Author: chrisnickson2

Hill 60, Wrangler Jackets, and the Art of the Cool

On By chrisnickson2In Uncategorized2 Comments

A little while ago I was sitting at the top of Hill 60 in Roundhay Park, enjoying the slightly hazy sunshine. The school holidays are in full swing, parents with out with their kids, boys playing frisbee, and teenagers simply hanging out.

I was one of them once, back when I was about 14-16. Those with long memories will recall that Hill 60 was once terraced, somewhere for people to sit and watch the Saturday cricket matches or the events there. On a sunny summer Sunday, or during the school holidays I’d walk the half hour up there from home and sit myself on the bottom terrace. Not for the cricket, but for the girls who went past.

Of course, I had to be dressed just so. A shirt, sometimes a paisley one, Levi’s, and my petrol blue cord Wrangler jacket. Because, of course, that looked cool. Maybe. And I’d always have a book with me. Not only because it made me darkly intellectual, but so I could actually read it after I’d had enough of being ignored by the passing girls.

I wasn’t cool, of course. I was a music and words nerd. I played bass in a band, although we’ll slide over the fact that we weren’t very good and only played one gig, where the main comment was ‘turn it down.’

Did I ever meet any girls on those long, sunny afternoons? I seem to recall talking to a few, since I wasn’t the shy, retiring creature I was today, and going home with a bit of a tan, my mother saying I look brown as a berry. But I don’t believe I ever went out with any of those girls. The dates seemed to come from Roundhay High School, right next door to Roundhay Grammar, where I was a pupil.

But it’s nice to think that for a couple of year I looked cool. Maybe.

Two Bronze Pennies Launch – what do you think?

On By chrisnickson2In Uncategorized1 Comment

If you look at this site at all, you’ll have seen me going on about the publication of Two Bronze Pennies in the UK on April 30. Probably early August elsewhere. I wanted to do something a little different for a launch, something to involve everyone. I’ve hit on an idea and I’d like to know what you think about it.

To backtrack a second Leeds.: Two Bronze Pennies is the second Tom Harper novel, set in late Victorian Leeds. It starts with the killing of a young Jewish man in the area known as the Leylands, where Jewish refugees from all across Eastern Europe settled in towards the end of the 19th century. There’s also a sub plot involving the disappearance of Louis Le Prince, who took the first motion pictures and invented the camera to take them – he lived in Leeds and actually did vanish in France. And Annabelle features more heavily as she considers opening a new business.

Those are the bones. So what about the launch? Plenty of my readers live abroad, and as I can’t travel to them, why not have something that can bring everyone together? There’s a platform called Concert Window, which will let me broadcast the launch live from my home to yours. A little bit of talk, a couple of short extracts from the book, a story from the remarkable Jewish storyteller Shonaleigh (who really is one of the best storytellers in the world) and hopefully a tiny but of history from some people who written about the Jews in Leeds. An hour of your time, and there’s a chat room for you to ask questions, comment, and even exchange conversation with each other.

As far as I’m aware, this will be a world first for a book launch. No one has tried anything like this before, live online. I plan on holding it at 6pm on a Saturday evening towards the end of May. That should allow most people to log on and take part (that’s 1pm East Coast time, 10 am West Coast and rather early in the morning in Australia – sorry). Logging on only requires clicking a link. You don’t have to give details, it doesn’t cost you anything.

It could be a resounding failure, of course, but that’s part of the fun. My question to you is, what do you think of the idea? Would you be willing to watch at least part of it? I hope so. It would be great to have plenty of people from all over the world involved. And we’d be trying something new.

Please, let me know.

That’s Somethin’ Else

On By chrisnickson2In dark briggate blues, gods of gold, leeds, the broken token, two bronze pennies, waterstones4 Comments

A little less than five years has passed since Creme de la Crime took a chance on me and published the first Richard Nottingham book, The Broken Token. Someone believe in my writing enough to put an entire novel in print and get it out there. It’s impossible to describe how it felt at the launch in May 2010. Proud doesn’t come close. My only regret was that my parents weren’t alive to see it.

Now, in little less than a month I have another new book out, and there have been a fair few in between. Since I was given that first opportunity, I grasped it hard, and I’m immensely grateful that people what to publish and to read what I write.

I write every day. Every single day of the year. It’s what I do. I’m many things, as we all are, but writer is very close to the top, if not right at the peak. I love to write. It’s a pleasure. It’s an honour. I still do a fair bit of writing about music, my avocation, but the focus is on the novels.

Overnight success is rarely that. Writing is a craft to be mastered, and that takes time. We never master it, not really. We just keep trying. I know I am. I attempt new things. Some work, some don’t. And I keep trying to gain readers, one by one, and hang on to those who like my work.

Bit by bit, I try to move ahead. I’ll never be a bestseller. I’ll never win the Nobel Prize for Literature (my hope when I was in my teen and foolish). I’ve found what I do and it took long enough. But the movement is there and in the last 12 months it seems to have been a giant stride, first with Gods of Gold, then with Dark Briggate Blues. Lovely reviews, press coverage, plenty of people at the launches and events I’ve done. That’s incredibly heartening.

Both books are up for the CWA Historical Dagger. I may win, I may not – there are plenty of betters writers out there. Dark Briggate Blues is up for a Regional Read.

I’m lucky, I have publishers who believe in me. I’m not lost somewhere in the mid-list of some publishing giant. I can phone the publishers I deal with and talk to them. They do all they can to push the books with excellent publicists. I’m proud of everything I’ve put out. I’ve made many wonderful friends and had their support and had the chance to know and befriend writers who’ve influenced me. That’s pretty amazing to me.

But today, today felt like a quantum leap. I had to go into Waterstones in Leeds – the local branch of a national chain where I held the launch for Dark Briggate Blues and recently did a signing. My books weren’t on the shelf. No, the manager told me, and showed me. One is displayed on a table. And then he showed me something else. My books have their own table in the crime section, because they’re selling so well. Only two of them at present, because the third they stock is currently sold out. And they’ll be getting in the hardback of Two Bronze Pennies when it’s published.

I was amazed. In fact, I walked out without taking a picture of it. A few steps before I realised my stupidity and walked back in. Success isn’t a fortune in money. This is what it looks like. And thank you all.

Wastones table

In Memory of the Leylands – it’s not always about the Great and the Good

On By chrisnickson2In Uncategorized2 Comments

Cities change. It’s their nature. They grow. The old comes down and the new rises up, taller, grander, glossier than ever. We hang on to bits of our history as slender reminders but we junk most of our past as if it was rubbish.

And fine, there’s much that should go. The slums are a prime example, those Brutalist office buildings (what were we thinking?), the tower blocks of flats that stand like abominations and threats to the idea of community. But, and it’s a big but, when we tear them all do, we lose sight of who we were and how we got here.

Several months ago I took a walk around Hunslet, Cross Green and on to Marsh Lane in Leeds, on the trail of my ancestors, addresses from census records. Some of the houses still exist – inner city, you’d call them now – but many more have vanished. Big swathes of Hunslet are now for business, not housing (factories and houses used to stand cheek by jowl in the 19th and early 20th century). The old places that remain are derelict, boarded up.

My upcoming book, Two Bronze Pennies, takes place largely in the Leylands, an area that no longer exists on any map of Leeds (much like the place known as the Bank, now Richmond Hill). It runs in a triangle from an area more or less north of Eastgate, bounded on one side by North Street (give or take), and on the other by Regent Street, meeting close to Sheepscar. It was a working-class area, and when Jewish immigrants arrived, this was where they settled, to the degree that it was almost a ghetto. Yiddish was the lingua franca there, the common European Jewish tongue that people of all nationalities used.

They came…and came…and came. In the early years of the 20th century, more than 10,000 of them were packed into the area. Prejudice meant they were safer together. Most worked in tailoring, in the sweatshops dotted around the Leylands, sewing for 12 or 15 hours a day, most of the garments for the big manufacturers who didn’t want to employ Jews in their factories. Male, female, young, old, everyone worked.

Those who acquired some money moved a little farther from the city centre, into Chapteltown – then very genteel and after that to Moortown, Roundhay, and Alwoodley. The relentless march of the middle classes. But human nature means that not everyone is a success. We don’t all make money.

At that time Leeds’ money was still based on manufacturing. We’d been one of the cradles of the Industrial Revolution, one of the great cities of Empire. But one war saw the decline of much of that, and a second was the nail in the coffin. Look at the skyline now and it’s dominated by office buildings, not chimneys. The houses in the Leylands were classified as slums – and indeed, they were – and finally all tumbled down. Those still living there moved out to new housing estates. Better living, less community.

And all that ground? You won’t find any houses in it. That memory has gone with the bricks. It’s small industry these days. The cries of children yelling in Yiddish on the street are a distant echo of memory. The Polish synagogue, the Great synagogue – they just exist in tales now.

These days it’s…anonymous. Of course, much of Leeds is becoming that way. More shiny shopping for the consumer-led economic recovery.

But if you didn’t know about it, you wouldn’t have a clue now that the Leyland ever existed. It’s been neatly erased from history by the planners, and with it so much of the city’s history, and the fact that the area gave sanctuary to people fleeing pogroms and seeking hope, a better life that many found.

It’s as if those people sitting and working out how our cities should look forgot that the biggest contribution to life isn’t made the those considered to be the great and the good. How can we know where we’re going if we choose to forget the path that brought us here?

You can read about Two Bronze Pennies here or read an extract here.

Two Bronze Pennies – A Short Extract

On By chrisnickson2In Uncategorized3 Comments

You know – don’t you? – that my second Tom Harper novel, Two Bronze Pennies, comes out in the UK at the end of April (August/September elsewhere). Much of it is set in the Leylands, that area just north of the city centre where most of the Jewish immigrants settled when they came to Leeds.

Just to whet your appetite, here’s the opening few pages. Tom, Annabelle, Billy Reed, the Victoria – a dead body and men speaking in Yiddish. Go on, you know you want to….

One

‘Have you heard a word I said, Tom Harper?’

‘Of course I have.’ He stirred and stretched in the chair beside the fireplace. ‘You were talking about visiting your sister.’

Annabelle’s face softened. ‘It’ll only be for an hour. We can go in the afternoon, after we’ve eaten.’

‘Of course,’ he told her with a smile. He was happy, finally at home and warm for the first time since morning.

He’d spent the day chasing around Leeds on the trail of a burglar, no closer to catching him than he’d been a month before. He’d gone from Burley to Hunslet, and never a sniff of the man. But it was better than being in uniform; half the constables had been on patrol in the outdoor market, cut by the December wind as they tried to nab the pickpockets and sneak thieves. It was still blowing out there, howling and rattling the window frames. As a police inspector, at least he could take hackney cabs and omnibuses and dodge the weather for a while.

Tomorrow he was off duty. Christmas Day. For the last five years he’d worked it. Not this time, though. Christmas 1890, the first together with his wife. He turned his head to look at her and the wedding ring that glinted in the light. Five months married. Annabelle Harper. The words still made him smile.

‘What?’ she asked.

He shook his head. ‘Nothing.’

He often glanced at her when she was busy, working in the kitchen or at her desk, going through the figures for her businesses. Sometimes he could scarcely believe she’d married him. Annabelle had grown up in the slums of the Bank, another daughter in a poor Irish family. She’d started work here in the Victoria public house and eventually married the landlord. Six years later, after he died, everyone advised her to sell. But she’d held on and kept the place, trusting her instincts, and she’d built it into a healthy business. Then she’d seen an opportunity and opened bakeries in Sheepscar and Meanwood that were doing well. Annabelle Harper was a rich woman. Not that anyone round here called her Mrs Harper. To them she’d always be Mrs Atkinson, the name she’d carried for so long.

Whatever they called her, she was his.

‘You look all in,’ she told him.

Harper gave a contented sigh. Where they lived, in the rooms over the pub, felt perfectly comfortable, curtains drawn against the winter night, the fire in the hearth and the soft hiss of the gas lights. He didn’t want to move.

‘I’m cosy,’ he said. ‘Come and give me a cuddle.’

‘A cuddle? You’re lucky I put your supper on the table.’

She stuck out her tongue, her gown swishing as she came and settled in his arms. He could hear the voices in the bar downstairs. Laughter and a snatch of song from the music halls.

‘Don’t worry,’ she told him. ‘I’ll send them on their way early tonight. They all have homes to go to. Then we can have some peace and quiet.’

But only for a few hours. Annabelle would be up before dawn, the way she always was, working next to the servants, stuffing the goose that was waiting in the kitchen, baking the bread and preparing the Christmas dinner. Dan the barman, the girls who worked for her, and God knew who else would join them at the table. They’d light candles on the tree, sing, laugh, exchange gifts and drink their way through the barrel of beer she’d set aside.

Then, after their bellies were full, the two of them would walk over to visit her sister, taking presents for Annabelle’s nieces and nephews. For one day, at least, he could forget all the crime in Leeds. Billy Reed, his sergeant, would cover the holiday. Then Harper would  return on Boxing Day, back to track down the damned burglar.

Annabelle stirred.

‘Did you hear that?’ she asked.

‘What?’

He gazed at her. He hadn’t heard a thing. Six years before, while he was still a constable, he’d taken a blow on the ear that left him partially deaf. The best the doctor could offer was that his hearing might return in time. But in the last few months, since autumn began, it had grown a little worse. Sometimes he missed entire sentences, not just words. His ear simply shut off for a few seconds. He’d never told anyone about the problem, scared that it would go on his record.

‘On the stairs.’

He listened. Still nothing. Then someone was knocking on the door. Before he could move, she rose swiftly to answer it.

‘It’s for you.’ Her voice was dark.

He recognized the young constable from Millgarth station. One of the new intake, his uniform carefully pressed, cap pulled down smartly on his head and face eager with excitement. Had he ever looked as green as that?

‘I’m off duty—’ he began.

‘I know, sir.’ The man blushed. ‘But Superintendent Kendall told me to come and fetch you. There’s been a murder.’

Harper turned helplessly to Annabelle. There’d be no visit to her sister for him tomorrow.

‘You go, Tom.’ She kissed him on the cheek. ‘Just come home as soon as you can.’

Two

The cold clawed his breath away. Stars shone brilliantly in a clear sky. He huddled deeper into his overcoat and pulled the muffler tight around his neck.

‘What’s your name?’ Harper asked as they started down the road.

‘Stone, sir. Constable Stone. Started three month back.’

‘And where are we going, Mr Stone?’

‘The Leylands, sir.’

Harper frowned. ‘Whereabouts?’

‘Trafalgar Street.’

He knew the area very well. He’d grown up no more than a stone’s throw from there, up on Noble Street. All of it poverty-scented by the stink of malt and hops from the Brunswick Brewery up the road. Back-to-back houses as far as the eye could see. A place where the pawnbrokers did roaring business each Monday as housewives took anything valuable to exchange for the cash to last until Friday payday.

In the last few years the area had changed. It had filled with Jewish immigrants; almost every house was packed with them, from Russia and Poland and countries whose names he didn’t know, while the English moved out and scattered across the city. Yiddish had become the language of the Leylands. Only the smell of the brewery and the lack of money remained the same.

‘Step out,’ he told the constable. ‘We’ll freeze to the bloody spot if we stand still.’

Harper led the way, through the memory of the streets where he used to run as a boy. The gas lamps threw little circles of light but he hardly needed them; he could have found his way in pitch blackness. The streets were empty, curtains closed tight. People would be huddled together in their beds, trying to keep warm.

As they turned the corner into Trafalgar Street he caught the murmur of voices. Suddenly lights burned in the houses and figures gathered on their doorsteps. Harper raised his eyes questioningly at Stone.

‘The outhouses, sir. About halfway down.’

The cobbles were icy; Harper’s boots slipped as he walked. Conversation ended as they passed, men and women looking at them with fearful, suspicious eyes. They were goys. Worse, they were authority.

They passed two blocks of four houses before Stone turned and moved between a pair of coppers, their faces ruddy and chilled, keeping back a small press of people. Someone had placed a sheet over the body. Harper knelt and pulled it back for a moment. A young man, strangely serene in death. Straggly dark hair, white shirt without a collar, dark suit and overcoat. The inspector ran his hands over the clothes, feeling the blood crusted where the man had been stabbed. Slowly, he counted the wounds. Four of them. All on the chest. The corpse had been carefully arranged, he noticed. The body was straight, the arms out to the sides, making the shape of a cross. Two bronze pennies covered the dead man’s eyes, the face of Queen Victoria looking out.

Harper stood again and noticed Billy Reed talking to one of the uniforms and scribbling in his notebook. The sergeant nodded as he saw him.

‘Do we know who he was?’

‘Not yet.’ Reed rubbed his hands together and blew on them for warmth. ‘Best as I can make out, that one found him an hour ago. But I don’t speak the lingo.’ He nodded towards a middle-aged man in a dark coat, a black hat that was too large almost covering his eyes. ‘He started shouting and the beat bobby came along. They called me out.’ He shrugged. ‘I told the super I could take care of it but he wanted you.’ His voice was a mixture of apology and resentment.

‘It doesn’t matter.’

It did, of course. He didn’t want to be out here with a corpse in the bitter night. He’d rather be at home with his wife, in bed and feeling the warmth of her skin. But Kendall had given his orders.

The man who’d found the body stood apart from the others, head bowed, muttering to himself. He scarcely glanced up as Harper approached, lips moving in undertone of words.

‘Do you know who the dead man is?’ he asked.

‘Er iz toyt.’ He’s dead.

‘English?’ the inspector asked hopefully, but the man just shook his head. He kept his gaze on the ground, too fearful to look directly at a policeman.

‘Velz is dayn nomen?’ The Yiddish made the man’s head jerk up. What’s your name?

‘Israel Liebermann, mayn ir,’ the man replied nervously. Sir. Growing up here it had been impossible not to absorb a little of the language. It floated in the shops and all around the boys that played in the road.

‘Ikh bin Inspector Harper.’

A hand tapped him on the shoulder and he turned quickly to see a pair of dark eyes staring at him.

‘What?’ He had the sense that the man had spoken; for that moment he hadn’t heard a word. He swallowed and the world came back into both ears.

‘I said it was a good try, Inspector Harper. But your accent needs work.’ The voice was warm, filled with kindness. He extended his hand and Harper took it.

‘I’m Rabbi Feldman.’

The man was dressed for the weather in a heavy overcoat that extended almost to his feet, thick boots, leather gloves and a hat pulled down to his ears. A wiry grey beard flowed down to his chest.

A gust of wind blew hard. Harper shivered, feeling the chill deep in his marrow.

‘If you think this is cold, you never had a winter in Odessa.’ The rabbi grinned, then his face grew serious. ‘Can I help at all?’

‘Someone’s been murdered. This gentleman found him.’

Feldman nodded then began a conversation in Yiddish with Liebermann. A pause, another question and a long answer.

He’d heard of the rabbi. Everyone had. Around the Leylands he was almost a hero. He was one of them; his family had taken the long march west, all the way to England, when the pogroms began. He understood their sorrows and their dreams. In his sixties now, walking with the help of a silver-topped stick, he’d been head of the Belgrave Street Synagogue for over ten years. He taught in the Hebrew school on Gower Street and met with councillors from the Town Hall. He was man of mitzvahs, good deeds. Portly and gentle, with quiet dignity, he was someone in the community, a man everybody respected.

‘He says he needed the outhouse just before ten – he’d looked at his watch in the house so he knew what time it was. He put on his coat and came down.’ Feldman smiled. ‘You understand, it’s cold in these places. You try to finish as soon as possible. When he was done he noticed the shape and went to look. That’s when he began to yell.’

‘Thank you,’ Harper said, although it was no more than they already knew.

‘Murder is a terrible business, Inspector.’ The man hesitated. ‘Is there anything else I can do?’

‘We still don’t know the name of the dead man.’

‘May I?’ Feldman gestured at the corpse. Harper nodded and one of the constables drew back the sheet again.

‘Mine Got.’ He drew in his breath sharply.

‘Do you know him?’

It was a few seconds before the rabbi answered, staring intently at the face on the ground. Slowly he took off the hat and tugged a hand through his ragged white hair.

‘Yes, Inspector,’ he said, and there was the sadness of lost years in his voice. ‘I know him. I know him very well. I gave him his bris and his bar mitzvah. He’s my sister’s son.’

His nephew. God, Harper thought, what a way to find out.

‘I’m sorry, sir. Truly.’

The man’s shoulders slumped.

‘He was seventeen.’ The rabbi shook his head in disbelief. ‘Just a boychik. He was going to be the one.’ Feldman tapped a finger against the side of his head. ‘He had the smarts, Inspector. His father, he was already training him to run the business.’

‘What was his name, sir? I need to know.’

‘Abraham. Abraham Levy.’ The rabbi rummaged in a trouser pocket, brought out a handkerchief and wiped his eyes. ‘Why?’ he asked quietly. ‘Why would someone kill anyone who was so young?’

And Two Bronze Pennies is now available to order ahead of its publication on April 30. Follow this link.

The White Slaves Of Leeds

On By chrisnickson2In UncategorizedLeave a comment

It’s a title to make you think twice, especially in this day and age. But it was coined in Victorian times by a journalist.Robert Sheracy travelled around Britain, interviewing people for a series called The White Slaves on England, published over a number of issues in 1896 in Pearson’s Magazine. He did come to Leeds, where he talked to a number of people for the article entitled The White Slaves of England: The Slipper-Makers and Tailors of Leeds. Several of the quotes here are taken directly from the testimony given to him. Their words are more powerful than any fiction.

As the train left Leeds, I looked back to see the pall of smoke covering the city. It was a rich place; rich for some, anyway. We gathered steam, moving south at a good pace and I pulled the sheaf of notes from my briefcase.
I’d talked to a number of people, male and female, for my article. The poor and the poorest, each tale sadder than the last. But it was the faces of the girls who stayed with me. So young and so hopeless. Leeds is a city of many industries, but for the girls there are few options but service or the mills.
I’d been fortunate to have a good contact in Miss Isabella Ford, a Quaker and a socialist who’d long battled for these girls, and given me introductions to some of them at the Wholesale Clothiers’ Operatives Union.. First, though, she’d instructed me on the system the master implemented for their own advantage.
‘There are fines for everything,’ Miss Ford told me. ‘Unfortunately, thanks to the judges’ interpretation of the Truck Act, these are legal. A girl came to me who’d been forced to pay a fine of tuppence, when all she earned that day was a penny-ha’penny. Why? Because she was a minute late to work. The masters employ a boy as timekeeper and his earnings are commission from all the fines levied. Another woman had been deducted two shillings from her week’s pay for bad work, when she’d made a total of four shillings and tuppence. But the owners went on to sell the goods as good work, and she never saw that money back.’
She brought in a girl, Mary Ann, who’d been forced to leave her job in the mill because she couldn’t make any money there. She was shy and nervous, wondering if she should even be talking to me, if someone vengeance awaited her. I had to assure Mary Ann that I wouldn’t name her in the article; only then would she speak.
‘How much did you earn in a week?’ I asked her.
‘In a good week I made two shilling and seven pence, sir,’ she said. ‘But often it was less, depending on the work going in the mill. One week it was just a shilling.’
‘And what did you have to pay out?’ Miss Ford said.
‘We had to pay for our sewings, the thread and everything else. That week when I only made a shilling, I’d had to spend eight pence. Often it was ten pence.’
‘Tell him where you worked,’ Miss Ford suggested.
‘They called it a punishing house.’ The girl reddened as she said the words. ‘We hardly had time for our dinner, and the room for it was so small that you could only get a few in there at a time. I never used it. We had to bring our own dinner, but the master charged us a penny or tuppence “for cook” – to heat it for us, I mean. And you had to pay it, no ifs or buts. Everyone did. When I didn’t have enough money, I didn’t eat. It was the same with the other girls. Some of them would beg food from the men, but I couldn’t. Doing that just led to things.”
Miss Ford told me of more tools inflicted on the girls. A penny in the shilling for steam power, no matter if the girl worked from home. In some places the girls have to pay a penny or two towards the rent of the factory. Then the masters will round down the wages to an even number, so the odd pennies vanish from the wage packet.
‘They promise the girls that the money will go towards a trip for them. But in my years working for the union, I’ve never heard of a single trip yet.’
The wages vary from season to season, and in slack times many can earn no more than two shillings a week. Even when they’re busy it’s rare to make more than twelve shillings a week. One or two had made fifteen shillings at times, but they were the quickest, best workers, with full time and overtime.
Often the masters will beat down the prices to line their pockets a little more.
‘One time, when we were all very hungry,’ a girl called Jane explained, ‘the foreman told us there were 400 sailor suits coming up. Would we do them for threepence each? We refused, because the lowest price should have been threepence-halfpenny. The foreman kept us waiting a day and a half, and at last we were so hungry that we gave in.’
Catherine, a woman who looked to be twenty-five, pinch-faced and sallow, her hair greasy, told me,
‘The masters often say they have so many hundred articles to be sewn, if we want to do them at a reduced rate. We prefer not to be idle, so we accept, expecting to have so many to sew. But the masters have lied, and there is much less to sew than had been promised.’
The masters never told them when work would be slack, she said, and the foremen were bullies, using foul language to the girls.
‘We come to the factory, and if there’s no work, we have to stay in case some comes in. They never tell us so people won’t know there’s no business.’
Another girl confirmed this to me.
‘I come in at eight am,’ she told me. ‘If I’m late I’ll be fine a penny or tuppence. There will be nothing for me to do. Then I’ll sit at my machine doing nothing until half-past twelve. Then I’ll ask the foreman if I can go home. He’ll say, “No, there’s orders coming up after dinner.” Dinner? I probably haven’t had any, knowing work was slack and expecting to get home. So I go without it. At half-past one I’ll go back to my machine and sit doing nothing. Foreman will say: “Work hasn’t come up yet”. I have to sit at my machine. Once I fainted from hunger and asked to be allowed to go home. But they wouldn’t let me, and locked me up in the dining room. I sit at my machine till three or four. Then the foreman will say, as though he were conferring a favour: “The orders don’t seem to be coming in, you can go home till the morning”. And I go home without having earned a farthing. Sometimes work may come in the afternoon, and then I will stay on till half-past six, earning a wage for the last two or three hours.’

A Bit More Markham 2

On By chrisnickson2In Uncategorized2 Comments

The notes and scenes for a possible sequel to Dark Briggate Blues continue. Please, be vocal in what you think of this…

It had been an empty Friday evening. Markham was restless, unable to settle. Too early to go to Studio 20. Normally he avoided parties, but tonight it seemed a better alternative to sitting at home. Once he arrived, though, it felt like a bad idea. The house was full of people who were too bright, a fraction too loud, as if they could will themselves into having a good time.
He sat in the front room, letting the conversations and flirtations ebb and flow around him. There were money here, a baby grand sitting by the window. But the only music was skiffle and pop from a record player, muffled by the wall. Guy Mitchell, Pat Boone, Nat King Cole. Emasculated music. Only Little Richard sounded like his wildness hadn’t been tamed.
When someone called out, ‘Charlie. Come on, give us a song,’ he groaned inside and stood by the door to leave without a fuss. The woman who settled on the piano stool and lifted the lid looked uneasy, reluctant. She took a sip of gin and put the glass down before running her hands over the keys. She had thick dark hair that finished in a curl around her shoulders and a black sheath dress. She closed her eyes for a moment then started to play.
At first he couldn’t pick out a tune, listening through the haze of voices. But the room quietened as she continued and he understood she was lulling them, drawing in their attention. The melody began to take shape in the chords of the left hand as the right improvised, hinting here and there before finally settling so that faces began to smile as they recognised it. A Foggy Day In London Town. The woman opened her mouth, her singing low and languorous, as if it was emerging from a distant dream.
She had something. Not an Ella or a Sarah. But there was a velvet sensuality in her tone, hinting at something more intimate than the words themselves, something adrift on soft memories. Then she let her hands take over again, pushing down on the sustain pedal to let chords hang and fade until it all drifted off into the distance.
The applause was polite. People returned to their talk. She took another drink, looking around and blinking, emerging from somewhere else. As she stood he walked over.
‘You’re very good,’ he told her. She didn’t blush, just looked him in the eye.
‘It’s what I do. At night, anyway.’
‘You play well, too. A lot of George Shearing in there.’
That made her smile.
‘I’m Charlotte Taylor.’ She extended a thin, pale arm.
‘Dan Markham,’ he said as they shook.
‘And I only sound like Shearing because I’m not good enough to be Monk or Tatum.’ She spoke the words like a challenge: did he know what he was talking about or was it all bluff?
‘No one else can ever sound like Thelonious,’ he answered. ‘I think he hears things no one else can. And Tatum…’ He shook his head. ‘You’d need two more hands. Are you a professional?’
She looked embarrassed.
‘Trying,’ she admitted. ‘I do nightclubs sometimes. It’s hard to get a gig. Working behind the counter at Boots pays the bills. For now, anyway,’ she added with determination.
He tried to imagine her in the nylon overall, selling medicines and make-up, but he couldn’t reconcile it with the woman he’d just heard singing.
‘How about you?’ she asked. ‘What do you do?’
‘I’m an enquiry agent,’ he said and her eyes widened.

The next night they met for a meal and wandered through town to Studio 20. As they walked she told him a little about herself, short sentences with long pauses. She’d grown up in Malton, married young, a couple of years after the war. But wedded bliss had been a fragile peace, and the decree nisi had come through in July. Leeds had been a fresh start, a chance for her to do more with her music.
‘I’ve never been here before,’ she admitted as they went down the stairs to the club. ‘I don’t know anyone who really likes jazz.’
‘You do now,’ he told her with a smile.
The place was packed, hardly room to stand among the young men and women. In the corner a quintet was playing. Three guitars, bass, and a ragged washboard offering rhythm. Skiffle. Markham glanced at Bob Barclay, the club’s owner, sitting in his booth. He gave an eloquent shrug.
‘The Vipers,’ he said. ‘They’re from London, had a big hit. Brings in the money, Dan. You can see for yourself. That lets me put on other things. There’s not the market for jazz there was a few years back.’
Disappointed, they left. She tucked her arm through his.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Hardly your fault.’ She tried to smile, but it was a weak effort. ‘It’s the same all over. Everyone wants pop music.’
He saw her again on Wednesday and the following weekend. Over a month a quick goodnight kiss graduated to passion. Soon she was spending some nights at his flat, or he’d stay over in her bedsit in Hyde Park.
On the occasions she performed Markham would be there, sitting in the corner of a club with endless cups of coffee, applauding every song. She had talent, but Leeds wasn’t a place where it could flower.

Markham 2

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Since the journalists seem to believe Dark Briggate Blues is the start of a series, and a couple of people told me things that sparked my imagination, I’ve been making some notes for what might be a sequel. This is one of the scenes. The year is 1957 – please, I’d love to know what you think. But it is still very rough.

It had been an empty Friday evening. Markham was restless, unable to settle. Too early to go to Studio 20. Normally he avoided parties, but it seemed a better alternative to sitting at home. Once he arrived, though, it seemed like a bad idea. The house was full of people who were too bright, a fraction too loud, as if they could will themselves into having a good time.
He sat in the front room, letting the conversations and flirtations ebb and flow around him. There were money here, a baby grand sitting by the window. But the only music was skiffle and pop from a record player, muffled by the wall. Guy Mitchell, Pat Boone, Nat King Cole. Emasculated music. Only Little Richard sounded like his wildness hadn’t been tamed.
When someone called out, ‘Charlie. Come on, give us a song,’ he groaned inside and stood by the door to leave without a fuss. The woman who settled on the piano stool and lifted the lid looked uneasy, reluctant. She took a sip of gin and put the glass down before running her hands over the keys. She had thick dark hair that finished in a curl around her shoulders and a black sheath dress. She closed her eyes for a moment then started to play.
At first he couldn’t pick out a tune, listening through the haze of voices. But the room quietened as she continued and he understood she was lulling them, drawing in their attention. The melody began to take shape in the chords of the left hand as the right improvised, hinting here and there before finally settling so that faces began to smile as they recognised it. A Foggy Day In London Town. The woman opened her mouth, her singing low and languorous, as if it was emerging from a distant dream.
She had something. Not an Ella or a Sarah. But there was a velvet sensuality in her tone, hinting at something more intimate than the words themselves, something adrift on soft memories. Then she let her hands take over again, pushing down on the sustain pedal to let chords hang and fade until it all drifted off into the distance.
The applause was polite. People returned to their talk. She took another drink, looking around and blinking, emerging from somewhere else. As she stood he walked over.
‘You’re very good,’ he told her. She didn’t blush, just looked him in the eye.
‘It’s what I do. At night, anyway.’
‘You play well, too. A lot of George Shearing in there.’
That made her smile.
‘I’m Charlotte Taylor.’ She extended a thin, pale arm.
‘Dan Markham,’ he said as they shook.
‘And I only sound like Shearing because I’m not good enough to be Monk or Tatum.’ She spoke the words like a challenge: did he know what he was talking about or was it all bluff?
‘No one else can ever sound like Thelonious,’ he answered. ‘I think he hears things no one else can. And Tatum…’ He shook his head. ‘You’d need two more hands. Are you a professional?’
She looked embarrassed.
‘Trying,’ she admitted. ‘I do nightclubs sometimes. It’s hard to get a gig. Working behind the counter at Boots pays the bills. For now, anyway,’ she added with determination.
He tried to imagine her in the nylon overall, selling medicines and make-up, but he couldn’t reconcile it with the woman he’d just heard singing.
‘How about you?’ she asked. ‘What do you do?’
‘I’m an enquiry agent,’ he said and her eyes widened.

The next night they met for a meal and wandered through town to Studio 20. As they walked she told him a little about herself, short sentences with long pauses. She’d grown up in Malton, married young, a couple of years after the war. But wedded bliss had been a fragile peace, and the decree nisi had come through in July. Leeds had been a fresh start, a chance for her to do more with her music.
‘I’ve never been here before,’ she admitted as they went down the stairs to the club. ‘I don’t know anyone who really likes jazz.’
‘You do now,’ he told her with a smile.
The place was packed, hardly room to stand among the young men and women. In the corner a quintet was playing. Three guitars, bass, and a ragged washboard offering rhythm. Skiffle. Markham glanced at Bob Barclay, the club’s owner, sitting in his booth. He gave an eloquent shrug.
‘The Vipers,’ he said. ‘They’re from London, had a big hit. Brings in the money, Dan. You can see for yourself. That lets me put on other things. There’s not the market for jazz there was a few years back.’
Disappointed, they left. She tucked her arm through his.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Hardly your fault.’ She tried to smile, but it was a weak effort. ‘It’s the same all over. Everyone wants pop music.’
He saw her again on Wednesday and the following weekend. Over a month a quick goodnight kiss graduated to passion. Soon she was spending some nights at his flat, or he’d stay over in her bedsit in Hyde Park.
On the occasions she performed Markham would be there, sitting in the corner of a club with endless cups of coffee, applauding every song. She had talent, but Leeds wasn’t a place where it could flower.

Thank You All

On By chrisnickson2In Uncategorized4 Comments

Last night was the launch for Dark Briggate Blues, held at Waterstones in Leeds. It capped a day that seemed quite surreal: a full page feature in the Yorkshire Post in the morning, then an appearance on BBC Radio Leeds in the afternoon.

45 of you showed up for the event. More than I could have imagined or dreamed. But I’m grateful to each and every one of you who made that effort. It means so much to me. When I saw people queueing to have me sign their books, I felt like a real writer!

And the most fascinating story of the evening – a lady whose father actually was a private detective in Leeds in the 1950s.

If you couldn’t be there, you still have a chance to win a copy of Dark Briggate Blues here. Or buy one, of course.

I wanted to include some photos to give a feel of what happened last night. Thank you all.IMG_0594

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The Marvellous Doors Of Mr. Harrison (1626)

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“Sir?” The carpenter frowned as he spoke, as if the request had made no sense. He wiped some sawdust from the hairs on his brawny forearm as he waited to hear it again.
John Harrison smiled patiently.
“I’d like you to cut holes in the bottom of each door in the house,” he repeated. “They haven’t been hung yet, have they?”
“Well, no, sir,” the carpenter agreed. It was obvious, after all. Each doorway in this new house was empty, the finished doors out in the courtyard, covered with canvas in case of rain. He’d been planning to start putting them up after his dinner. But why someone would want to cut holes in perfectly good oak, he really didn’t know.
“They don’t need to be large holes,” Harrison continued, as if it was all the most reasonable thing in the world. “Just about this wide and this tall.” He held his arms apart to offer an idea of the size. “Can you do that, please?”
“I can,” the carpenter allowed slowly, rubbing at the bristles on his chin. He’d been working with wood for thirty years, ever since he was a lad, and no one had asked him this before. He was a craftsman, a master at his trade, a guild member. To be asked to saw holes in work he’d completed seemed wrong. He could carve a bannister so smooth against the fingers that it felt like holding silk. He could polish wood so clear that it shone as brightly as any mirror. He took pride in everything he did. But this? Where was the sense in it?
It offended him, although he was careful not to show it. Not when the man staring at him so hopefully was the richest man in Leeds, the man who’d been paying his wages for months – and generous wages they were, too, he’d admit – as he helped shape the house.
Mr. Harrison had never seemed to be a strange one. A generous soul, yes. He’d inherited plenty of money and made even more as a cloth merchant. He’d paid for a market cross for the town, the one that stood near the top of Briggate. He’d given land for the new Grammar School in that field past the Head Row, which was fine for those who wanted to learn reading and writing and all the things the gentry needed. But it was like everyone said, he had so much money and property that he’d never even miss a hundred pounds.
“I can do it,” he allowed slowly. It would mean more work. His apprentices had cut and shaped the doors. He’d inspected their work, corrected their errors and boxed them round the ears for stupid mistakes. Each one had beautiful panels, dark and lovely. He’d selected the wood himself, sensing how easily they’d work and the way they’d hold their colour once he’d finished with them. As they were they had balance and proportion, all the things he valued. And now he was being asked to ruin that. He shook his head slightly.
“Is something wrong, Mister Cockcroft?” Harrison asked worriedly. He had a lively face, the hair receding along his scalp, with dark, arching eyebrows and a moustache that fluttered as he talked. He was as impeccably dressed as ever, his neckband a starched, brilliant while, his black velvet doublet without a smudge of dirt.
“No, sir, nothing wrong at all.” He gazed around the room, up on the second storey of the house. It looked down on Briggate and out along Boar Lane, a handsome bedroom that would claim the light at the shank of the day. The floorboards were even, fitted together so well that he could just slide a fingernail between them. The mullions on the windows gleamed. It was a beautiful room.
But the whole house suited a man of position, and Harrison certainly had that. The courtyard was cobbled, the warehouse for cloth standing at the other side, and beyond that the garden, fruit trees already planted to make an orchard. It had cost the man a pretty penny and it wasn’t finished yet. It might never be if he kept making ridiculous requests like this.
“Thank you,” Harrison said with a smile and a nod. “My wife and I talked about it and decided it was the best solution.”
That explained it, Cockcroft thought. Women. Marriage. He had no calling to it himself, he was happier by himself, with a housekeeper to keep the place tidy and feed the ‘prentices. Women did odd things to a man’s mind. And Harrison and Mrs. Elizabeth, they’d been together a good twenty years by now, probably more. By now she’d addled his brain if he was coming up with ideas like this.
He’d set the apprentices to work in the morning. The job was simple enough, to measure and cut, then smooth and finish the wood.
“All the doors, sir?” he asked. With front and back there had to be close to fifteen of them.
“Not the front door,” Harrison answered with a quick laugh, then considered. “And perhaps not the rear door, either. After all, we don’t want to let in draughts, do we?”
“Of course not.” That was something, he thought. At least none of the passers-by would see what he’d been made to do to his doors. He wouldn’t be reminded of it every time he walked past. It was unlikely that anyone he knew would be invited inside. He’d make sure the apprentices didn’t tell anyone, swear them to it. With a little luck word wouldn’t spread around town and he wouldn’t be the butt of jokes.
“Right.” Harrison rubbed his pale hands together. “That’s settled. Won’t be long before we can move in, eh?”
“Another week, I think, sir.” It wouldn’t take that long, of course. But over the years he’d learned to say this. Unless something he couldn’t imagine happened, like being asked to cut holes in walls or ceilings, he should be done in three days. Then another day to pad out the bill a little and he’d say he was finished. Mr. Harrison would be happy he’d completed everything early, and he’d be a little fatter in the purse when the account was settled. Everyone would be happy.
“Excellent news, Mr. Cockcroft. Excellent.” He shook the carpenter’s right hand and pumped it. “Thank you once more for this.” He turned to leave.
“Mr Harrison, sir,” Cockcroft said to his back. “Just one question, if I may.”
The merchant turned back, cocking his head quizzically.
“Of course.”
“Why do you want holes in all them doors, anyway?”
“Ah. It’s for the cats, Mr. Cockcroft, the cats. We have five of them and they hate to be confined in one room. So my wife came up with this solution to let them wander where they will. I think it’s a wonderful idea, don’t you?” He gave a small bow. “And now I’ll wish you good day.”

Historical Note: There have been several people who’ve been great benefactors to Leeds, but John Harrison was the first. In the first half of the 17th century, he paid for a market cross, built St. John’s Church (which still remains on New Briggate) and Harrison’s almshouses, gave land and paid for the building of the Grammar School where the Grand Theatre now stands, and more. He inherited money and made more in the wool trade. There’s also a story concerning him, Charles I and a tankard full of gold coins. He did build a house in town that stood around a courtyard; by the 1700s it was an inn. As to the doors, it’s Thoresby who relates that tale. Is it true? Perhaps. But it’s a good tale, which can sometimes be more important than fact.