Bia's War (9 page)

“To the rest of the world, all
the houses belonged to Sam Lymer and the only person (apart from
Annie) who knew of my involvement was Mr Vine when he drew up the
contracts and I knew he wouldn’t break his professional silence and
reveal my joint ownership. I was adamant that no-one else would be
privy to my business secrets because I didn’t want anyone to think
that I was profiting from the fact that the country was at war. I
always kept very quiet about the extent of my little business
empire, even after the war had ended, because I didn’t feel that it
was anyone else’s concern. I’ve always been a very private
person.”

“Just how big did your ‘little
business empire’ become?” Victoria was amazed at the idea of this
tiny old lady being a captain of industry, it just didn’t seem
likely. Her mother’s warnings swam around in her mind again and she
hoped her incredulity wasn’t showing on her face.

Nana Lymer gave her a very sharp
look.

“Don’t deride what you don’t
know, young lady,” she snapped. “For a girl who came from a poor
home, I did very well for myself. That’s exactly the sort of
comment your mother would make. I would have thought better of
you.”

Victoria was immediately
contrite, because she had also heard the echo of her mother’s
dulcet tones in what she had said and she wasn’t proud of it.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have
said that. Please go on with the story.”

“That’s ok. Now, where was I? Oh
yes. We had moved into 1915, by the time we had bought the other
three houses. The war hadn’t been over by Christmas 1914, as all
the newspapers and the politicians had said it would be, in fact,
it didn’t seem to be going very well at all over in France and the
Low Countries. There was a lot of bad news coming from the Front
and we were beginning to hear about the terrible conditions that
the troops were living and dying in over there. There were lists of
soldiers killed and missing in the newspapers and life was pretty
unbearable for the families of the soldiers left behind in England.
I had heard nothing from William since he had gone back after his
leave, although I must admit that I hadn’t really expected to. But
I didn’t know if he was still alive, although I supposed the army
would have let me know if he had been killed or badly injured, or
if his silence was because he was still sulking with me over my
opening the shop without his permission. I was very busy working in
the shop all day and trying to make sure that Simon had plenty of
my attention as well, so I’m afraid I didn’t really think about him
at all. It was very much a case of ‘out of sight out of mind’.”

“When we were first married, we
had lived with his parents and I soon learned that he would sulk if
he thought he wasn’t getting the attention he thought he deserved.
I put this down to the fact that his mother spoiled him like a
child, waiting on him hand and foot and even anticipating his needs
so that he never even had to look for the newspaper; she would be
there holding it out to him when she thought he wanted it. When we
moved to Albion Street and set up house on our own, I took the
first opportunity that came my way to explain to William that he
couldn’t come first anymore because I had Simon to care for. He was
only a baby and his wants and needs came before anyone else’s, even
mine and that the sooner his father accepted that the better.
William took great exception to this and managed to sulk for almost
three months. In fact, he only stopped sulking when he made the
decision to enlist.”

“So, I took the absence of
letters from William as proof that he was indulging in a huge sulk
about the shop and put all thoughts of him from my mind. As I said
before, I was very busy with the shop and Simon and the four
properties and so forgetting about William wasn’t difficult. But I
did have something else on my mind. I was looking about for a new
house to buy, not one to rent out, but one that all our family
could live in and that would have larger shop premises than the one
I currently rented from Mr Vine. It was ridiculous that I was a
landlady, yet I didn’t own the house I lived in. And in saying ‘all
our family’ I was including Annie and Peter as family. I was so
close to both of them by this time that I didn’t want to leave them
behind when I moved.”

“Both of them earned a salary
from me, but I was aware that a large proportion of that money was
swallowed up by their rent and I knew that Annie repeatedly did
without things that she needed in order to feed and clothe Peter. I
knew what it was like to love your child to distraction, but most
children grow up and live independently of their parents. It was
unlikely that Peter would ever do that and I had a vision of Annie
working until she dropped dead, in order to care for him. Added to
that, Annie was now like an older sister and a mother all rolled
into one for me, so I looked on her as my family and families look
after their own.”

“You would have needed a big
property to have enough bedrooms for all of you and have space for
a shop.” Victoria said, her practical side to the fore.

“It wasn’t only the size of the
property that was important.” Nana continued. “I needed more space
for both the living and business parts of our lives, but I also
needed the new house to be in the right position in the town. I
didn’t want to move any nearer to the docks area, even though it
would be easier for collecting goods from the ships and trains, but
that part of town was becoming more and more dilapidated and the
‘rougher’ element had moved into it. I also needed the new house
and shop to be on a street that people used as a thoroughfare, so
that the shop would pick up plenty of passing trade. Houses in the
areas I wanted to move to were at a premium and I was aware that I
was going to have to pay quite a hefty sum of money in order to get
what I wanted, always supposing that I could actually find what I
was wanting.”

“That was where Sam came up
trumps again. He had called in to tell me about a house he had
found near the railway station which he thought would be ideal for
us to buy, so I had to tell him why I didn’t have the spare cash
for it at that moment. I was reluctant to confide in him, because I
did like to hold my cards close to my chest, but I believed in
honesty between partners so he deserved to know why I was holding
back from another business commitment.”

‘What sort of property are you
looking for?’ he asked, when I had confided in him my reason for
not buying another rental property.

‘I need one that’s big enough
for Simon and I, but also has room for Annie and Peter, because I
don’t want to leave them behind. Added to that, I want a property
that has a bigger shop floor, so that I can carry more stock with
space somewhere for a storeroom. I also want it to be on one of the
main streets so that I can catch any passing trade, but not too far
from where we are here on Albion Street. I don’t want to lose the
customer base that I’ve already built up.’

‘You’ve certainly put some
thought into this Bia and your list of criteria is a pretty long
one, but I think I may have the answer for you.’

“I could hardly believe it. I
had been searching for weeks for a property that fitted my wants
and here was Sam, telling me he knew of somewhere within two
minutes of my mentioning it.”

‘I’ve heard that Mrs Rudge is
giving up running the corn shop on the corner of Queen Street and
King Street. She’s selling up and going to live with her daughter
in Normanby. You can’t blame her; she must be seventy if she’s a
day and its heavy work shifting bags of grain around. Anyway,
there’s the shop and a kitchen downstairs, four rooms on the first
floor and two more on the top floor. That would give you ample room
for you and Simon and Annie and Peter could have the whole top
floor.’

‘But how do you know so much
about it?’ I asked him. ‘It’s not been advertised or anything or I
would have seen it.’

‘ Old man Rudge took me up into
the attics one day, years ago, to show me his collection of fishing
rods, cause that’s where he used to store them.’ Sam said with a
knowing smile. ‘I reckon he thought he would be able to sell me a
few, but I just wasn’t interested. Fishing’s never been an interest
of mine, I would be bored stiff in half an hour. But you should go
round and see her before anyone else steps in in front of you. I’m
sure you would be able to negotiate a good price for it because
she’s desperate to sell. That place is far too big for her since
her old man died.’

“I could have kissed Sam at that
point because that shop was exactly what I was searching for. I
used to collect grain from there for my Dad’s chickens when I was a
kid and I knew how big the shop was. It was like a cathedral in
comparison to the house in Albion Street, with three large,
plate-glass windows which fronted Queen Street and King Street. I
would have ample scope for making wonderful window displays which
would attract customers into the shop. Added to that it was on one
of the main streets which led down to Middlesbrough Road, so anyone
going to the big shops would pass mine before they got there. It
was an ideal location and once I’d given it a new coat of paint I
was sure it would be bright and airy. I also remembered that it had
a large back yard, with plenty of room for storing any overflow
from the shop, if Sam would build a shed for me.”

“But that’s this shop, Nana.
That’s where we are now, you’ve described it exactly how it is. So
you owned it?” Victoria couldn’t believe what she was hearing,
having always believed that her parents had bought it from the
Rudge family before Victoria was born.

“That’s right. I won’t go into
all the ins and outs of buying the place, suffice it to say that by
the end of May 1915, I was the proud owner of 24 Queen Street with
three floors of rooms (including the shop) and its own large back
yard. ‘Drinkwater’s Grocers’ moved with us and the business
continued to flourish, with Annie, Hannah and I working our socks
off, stocking shelves, baking pies and pasties, making soft drinks
and starting a home-cooked meat section. The whole place constantly
smelled of hams and legs of pork being roasted in the oven in the
kitchen. Peter said the house always smelled like Christmas to him
and, although Annie and I smiled at what he’d said, we both had to
agree that he was right.”

“I paid a local decorator to
whitewash the whole building from top to bottom and even broke my
own rule about not going into debt, by buying a new settee and
chairs from Vaughan’s furniture shop on what was locally called the
‘never-never’. In other words, it was on credit and I hated every
minute that I owed that shop money. I scrimped and saved so that I
could pay it off in five weeks, because I hated owing anyone money.
I promised myself I would never get into debt again and I never
have. That once was enough for me.”

“Annie and Peter moved to Queen
Street with Simon and I, just as I had hoped that they would and it
worked very well for all of us. Simon and I shared the first floor
and Annie and Peter had the top floor. We very rarely used the
sitting room above the shop, because we all liked to sit around the
kitchen table at night, talking and playing games with Peter and
Simon. We were very busy once we had moved because I don’t think I
lost a single one of my old customers, Queen Street was very close
to Albion Street, and we did attract a lot of passing trade. I
always made sure that my prices were fair and I often sold items
that other shops didn’t stock, particularly as I had so much
storage space since Sam had built the sheds in the back yard.”

“Sam had bought my old house
from Mr Vine, saying that he was doing so to stop anyone else using
the parlour to open a shop in competition to mine and when I’d
built up some capital again, I gave him half the cost so that
Albion Street became one of our jointly-owned properties, once
again rented out to a family with a son away at the Front.

Chapter Five

“1915 passed very quickly for us
and it wasn’t long before we were celebrating our first Christmas
in Queen Street. I must admit that I did occasionally think about
William and wonder where he was and what he was doing, but I didn’t
ever dwell on thoughts of him. I knew that he wouldn’t know that we
had moved house and I did wonder if I should try and get in touch
with him to give him our new address, but I didn’t know where to
send a letter. And thinking about sending him a letter always
brought me to the same point – it wasn’t our new house, it was my
new house and shop and I didn’t want him in it.”

“I can understand why you felt
like that, Nana.” Victoria interrupted. “He wasn’t pleased when he
came home on leave to find that you were managing very well without
him, just think how much worse he would have been to discover that
you’d bought a bigger property. You would have shown that not only
could you manage without him, but that you were extremely
successful without him. It wouldn’t have done his ego any good at
all.”

“Very true, pet. But I had moved
on in the way I felt about him. When he first went off to war, I
was extremely angry with him. When he came home on leave and was so
petty and childish over what I had done, I was angry with him, but,
by the time I moved into Queen Street, that anger had dissipated.
In truth, I no longer cared what mood he was in because I was now
indifferent to him. I certainly wasn’t hoping that the war would
end soon, because the end of the war would signify the end of my
life as a single woman as William would return home and I didn’t
want him back. And I would never have dared to say that to anyone
at that time. It not only made me unpatriotic, but it made me a
heartless, unfeeling wife.”

“I’m sure you were never
heartless.” Victoria was shocked that her grandmother could have
thought about herself as an unfeeling woman. “You were caring for
your son and for two other people who weren’t part of your family.
Nobody could ever have accused you of being heartless and
unfeeling.”