The Round Tower Read online

  THE ROUND TOWER

  Catherine Cookson

  Contents

  The Catherine Cookson Story

  The Round Tower

  BOWER PLACE

  24 RYDER’S ROW

  THE LARCHES

  PART ONE Six

  Five

  Four

  Three

  Two

  One

  PART TWO One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  PART THREE 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)

&
nbsp; THE MARY ANN NOVELS

  A Grand Man

  The Lord and Mary Ann

  The Devil and Mary Ann

  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

  The Round Tower

  A constant source of enjoyment for Mrs Cookson’s many and devoted readers is the vividness and realism with which she recreates the Tyneside scene she knows so well. The Round Tower is set here and portrays the clash between Jonathan Ratcliffe and Angus Cotton, and the corresponding contrast between their respected backgrounds—the smart suburb of Brampton Hill and its opposite, Ryder’s Row.

  Jonathan Ratcliffe is the successful manager of Affleck and Tate’s engineering works. He has succeeded to this position over the head of Arthur Brett whose ancestors founded the firm. Arthur Brett is also his neighbour and possesses land which Ratcliffe covets.

  The inevitable tension between the two men and their families is increased when Arthur Brett finds himself attracted to Vanessa, Jonathan’s daughter. She is only sixteen, but her provocative manner often draws envious eyes in her direction. Angus Cotton, son of the Ratcliffe’s cook, is a rough diamond and an engineer at Affleck and Tate. He has ambitious plans for his future, plans that never included Vanessa, until he is blamed by Jonathan for giving Vanessa a child.

  This accusation changes the whole course and pattern of the lives and the ensuing struggle of the three families. The classic relationship between a young man of humble origins and the girl from a ‘higher’ class creates a powerful and wholly memorable story of love, greed and honour.

  Copyright © The Catherine Cookson Charitable Trust 1968

  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 978-1-78036-047-8

  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

  To John Foster White

  My publisher for many years

  and always my friend.

  I have you fast in my fortress,

  And will not let you depart,

  But put you down into the dungeon,

  In the round tower of my heart.

  And there will I keep you forever,

  Yes, forever and a day,

  Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,

  And moulder in dust away!

  HENRY W. LONGFELLOW

  BOWER PLACE

  The four heads were almost wedged together as they looked out of the small open window of the fitting shop and leered at the uniformed schoolgirls walking down the public pathway that ran between the railings cutting off Affleck and Tate’s Engineering Works, on one side, and the firm’s playing fields on the other.

  ‘There’s a new one there the day; I haven’t seen her afore.’

  ‘Coo! Haven’t you? Why, that’s God-Almighty’s daughter.’

  ‘No kiddin’.’

  ‘Aye, it is. They usually send the Bentley to the Convent for her.’

  ‘They’re not gonna let on the day.’

  ‘Let them get by and when they think we’re not gonna say nowt I bet yer life they’ll squint round.’

  ‘There! What did I tell you?’

  As one of the four girls slanted her glance backwards towards the men, the tallest of them shouted, ‘What yer gonna be when yer grow up?…Oh! A tart, are you?’ He shook his head, ‘Eeh, that’s nice! Let me know when you’re done an’ I’ll come an’ have a nibble at yer.’ When the girl’s head jerked upwards, the man’s voice, louder now, called, ‘How about a bit of homework first?’

  ‘Never mind bloody homework, see to the day shift!’ The voice brought the heads from the window, and three of the men returned sheepishly to their benches, but the fourth one who had been doing most of the talking rubbed his greasy hands through his hair and remarked nonchalantly, ‘Oh, aye.’

  ‘None of your lip, Taggart; don’t come the smart alec with me. Now get back to your bench, and bloody quick.’

  As the man moved away he said as if to himself, ‘All right, Gussie?’ then, ‘Oh, pardon’—he looked sideways—‘or should I say Mr Cotton?’

  Angus Cotton let out a string of oaths, then went to close the window. The girls, farther along the path now, were looking back, and he stared at them for a second before banging the window closed. He now glanced round at the bowed heads of the ten men of whom he was in charge, then walked to the end of the shop where, on a bench, lay a large sheet of paper on which was a square and a compass, and his teeth began grating together as he continued to work out measurements on the paper.

  About five minutes later he took a rough sketch to a bench to the right of him, where stood an oldish man. ‘Can you follow that, Danny?’ he asked. ‘Or will I take it along to the drawing office and have it polished up?’

  Danny Fuller surveyed the drawing, then said, ‘I’ll have a shot.’ His casual reply meant that his hand would make the work as accurate as any machine could. He was studying the drawing when he said, ‘There’ll be trouble if you don’t do something with that big head. Every day they’re at those lasses. One of these times they’ll go home and tell their folks what’s been said in passin’, and then there’ll be sparks flying. Taggart comes out with some red rivets I’m tellin’ you. An’ if I was you I’d make it me business to be in the shop around this time when they’re leaving school, ’cos I’m tellin’ you, lad, they come out with things. The day was nothin’.’

  ‘I don’t suppose they say anythin’ that those daisies haven’t heard afore.’

  ‘They’re at the convent, lad.’

  Angus Cotton turned a humorous glance on the old man. ‘And you think that’s any protection the day? Their real education can start when they turn the telly on.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t suppose those lassies are allowed to look at the telly much.’

  Angus now thrust out his hand and pushed Danny, saying, ‘You’re fifty years behind it, Danny. I bet you if you heard them talkin’ among themselves your last three hairs would rise.’ He flicked the thin fringe of white hair hanging over the collar of the old man’s coat, then returned to his bench.

  But as he worked he thought, ‘He’s right abo
ut Taggart. I’ll bloody well have to sew his mouth up if it’s the last thing I do; it’s stretching too wide for peace.’ Yet he knew he’d have to get Taggart for something else other than chatting up the lasses. The fellows in this shop had always chatted the lasses. Any lass that came along that path expected it, and some could give as much as they got, but, as Danny said, those were convent-school kids.

  It was thirty minutes later when Mr Wilton caused an uneasy stir by marching through the shop, calling, ‘Cotton! Cotton!’

  ‘Aye. You want me?’ Angus came from under a machine, straightened his back and stood wiping his hands on a rag as he looked into the infuriated face of a man who had to be reckoned with in Affleck and Tate. Mr Jonathan Ratcliffe might be the manager but it was his second in command whom the employees had to answer to usually. But Angus never let Wilton, or anybody else for that matter, think he could intimidate him. As he waited for the assistant manager to speak he said again, ‘You want me?’

  Mr Wilton now seemed to find difficulty in getting out his words. ‘What’s been going on here?’ He flung his head from one side to the other, swallowed deeply, then added, ‘Can’t you control these louts?’

  ‘Control these…?’ Angus didn’t repeat the word. There was only one lout in this shop, and even he wouldn’t thank anybody for putting a name to him. He said stiffly, ‘I don’t know what you’re gettin’ at.’

  ‘You’ll know soon enough when the boss is finished with you. He’s at white heat; he’s had two parents phone him within the last ten minutes because their daughters cannot pass down the Cut without filth being strewn over them.’

  ‘Oh…Oh!’ Angus nodded his head.

  ‘You know then?’

  ‘I know nowt about filth; I know the lads have a crack now and again.’

  ‘A crack? What are you talking about, man? These are schoolgirls from the Convent, and one, for your information, happens to be Mr Ratcliffe’s daughter.’

  Angus felt his body stiffen. He hadn’t noticed Van there; she never came this way.

  ‘You’d better get along, and sharp; he wants to see you. And there’ll be some sweeping out of this shop if I have anything to do with it.’