A Sixpenny Christmas
Read A Sixpenny Christmas Online
Authors: Katie Flynn
Contents
About the Book
As the worst storm of the century sweeps through the mountains of Snowdonia and across the Mersey, torrential rain, thunder and lightning make a dramatic backdrop for two women, Molly and Ellen, who are giving birth to girls in a Liverpool Maternity Hospital.
Molly and Rhys Roberts farm sheep in Snowdonia and Ellen is married to a docker, Sam O’Mara, but despite their different backgrounds the two young women become firm friends, though Molly has a secret she can share with no one.
But despite promises Ellen’s husband continues to be violent, so she throws him out and years later, when Molly is taken to hospital after an accident, Ellen and her daughter Lana are free to help out.They approach this new life with enthusiasm, unaware that they are being watched, but on the very day of Molly’s release from hospital there is another terrible thunderstorm and the hidden watcher makes his move at last…
About the Author
Katie Flynn has lived for many years in the north-west. A compulsive writer, she started with short stories and articles and many of her early stories were broadcast on Radio Merseyside. She decided to write her Liverpool series after hearing the reminiscences of family members about life in the city in the early years of the twentieth century. For many years she has had to cope with ME, but has continued to write. She also writes as Judith Saxton.
Also by Katie Flynn
A Liverpool Lass The Girl from Penny Lane Liverpool Taffy The Mersey Girls Strawberry Fields Rainbow’s End
Rose of Tralee No Silver Spoon Polly’s Angel
The Girl from Seaforth Sands The Liverpool Rose Poor Little Rich Girl The Bad Penny
Down Daisy Street A Kiss and a Promise Two Penn’orth of Sky A Long and Lonely Road The Cuckoo Child Darkest Before Dawn Orphans of the Storm Little Girl Lost Beyond the Blue Hills Forgotten Dreams Sunshine and Shadows Such Sweet Sorrow A Mother’s Hope In Time for Christmas Heading Home
A Mistletoe Kiss The Lost Days of Summer Christmas Wishes The Runaway
Available by Katie Flynn writing as Judith Saxton
You Are My Sunshine First Love, Last Love We’ll Meet Again The Pride
The Glory
The Splendour
Full Circle
Sophie
Jenny Alone
Chasing Rainbows Family Feeling All My Fortunes A Family Affair Nobody’s Children This Royal Breed The Blue and Distant Hills Someone Special
A Sixpenny Christmas
Katie Flynn
For Jean and Sam Flavell, good friends whose holiday home enjoys a wonderful view of Snowdonia.
Acknowledgements
I am most grateful to Wyn Williams of Penrhyn Farm on Anglesey for checking, and in some cases unscrambling, information about sheep farming both in mountain and lowland country. I’ve tried very hard to follow his advice and get it right but when I have failed to do so, it is my fault and not Wyn’s.
For anyone who is interested in the joys and sorrows of life in the mountains of Snowdonia, Thomas Firbank’s brilliant book,
I Bought a Mountain
, is a must and I am most grateful for the information I found in it.
Dear Reader,
How does one choose a title? I thought it might interest you to know how I arrived at
A Sixpenny Christmas
.
Many years ago I was the youngest typist in a large typing pool attached to a drawing office in the Highways Department. I loved the work and my colleagues, but became rather anxious as Christmas approached since I was paid a salary so tiny that it barely covered my bus fare, lunches and other small expenses; how was I to buy presents not only for my family but also for my many friends in the department?
Then I was told about the sixpenny Christmas tub, and in later years, as I went from job to job, I realised that most of the big companies for whom I worked had one thing in common (apart from me that is!); they all ran a Christmas tub, which enabled everyone to receive a present without breaking the bank.
The system was simple; all us girls bought one present which, in the old days, was not supposed to exceed sixpence, though by the time I started work the sum had risen to half a crown. These were then wrapped and popped into the Christmas tub, and on Christmas Eve each girl rummaged around in the sixpenny tub, as we still called it in the Highways Department, and fished out a gift.
Of course there were snags. Some gifts appeared year after year, only in different wrapping paper, but mostly we girls stuck to the rules. Scented soap, small manicure sets, a tiny bottle of nail polish, even a new paperback book were all put in the Christmas tub, so when I was searching for a title for this book, and realised that Molly, before her marriage, had worked in a big typing pool, I remembered the sixpenny Christmas, because such a title tells the reader a lot in three words. In those days salaries for young girls were barely above subsistence level; for most of us it was a constant battle to keep our heads above water. A dinner in the canteen cost one and six; we were paid monthly so we had one dinner at the end of each month, otherwise it was four pennorth of chips, or one of the huge Jaffa oranges, which a market trader would sell you for sixpence. So the Christmas presents which we fished out of the tub were needed as well as eagerly anticipated.
Even when Molly and Rhys are living on their farm in the heart of Snowdonia, Christmas presents, though gratefully received, tended to be small and inexpensive. The bicycle for which Molly’s son longs was just an impossible dream.
So that’s how I got the title for this book!
All best wishes.
Katie Flynn
Chapter One
RHYS ROBERTS, LYING
in his lonely bed, heard the storm approaching, but thought little of it; storms in Snowdonia at this time of year were not uncommon, especially amidst the high peaks. They had enjoyed a mild but windy autumn at Cefn Farm, a cold but snow-free November, and now, with December well advanced and Christmas only a matter of days away, the muttering of distant thunder, and the snow – or hail – which he could hear tapping against the window pane, should have been expected.
Looking at the sky as he made his way up the stairs, Rhys had decided to put extra blankets on the bed, and now he reminded himself how much warmer he would have been had his dear Molly been beside him. She had been away for only three days but already the time seemed endless. He knew that as soon as the hospital had something to report they would notify him by telephoning the village post office; so far he had visited the post office three times every day, but without success. The maternity hospital was always busy but the staff were kind and realised that he was worried, and with good reason. Molly had had a bad time with their first child, little Chris, who lay in his bed in the slip of a room close by, slumbering peacefully, Rhys hoped. When Molly had felt her first pains she had been at Cefn Farm,
assuring Rhys that he was not to worry, that she and the nurse would soon have the child born. However, on that first occasion she had been in labour for three days and nights, for Chris’s had been what they called a cross-birth, and when it was discovered that she was expecting again Dr Llewellyn had advised that she should go to a proper maternity unit, with staff who could call on all the most modern equipment should Molly need help with the birthing of her second child.
Rhys put out a strong brown hand and felt under Molly’s pillow for the little wisp of nylon which had been her trousseau nightie. The touch of it comforted him, made him remember their first meeting. He had been a sergeant in the RAF, she a Waaf, secretary to a wing commander on a bomber station not far from Lincoln. They had met at a dance, fallen in love at first sight, and married a month later. Their wedding had been typical of the times; austerity and all that, Rhys thought now, cuddling the nightie. No wonderful white dress, no piles of presents, no honeymoon in Paris, or anywhere else; just two days in a bed and breakfast in the city and then back to work. They had managed to rent two rooms above a cycle shop near the Saracen’s Head, the public house most popular with the air crew stationed nearby, where they were idyllically happy until the war ended.
When Rhys and Molly were demobbed, things had moved fast. Rhys’s parents had both died a few years previously, leaving everything they possessed to their only son, and Molly had inherited her grandparents’ small flat and all their worldly goods, which was not saying a lot. But when they combined their assets they
found they had sufficient capital to take out a mortgage on a hill farm, which was the desire of Rhys’s heart, and after very little searching they had chanced upon Cefn Farm. It was not large, but it was not expensive, either, and the land was in good heart, the sheep fat with the good mountain grass, and the owners, both in their eighties, eager to give the young couple all the help and advice possible.
It was summer when they took possession and very soon they realised that a baby was on the way, so that their cup of happiness seemed full to overflowing. Rhys once remarked that Molly never stopped smiling, and this, they both knew, was because they were so happy. Hard work, small returns and the fear that they might make mistakes were all offset by the clean mountain air, the sweet silence after years of noise, and their very real affection for their livestock, their horses and their prick-eared, tongue-lolling Border collies, without whom they would, Rhys knew, have made many bad mistakes.
But it had been a hard labour, and this time Rhys had agreed with the doctor that his wife would be better in a proper maternity hospital, so a couple of days before the expected birth Molly had gone off to Liverpool, promising Rhys that she would ring the post office as soon as she had news to impart. She had taken with her a couple of sensible cotton nightgowns, some of Chris’s old baby clothes and a couple of farming magazines, and when Rhys had found her flimsy honeymoon nightie when tidying their room he had taken it to bed with him, enjoying the faint flowery smell of the talcum and soap she used, finding it a comfort.
The storm was getting closer, and a good deal louder.
Rhys half sat up, wondering whether he should go to Chris, tell him that the thunder posed no threat. But before he had done more than swing his legs out of bed there was a crack of thunder so intense that it sounded like a bomb exploding, and his little son appeared in the doorway, crying for his mummy.
Immediately, Rhys held out his arms and the little boy struggled into them, his own small arms curling round his father’s neck, his curly head butting Rhys beneath the chin. ‘I’m frighted; I shake,’ he muttered. ‘Where’s Mummy? I want Mummy!’
You aren’t the only one, Rhys thought, cuddling his son’s small body and dropping a kiss on the child’s damp curls. ‘Don’t you remember, old lad? Mummy’s gone to Liverpool to bring you home a little brother . . . or sister,’ he said, aware that Molly wanted a daughter though he would have preferred another son. Farmers need sons as fish need water and Rhys was no exception. However, Chris was only a baby still, probably didn’t know what a sister was, for the farm was remote and though Molly took him into the village a couple of times a month he was too young to play with other children or indeed to pay them any attention. He likes animals better than people, same as I did when I was a kid, Rhys told himself. The way he behaves when Molly is busy, staggering round after the sheepdogs as though he were a small pup himself, is enough to make a cat laugh. He reminds me of Mowgli, Rhys thought, remembering the boy who was brought up by wolves in Kipling’s
Jungle Book
.
Another tremendous crash of thunder brought with it a gust of wind so strong that the curtains were dashed to one side. As the vivid lightning flashes lit up the room
Rhys clutched the baby involuntarily, expecting that Chris would begin to cry once more, but this time Chris seemed rather more interested than afraid. He wriggled out of his father’s arms and ran over to the window. ‘Where doggies?’ he asked anxiously. ‘What made the big bang? Train? Car? Tractor?’