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.Nulli Secundus -
'Second to None'
by Terence Cardwell
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Chapter
Fourteen - Grandad
‘Grandad, Grandad, wake up,’ Annie pleaded, shaking
Arthur, who was sound asleep in his chair. ‘We have to
get something for dinner.’
After repeated shaking Arthur finally responded,
grunting and reluctantly half-opening his eyes.
When Arthur went into these deep sleeps Annie worried
that he might have died, and she lived in fear of one
day not being able to wake him, leaving her in an even
more desolate situation than she was now.
The years since her mother abandoned her had not been
easy for Annie, and the death of Sonny two years earlier
had added to her problems. It had severely affected her
grandad, who blamed himself for Sonny’s death. He had
aged quickly since then, and deteriorated in health and
mental well-being. Annie would find him sitting staring
at nothing, lost in a private world of
self-recrimination and heartache. She saw the tears on
his cheeks and could not break into his silent world as
he replayed terrible memories in his mind.
What hurt most was his daughter Annie’s response to
Sonny’s death. She had brought her oldest son, Ted, to
Arthur, saying Annie needed the company of her brother,
and then quickly left. Arthur loved the children dearly
and would do anything for them. Sometimes he read them a
story from a book, or made up one about his younger
days; but he could not forgive his daughter for her
callousness. It played on his mind.
Since Sonny’s death he had deteriorated so much that he
was now becoming absent-minded and disorganised, never
sure of what he was doing. The evening meal was often
forgotten, and without the efforts of Annie they would
have starved. She took it on herself to prepare
breakfast and tea whenever she could find food. With
Ted’s help she did the washing and cleaning of the
houseboat.
The tiny pension Arthur received from working for the
Water Authority for forty years was all that sustained
them: a pittance that would buy only basic foods with no
luxuries like meat or fruit— only enough to scrape a
living from week to week. Their meals were minimal,
sometimes soup made with vegetables pilfered from local
farms or occasionally rabbit stew from an unfortunate
creature caught in Arthur’s traps, set out in the fields
by Ted. Annie insisted that Ted kill and skin them
before bringing them home. The sight of the soft, cuddly
rabbits upset Annie, who would release them if Ted
brought them home alive, much to her brother’s chagrin.
Sometimes they caught a fish, which was the highlight of
their meals, but there was never enough to sustain them.
Annie enjoyed school but Ted was a reluctant student and
she had to drag him along nearly every day. Today was no
different, except that Annie could not find warm clothes
for herself, or any underwear. The only clean clothes
she had were hanging on the line, still wet from the
previous night’s rain. She had only one thin cotton
dress available. ‘It’s easy to make choices when you
have only one outfit,’ Annie thought, getting dressed.
Ted was little better off, with the elbows of his shirts
in holes and a jumper worn threadbare through many hours
of crawling in the grass, playing games and chasing
rabbits.
The porridge had been made three days ago. Each morning
it was reheated with a bit of milk added to thin it out,
and consumed with gusto. Annie took care that they did
not eat it all, because it had to last the week. It
tasted bitter, without salt or sugar, but it was warm.
Annie hugged and kissed her grandad, who was sitting in
his old chair wrapped in a blanket to keep warm against
the cold wind blowing across the boat.
‘Bye, Grandad, keep the blanket on, and if you need to
wee the bucket is near the doorway as usual. Ted will
throw it overboard when we come home.’
Arthur looked at them with an irate frown.
‘Don’t fuss so much, I’m not a child, I’ll be alright.
You just get some learning and get yourselves clever.’
‘Bye, Gramps,’ Ted said as he walked up the stairway to
the top deck. He was always short on words. He walked
across the plank to the river bank, followed by Annie.
There was a cold wind blowing, and it cut through
Annie’s thin dress, making her shiver. They walked as
fast as they could to keep warm. It was a two-mile walk
to the school, and they were very thankful to finally
get out of the cold and into the comparative shelter of
the school building. Annie was blue from cold. Her teeth
were chattering and she shivered violently as they
entered the classroom.
Miss Shaw, their teacher, noticed and wondered why Annie
was wearing a thin cotton dress in such cold weather.
‘Annie, come here please,’ Miss Shaw called to her
quietly as the she walked past. ‘Why have you got such a
thin dress on in this cold weather?’
‘It’s the only dry one I have,’ Annie replied.
‘But surely you must have a warm dress,’ the teacher
said in surprise.
‘Grandad can’t afford more clothes. He said he hasn’t
got the money to buy them.’ Annie’s reply came in a
whisper, and she avoided eye contact with her teacher,
looking at the floor.
Miss Shaw stroked Annie affectionately and felt her
shivering. As her fingers past over Annie’s hip she felt
no indication of any underwear.
‘Annie, do you have any knickers on?’ she said quietly
so the other students would not hear.
Annie blushed, replying in a whisper. ‘No miss.’
‘Why not?’ Miss Shaw was amazed.
‘The only two I have are on the washing line still wet.’
‘You only have two pairs of knickers? Oh good heavens.’
Miss Shaw lifted Annie’s chin in her hand and saw the
tears running down her cheeks.
The words that Annie said next would remain in Miss
Shaw’s mind forever. Annie looked at her through
tear-filled eyes and sobbed, ‘It’s not nice being poor!’
‘Oh dear, oh dear, go and sit down Annie, and I’ll see
what I can do. The fire will warm the room up soon and
you’ll feel a lot better.’
Annie went to her usual seat and Miss Shaw pretended to
be busy, but inside she wanted to cry for Annie. She had
seen so much poverty amongst the children in the school
and at the same time watched the people who had grown
rich from their parents’ labours ride past in fancy
clothes and coaches. She felt angry and frustrated at
the same time: angry at the injustice of it all and
frustrated at her inability to do anything about it.
‘This time I’m going to do something,’ she said to
herself. ‘Poor mite, I can’t leave her like this; I must
do something. But what?’
She looked at Ted and saw he was no better off, with his
bedraggled and torn clothes, and she shook her head in
pity for these little ones.
Lunchtime seemed to take forever to come, and when it
finally arrived Miss Shaw hurried to the headmaster’s
room and explained what she had seen.
‘I am at a loss as to what I can do to help them, that’s
why I came to see you,’ she said.
John Brieley, the headmaster, had been teaching for
thirty-eight years and was due for retirement in six
months time. He too had seen a great deal of poverty
over the years and had helped a number of children.
‘We must report it to the child services. I’ll have a
chat to Doctor Barnardo’s Homes,’ he replied.
‘But wouldn’t that make it worse, to take them away from
their grandfather?’ Miss Shaw asked.
Brieley shrugged his shoulders. ‘Their grandfather
obviously can’t look after them or support them
financially. The situation will only get worse if we
leave them there. What about their mother— can’t she
look after them?’
Miss Shaw shook her head. ‘She went off with another
man.’
Hesitating, she added, ‘She has no desire to accept
responsibility for the children. ‘But who will look
after them, child services? I couldn’t support any move
to put the children in a poorhouse. That would only
leave them worse off than they are now.’
‘No, no, not at all, I’ll have a talk to Doctor
Barnardo’s Homes. They take in children and raise them
as their own. I have sent a number of children there
over the years and they seem to be happy. They are a
very warm and caring group and look after the children
very well,’ Mr Brieley replied.
His words went some way in calming Miss Shaw’s fears and
she smiled for the first time that day. ‘That seems a
lot better than half starving with no clothes and living
on a houseboat. What about their grandfather?— they care
for him a great deal and he loves them. Won’t it affect
him?’ Miss Shaw asked, concerned for the old man’s well
being.
‘Yes, it will be hard for him, but I think he will
realise it would be better for them to be well fed,
clothed and cared for. He can visit them as often as he
likes; he won’t be shut off from them.’
‘Well if you think it’s for the best,’ Miss Shaw sighed.
‘I’ll leave it to you.’
John Brieley nodded and patted her hand. ‘It’s for the
best, trust me. I’ll take care of everything.’
Miss Shaw gave a weak smile and went to eat a hurried
lunch and get back to her class. She had a nagging doubt
and was not sure she had done the right thing, breaking
up a loving family.
The following day, in the mid-morning, a horse and sulky
pulled up outside the school and two people, a man in a
brown suit and a woman in a coloured white and blue
uniform, alighted and walked to the headmaster’s office.
Miss Shaw watched them arrive through the classroom
window and wondered who they were.
Shortly after the headmaster came to her classroom, his
face looking sombre.
‘The people are here from Doctor Barnardo’s Home, to
pick up Annie and Ted to take them into care.’
Miss Shaw was stunned. Events had moved so quickly.
What had seemed like a good idea at the time had turned
into a reality. She knew she was unable to change what
was about to happen. She looked at the headmaster, her
mouth opening and closing, unable to reply. It was
happening too fast. She wanted to have some time to
prepare the children for the change. She tried to think
of what to say. Instead she looked at the children. She
could feel a lump in her throat and tears began to well
up in her eyes. Miss Shaw fought them back. ‘Annie and
Ted, would you please go with Mr Brieley.’
Both children rose from their seats and walked to the
front of the class, confused as to why they had been
singled out. They followed the headmaster to his office
where a man and woman were waiting.
‘Annie, Ted, this is Mr Brown and Sister Burton who have
come to take you into care at Doctor Barnardo’s Home in
Lincoln, where you will be well looked after.’
‘But we live with Grandad!’ Annie blurted, shock and
fear on her face.
‘You won’t be living with your grandfather any more; he
is unable to look after you properly. So we are sending
you to Doctor Barnardo’s Home where lots of children
like yourselves live. You will have plenty of food and
warm clothing with a nice comfortable bed,’ Mr Brieley
said.
‘Who will look after Grandad?’ Annie looked concerned.
‘If we’re not there he won’t eat anything,’ she added
and looked at Ted for support.
‘I’m not going to no home,’ Ted said sharply. ‘We’ve
already been in them poorhouses and we’re not going
back. It was ‘orrible.’ The vision of white, clinical,
high walls and scrubbed floors, watery soup in wooden
bowls, itchy flea-laden beds and thin-lipped
supervisors, flashed through his mind.
Annie started to sob. ‘They’re going to send us back to
the poorhouse.’ She only remembered a little of her time
there, but Ted had told her how cold it was. The food
was not as good as they had now and there were hard beds
and bed bugs biting you in the middle of the night.
Waking up to feel something nipping your face and
finding it covered in blood from where the bugs had
bitten. Finding them crawling on your body and having to
tear your clothes off and squash them one by one to get
rid of them. They hid in the mattress and could not be
caught, coming back night after night to bite you. ‘I’m
not going to sleep with bugs in my bed,’ she sobbed.
‘I’ll run away before the bugs get me.’
The headmaster looked at the people from Doctor
Barnardo’s with raised eyebrows.
‘What do you mean the bugs will get you, what bugs?’ he
asked.
‘She means bed bugs,’ Mr. Brown explained. ‘They are
rife in the poorhouses, because the people who go there
are not always very clean. The mites and bugs breed
prolifically.’
Sister Burton squatted and took Annie’s shaking hands.
‘Annie, there are no bed bugs at our Home, only nice
clean warm comfortable beds. We won’t let anything hurt
you, I promise.’
Annie looked at the lady’s face. It appeared friendly
and kind, and she felt the affection the nurse had for
children like herself.
‘But my Grandad, we have to take Grandad too!’
`I’m sorry, we can’t do that; it is only for children
like you. Someone else will look after your grandfather,
won’t they Mr. Brieley?’ she said, giving the headmaster
a knowing look and nodding her head.
‘Umph, err, yes,’ he responded.
‘I will personally go and see your grandfather and tell
him where we have taken you both. He can come and see
you any time.’
‘Do we have to stay if we don’t like it?’ Ted asked,
still suspicious.
‘I will take you both back to your grandfather myself if
you don’t like it,’ Mr Brown said, placing his hands
gently on Ted’s shoulders. ‘Trust me, you will be happy
there.’
Annie stopped crying and looked at Ted for guidance. The
vision of her grandad sitting alone wrapped in a blanket
was heavy on her mind, and her heart ached for love of
the old man.
Ted looked at Annie and smiled. ‘Ok, we’ll go, but if we
don’t like it and you don’t take us back to Grandad
we’ll run away anyway.’
‘You will like it, I promise,’ Sister Burton soothed.
‘Right, let’s be off then,’ Mr Brown urged, opening the
door. Sister Burton took the two children’s hands and
led them to the coach, helping them up into the back
seat, and climbed in to sit in between them.
John Brieley shook Mr Brown’s hand firmly. ‘Thank you
for taking them. I know you will take good care of
them.’ He added as he stepped back, ‘I will go and see
their grandfather after school and explain the
situation.’
The ride to Doctor Barnardo’s took over an hour, and
Sister Burton occupied the children by asking questions
about their lives and what they did for fun.
Annie and Ted warmed to her as they chatted, and started
to feel more comfortable with the idea of moving away.
Deep down though there was the lingering fear of seeing
another poorhouse waiting for them. Every now and then
they would break off the conversation and look around
for sign of a big building. There was none, just miles
and miles of country roads and fields.
As they came over a rise looking down on a large valley,
Sister Burton pointed to a group of cottages clustered
around a larger one in the middle.
‘That’s your new home,’ she enthused, pointing to the
collection of cottages with verandas around them and red
painted roofs. Each cottage was surrounded by lawns and
garden beds laden with brightly coloured flowers.
Annie was taken by surprise. This was no poorhouse. This
vision before her was more beautiful than any home she
had ever seen. It was just like a picture in a book she
had once seen. These were fresh, homely-looking
cottages. And the flowers, so many of them— they seemed
brighter and more colourful than the ones she used to
pick from the fields around the houseboat.
‘We are going to live here?’ she asked excitedly, not
believing what she was seeing.
‘Yes, this is your new home; and it is just as nice
inside. I told you you would like it.’ Sister Burton
smiled, watching the children getting excited.
Ted lost his usual reserve and bounced up and down on
the seat. ‘Coor, our new home! Coor.’
As they neared the home they saw other children. Some
were playing on the lawn and others were on the
verandas. Nearly all stopped and watched as the new
arrivals pulled up to the front of the central building.
Mr Brown lifted them down from the coach. ‘This way,
we’ll show you to your cottage.’
He led them down a weaving pathway that led to various
cottages. They stopped at the third one along.
‘This is your cottage, Annie,’ he said, opening the
door. ‘And that is your bed and wardrobe.’ He pointed to
the bed in the far right-hand corner.
The cottage had cream coloured walls with children’s
paintings and drawings pinned to them. The large windows
had filigree lace curtains that let in the sunshine,
brightening the room. There were four beds, each covered
with floral overlays, a thick blanket with white sheets
folded down, and two white pillows. On Annie’s bed were
three piles of neatly folded clothes.
Annie was in awe, unable to believe her eyes. She had
never slept between sheets or seen so much clothing for
one person, and to be told all this was for her!
Squealing with delight she threw her arms around Sister
Burton’s waist, squeezing her tightly.
‘Oh thank you, thank you, it is the best thing I have
ever had!’
Sister Burton again felt warmth and affection inside
from helping the children, and it made the long hours
she spent at the Home well worthwhile.
She smiled and caressed Annie’s hair. ‘I told you you
would be happy, didn’t I?’
Annie looked up, her face glowing with a wide smile, her
heart pounding with an excitement and a joy she had
never known.
‘Oh yes, I’ve never been so happy,’ she replied, hugging
Sister Burton again.
‘Where’s my room?’ Ted asked, the excitement building in
him. ‘Is it like Annie’s?’
‘Oh, yes it is. It’s on the other side, boys on one
side, girls on the other. Come along, I’ll take you
there now.’ Mr Brown smiled, catching some of the
children’s enthusiasm.
‘I’ll stay and show Annie her clothes and school books,’
Sister Burton said.
‘School books?’ Ted asked in a worried tone. ‘Do we have
to go to school?’ His enthusiasm waned.
‘Of course you do. You don’t want to grow up to be a
dunce, do you?’ Sister Burton laughed.
Ted scowled, pulled a face at Annie and followed Mr
Brown out the door.
As they left, a large buxom woman with dark hair
streaked with grey, wearing a bright floral dress,
arrived.
‘Annie, this is Mrs Scargill, your house mother, who
will look after you and see to all your needs. If you
have any problems Mrs Scargill will sort them out for
you.’
‘Mrs Scargill, this is Annie Lawson who has come to live
with us.’
Mrs Scargill looked at the dark-haired child with the
well-worn, thin plain dress, and could see she had come
from difficult circumstances. The child was pale and her
arms and legs were thin, but her dark brown eyes were
bright as she took in her surroundings.
‘Nothing a few good feeds won’t fix,’ she thought to
herself. Aloud, she said, ‘Hello Annie, welcome to
Doctor Barnardo’s. You will like it here, no more hungry
times and plenty of nice warm clothes.’ she smiled,
taking Annie’s hands in hers.
She had been told a little of the background of Annie
and Ted, and shivered as she thought of Annie in that
thin dress in the middle of this cold winter.
Back at school John Brieley was very reluctant to make
the visit to Annie and Ted’s grandfather. He knew it had
to be done, but didn’t like doing it. It was one of the
more distasteful parts of his duties.
He arrived at the houseboat and walked up the plank
joining the boat to the bank to the open cabin door.
‘Mr North, are you there?’ he called loudly.
‘Hello, who is it?’ came a weak response from below.
John Brieley went down the stairway to the cabin where
Arthur was sitting in his old chair. A blanket covered
his knees, and he looked thin and frail. His cheekbones
stood out on his gaunt face, and his skin was a pallid
ash grey in the half-light of the cabin. The room
smelled of urine from Arthur’s bucket, despite the old
newspaper covering it.
‘Who are you?’ Arthur asked suspiciously. ‘What do you
want?’
‘Mr North, I’m John Brieley, the headmaster of your
grandchildren’s school.’
‘So, what have the kiddies done wrong, have they been
wagging school?’
‘No Mr North, they are good children.’ He hesitated,
searching for the right words to tell him that they had
taken his grandchildren away. ‘How am I going to tell
the poor old fellow?’ he thought to himself. ‘Just tell
him straight, I guess it is the only way.’
‘Mr North, I have come to inform you that they have been
placed into the care of Doctor Barnardo’s Home at
Lincoln as you are unable to look after them any more.’
Arthur sat quietly looking at the headmaster, taking in
what he had said. ‘You have taken my grandchildren from
me?’ he asked in a slow quavering voice.
‘I’m sorry, but Annie did not even have a warm dress and
neither child had food for lunch. They need better care
than you can provide. I assure you they will be well
cared for and you can visit them any time you want.’
‘I can’t do that, I have no way of getting there and I
can’t walk a great distance,’ Arthur said with a quiet
dignity. He felt empty inside and a great feeling of
sadness came over him. He knew he would never see his
grandchildren again and a terrible ache started to grow
inside him. Deep down he knew it would be the beginning
of his death.
‘I’m sure we can arrange someone to take you there,’
John Brieley said.
Now that his dreadful message had been delivered he was
in a hurry to get away. He too felt the pain, knowing
that the authorities or the school board would do
nothing to help.
‘I must go, I have to see another parent,’ he said
quickly, disappearing out the cabin and across the plank
to the bank.
Arthur slumped back in his chair. ‘They’re all I’ve
got,’ he said out loud. The tears ran down his cheeks as
he sobbed quietly, his heart broken. ‘Why did they take
them away? I did my best, gave them what I had. My Annie
and Ted— why?’
With a gesture uncharacteristic of his stoic working
class life, Arthur finally gave way to his grief. He
cried with an anguish that wouldn’t stop. The pain in
his heart was unlike anything he had felt before, an
intense pain that was more than he could bear.
In the days that followed Arthur no longer wanted to eat
or drink. He slipped into deep sleeps to be woken only
by the gnawing pains in his stomach. Too distressed to
eat, he retreated into his memories of Annie and Ted and
their nice times together. He grew weaker as each day
passed, until he was finally unable to move from his
chair even to use his almost overflowing bucket.
No one came to help him as he sat alone in his chair.
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