, he was devastated; more so when the child’s grandparents showed no intention of taking on the responsibility of their granddaughter.

  It was the child herself who now brought her grandparents into the picture after answering Fiona’s question with, ‘He’s always nasty to me.’ Then turning on Willie, she cried, ‘When I next go to see my grandma and grandpa I won’t come back.’

  ‘Good job too. Anyway, you cried to come back last time. Dad had to go and fetch you. You were howling your eyes out.’

  ‘Willie! Oh dear me.’ Fiona lay back on the cushions and put her hand to her head, saying, ‘I used to have a nice family at one time. And I don’t know what this baby will think when it comes.’ She put a hand on the high mound of her stomach; then she turned her head quickly as her nine-year-old son remarked nonchalantly, ‘It won’t be able to think for a long time, years and years.’

  The mother and son exchanged a long glance, and she answered the twinkle in her son’s eye by saying, ‘Who knows? It might be a genius: start composing at three like Mozart, or it might be a great sculptor or an artist.’

  ‘Some hope.’

  ‘Willie!’

  ‘Well’—Willie tossed his head from side to side—‘neither Mark, Katie, or me, and certainly not her’—he thumbed towards Mamie—‘show any signs of genius.’

  ‘Well I never! We’ll have to wait till Mark and Katie come from school and inform them that they’re wasting their time studying because their brother thinks I have a family of numskulls.’

  When the sitting room door opened Fiona called across the room to her friend Nell who, two years ago, had come to live next door as Mrs Paget but was now married to Bert Ormesby, one of Bill’s men, and for the first time in her life was really happy. ‘You know what you’re looking after, Nell?’ she cried.

  ‘Well, sometimes I wonder, but you tell me.’

  ‘A bunch of near idiots.’

  ‘Oh, I’m not surprised at that. I’ve thought that meself for a long time. Of course, some are worse than others. But how has this been revealed to you?’

  ‘Oh, by my son here.’

  ‘Well, Willie should know.’ And she turned to him, saying, ‘Your second lieutenant, Mr Samuel Love, is in the kitchen awaiting your presence.’

  Almost before she had finished speaking Mamie had turned and made to run from the room, only to be stopped by Nell’s arm.

  ‘Leave go, Nell! I…I want to see Sammy.’

  ‘Well, I don’t think he wants to see you, my dear. As usual he’s come to see Willie.’

  ‘He does want to see me, he’s my boyfriend.’

  ‘Oh, in that case.’ Nell removed her arm, and when Mamie darted from the room Willie turned and regarded his mother with a most pained look on his face, and Fiona said softly, ‘Don’t worry, dear. You know Sammy, he doesn’t like girls.’

  ‘She’ll make him like her.’

  ‘No, she won’t. I mean, she won’t be able to.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, if ever there was a he-boy, he’s a he-boy, isn’t he? Go on. Tell her to come back here, I want to see her; then take Sammy upstairs to the playroom.’

  ‘Can he stay to tea?’

  ‘Does he ever not stay to tea?’

  Her son made a face at her; then hurried from the room. And Nell, walking towards the couch, said, ‘The eternal triangle. How goes it?’

  ‘The same as yesterday, dear, and the day before that. The only thing is I feel I’m going to explode. Did you ever see anything like it?’ She again put her hand on her stomach. ‘Can you remember? Was I ever slim? As flat as a pancake? You know, Nell, not one of the others was this size. If I hadn’t been assured there’s only one there, I would swear it’s triplets, or more. When I was carrying the others they were hardly noticeable.’

  ‘Well, you must remember they had a different father; this one owes its existence to Wild Bill Hickok.’

  Fiona laughed. It was a quiet, contented laugh. She laid her head back on the cushion and, looking up at Nell, said, ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been so hap
py in my life. It’s odd. I’ve felt well all the time I’ve been carrying. But not only that, I’ve had this feeling of contentment. Well’—she now nodded her head—‘I shouldn’t say all the time because you know what happened when I was two and a half months. My goodness, will we ever forget that? You can’t imagine, looking back, that anyone could kidnap Bill, could you, and practically murder him? And he’s here now, thanks only to that little rough scrap in the kitchen there, Sammy Love, the child I hated on sight and went on hating, I’m afraid, until he saved Bill’s life, all through his frequenting that filthy tip in order to pick up bits and pieces.’

  ‘Oh, he wasn’t on that tip that night to pick up bits and pieces; it was, as you know, to look for a milk jug or sugar basin to go with the broken silver-plated teapot he had found there and presented to you’—she was pointing towards the cabinet—‘and which still holds pride of place there.’

  Nell sat down by the side of the couch and looked about the room musingly before she said, ‘Life’s odd, isn’t it? The more you think about it the odder it becomes. Who would have thought that I’d ever marry Bert and be so happy that I’m afraid?’

  ‘Why are you afraid? What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, that it can’t last. After those thirteen years with Harry, I keep saying to myself every morning, when will he change? I mean, Bert. When will he grow indifferent? When will he walk out on me for somebody else and give her a baby that I longed for for years? And when will he say, “I want a divorce”?’

  ‘Now stop thinking like that! What’s the matter with you? Bert would never do any one of those things, you know he wouldn’t.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’ Nell nodded her head now. ‘Yes, I do know, yet I can’t help being afraid. When you’ve been made to feel worthless, it’s really hard to take in the fact that someone thinks…well, you’re wonderful.’ She pushed her hand towards Fiona as she grinned widely, adding, ‘He does, he thinks I’m wonderful.’

  ‘So do I, Nell, in a different way, so do I, and I’m so grateful that I have you. I can’t imagine what I would have done without you, especially during this time.’