The Wood Beyond

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My name is Peter Pascoe.

I were born on Swithins Day in the year 1892 — a ten month babby giving my mam great pain which when she complained of they said was no wonder as shed given birth to a giant with his head already hard as any rock — which is why she called me Peter — knowing her Bible well though no other book.

My mother had been Mrs Grindals maid up at the Maisterhouse — but on getting pregnant and marrying she had to leave of course and settled down in № 13 Miter Lane which is where I were born.

My father were a charge hand at Grindals Mill. He was I think a good man though fond of drink — which they pointed to when he had his accident — the crowner saying no blame attached to the overseers or manager. I were five years old then — old enough to hear talk of compensation though not to understand what it might mean — and when I asked I were told it meant starving or not starving. I recall asking my mam if we were to starve and she said she hoped God would provide — and next day we heard that Mrs Grindal had given birth to a son and Mr Grindal was sending her out to the big new house hed built in the mid county for the better air — and mam were sent for to go with her as nursemaid. I think they did not want me to go too but my mother said she could not leave me behind and then they said I could go — which all the men said was because of this compensation and some tried to persuade my mother not to go — but I was glad when she said she would go as I did not care to starve.

The new house was called Wanwood and I lived in the coachhouse with the grooms while my mother stayed in the nursery to be close to the babby. He were a poor mewling thing she said — many times in the first months they feared for his life — and I think none feared as much as I since the grooms told me if he did die then my mother and I must go back to Kirkton where wed surely starve.

I prayed hard to save his life but knew I were really praying to save my own so did not know if this would count. Then Mrs Grindals brother Mr Sam Batty came to stay — who they said was a very great man of science with knowledge of all kinds of potions and ointments — and he quarrelled with the doctor — who walked off saying that if owt happened to the boy they knew where to lay the blame — but nothing did happen and in a sennight the lad were putting on weight and colour — whether in thanks to my prayers or Mr Sams powders or even the old doctors medicines I did not know or much care. All I cared was I could stay at Wanwood and see my mother at least once every day and have a good meal twice as often.

I got a start at education too for they made me walk five miles to the village school each day — my fellow pupils did not make me welcome being nothing but a stupid townie in their eyes but six years growing in Kirkton had taught me to look out for myself and when they saw I could bite they soon learned to leave me be.

So here I lived happily for five or six years — till such time as I was told it was time for me to earn my living which I might do as boy of all work in the household — and so training up to footman or some such — or I could be set on at the mill in Kirkton.

I asked my mother what I should choose — expecting she would be warm for the household — but she surprised me saying it was an ill life always at her mistress whim and depending on her moods — and specially so for a man who must find it hard work winning a mans respect as a servant.

I was young but not so young as not to know this must have been hard for her to say — Wanwood being more than thirty miles from Kirkton where indeed they still kept up the Maisterhouse but Mrs Grindal rarely went there these days dividing her time between Wanwood and the London house they had bought and a house they leased by the sea near a place called Cromer which was where the fashionable people went. These last two I never visited staying behind under the care of the housekeeper at Wanwood — which truth to tell was no care at all — so though I missed my mother it was small pain otherwise to be left behind — my own master to roam at will.

This being used to being left alone added to what my mother said made me resolve to work at the mill — two days later I travelled to Kirkton in the coach with Mr Grindal himself who spent most of his time at the Maisterhouse — in those days he seemed a giant with brows like a ploughed field that used to turn black when he lost his temper which was quick and terrible. But he spoke kindly to me on the journey seeming surprised at my choice but pleased too — saying that I was a sharp lad and if I kept my nose clean there was no reason I shouldnt prosper.

But oh I had no reason to think of prospering during those first months at the mill where my main job was to crawl beneath the machines as they were working and sweep up the waste — I cannot think of anything worse than the noise and the close air and the terrible fear in my young heart that I underwent in those first endless days when you may imagine scarce a moment passed that I did not bitterly regret my choice to leave the safe servitude of Wanwood. Whatever life may bring me I shall never forget those long long seemingly endless hours of hopeless terror that filled my daily existence and my nightly dreams..

But what cant be cured must be endured and a man is a rare adaptable creature particularly a young one — and eventually what seemed at first but meaningless or even malevolent chaos came to have some shape and order — and I began to feel that mebbe after all I had some control.

I was lodged at my uncle Georges house — that is my fathers younger brother whose wife my aunt Sara was worn out with having had seven children — but only one surviving — my cousin Stephen who was two years younger than me — but such a weeny lad he might have been five.

At first Stephen did not care to have an older boy above him — for though he was the son of the house with lads it is always size and strength that sets the order — but I think that when he saw how lonely and unhappy I was in those first days he made up his mind I werent no threat and one evening on my way home from the mill I came on some bigger boys tormenting him and I gave one such a buffet on the nose I think it may have been broke — and the others ran off with him — and after that I could do no wrong in Stephens eyes.

Uncle George was the timekeeper at the mill — he was very bitter about the manner of my father's death but dare not say overmuch because he feared to lose what was regarded as a good and easy post.

But there were others who spoke more boldly — Union men — not just about my father which was old business — but about conditions and pay and such things — Mr Grindal hated unions and would not have employed any man who came to him openly saying he was a member — but the Union men knowing this had worked secretly at their recruitment till by the time he became aware of them they were far too many to be dismissed without bringing the whole mill to a standstill — and with it perhaps many others in the area which would not have won him much thanks from the other owners.

Uncle George despite him being so bitter about his brothers death was no lover of the Union which he said had done precious little in the matter of compensation — he warned me about getting mixed up with them — saying that he reckoned Mr Grindal had his eye on me for advancement — but Id not get far if he thought I were mixed up with the Union men. Being still a boy and working only a boys hours and earning a boys pay I was not able yet for full membership — so I cunningly gave the Union men the impression I would join when I got of age and Uncle George the impression that I was keeping them at arms length — and so I contrived to live at ease with everyone during those early years.

I knew Alice Clark right from the start of living back in Kirkton. I mean I knew she existed — one of two sisters living two doors up from Uncle Georges — but she were Stephens age — nobbut a child — so I paid her no more heed than I did the coalmans horse that I saw as often and admired a lot more. It werent till I were near on eighteen and shed been working at the mill herself for more than a year that I started taking notice. She were filling out nicely and had such a way of walking — as if she were by herself strolling under the trees by the river rather than passing down the aisle between them rattling machines — that I found myself going out of my way just for the pleasure of looking at her. From looking it were a short step to talking — nothing out of the way — just a few words if we met on the way to the mill or on leaving it — which we seemed to do more and more often that summer. It were a long way off courting — I still told myself she were only a child — and I had no thought that anyone would have noticed my interest — in fact I dont think I really understood it myself — I mean I were interested in girls and had been for the past two years or so — but little Alice didnt belong in the same class as the big bosomed wicked tongued women us growing lads lusted after.

It were Stephen who got things started without meaning it. We were sitting eating our bait one day when he said slyly — There goes thy light o love our Peter. I looked up and saw Alice walking with some other lasses quite close. I felt myself blush a bit — without knowing why — and I said — Now stop thy laking — I dont know what tha means.

It were likely my awkwardness that made some of the others laugh — and one of them — a big solid brute of a fellow called Archie Doyle — with a reputation for beating his wife — said — Tell us then young Pascoe hasta shagged her yet?

Now a silence fell — not because any of them were shocked — this kind of question passes for wit in a mill — but to see how I would take it. If you let yourself get angered — then thas done forever — fair game for any who want to get a rise. I took my time — chewing on a crust of bread — then I said — Whysta want to know Archie? Ist so long since tha did it thasel — thas forgotten how?

That got them laughing — all but Doyle who jumped to his feet and came towards me fists clenched. Id seen him in action and I knew what he could do — I jumped up too thinking of running — but I knew I couldnt run forever and hed always be looking for me. So I grabbed up a length of four by two lying around for use in wedging the machine gate open — and I held it before me like a club — and I said — Listen Archie — I’ll put up wi thy filthy tongue cos tha knows no better. But if ever tha lays a finger on me I’ll split thy skull wide open so help me God.

He stopped in his tracks but I could see he wasnt going to back down not unless he had a way out — and he were too thick to think of one — and I was wrought too tight to give him one — then one of the others — Tommy Mather one of the Union men — said — No need to get thy dander up Pete. Archie ud never have spoke like he did if hed known tha was really courting the lass — would you Archie? — and Doyle said — No. How was I to know? — and I said — Thats all right then. Just then the hooter went and as we went back to work Mather said to me — Best start making up to the girl for the next week or so at least young Pascoe — just till Archie gets used to the idea.

I didnt answer but I found myself thinking about it all through the shift. The truth was — and Im almost ashamed to write it — that Doyles foul minded question had got me thinking about Alice not as a growing child but as a grown woman. Its funny the way God twists things — turning bad to good and sometimes so it seems good to bad.

So thats how I started courting Alice and she told me later to my surprise that shed been waiting ever so long for me to ask and had almost begun to fear I never would!

We were in no rush to get wed — partly because we wanted something behind us — and partly because so sure were we of each other neither felt the need to tie us together with church knots. As for those strong fleshly urgings which some women use to lead a resisting man to the altar — so alike were we in this that soon we were giving and taking gladly — confident that what we did was holy without need of parson preaching his solemn words.

Another reason was that I was getting on so well in the job. Id long moved on from being a crawling boy and rapidly moved up through most of the jobs on the machines — too rapid for some like Archie Doyle who started sneering at me as the bosses pet. In the end I did what I mebbe shouldve done that first time and told him to put up or shut up — and when he put up I split his head open. He still got one or two blows in and gave me a cracked rib or two but there was no doubting the result and after that no one said owt about my rapid advance. In fact Doyle suffered unjustly — though not before time — because I knew in my heart that it werent no peculiar merit that was getting me on — though I quickly mastered everything I turned my hand to — but Mr Grindals special interest.

By this time the Union men had just about given up on me — not that I argued against them but rather I twisted and turned and ducked and dodged — knowing as I did that my progress would hit a brick wall if ever Mr Grindal got it in his head I was mixed up with them. Sometimes I talked of this with Alice whose father was hot for the Union — she played the submissive maidens part saying it were mens business and beyond her — but there was nowt submissive about her when her dad told her that no bosses man was going to marry his daughter — whereupon she told him that no Union man was going to tell her who she could wed or not!

For all that he might have been an obstacle to us till she came of age — which I had rather waited for than what did happen — which was an outbreak of typhoid fever in Kirkton that carried several off including Mr Clark among the first. Alice too was touched and I feared for her life but when I told Mr Grindal of this — who till now I had kept dark about my hopes for marriage not knowing how he might view them — he immediately got his brother in law Mr Sam Batty to consult with her doctor. Mr Sam was now quite famous for his patent ointments and stomach draughts which he would probably have given away for free if Mr Grindal had not set him up in works on a piece of land he owned just over the river from the mill. I have heard Mr Grindal say his brother in law knew more about the workings of the human system than any doctor in England but less about the workings of the capital system than any grocer in Leeds. I know not what he prescribed or said but do know that under his advice Alice quickly recovered — for which I am more grateful to him than any man living.

So now with no father to object and with Mr Grindals approval — for once he met Alice he could see for himself that she was apt to make a wife and helpmeet fit for any man — we had the banns called and married in the spring of 1911 — and the following year little Ada was born.

By now I was off the mill floor and into the counting house — a proper clerk with good prospects and enough money coming in to keep his wife and family properly — I even bought a piano because Alice hoped that Ada would turn out musical — and to my surprise I found that I was gifted that way myself — never before having any chance to discover this — and in no time I was able to pick out the ragtime tunes which were all the rage.

Mr Grindals trust in me grew daily — and when he decided that his son young Bertie should spend his summer holiday emptying his head of all the fancy notions he was picking up from his mother and his expensive school it was to my care that he entrusted him.

He was a good looking boy in a rather girlish way with long soft light brown hair — which when he was advised to take care of it catching in the machines he tied back with a red silk kerchief — after which everyone called him Gertie though never in Mr Grindals earshot.

He said he recalled me from when he was a baby and he talked of my mother most affectionately — whom I had not seen for more than a twelvemonth. She had been taken ill while the family were in the house at Cromer and remained there when they moved on — unable even to travel to see her grandchild. I had accepted reassurance that it was a slight and temporary illness but from some hints that young Gertie carelessly let drop I began to fear it might be something much worse — but to my shame I did nowt about it. This apart there was little to trouble my life — and when Mr Grindal recommended that I should go to the Institute to take courses in book keeping and generally improve myself I looked into the future — working for the best of firms in the best of countries — and saw nothing but peace and prosperity on the horizon.

Mr Cartwright asked me last night how my autobiography was going on — I answered pretty well — though in truth I have neglected it for many months now — and he asked if he might see it when I felt it was ready — I said there was a long way to go — but what I meant was I do not think I will let him or anyone see it — save it be Alice and one day our little Ada.

Mr Cartwright told me that Mr Philip Snowden the Member of Parliament was coming to speak at the Institute tomorrow and said I might be interested to hear what he had to say. I have read about him in the newspapers. Also I have heard Mr Grindal speak of him — he thinks he is a disgrace to Yorkshire and to England and ought to be hanged! So perhaps I will go — but well muffled up against discovery.

Its many weeks since I wrote and much has happened — my mother is dead, thats the worst and the saddest thing — and they say there is to be a war but no one is sure when.

I went to hear Mr Snowden that night and I came away with my head reeling with ideas. Id listened in the past to our Union men talking of course — and also to the likes of Mr Cartwright at the Institute — but all they had to say seemed so local and domestic and concerned with battling against bosses who didn't have the interests of their workers at heart like Mr Grindal did — or so I thought he did.

Mr Snowden wasnt just talking about Leeds but — he was talking about the whole of the world and what it meant to be a working man wherever you were. I were bursting to tell Alice all Id heard and she listened — sometimes nodding — sometimes frowning — and when Id done she said it all sounded grand but Id best not to go sounding off round the mill next day — which was good advice except that it turned out that somehow Mr Grindal knew Id been at the meeting — I can only guess that there were police spies there and one of them knew my face — and he asked me straight out what did I think? Shouldnt this man Snowden be transported to Germany where all the other enemies of the King were concentrated? I said I had not heard anything that sounded like treason to me and did he care to look at a new scheme I had devised for the more efficient billing of creditors? This distracted him and soon after he had to go away on business — now I took the chance of talking to Tommy Mather who I guessed would have been at the meeting too — though I had not seen him. I was right — and we had a good talk about what had been said — so good that it could not be finished on the mill floor in view of everyone — so we met later to continue.

This was the first of many talks I had with Tommy — real talks these — not me half listening to his recruiting propaganda as our exchanges had mostly been in the past.

By the time Mr Grindal came back from London a week later I was a paid up member of the Union.

When Mr Grindal came into the counting house and asked me to step into his office he looked so grave of face that my heart fell — thinking as I did that he had heard the news and was going to sack me — now here would be a chance to test this solidarity of my new comrades I had heard so much about — instead he told me that Mrs Grindal had had news from Cromer that my mother was much worse and asking to see me.

He gave me leave to go at once — I had never travelled so far on the train before nor wish to do so again — though I must admit it were a grand sight to see the sea all sparkling mile after mile under a sky as blue as a painted ceiling.

I found my mother on point of death alone and uncared for — oh there was a housekeeper there to see to her needs — but she was a strange close unwelcoming creature providing as much in the way of company as a splintery yard brush. As for care and tender loving kindness — I dont doubt she was fed regularly and the doctor called to attend when she seemed worse — but thats no more than youd give to a sick animal.

How long has she been like this? I asked — More than a week — And how long since you let your mistress know in London? — The same.

So Mrs Grindal had known my mothers state well before her husbands trip yet made no attempt to tell me — And he had known of it from the start of his visit — yet waited till his return to pass it on. But both would think they had treated her well — almost as one of the family.

This was the sad heart of service which my mother had warned me away from — work should be defined by a wage contract not by the patronage of the employer. Guilt fanned my anger. I should have paid more heed — asked more questions. I sat by her bedside holding her cold hand — the doctor came — shook his head — and left

— I sat with her five hours — she gave a little sigh — I thought the life had gone out of her and squeezed her hand to bring it back — too hard for she grimaced with pain and said — Getting bearing leaving — you always were a painful child — then she was gone.

So that was it — a strange life she led — looking after others children — not looking after or being looked after by her own — till we parted at last knowing as little as we knew about each other when I first went to Kirkton to set on at the mill.

I had stopped being angry when I travelled back home or at least Id stopped showing it — anger is a good fuel but a wasteful flame — but I knew now where my loyalties lay.

Back in Kirkton I found Mr Grindal in a mood which was almost frenzied — the war was coming he said and we must be ready for it — he made it sound like patriotic zeal but I overheard him say to his brother in law one night when he thought they were alone in the office — It may last only a matter of months and unless were in at the start it will be too late to reap the full benefit — this sounded more like profiteering than patriotism to me.

He was spending more and more time energy and money on developing Mr Sams medicine works and had already started converting part of the mill to machines for the production of bandages and dressings. I asked him if it was wise to rush into such a limited market which would require injuries on an unimaginable scale to make it worthwhile — he laughed and said I should forget about the horsemen Id seen with their bright sabres exercising on Ilkley Moor — he had been in Germany the previous year and seen the German army at its exercise — this was going to be a war fought not with horses and lances but with machine guns each worth a whole rifle Companys fire power — with artillery that could throw shells twenty miles — with bombs and mines that could blow a hole in the ground big enough to sink a church in.

I spoke with Tommy Mather and told him that it seemed to me to be wrong that a workers union should be engaged in preparing in any way for a war which must involve our comrades killing and being killed by men just like us in foreign countries. He said that with no unemployed men left in Kirkton and no love of the Germans in Yorkshire he doubted such a view would get much support but hed call a meeting anyway as the members ought to know what was going on.

He was right — Archie Doyle got the biggest cheer when he said — Likely there wont be a war so lets make hay while the sun shines — and if by chance there were a war he for one wouldnt mind seeing a bit of these furren parts everyone said were so grand — and knocking a couple of Germans on the head while he was there.

When I spoke there was silence except for one voice — probably Doyles — which called — Dost Mr Grindal know thas out by thysen lad? — which got the biggest laugh of the meeting.

Mr Grindal werent laughing when I saw him next day — He said — What the hell do you think youre playing at? Ive fetched you up from nowt and here you are acting like some socialist agitator with a chip on his shoulder.

I might have known hed have his ears even at a Union meeting.

I tried to explain but he was in no mood to listen — all he said was — Well Im glad the rest have got more sense — They soon gave you your answer — And I said — Aye and theyll likely give you yours — all the working men of this country — if you really do get your war. You'll need men to fight it and you wont find them in the unions that I can tell you.

It were stupid to say that really — temper talking which is a sad waste of good breath.

He said — Suppose youre wrong Pascoe — suppose there is a war and your mates show more stomach for a fight than you do? What'll you do then? Sit at home and complain about it?

And I said — If the Labour Movement doesn't oppose the war and lets its members go to fight then never worry — I wont let my mates go off alone.

It was a proud boastful sort of thing to say — but it was true as well — I was no pacifist opposed to all wars — if there was just cause I saw nothing wrong in fighting and much in not fighting — so if everyone else voted me in the wrong Id not stand against that — Id go.

I expected Mr Grindal to keep on yelling at me but what I said seemed to put him in a better mood — all he did was smile and say — I’ll not let thee forget you said that Pascoe. Now lets get some work done.

And I think that was the very first moment I truly believed that there would be a war.