Free The Urchin's Song by Rita Bradshaw Page B

much bigger and noisier than in Sunderland.
    Still a little dazed by the train journey and the fact that it had taken such a short time to be transported into this strange world, the girls followed Vera past a cathedral on their left and into a wider street which seemed full of inns and hotels. After crossing what seemed like hundreds of different streets but in reality was only three or four, Vera said, ‘This is the bottom of Bath Lane. Remember that if you get lost any time. An’ you keep followin’ it until you turn left into Seaham Street an’ then Spring Garden Lane off Pitt Street. There’s a fine big park, Leazes Park, in Castle Leazes just over the way from our Bett’s, an’ it’s right bonny, with a bandstand an’ fountain an’ all sorts. You’ll like that, won’t you, hinny?’
    This last was directed at Gertie, who was looking petrified at the mere thought of going astray in this massive, confusing labyrinth that was to be their new home.
    ‘Bett says the old castle’s down by the waterfront still,’ Vera went on, undeterred by Gertie’s silence. ‘Fancy that, eh? A castle in the middle of town. Mind, accordin’ to Prudence, our Bett’s stepdaughter who reads a bit, Newcastle has grown up around the castle. A wooden one, first of all apparently, an’ built by the son of William the Conqueror. An’ then, when it’d become an important port an’ trading centre, they built a wall right round the town an’ kept it all squashed up. It’s only been in the last hundred years or so that folk have moved outside the original walls, an’ Prudence would tell you that’s a good thing. Great one for change, is Prudence.’
    Vera gave a loud sniff at this point and Josie shot a quick glance at the older woman. She got the impression Vera wasn’t too keen on her sister’s stepdaughter.
    ‘ ’Course, all the new houses an’ such meant more jobs,’ Vera continued as, having turned into Seaham Street, she had to raise her voice above the noise from the colliery to their left. ‘You ask Frank, Bett’s husband, to tell you about the time his old grandda helped build Grey Street. Two hundred an’ fifty thousand cartloads of dirt it took to fill in the burn that ran through the town, an’ Frank’s grandda always maintained it was a cryin’ shame. Sweet as a nut, that water was, an’ now some streets don’t have no more than a couple of taps atween ’em. Now, where’s the sense in that, I ask you?’
    Josie and Gertie didn’t know where the sense was; they were both feeling they had little enough left of their own. But at least the gridwork of mean streets they were now walking in bore some resemblance to home and the familiarity was comforting.
    It was half a mile from the station to Spring Garden Lane, and it was beginning to snow heavily by the time the trio reached Vera’s sister’s two-up, two-down terraced house. It was identical to hundreds in the tight network of streets stretching west from the Gallowgate colliery, but vastly superior to the grotesque squalor of the slums down by the waterfront. In Sandhill, and Pipewellgate - situated on the other side of the gorge - it was not unusual for as many as ten families to live in one house, Vera informed the girls with a shake of her head, and the proximity of the slaughterhouses meant folk died like flies in hot weather.
    Betty’s house was towards the middle of the street, and on seeing it, Josie knew immediately Vera’s sister was not out of the same mould as her friend. The outside of the windows was filthy, the paintwork was flaking and dirty, and the step hadn’t seen a bath brick for years. She and Gertie glanced at each other but Vera had already opened the door, calling, ‘Yoo-hoo, Bett! It’s me, Vera,’ as she entered, gesturing for the girls to follow her into the house.
    ‘Ee, our Vera, as I live an’ die.’ A small and enormously fat woman appeared at the end of the hall, wiping her hands on the none-too-clean apron