The Life Story Of Dorothy Grand (née Read)

 

26th November 1896 – 7th December 1976

 

Howard Allen Grand and Dorothy (Doris) Read Wedding Day 25th March 1922 Saskatoon Cathedral, Canada

I was born in the city of Leeds on November 26th, 1896. Christened Dorothy which somehow got altered to Doris.

Mother was a native of Carlton in Coverdale, she was one of eleven children. All the schooling she got was one year when she was nine years old. The charge in those days at the village school was six pence per week and with such a large family, my grandparents did well to do that for each of their children. Mother must have been a very apt pupil, no one would know as she grew older that her education had been so poor. She was no help to me with intricate sums when I was in the higher standards at school, but her mental arithmetic was very good indeed and she loved reading.

My father came from a farming community in the Helmsley district of Yorkshire, his school days were spent in the beautiful village of Thornton Dale. When he left school he was apprenticed to a firm of high class drapers in Skipton, that was in the days when boys boarded out and paid for their learning – no wages. Mother at that time was in service at Skipton as a cook with a very nice family who had a jewellers shop, their name was Fattorini. Mother and Father met and got to know each other at Methodist evening meetings for young people and eventually they married. Father got most of the contents of his home, his parents having died. He was 21 years old. Mother 29 years. His apprenticeship was completed so he tried going into business on his own in Leeds. After they had been married three years, I was born but alas the little drapers shop did not prove a success. He went back to Skipton to the shop where he had served his time and worked as a commercial traveller as they were called in those days. Wage £1.5s.0d per week – the standard wage for his position.

I ought to mention one or two childish memories in these early pages. From 5 years to 7 years I had brother Bert, 2 years younger, much in my care. There was a lovely leafy lane Raikes Road where we could sit and pick wild flowers quite close to the Terrace where home was. I remember one nasty incident – there was a gas lamp at the bottom of our road, one day, me with Bert by the hand got to this lamp and some older boys were there looking on the path at a lot of broken glass – they accused my little brother of doing it – breaking the lamp – and said the police were coming. I raced home with Bert and told Mother the police were coming for him. She knew it was all nonsense but I was a long time before I took him that way again. We often saw the canal with horse drawn boats but “don’t go near” were my orders. On Saturday morning we were given 1/2d each to spend at a confectionery shop. One morning, Bert, with his little nose glued to the window outside, spotted some gorgeous iced buns covered with coconut. He would have one, they were only 1/2d each. I said – don’t expect half of my sweets. He soon had his bun gobbled down and when I look back I think I did share my sweets. In those days a big bag full for halfpenny.

Bert was quite a delicate little boy up to the age of seven. He had two or three sessions in Skipton Cottage hospital. When he came home once, after a few weeks there, the nurses had taught him the Valentine song – “I’ll be your sweetheart, if you will be mine”. I soon learnt the tune and the words and thought it was a lovely song. There was a Convent right opposite our house. I remember Mother telling me how kind the nuns were, often bringing nourishing tit bits for us children. A street organ used to come round at intervals with a monkey on the top. For all empty jam jar, this old man would give us a balloon each.

By the time I was four years old, Father used to take me to lots of the small villages near Skipton by train. He did good business in these places. I remember enjoying these short journeys on the train by this time, there was a brother and sister in our home. Mother was very ill when I was 4 1/2 years old so I was sent to a nursery school for a few months until I could start school properly. Another brother was born, but when he was just turned 1 year old, Father died. He was up the dales canvassing for orders, walking back from Carlton in Coverdale to Wensley to get a train back to Skipton, the river at Wensley had flooded the road and Father had to wade through it. He stayed overnight at one of the Inns in Hawes and back to Skipton next day, but he was taken ill, contracted congestion of the lungs and in five days he died on February 7th. Poor Mother, myself 7 years old and three children younger who did not remember Father so they had no happy memories that I have. I was too young to realise how my little world had suddenly gone all wrong. No more short railway trips, surprises like a little white muff to wear to go to Sunday School, a parasol to go on the traditional Whit Monday Walk when all the Sunday schools paraded us children with a band through the streets, to the castle grounds for sports, teas etc.

What best to do was Mother’s worry. Father had insured his life for £100 – what a good thing. My grandmother lived in Carlton with one daughter and a bachelor son, my Uncle Jack. Mother had another brother, a farmer, in Carlton, also her eldest brother, Orlando, married with no children. Him and Aunt Mary lived in a nice house in Carlton, he told Mother she would have to leave Skipton after Father’s funeral. He rented a house for us in Carlton (South View). Mother travelled with us children by train to Leyburn and from there to Grannies home to stay until the furniture arrived, that took a few days by horse and wagon from Skipton to Kettlewell, then over the top as it was called, a very hilly moreland track to reach Coverdale, then down the dale to Carlton. Bert, a frail little boy, 5 years old, upset Uncle Jack, the few days we were with Grannie. Mother, busy getting the cottage cleaned, was not there. Bert very fretful, a strange house, his crying must have irked Uncle Jack, not used to children until one day he literally threw Bert into the next room. I objected and got pushed in there as well. Needless to say we never had any liking for that Uncle and always stood in awe of him.

My surprise when we all moved into the cottage was to see all our nice furniture from the Skipton home. I was so pleased. Harmonium, Dresser, all the same chairs and beds. I could not believe my eyes. Poor Mother had to somehow make some money to keep us. The Town Council allowed her a few shillings a week, she got some washing to do for two families who could pay instead of doing it themselves, two shillings and six pence for a big family wash, dried and ironed. Uncle Orlando was a butcher, he let Mother have a nice big piece of meat for the weekend roast for 1 /- and 3 pennyworth of liver and pieces of heart and kidney, a huge plateful in the middle of the week. In those days liver was not valued. He was a good Uncle.

The house we lived in had four bedrooms, two sitting rooms downstairs plus large pantry and kitchen. £4 per year was the rent plus rates. Mother started baking bread for sale, although most of the villagers made their own bread it was surprising how they fell short and glad to buy one of Mothers. A 2 lb loaf 4 1/2d and 1 lb cobs 2 1/2d. It must have paid Mother to do so, she would not have done it unless some profit at the end of it. She had a very good business head. I think she made 2 stone of flour into bread twice a week. Of course, some of that was for our consumption. Another little job she took on was to look after the schoolmasters little boy, the wife was a teacher as well. They called for the baby each dinner time and again at 3.30. My youngest brother Frank was only 2 years old and sister Alice not quite old enough for school so it must have been quite hard work. All these small moneys kept the wolf from the door.

Brother Bert and myself started to go to the village school which was only a short distance from home. I was very disappointed when they put me in the same standard as I had been for a year in the Skipton school. However, I liked my school days, as I grew older, I had to hasten home to help mother all I could. When she lost the baby minding, other ideas came to her. Tuesdays and Thursdays, she baked teacakes. Bert and myself took them from house to house to sell. He did the lower part of the village, not so many houses and I did the top half. The schoolmaster used to let me out of school 15 minutes before closing time on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. Two pence each those lovely new current teacakes were and we most always sold out.

The Sunday and weekend school Christmas parties we much enjoyed. Long tables full of scrumptious food. Mother told us not to dive straight away to fancy cakes – have lots of ham sandwiches first was her advice. Coverdale Feast – another highlight of our early days always held the first week of gray November each year. On November 4th, it was sheep sales on Middleham moor and the hiring of farm men. The youths either stayed on at the farm where they worked or hired themselves to another farmer, one shilling was given to bind them. November 5th was bonfire night. November 8th and 9th was Coverdale Feast. Sports for the children for the villages within 3 miles radius. These were held on the road outside the top pub, the Moorcock Inn. In the corner of a field at the top of Little Side the young men used to have Cock Fighting – a horrible pursuit not legal now but was practised then. Each year a horse drawn covered wagon used to come, in a huge empty cart shed adjoining the pub a gypsy lady used to have a stall. She sold sweets, chocolate bars, Spanish laces, etc. – Fry’s cream bars were my favourites. Brightly coloured glass ornaments, trashy souvenirs of all kinds. If I was an artist, I could paint her just as she always looked – a stout person, must have been dressed in many petticoats, she looked voluminous with a large cape around her and an old greasy felt hat, tied on with a scarf. Two naptha flares blazed away at each end of the stall providing light and perhaps heat for the lady. A dance was held in a barn over the said cart shed that was for the older girls and young men. A concertina, and a mouth organ was the band, tap dancing too was one of the items of entertainment. Every housewife made lots of curd cheesecakes, I know they were often made during the year but for the Feast it was extra good pastry and the sweet curds laced with whisky or rum. While we were still schoolchildren the Feast became a thing of the past. I don’t know why. Perhaps modern transport was becoming all the more easy to obtain and the young people able to get into the small towns to other entertainment’s. Mother had not started her little shop then which she hoped to some day so the old ladies sweet stall did not take any trade away. If only for two days her takings must have been enormous as we all were allowed to spend a good deal what we won in the sports.

The field at the back of Grandmothers house was the food for the horse that Uncle Jack had. Late July that field was a meadow, with a borrowed grasscutter, it was duly cut, after it had lain in swathe for a day or so, it needed turning over. This was done by hand rakes. Uncle Jack then rallied his helpers, one sister (Kate) who lived at home with him and Grandmother, another in the village (Jane) and my Mother (Mary Anna). It was generally school holidays so we all trooped up with her. With Hand rakes they turned all those swathes over. Ginger beer, home made, came out for drinks. Children as well. It seemed to take until bedtime to finish, I mean our bedtime. A good tea was eaten the field. Next day if the weather kept fine it had to be strewn about again. The third day if it had made good hay it was all hand raked again into winrows, then boggied up into huge pikes. It was led from the pikes into a barn and they used to have us children in there, what they called treading the mew. I hated it especially when it began to get full and nearer the ceiling. I am sure I felt like Oliver Twist up chimneys. There was always a very good supper when all was in. They called it the Mell. All this for one field of good hay to feed the horse during winter. It seems fantastic in these modern days.

During the spring and summer days we had lots of places to play in after school hours. A lovely beck was down a hill just across the road from home. Further up the village was an unspoilt bit of parkland, a lovely waterfall, parts of the stream where we could paddle. Melbecks it was called. A very steep climb brought you to the beginning of Melmerby Moors, miles and miles of heather and swampy places. After following a footpath across these moors, another steep climb and you were on the top of Penhill, one of the Pennine hills.

One of Mother’s sisters was married to a farmer and lived in an isolated farm house called Stoop House between Carlton and West Witton, the other side of Penhill from our village. Each year during summer school holidays me and Bert used to walk the three miles over the moor to spend a day each week with those cousins. Auntie was good to us but it all seemed a bit rough and ready. Mother used to give us a milk can with a lid on and from the moorland around Stoop House we could pick enough bilberries to fill that pint can to take home to make pies. Auntie made butter and cheese – they kept quite a few cows, also poultry. She generally gave us a bit of butter and a few eggs to take home with us. The winter months did not seem too long if there was snow and ice, a home made sledge was good. Carlton was a mile long, mostly one long hill, alright skimming down it, but a long walk back. No cars at all in those days so no danger. We could always get out of the way of a farmers horse and trap. Evenings I used to play schools, the painted stone sides of the high mantelpiece made good blackboards to chalk on. Snakes and ladders, dominoes, ludo, all kept us amused. I began to learn myself music on the harmonium. Father had left a tutor book. He liked music so it came in very useful for me. When the infant teacher at school, who used to give music lessons for payment, heard me play, she gave me a few lessons free knowing Mother could not afford to. I was pleased to play the school hymn if she was absent, also organ at the Church for Sunday services if Miss Round (as she was named) was ill and unable to do it.

When the days were long Mother used to go see her Mother on Wednesday evenings, as us children were put to bed and locked in, no fire to be dangerous. She didn’t do this in the winter time. I’m sure I never went to sleep until I heard her come back, I always was so anxious in case she didn’t. If any man called on business or an old village friend sat down for a chat for a while, I used to frown at him the whole time so very afraid he was perhaps hoping to marry Mother. “For goodness sake, girl. No man would want me with you four to bring up”. No wonder I got a perpetual wrinkle on my forehead.

Each winter Mother clipt up any good woollen old clothes to make rag rugs – nice and warm for our feet, most suitable for the flagged floors. Every day brought work, Mondays, a huge wash, ours and other peoples. Tuesday, baking all day. Wednesday ironing and bedroom cleaning. Thursday, baking again. Friday and Saturday – other rooms cleaned. Bath night for all us children on Saturdays, all clean for Sunday. No bathroom – huge zinc bath in front of the fire.

Father had four sisters, one of them, Aunt Libby, had married a farmer and lived 7 miles from Malton in a lonely farmhouse, another sister also lived in that area, the other two in Leeds. When I was 12 years old, Bert 10, Auntie Libby told Mother in a letter that if we could manage to travel she would pay our train fare from Leyburn to Malton to go and have two weeks of our summer school holiday on the farm. I was sure I could do it although it meant changing at York and I had never left home before. When Uncle Jack heard of this proposed scheme, he called Mother all the names he could think of to let us loose like that. However, we went and all went well. Auntie met us at Malton station, there were 4 boy cousins and four girl cousins all strangers to us but we did enjoy it. I think I found some of the farmhouse fare a bit rough but lots of milk and eggs were good for us. This same Auntie after Father died sent Mother a hamper each Christmas, a goose, Plum Pudding and a little gift each for our stockings on Christmas morning. Each year this came while we were school age. The two sisters in Leeds also sent a Christmas parcel.

About this time, I was still at school, Uncle Orlando died and in his will left Mother £50. with that money she decided to start a little shop. She went to spend two or three days with Aunt Amelia in Leeds who helped her to get in contact with a wholesale sweet firm, she bought 7lb jars of sweets, boxes of chocolate bars and cheaper kinds like aniseed balls and other novelties, plus brass scales. Our sitting room was soon arranged when these goods arrived front Leyburn station. The first day Mother opened the shop, 10-1/2 d were the takings. Never mind it was a start, each day a bit better. Very soon one of her travellers for groceries persuaded her to try Cigarettes and Tobacco. Gradually too he sold her small quantities of groceries at wholesale prices for her to retail. The takings and the profit was only small but she gave up taking heavy washing in.

A Bradford business man had a cottage built in the village. His wife stayed all the week but always a crowd came on Fridays for week-ends. This lady was glad for mother to bake for her one large fruit loaf and a madeira cake. On Thursdays a fruiterer came with a horse and cart from Middleham. This Mrs Thistlethwaite use to buy fruit off him, whatever was in season, put it into two large pie dishes and get the fruiterer to leave it at Mothers for her to sugar, pastry and bake it. Since cars have taken over from horses. the village not so well cared for. The Middleham and Leyburn shops don’t find it worth while so anyone without a car was not so able to get food as before. There was another shop in the village with a Post Office, they naturally got the bulk of the food trade, people going in for stamps and to post letters would get other things they needed. Mother used to say ours was a shop they came to if they could not get what they wanted at the Post Office. It worked both ways, if they were glad to come for a loaf of bread, a small order would often be asked for. There was a market at Leyburn on a Friday and a young man in the village started to run a very crude sort of bus for passengers, during the week he used this bus, by taking the top off and seats out, to load coal from Leyburn station and other things that came by train, such as Mothers parcel of goods from her Leeds firm or anything people might ask him to bring from shops in Leyburn during the week. He made quite a good living, before this it meant walking the six miles, except farmers who had a horse and trap.

In the year 1910 I left school. The Church Vicar (it was a church school) had a serious talk with Mother, said it was a waste not [to] let me have more education and train to be a teacher. I had done so well in all subjects, it would have meant me going away to a boarding school and costing much more than Mother could afford so I went out as a nurse maid and earned a bit for myself. Brother Bert left school two years later, he had to go and work on a farm three miles away, a very small wage but he lived in with the family, one less mouth to feed and clothe. In 1914 the Great War broke out, the shop doing that bit better, we were selling newspapers by this time, the Leeds Mercury. Up to this the few papers came by post to odd farmers. I stayed at home and got orders for this daily paper in nearly every house in Carlton also in the village of Melmerby about a mile away. These papers paid very well and what is more people used to say bring me this and that from the shop when you come tomorrow, things really began to look better although the horrible war was raging on. Brother Frank used to cycle to Wensley 4 miles away where some soldiers were in camp to sell evening newspapers – they paid well too. An ill wind that war was.

Food rationing was in force. 2 oz butter per person, 1/2 lb sugar for a week. It was quite a task each Friday weighing up all these small quantities to customers who rationed with us. There was a great deal more to do in our spare time, various committees formed to arrange concerts and whist drives to make money to send parcels to the local boys who were out in France and other countries. The Vicar’s wife used to have the Ladies Committee cleaning Sphagnum moss in the parish room two afternoons a week, for medicinal uses in the hospitals, while myself and others did the cleaning of this moss, she read to us, the most boring books. Brother Bert was called up as soon as he was 18 years old, he looked so young and defenceless, not very tall but to Mothers great delight; peace was declared while he was home on his final leave, before his regiment was drafted to France. He was soon back to farm life, for 11 years with one boss, then he married and rented a farm himself.

I have not mentioned my Grandmother again, so little impact had she on our lives. Her house was almost opposite the ancestral home of the Constantines. Grandmothers house was built right on the village street, lacing north, a sombre looking place with a walled garden where only ferns and such like plants grew. A nice front door opened into a small entrance hall with a grandfather clock always tick-tocking. To the right of the front door, the parlour, a lovely room with two windows one facing the road, the other facing south. The staircase was old world, as I remember it, six or seven steps up, then a landing with a large rounded window with coloured glass panes, six or seven steps up again to the landing. There any character this house had ended, one best bedroom over the parlour, across the landing a door gave access to the two remaining bedrooms, you had to pass through one to get to the other. Downstairs a nice dining room, a kitchen with a small pantry. The kitchen was their main living room, a back door opening on to a large flagged yard with various outbuildings, washhouse, outside toilet. A large garden, fruit trees and vegetables, buildings where Uncle Jack could keep hens and pigs, he also had a horse, a 2 acre field in the back was theirs too. All this facing a village (Scrafton) across the river and then vast stretches of moorland.

Mother used to send me up with messages, always Grandmother was in her rocking chair, dressed like all elderly people then, a dark frock, little black satin apron and white lacy cap on her head. She was not 70 years of age but never did any work. I think she was 70 years of age when she died. She was a sister of Mothers Uncle Henry Constantine, a very well known family in Coverdale. Some of the family must have had lots of money, a big house and farm in Carlton was the family home and various farms up the dale belonged to the family. To this day, quite a sum of money is paid out each Christmas to the most needy in the village, the “Constantine Charity” it is called and it has been the Carlton Vicar’s task to deal with this since long before Mothers time, the rents from the farms supplying this, the rest of the moneys from all this property a solicitor deals with. Recently the last of the male members of the family died so it will all be sold. Grandmother lived rent free in one of the Constantine houses while she was alive.

At Coverham, a small hamlet there was a milk dairy owned by one of the Rowntrees of York. Farmers took their milk each morning to this dairy by horse and cart to be made into cheese, butter and cream. Before this farmers wives made cheese and butter at home, selling this milk to Rowntrees meant an easier life for the womenfolk. Suddenly a Miss Bourne bought a house in the village, she had been trained at Loughborough College to be a teacher in dairy work. She and a brother who came with her had this house fully equipped to be a dairy. They got all the farmers living in the villages nearby to sell the milk to them, it was nearer than Coverham. They were good customers in our little shop and when I knew they wanted help I offered to go a few hours each day. I managed not to neglect home, the shop or the daily newspaper round. It was good to earn some extra money and very much enjoyed being taught how to make cheese and butter. This venture of the Bourne’s did not last very long, no fault of theirs, they worked hard, the cheeses, Wensleydale and Stilton always had a good selling market, inside the dairy all was kept clean and up to standard. but alas, the drains from the dairy emptied into Carlton Beck which flowed into the river Cover, all the way down the dale to join the river Ure at Middleham. The Cover got so polluted with whey from the cheese vats and other milk residue, that the cattle from all the farms were in danger of poison from the water which got so sour, very particularly in hot weather. It was condemned. Farmers relied on the river for water, the Cover was also a beauty spot for holiday makers, lovely places to paddle and in one spot deep and safe for swimming. Near one stretch of the river the quaint remains of an old building St. Simons Chapel, in olden times perhaps an overflow of monks from the nearby Coverham Abbey lived there. By this time there were more cars on the roads. Rowntrees were collecting the milk from all the farms by motor lorry. The Bourne’s farmers only too glad, much easier to leave their cans of milk at their gateways on a raised platform and collect empty cans ready for the next day. So the Rowntrees Dairy once more supreme, lorries rattled up one side of the valley and down the other side, employing quite a few of the young people out of the villages. Miss Bourne wanted me to let her get me into her old dairy school at Loughborough for more training, much as I had enjoyed the work under her supervision, I was more important to Mother, the shop and the paper round.

Alice, my sister, was companion help to a wealthy spinster lady from Liverpool, a Miss Jopling. She had a cottage in Caldberg three miles from Carlton. If Miss Jopling went walks or visiting friends, [she] took Alice as well. She also played the harp and got Alice very interested in music and singing. Alice had a good singing voice, Frank had left school, like Bert, out in farm place as they called it, so all four of us not too far from home.

I am now going to refer back to our relatives the Constantines as they figure quite a lot in the next few pages. When we were children, Mother’s Uncle Henry (Grandmas brother) was living with his Cornish wife in the Constantine home in Carlton. He originally left home to sheep farm in New Zealand but when he came into property, being the eldest son, he came home, quite well to do on his own account – he had done well in New Zealand. Four sons and two daughters in the family – all older than me, being Mothers cousins. The daughter Frances lived at home and one son worked the farm. He was called Henry. The eldest boy Fred, married and living in Newcastle, emigrated to Canada when I was only a schoolgirl. Uncle Henry was quite an old man with a flowing ginger beard who used to often walk down the village as far as our house and sit and watch Mother baking. I think she was his favourite niece. When I came in from school he always wanted me to play the old Sankey hymn on our harmonium “Tell me the old, old story”. Called me a clever girl to do that for him.

In 1911, Uncle Henry’s youngest son Jack decided to emigrate to Canada. Mothers youngest brother Metcalf Harrison was in money difficulties at that time. Uncle Orlando left him the butchers business but Uncle Met did not do well at all, no head for business and no good at getting money owing to him – too easygoing by far, Mother used to say. He was married but no children. Anyway, Jack and him talked it over and both sailed for the prairies in Canada plus Aunt Ruth, Uncle Mets wife. When they got there Jack naturally had his brother Fred to stay with. Uncle Met soon got work on the big railway going across West and a house in the township of Lashburn. Jack like his brother took over 160 acres of uncultivated land, built a tiny shack and that is where we leave them for the time being.

I was in my teens, if I walked out with any boy or went to a Dance with one, dear Uncle Jack nearly always heard about it, soon called to see Mother – “Do you know who she was out with last night?” Yes, the reply – leave her alone. Poor Uncle Jack, he little knew, nor did any of us, what fate had in store for us.

The Ladies Committee helped by the vicar’s wife and the schoolmaster continued getting up Concerts and Dances even alter the war ended to make money for various funds that needed help, we all enjoyed it, so little to do in remote villages in our evenings.

In the same year as Uncle Met and Jack emigrated, a certain young man in London, Howard Allen Grand, was very discontented. A friend of his parents, Victor Pightling had gone to Western Canada the year previous. At his suggestion Howard should go out and be a partner with him and try farming. I think the said Victor wanted a helper, to leave him free to read his books. Fred and Jack Constantines sections of land were very close to Victor Pightlings land with Howard Grand there, same age as Cousin Jack, the two young men soon became very great friends. Howard left his work on Pightlings land. He and Jack acquired some more land joined on to Jacks, thus starting a very good partnership. Howard, a very apt pupil. Jack of course had been brought up to farm, they were so lucky too, two or three years very good wheat crops. In the winter the pair of them made a lot of money hauling timber from 20 miles or so away. One load took the whole day, they also helped to build a new school with the timber they hauled. In 1916 both Jack and Howard were in Lloydminster on business when they were accosted by a recruiting sergeant. The war between Germany and the old Country was at its bitterest. Canadian troops badly needed. I think one of us should go said Jack, if you go, so do I, said Howard, so, without more ado they enlisted there and then.

It took a few weeks to leave all they had in safe keeping to return to when the war ended. An English farmer by the name of Tom Franks who lived with his wife and two young children in the same area rented land and I think the implements and horses were sold as well. Those two young men were soon in a Canadian Regiment and after only a few weeks were drafted to England. A ship packed tight with soldiers and a perilous journey because of enemy U boats. Landed them in England, in an Army Camp, only for a short while, then across to France, almost at once right in the fighting line. After three weeks in waterlogged trenches, Howard was taken ill, had to be put in an army hospital. At the base, where he gradually got worse and was drafted back to an army hospital in Birmingham. He was there for some weeks before his condition improved, the disease he had contracted was nephritis brought on by the conditions in those wet trenches. When he recovered he was given sick leave to go and visit his parents and family in London, then back on a Canadian troop ship to Canada. After a certain time he was demobbed, a very sad return because while he was in hospital in England Jack had been killed while fighting the Germans. When he got back to the old homestead he had no other option but to sell the rented land which belonged equally to him and Jack, also moneys in the Canadian bank from rents had to be taken into account. Howard could not think of farming on his own at that period. The best thing to do was to get all Jacks share of everything legally settled and for Howard to return to England and visit Jacks home in Carlton and meet Aunt Constantine (Uncle Henry had passed away), Henry and Frances and give them Jacks share and tell them all details.

It was Howards first visit to Yorkshire. He quite enjoyed being with Henry and getting an insight into a very different kind of farming to what Jack and he had on 320 acres. His stay was only two weeks, naturally all the village knew there was a stranger at the Constantines. During that visit, the Ladies Committee put on a Concert in the Village Hall, for a small community, we really did them quite well. In that particular concert, I was the nagging wife in a sketch with a timid husband. In the audience was Frances and Howard, somewhere to bring him I expect for light entertainment. Here is where fate came in with a bump. Who is the girl taking the part of the wife asked Howard? Frances replied, a relative of ours, her mother is my cousin. I would like to meet her, said Howard. So after the show was over, Frances brought him to our home to meet Mother and myself. He called to see us the next day, had a meal with us, and asked me to have a walk out. I liked him very much and saw him off at Leyburn station to return to his London home with the promise that we would like to write to each other. Where, of where, was Uncle Jack, not a whisper out of him about my latest escapade, he was sure to know all about it, he was often with Henry on the farm, so would meet Howard. I guess he thought, he is gone, and to his mind London hundreds of miles away. Little did he know. Letters passed between Howard and myself.

He was still a very unsettled young man, what with only a short time of prosperity with Jack, then his own sick experience and the terrible loss of his friend, and he did not fancy a cooped in life in a London office. He decided once again to return to Canada. l spent one week with Howard and his family before he left home again, promising to go to him in the near future. He very quickly got a good post in the Regina Government Buildings, his salary was a very big one and he was living with an English family as a boarder. His eldest sister was also in Canada but at that time out of a post, she was a clever stenographer.

The outdoor life still lured Howard, when he heard that Tom Franks and family wanted someone to look after his farm while he and his wife and children spent a winter in England, Howard offered to go, his sister Edie was engaged to be housekeeper and Howard to look after the stock and all the outdoor chores. I think brother and sister had quite a nice winter, quite a lot of social life in the evenings out in those wild open spaces. Surprise parties, dances in the schoolroom, maybe a few miles apart but a horse and sleigh got people around. The Franks returned in the spring ready for the sowing of the crops. They were not home long before there was trouble. Edie soon left and went back to North Battleford and back to an office post. Howard tried working for Tom Franks, he needed a good man, but he was a bully and brute to work for, it must have been terrible for Howard to be working on some of the land that once belonged to Jack and him. Tom Franks was the one who bought their sections. He was one of the pioneer farmers who really made a fortune during those war years. Not that he could have enlisted, a wife and two children excused him from the war. A sad note here. he lost his life swimming in one of the lakes.

I feel I have rather put down in very scanty detail the week I spent with Howard and his people before he returned to Canada. It was a wonderful week. I very frequently went to Leeds to stay with one of Father’s sisters, my favourite Aunt and her family but to go to London was very exciting. Howard met me at Kings Cross one Friday, then by train to Hither Green, the suburb where his home was. His father and Mother made me very welcome and I liked his sisters too, all about my age. The Saturday, Howard took me to meet other relatives and generally seeing around Hither Green. Sunday we went to a Sunday Concert in the afternoon and friends in for supper and a musical evening. Monday Howard look me to various noted places. St. Pauls with the Whispering Gallery, the Embankment and the wonderful Thames, anyway three days we spent doing sights, meals out during the day and returning to Hither Green, tired out every evening. Howard said he saw more of wonderful London than ever before, it was very hot sunny weather. Buckingham Palace, Westminster Cathedral and Abbey, Houses of Parliament all gave me a great thrill. Thursday spent quietly around his home and left on Friday morning. Howard seeing me off at Kings Cross arranging to write to each other weekly, when Howard had got something settled as regards a home and a settled job, I was going to join him out in Canada and marry him, with no thoughts other but what it was what we wanted.

Mother and I carried on as usual. Howard’s letters to look forward to. He left Tom Franks and worked for another farmer in the vicinity a Mr W Hume, he originally came from Prince Edward Island, a very good farmer indeed, his wife was Lancashire born. She had worked outside clearing the virginland in the early days of their married life, just like a man, but she was a good motherly woman and made a real comfortable home for Howard, they had no family of their own, with good horses and up to date tractors and other machinery it was a good farm. The weeks went by, Billy Hume was in Howard’s confidence about his hopes to have something worth while for me to join him and have a home of our own and something to maintain it. The outcome, Billy Hume offered Howard a section of his land on which was their first home, they had had another larger house built, he would rent the land to Howard for one year, at the end of that year the Soldiers Settlement Board would buy it on conditions the money was repaid in 20 years. It took a few weeks and many letters back and forth but it was finally arranged that I would go out to Howard and have this land and house on a years trial. It was the summer of 1921 when these decisions were being made. In August of that year Howard’s Mother and youngest sister had two weeks holiday with Mother and I at Carlton, they had never visited Yorkshire before. It happened to be lovely weather, they really enjoyed the moors and small streams. Spent a lot of that fortnight out of doors with visits to our various relations and friends. Mother liked them, and was assured, that although she was going to loose me, Howard’s family were just right. March 1922 was best time that Howard could arrange for me to go out to him. The worst of winter would be over and the busy, short season would be starting.

The news that I was going to leave the village soon went round. A farmer’s wife who lived at Lilac House next door to us, came in to chat about it, said I could have had any lad out of the dale. I wonder. She had five boys herself, one of them had been conducting a very quiet courtship, he used to come most days to the shop for his cigarettes, if fine he used to just come to the wall top around our small front garden and shout “Packet of Cigs, Betty”, why Betty, I never queried, until he heard the news – then – “Packet of Cigs, Miss Read. I’m not calling you Betty any more”. Very soon dear Uncle Jack called in. He was in a state. Red in the face, ginger hair all awry. Mother must surely have taken leave of her senses, as for me, I would never get there on my own let alone ever come back. He quite forgot that Uncle Met and Aunt Ruth were out there, also his cousin Fred Constantine and family. I think Uncle Jack must have had some regard for me but never showed it.

Mother and I had quite a lot of preparations. Pillow cases and other useful household linen, Mother made on the sewing machine, tea towels anything that would pack the best to travel all those miles. As the few months flew by I had two journeys to Leeds to buy clothes. Aunt Amelia was such a help. She was a dressmaker by trade and knew the best shops. She helped me choose my wedding dress, a quiet useful one, as there would not be a family affair. I didn’t care. A cream silk ordinary afternoon dress with dark red velvet belt and trimmings was the choice. The two Aunties in Leeds (father’s sisters) sorry to say good-by to me. I was a bit heartbroken too, they had been so good to us all the years.

I’m sure Howard was busier than me, the old home of the Humes to make ship shape. Mrs Hume helped, furniture, kitchen utensils had to he bought through mail catalogues. When it came nearer the time, a cousin of mine who worked in a shipping office in Leeds, got me a berth on the Metagama sailing from Liverpool to St John’s early March, 1922. There were a few functions during the winter which were turned into a social goodbye to me and a presentation from each of these for my help in the previous years. It was good to be thought of in such a way. Miss Jopling and my sister Alice had left the dale and gone to live in Liverpool where Miss Joplings old home was. It was understood that when I left home Alice would come to live with Mother and help in the shop. It was a comfort to me that Mother was not going to be left alone. I doubt if I could ever have thought of going to Canada otherwise. So, a few weeks before I left, Alice was back home, and Bert and Frank still working on farms in the dale. I think the last Sunday at the evening service was one of my worst ordeals. A lot of people in Church. Miss Round, the teacher and organist had been ill a lot of the winter, one of the schoolmasters daughters and myself had taken it in turns to play the organ on Sunday evenings but not for me that evening. I was glad when all the good-byes were said. Mother and Alice stayed at home.

All the heavy luggage had gone to Liverpool earlier. I left one Friday morning on the market bus to get a train at Leyburn Station. Mrs Barker the schoolmasters wife was going to see me away. Mother and Alice best left at home. A niece of Mothers lived at Hellifield a nice stopping place for Liverpool. I spent the night there, on the Saturday morning she went with me to Liverpool. Miss Jopling also met me there, who took on the responsibility of seeing me safely aboard. We had a meal out and Miss Jopling showed me St George’s Hall, then it was time to go on the ship. She got chatting with a mother and two children who were going as far as Winnipeg, also saw my cabin and the other young lady who would be sharing it with me, a double birth cabin. After that said goodbye to her. She had been kind. She was going to write to Mother and Alice to say that all was well. She had done all she could.

My pen has written quicker than my brain, so before I really set sail I must record the fact that a few years after I left Carlton School, our very nice schoolmaster emigrated to Canada with his wife and two children, when he heard that I was going out there he wrote and said he and Mrs Cole would meet me at Winnipeg station, the city they were living in. Another co-incidence, the same day as I left Carlton one of our neighbour’s sons emigrated to New Zealand, two young people out of our village gone, and in those days travel not like it is now and in many people’s minds it was Goodbye. However, I am on the ship and feeling very strange.

We sailed Saturday evening. I enjoyed the meals and was not sea-sick, apart from walks up and down the deck or sitting quietly with a book, it was all uneventful. We docked at St John’s the following Sunday evening, being winter time, no boats down the St Lawrence. Mother had given me a small bottle of whisky in case I was sea-sick, I threw it overboard before I got off in case I got into trouble with the Customs and Excise. I was teased about that later on.

It was a lovely sunny Sunday evening. Church bells ringing when we got of the boat and onto a train for a five day journey to Saskatoon. Howard was meeting me there. All my meals and sleeping berth were all taken care of when both boat and train travel were booked and paid for in England. The train journey was a bit monotonous except for seeing Lake Superior, it was mostly miles and miles of prairie with farmhouses dotted about all still in the grip of winter. Quaint Indian settlements at some of the small stations we stopped at.

We had to change trains at Winnipeg with two or three hours to wait. It was nice to see Mr and Mrs Cole on the platform to meet me. There was not time to take me to their home, a meal at a café near the station and little enough time to tell them all the Carlton news, old scholars that they had taught, how are the parents? a hundred and one questions, then goodbye. It was so lovely to see them. We arrived at Saskatoon on the Friday afternoon. Howard was there as promised – supposing he had

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I think property buying is worth a mention. Our nice house, St Elmo, was for sale, we had not quite enough saved up so had to borrow a little from Mother. 1936 the year, the price £670. We were glad to own it and in the space of one year we paid back the £200 borrowed. Also round about that time Mother’s house and shop in Carlton was for sale. After never seeing her landlord away in the Isle of Man, he died. A solicitors letter offering Mother the chance to buy it for £200. She had only paid £4 yearly rental all the years so was pleased to purchase it for that sum.

The terrible war years seemed to pass very pleasantly and happily for us. Somehow rations not too hard. Often quite a lot of black-market food to be got hold of. Our social life too was enhanced with Sheila and her numerous boy friends, one after another, soldier or airmen she kept bringing round for a sing-song and a bit of supper. One in particular was a great favourite with us all. A young French Canadian from Leeming Aerodrome, soon made himself at home with us, he was such a talker but not a bore, always laughing. We got very fond of him. He used to take Sheila out – dances or pictures. She loved life. He was Roman Catholic and had left a French Canadian girl friend back in Montreal. Made us laugh when he told us he had a letter from Theresa in answer to one of his in which he made cold hands his excuse for not writing. “Cold Heart you mean” was her reply. When he went back to Canada and thanked me for looking after him he said – my sister back home always writes that she would give her shirt to anyone good to her brother Theo. He soon married Theresa after he got home again but kept in touch with us each Christmas.

In the early 1930s, my brother Bert married. He rented a small farm, over a period of some years, he had ten children, they moved to a larger farm but very soon after that his wife died. The youngest child 10 years old, one of the older girls took her Mothers place. Since then over the years each one of those ten married with homes of their own. Brother Frank married too, he had two children, a boy and a girl all doing well for themselves. Alice never married, the little shop and Mother to help was her life. Mother was always glad that the boys married and got homes of their own. Sheila married a Northallerton boy after the war and three years later Madeline married a school boy friend. Both girls lived not very far away from St. Elmo so we did not feel we had lost them completely. When we got grandchildren – a great source of interest and then brought love into our lives.

Mother died in 1950 – 86 years old – with all her ups and downs she lived a serene tranquil life – no quarrels with anyone or anything. We all missed her.

During those years we were quietly saving up for a project dear to Howard’s heart. When he retired he wanted us both to have a long holiday in Canada, visit all the friends out West that we had kept in touch with, see our old shack, also Toronto where Edie lived with Archie, her husband and daughter Shirley. They had been on frequent holidays to England to visit all the relations and we knew there was a great welcome there for us so that was our aim. In 1953, another set back, Howard had a very sudden recurrence of his old tummy trouble. After being so well for thirty years it was a great shock – another operation. When he was on the way to recovery once more we had a big decision to make. He was only two years off 65 years old when he was going to retire from Pearl. We came to the conclusion that it was better for him not to start there again. He had left that office in his usual good way (and got great praise for it). It seemed best to let the ones who had done the work during those months carry on, so he retired on a pension. He kept his voluntary payments up to enable him to

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