Mary Ann's Angels Read online

  MARY ANN’S ANGELS

  Catherine Cookson

  Contents

  The Catherine Cookson Story

  Mary Ann’s Angels

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  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

  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

  Mary Ann’s Angels

  Mary Ann’s ‘Angels’ are both six years old. Eight years have passed since she married Corny Boyle, and they are now the proud parents of twins, Rose Mary and David, who are inseparable and the apple of their mother’s eye. But are they really angels? Rose Mary seems as irrepressible as her mother when it comes to managing other people’s affairs and she talks enough for two people. Poor David doesn’t stand a chance when she’s around, which of course she always is.

  Mary Ann and Corny disagree on how to deal with the problems caused by this situation but realize that trouble lies ahead. It takes the combined efforts of Jimmy, Corny’s trombone-playing garage hand, and Mr Blenkinsop, a visiting American industrialist, for things to be set right again, and happiness to be restored in the family.

  This Mary Ann story has all the charm and humour of its predecessors, and will have the added fascination of showing some of the more engaging—not to mention the more infuriating—qualities of this inimitable character coming out in a second generation.

  Copyright © The Catherine Cookson Charitable Trust 1965

  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 978-1-78036-081-2

  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

  Chapter One

  ‘If he can talk, why doesn’t he, Rose Mary Boyle?’

  ‘’Cos he doesn’t want to, Annabel Morton.’

  The two six year olds stared at each other, eyes wide, nostrils dilated. Their lips spread away from their teeth, they had all the appearance of two caged circus animals dressed up in human guise for the occasion.

  ‘My mam says he’s dumb.’

  ‘Your mam’s barmy.’

  Again, wide eyes, quivering nostrils and stretched lips, and a waiting period, during which the subject of their conversation, one hand held firmly in that of his twin, gazed alternately at the two combatants. He was fair-haired, round-faced, with dark blue eyes, and his expression was puzzling, for it could have been described as vacant, yet again it could have been described as calculating.

  ‘He spoke the day, an’ if your ears hadn’t been full of muck, you’d have heard him.’

  The fray was reopened. Rose Mary turned to her brother and bounced her head towards him, whereupon he stared back at her for a moment, then looked towards their opponent again.

  ‘He made a funny sound, that’s all he did, when he was eating his dinner.’

  ‘He didn’t make a funny sound, he said “HOT”.’

  ‘He didn’t, he said “ugh!” Like a pig makes.’

  Rose Mary’s right, and working arm, throwing itself instinctively outwards, almost lifted David from the ground, and by the time he had relinquished his hold of her hand and regained his balance, with her help, Annabel Morton had put a considerable distance between them. And from this distance she made a stand. ‘Dumb David!’ she called. Then added, ‘And Rose Mary, pain-in-the-neck Boyle.’ And if this wasn’t enough she went as far as to misspell Boyle. ‘B-O-I-L!’ she screamed at the limit of her lungs.

  ‘Now, now, now.’ There loomed over Annabel the tall, thin figure of her teacher, Miss Plum.

  Rose Mary, her hand again holding David’s, watched Miss Plum as she reprimanded that awful Annabel Morton. Oh, she hoped she got kept in the morrow. Oh, she did. And Miss Plum was nice, after all she was nice. Oh, she was.

  Now Miss Plum was advancing towards her, and Rose Mary greeted her with uplifted face, over which was spread a smile, the like that had in the past been called angelic…by people viewing it for the first time. Miss Plum had never made that mistake. She looked down on Rose Mary now and, her finger wagging near her nose, she said, ‘I don’t want to hear, Rose Mary, I don’t want to hear. And you should be on your way home.’

  ‘But Miss Pl—’

  ‘No, not another word. Away with you now.’

  Rose Mary turned round abruptly, and her twin had his eyes wrenched from Miss Plum and was jerked into step by his sister’s side, and only because she was grasping his hand firmly could he keep up with her. His legs were plump, and although he was older than his sister by five minutes his speed was geared to about half hers. But of necessity, perhaps out of instinctive urge for preservation, he had learned to put on a brake against her speed. He did it now by throwing himself backwards and resting on his heels.

  Rose Mary came to a stop. She looked at him and said, ‘Miss Plum! Four-eyed, goggle-mug Plum. Her head’s like Lees’s clock.’ Whereupon David laughed a high appreciative laugh, for as everybody in Felling knew, even the works in Lees’s clock were made of wood.

  Rose Mary now joined her laugh to her brother’s. Then pulling him to her side, she walked at a slower pace down Stewart Terrace, and as she walked, her whole mien sober now, she thought, ‘It must be made of wood else she’d be able to make him talk. There must be something that would make him talk, more than one—unintelligible to others—word at a time. Yes, there must be something. But what?’

  When she felt a sharp tug on her hand she realised she had almost passed the point where they crossed over to get the bus, but David hadn’t. She looked at him in admiration, a grin splitting her pert face. ‘There, you see,’ she addressed an adversary known only to herself. ‘He’s all right, you see, I nearly didn’t cross over, but he was all there.’ She jerked her head at the adversary and, gripping David’s hand more tightly, she crossed over the road and went towards the bus stop.

  The bus conductor, assisting them upwards with a hand on each of their shoulders, said, ‘Come on, you Siamese twins you. And don’t you have so much to say, young fellow-me-lad.’ He pushed David playfully in the back. ‘And now I want none of your cheek,’ he admonished him with a very thick index finger as David hoisted himself onto a seat.

  David grinned broadly at the conductor, and Rose Mary, handing him their passes, said, ‘You back then?’

  ‘Well, if I’m not,’ said the conductor, straightening up, ‘somebody’s havin’ a fine game.’ Then bending down to her again, he asked under his breath, ‘No talkie-talkie?’

  Rose Mary shook her head.


  ‘Shame.’

  They both now looked at David.

  ‘Aw, well.’ The conductor ruffled David’s hair. ‘Don’t you worry, young chap, you’re all there.’

  When the conductor had passed down the bus Rose Mary and David exchanged glances, and to her glance Rose Mary added a small inclination of the head. The bus conductor was a nice man, he knew that their David was all there.

  The bus stopped on the long, bare, main road, bare that is except for traffic, and right at the top end of their side road. Rose Mary and David stood gazing at the conductor where he stood on the platform until he was lost to their sight, then hand in hand they ran up the lane that lay between two fields, and to home.

  The first sight they got of home was of two petrol-pumps, around which lay a curved line of whitewashed stones. The line was terminated at each end by green tubs which were now full of wallflowers, and to the right-hand side of the pumps and some distance behind them, there stood their home. Their wonderful, wonderful home. At least it was to Rose Mary; David, as yet, had not expressed any views about it.

  The house itself was perched on top of what looked like a shop, because the front of the ground floor was taken up by a large plate-glass window and was actually the showroom to the garage. But at present it was empty. Next to the house was a low building with a door and one window, and above the door was a board which read simply: FELL GARAGE: C. BOYLE, Proprietor. Below this, above the door frame, was another slim board with the single word ‘OFFICE’ written on it. To the side of the office was a large barn-like structure, the garage itself, and inside, and leaving it looking almost empty, were three cars. One car stood on its own, a 1950 Rover, which was polished to a gleaming sheen. The other cars were undergoing repairs, and under each of them someone was at work.

  ‘Hello, Dad.’ Rose Mary, still pulling David with her, dashed up to the man who was lying on his back half underneath the first car, and for answer, Corny kicked one leg in the air, and when they knelt down on the ground by his side to get a better look at him his muffled yell came at them, ‘Get up out of that, you’ll be all oil. Get up with you.’