Hannah Massey Read online

  HANNAH MASSEY

  Catherine Cookson

  Contents

  Cover

  Titlepage

  The Catherine Cookson Story

  Books by Catherine Cookson

  Description

  Copyright

  THE ARRIVAL

  PART ONE Friday

  Saturday

  PART TWO Sunday

  Monday

  Tuesday

  Wednesday

  Thursday

  PART THREE Friday

  THE AFTERMATH

  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

  Hannah Massey

  Proud and canny, ignorant and intensely ambitious, Hannah Massey is a born ruler. Her kingdom may be only a working-class household in County Durham, but within its walls her iron will governs a predominantly male family and her word is unchallengeable law. Now, in late middle age, her ambition is yet to be satisfied. She wants to see her brood living in the house where she was in service as a young girl.

  The apple of Hannah’s eye is her pretty younger daughter, Rosie, who has just returned home after a spell in London. Rosie had gone south, so Hannah thought, to escape the passionate pursuit of a young man she had known for most of her life. Her return is shrouded in mystery and evasive responses, and when the truth does come out, Hannah’s world is torn apart and her dreams are shattered.

  Copyright © The Catherine Cookson Charitable Trust 1964

  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 1998

  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 978-1-78036-042-3

  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

  THE ARRIVAL

  As she came slowly through the doorway into the snow-covered street she paused for a moment and put her hand against the wall, near where the cards that gave the names of the flat-dwellers reposed in three slots, one above the other. But, as if becoming aware of the proximity of something dirty, she snatched her hand away and put it in her coat pocket, then went slowly down the street.

  She was a tall girl with very long legs, a flour-white face topped with thick, dark auburn hair, which had been cut to bouffant style but which now fell from jagged partings over each side of her high cheekbones. She had large, slightly slanted grey-green eyes, and a wide straight-lined mouth, but what could have been a set of perfect features was marred slightly by her nose which was a little too long and a little too thin. Altogether she looked rangy. She was wearing a knee-length brown coat with a broad belt that swung loosely below her buttocks, and she carried in her hand an open-woven basket; she didn’t look adequately dressed for the weather, she looked like a young woman who had slipped out hurriedly to do some shopping. And this was apparently her intention.

  Walking slowly past four Victorian houses, similar to the one she had just left, she came to a row of shops. The first was a baker’s. She passed this without looking in the window, but by the butcher’s shop next door to it she paused for a moment before going on. She paused again in front of a chemist’s shop. But thereafter she did not stop until she reached the large all-purpose store at the end of the block. Here again she paused and scanned the contents of the window before entering. Her journey down the street had been slow, even leisurely, and her whole attitude, if judged by her back, could have been one of boredom; yet immediately she was within the store her manner changed. She did not pause at any counter, but walking hastily around the perimeter of the store she made for a side exit, and having gained the street once more she took to her heels and ran.

  The street opened into a main thoroughfare thick with traffic, but she made for the other side of the road with the assurance of someone used to London’s traffic. Once across, she left the main road and cut down another side street, not running now but hurrying at the point of a trot. Ten minutes later she stopped outside a small pawnshop and stood for a moment inhaling deeply before entering.

  There was no-one in the shop except the man behind the counter. He was in his fifties and looked unusually spruce to be in a pawnshop. Pawnshops were dusty places, even those like this one that sold new stuff such as silver and rare china. Men who worked in pawnshops seemed to take on the patina of their surroundings and it usually gave off a dull sheen, but even this man’s smile looked clean and bright.

  ‘Good morning, madam,’ he said.

  ‘Good morning,’ she answered. Her voice sounded rough, almost rasping, as if she had a bad throat or her mouth was dry.

  ‘What can I do for you?’ He inclined his head towards her, as if he had known her a long while and wanted to be of service to her.

  She groped into the single deep pocket of her coat and brought out a ring, which she placed on the counter.

  He did not immediately touch the ring but looked at her. He watched her swallow twice, then waited for her to speak.

  ‘Could you…could you give me ten pounds on it?’

  ‘Ten pounds!’ His eyebrows moved up slightly towards his smooth hair. He picked up the ring and reached out for a small black eyepiece. After a moment he looked at her again; his expression had changed. It could have been the expression of a man who had found something out, something detrimental about someone he loved. He said again, ‘Ten pounds?’ His words were a question, and in answer she moved her head.

  He looked at the ring once more; for an eternity he looked at it, and she grew old the while.

  ‘Yes.’ He let out a long breath. ‘Yes, I can give you ten pounds on it. Yes. Yes. Well now, would you like to sign?’ He pulled a book towards her and offered her a pen. As it passed from his hand to hers it fell to the counter and he apologised, saying, ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ although they both knew it wasn’t he who had dropped the pen. When she had signed her name he turned the book towards him. ‘Rose Massey,’ he read aloud, then glancing up at her he proffered gently, ‘You have forgotten the address, madam.’

  She stared at the book for some seconds before writing in it again. When the pawnbroker turned it towards him he studied it a moment before saying quietly, ‘Eight Brampton Hill…Brampton Hill?’ He put his head back on his neat shoulders and, looking up towards the age-smoked ceiling, said musingly, ‘I can’t quite recollect…Brampton Hill?’

  ‘It’s on the outskirts, Lewisham way.’

  ‘Oh. Oh, Lewisham way.’ He was nodding at her. Then he smiled, and picking up the ring he placed it behind him on a piece of glass, and from a drawer he took a bundle of new notes from which he pulled off the elastic band and counted ten out to her.

  She folded the notes twice, then again, until they were a tube squeezed in her fist. ‘Thank you. Good morning,’ she said.

  ‘Wait…you will want a ticket.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ There was another eternity while she watched him write out a ticket, and when he handed i
t to her he smiled again as he had done when she came in.

  ‘Thank you.’ She did not return his smile but inclined her head.

  ‘Thank…you.’ There was deep emphasis on the words.

  She was conscious of him watching her walking to the door, and her legs shook and her feet in the high stiletto-heeled shoes wobbled slightly. In the street she hesitated a moment, looked to the right, then left, then once again began to hurry towards the main road, but when, at the corner, she saw a taxi coming towards her, the ‘For Hire’ sign up, she hailed it.

  ‘Can you take me to King’s Cross?’

  ‘Certainly, miss.’

  ‘I mean could you get me there for about ten to one? The train leaves at one.’

  ‘Ten past twelve now…I don’t see why not, if the traffic jams are kind to us. Hop in.’

  In the taxi she sat bolt upright, gripping the handle of the basket on her knee with both hands.

  When they were stopped by traffic lights for the third time she leant forward and asked, ‘Will it be all right?’

  ‘Eh?’ he said.

  ‘Will it be all right? Will there be plenty of time?’

  ‘Yes, yes, we’ll make it and likely twenty minutes to spare.’

  She sat straight again, staring unblinking at the constant movement ahead.

  ‘There you are,’ said the taxi driver. ‘What did I tell you? Just two minutes out.’

  Standing on the kerb she hesitated on his tip, whether to give him a shilling or two shillings…She could make it two shillings, she’d have enough. Yes, she’d have enough.

  She had just crossed the pavement towards the entrance hall when the taxi driver’s voice hailed her, and she turned towards him. ‘You’ve left your basket, miss.’ He jerked his head towards the back of the cab. She glanced downwards before running back, pulling open the door and grabbing up the basket.

  At the ticket office she said, ‘A single to Newcastle, please.’

  She ran again, weaving in and out of the throng towards the platform. At the barrier she said to the ticket collector, ‘How long before it goes?’