Tag: leeds

A Taste of Dan Markham

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You’ve been discovering Tom Harper and Leeds in 1890 – at least I hope you’re reading Gods of Gold. I’m incredibly proud of it, and I adore Annabelle (if you don’t know who she is, read the book).

But in January I moved ahead to 1954 and Dan Markham, a young enquiry agent in Leeds. Here’s a taster.

The Adelphi probably hadn’t changed since the turn of the century. An old gas lamp still hung over the front door. Inside, the pub was dark wood, dull brass and bevelled etched glass, all neglected and in need of a thorough cleaning. At the bar he ordered an orange squash.
A table and two chairs sat in the middle of the snug. This room was different; freshly scrubbed, the hearth black-leaded, tiles gleaming and windows shining.
‘Have a seat, Mr Markham,’ the man by the window said. The voice on the telephone. He checked his wristwatch. ‘You’re right on time.’ He smiled. ‘Punctuality is a good sign.’
‘Of what?’
‘An organised man.’ He was probably in his late forties but well-kept, broadly built, neat dark hair shot through with grey. His nose had been broken in the past and there were small scars across his knuckles. But he didn’t have the look of a bruiser. His eyes shone with intelligence. The dark suit was costly, a subdued pinstripe, cut smartly enough to hide the start of a belly. The tie was real silk. He sat and gestured at the chair opposite. ‘We have things to talk about.’
‘One thing, at least.’
‘In my experience one thing always leads to another. It’s the way of the world.’ And he had the air of someone who’d spent a fair bit of time in the heart of the world.
‘I like to know who I’m talking to.’
‘I’m David Carter.’ He brought out a pack of Dunhills and a slim gold lighter. ‘Does that name mean anything to you?’ he asked as he blew smoke towards the ceiling.
‘No.’
‘Good.’ He sipped from a glass of whisky, savouring the taste before swallowing it. ‘Never wise to be too public. If people see a name cropping up a few times they tend to become inquisitive.’
‘So what do you want with me?’
The man cocked his head. ‘Your co-operation.’
‘You should have just asked, Mr Carter.’ The words were calm enough, but he was shaking inside. Whoever this man was, he knew exactly what he was doing. ‘You obviously know where my office is.’
Carter reached into the side pocket of his suit and threw a packet of Lucky Strikes onto the table.
‘I’m told you liked those during your National Service in Hamburg. That American colleague of yours used buy them for you from the PX. Have them. My compliments.’
All he could do was sit and stare. Oscar, the American Pfc he’d worked with in Germany, had been able to buy the cigarettes on base for next to nothing. That and the jazz records. Carter possessed a long reach. All the way to the War Office. And far beyond. It was a powerful little gesture. Impressive. And chilling.
‘What do you want in Leeds?’
‘Oh, I’ve been buying some businesses here in the last few months. You won’t have heard.’ He gave a quick, tight smile. ‘And those who work for me are good at staying out of sight. Except for one of the chaps following you today. But you didn’t notice the other, did you?’ He stared at the burning tip of his cigarette for a moment. ‘Tell me, Mr Markham, what do you know about crime in Leeds? This is your home, after all.’
‘I don’t really deal with criminals,’ he answered slowly. ‘If you think I do, you’ve got the wrong man.’
‘Indulge me. What do you know?’
He shrugged. ‘There are tarts. Shebeens. I imagine there’s illegal gambling and some protection rackets. I don’t really know.’
‘Penny ante stuff,’ Carter said dismissively. ‘And if someone’s caught they end up in prison.’ He paused. ‘In some cases, on the gallows.’
Markham unwrapped the cellophane from the Lucky Strikes, broke open the packet and lit one. The taste brought quick memories of Germany.
‘What do you want?’ he said.
‘I’m more interested in guineas than change. Let’s say a man signs over half a profitable business to someone. A little while later he sells the rest of it to his new partner at a knockdown price. All above board and completely legitimate. Do that with a number of places and there’s good money to be made.’

Waterloo Lake – 1815

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It’s a wet Wednesday in Leeds, and that makes it a good time for a story. If you know Leeds, if you’ve even just visited, there’s a good chance you know Roundhay Park. And so you’d know Waterloo Lake, often just called the Big Lake. Things might not have happened quite this way, but according to the stories passed down it might have been very similar…

The foreman looked at him doubtfully.
“I don’t know, lad. This is a job that needs muscle. You’ve not got much of that.”
Joe breathed deeply. How many times had he gone through this in the last six months?
“I’ve been all over England looking for work, sir. I can do my share and more. If I don’t, just turn me out. But there’s not much food on the road.”
Not much in his belly, either, he thought. Berries that he’d found that morning on his way here, and the charity of his sister’s bench for sleeping and a loaf of bread in Leeds yesterday.
“You were in the army, you said?” The foreman had a grizzled face and wide, scarred knuckles. His breeches were thick and patched, old boots scuffed to nothing.
“Yes, sir. The Fourteenth. Started in the first battalion and then in the second as a corporal.”
“The peninsula?”
“Yes, sir. Spain and we followed Wellington up into France. And served in the Lowlands, too, when we were there.” Joe turned his head and spat at the memory. Half his platoon had died of Walcheren fever and they’d never fired a shot.
The foreman chewed at a fingernail as he thought.
“From Leeds?” he asked.
“Long time ago,” Joe admitted. After twelve years away fighting it didn’t feel like home. But nowhere did. He’d only drifted back because he’d run out of other places to go. And then he’d found that his mam and the bastard she’d married were both dead, his brothers scattered who knew where. Only Emily left, and that husband of hers had been grudging enough about a night’s lodging. At least he’d told them about the work here. A landowner making a lake he’d said, and employing men who’d been in the army. Happen they’d take you on, he said.
“I’ll give you a chance,” the foreman decided finally. “Tuppence a day and two quarts of beer. But if you don’t pull your weight, you’ll be gone. He pointed to a hut in the distance. “Report over there.”
“Yes, sir.” He hesitated a moment, then asked, “Is it right that this is going to be a lake.”
“Aye. Mr. Nicholson thinks it’ll look better like that. More harmonious, he said.” He scratched his head and looked at the long deep scar in the ground that stretched for a good half mile. “Can’t say as he’s wrong, neither. Better than a bloody quarry, any road.” The creases on the foreman’s face turned into a smile. “Going to name it Waterloo lake, celebrate the victory. Were you there, lad?”
Joe shook his head. The army had paid him off after they’d caught Boney for the first time. Cast him adrift in England without even a thank you for the thousands of miles he’d marched, all the powder and shot he’d fired or the friends left on battlefields. There’d been hundreds like him, thousands maybe. They could spot each other with ease, skin darkened by years of foreign sun and the eyes of men who’d thought they were needed only to discover that they weren’t once the cannon stopped roaring.
He’d been better off than some; he still had all his limbs and his wits. He could work. He would have, too, if there’d been any jobs. He’d worked where he could, begged when he had to. He’d been moved on from parishes by beadles, sentenced to seven days in jail as a vagrant down South when all he wanted was to earn his keep. Tuppence was a fair wage. It was only September. The days were still hot, the nights warm and dry enough to sleep outside. He’d be able to find somewhere around here. God knew, there was enough space.
He marched across to the hut, aware that people would be watching him, judging him. The door was open, a man studying a drawing weighted down on a table. A gentleman, from the cut of his clothes. Joe stood at attention for a minute, waiting for him to turn, then gave a small cough. The man looked up quickly, blinking against the sunlight.
“You must be a new man.”
“Yes, sir. Joseph Colton, sir.”
“Old John decided you were worth a try, did he?” The man had a calm smile and an easy manner.
“Yes, sir. I suppose so, sir.” He’d say whatever the man wanted. Tuppence a day would see him right for a while.
“Do you have any engineering training, Mr. Colton?”
“No, sir. Just building ramparts in Spain, that’s all.”
“Good.” The man’s smile widened. “That’s more or less what we’re doing here. We’re making a dam to create a lake.” He came out, ducking his head under the low lintel. “You see over there, that low side? We’re digging out from the bottom to dam it all there. There’s another lake. We’re going to bring in water from there and it’ll look perfect.”
“Yes, sir.” Joe gazed around. There had to be fifty or sixty men in the quarry, some digging, others moving earth in carts, by hand or goading donkeys along. “Is that what I’ll be doing, sir?”
“It is, Mr. Colton. We need the dam finished before winter comes.” The man raised his eyes. “Mind you, that might be a while yet if God keeps smiling on us like this. You were a soldier?”
“In the Fourteenth.”
“Ah, good!” The man beamed, the sun catching his fair hair so it almost seemed white. “The West Yorkshires as was. Right. There’s a path cut just over there. Mattocks and spades are at the bottom. And the ale barrel, of course,” he added quickly. “Start at six, dinner at eleven, finish at six.” He drew a watch on a fine gold chain from the pocket of his waistcoat and pursed his lips thoughtfully. “It’s just gone eight. You work hard and I think we can stretch to paying you for a full day.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Calling it a path was generous, Joe decided. In places some of the dirt had crumbled away so that the track was less than a foot wide, and a sheer drop down the quarry for anyone who fell. He walked carefully, testing each pace forward, until he reached the bottom.

By six the worst of the heat had faded from the day. He sat in the welcome shade of a tree, sipping from a mug of ale. Simply walking back up from the quarry had seemed like an impossible effort. He’d spent the day shovelling earth onto an endless procession of carts. By dinner he felt as if there was a fire in his back and his shoulders. He’d forced himself to continue through the afternoon, the sun on him. Blisters grew and burst on his hands, then more came until he could barely take hold of anything.
When work was done he’d waited for the foreman to return and pocketed his wages.
“You can come back tomorrow,” he man told him. “You’re hired on.”
He still had half the loaf his sister had given him and a blanket in his pack. All he needed was somewhere by a stream and he’d be fine for the night. A group of workers passed, raising their arms a weary salute.
“Where are you staying?” one of them called and Joe only shrugged. He wanted a little longer here first, settled under the coolness of an oak.
“We’ve got a camp,” another said. “You might as well come and join us.”
Slowly, Joe pushed himself upright. It was like Spain, when every rest only made going on more difficult. You continued because you had to, because not moving meant a whipping or death from the robbers who roamed the country.
He caught up with them close to the top of the lake, where woods came down to the water.
“We’re over there. Plenty of room.” The man gave a hoarse laugh. “Did you I hear you say earlier that you were from Leeds?”
“Aye,” Joe agreed. “Once.”
“Changed much?”
“I suppose so.” More people, the chimneys of the manufactories with their smoke, the streets full and feeling dangerous. Or perhaps he’d been the one to change.
“Welcome home, anyway,” the man said.

September 1914

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He’d seen the tram down at the Swinegate Depot. All done up like a bloody dog’s dinner, God Save The King in lights on the side and Berlin as its destination.
Dog’s dinner was right. He read the slogan on the window – Wanted At Once, 5000 Recruits From Leeds. British Bulldogs. Airedale Or Yorkshire Terriers. Line them up and watch them run at the Hun. Still, he couldn’t help feeling a bit of pride.
There was already a queue hundreds long waiting to join up. In one end of the tram, out the other with big smiles on their faces. He joined at the end, smoking, listening to lads chattering away, full of spunk and fire about how many they’d kill and still be home by Christmas.
He didn’t care when it was over. However long it took, it would be better than what he had here. Grafting away in a factory for next to nowt. No future, just years of the same. His dad drunk Friday and Saturday nights, battering his mam when he came home.
Finally he stood in front of the corporal. The uniform was neat, the moustache clipped, buttons glinting in the light. Eyes full of pride.
‘Name?’
‘James Morgan.’
The corporal looked up.
‘If you want to be in the army, son, you’d better get used to rank.’ He pointed at the stripes. ‘See those? They mean I’m a corporal. So you address me as corporal or sir. Got it?’
‘Yes, corporal,’ he answered. It was like talking to the foreman.
‘Address?’
’31 East Park Road. Corporal.’ And he’d be glad to get shut of that place, too. No room, nowhere to think. Not that he expected the army to be much better. But at least he’d be a man, not just Tommy Morgan’s son.
‘Age?’
‘Eighteen, corporal.’
The man snorted.
‘Pull the other one, lad, it’s got bells on. How old?’
‘Seventeen.’
‘Then come back on your birthday.’ He looked down the line. ‘Next!’
Outside, all the ones who’d joined up were congratulating each other, off for a drink to celebrate. He walked off, hands in his pockets.

Remember, Remember – A Leeds Story

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We’re less than a month away from Bonfire Night now. Very soon they’ll start building the pyramid of pallets on Soldiers Field, and on the night there’ll be a grand ooh and aah, when it goes up and all the fireworks begin bursting in the air.

But there was one Bonfire Night that stands out from the others in Leeds’ history – back in 1745. The news that everyone feared arrived that night, that the Scots under Bonnie Prince Charlie – the Young Pretender, as he was known – had crossed the border at Carlisle.

Perhaps some had other things on their minds, though…

REMEMBER, REMEMBER – 1745

He fitted the new string on the fiddle and tightened the peg slowly, plucking it over and over as his wrist moved the tuner until it was close to a G. It would keep going flat during the evening and he’d have to re-tune. But it couldn’t be helped. At least it was the bottom string; he’d just try and use it as little as possible.
“Are you ready, Joshua Walker?” Toby called from outside the door.
“Aye,” he said. “Ready and willing.”

By eight, all the bonfires were burning well, sparks rising up into the darkness, people drinking and passing around the jugs of ale from one person to the next. Josh Walker locked the fiddle away in his room, safe from harm.
In the end it had all gone well. The string had been fair with him, staying in tune until a piece was done, and then all through the procession from the Assembly room up to the big fire on the open ground across from St. John’s. He’d been paid and given his share of scraps from the banquet, enough to feed him for a day if he was careful.
He walked up Briggate, the cudgel swinging from his wrist, eyes alert. It was a night for celebration, one where folk stayed out late, even the children. But who wouldn’t want to remember someone trying to blow up Parliament and all those down in London who only cared for themselves. Even if the plotters were all Papists, they’d done something right.
He rubbed the sleeve of his heavy greatcoat over the Town Waits badge, seeing it shine in the light from the bonfire. He was proud of that. It meant he made his living from the fiddle. Well, that and being part of the night watch, but he’d never heard of anyone earning enough money just from music.
After five years of doing this he knew what to expect. The apprentices would have their plans, staying out long after good folk were off to their beds. They’d be looking for a fight and before it was all done the night watch would give them one. There’d be some broken heads and a few waking up in gaol. The new gaol, they still called it, although it had been built before he was born.
They needed to learn some new tunes before Christmas, he thought. It was always a busy season, a time to line the pockets by playing balls and parties all over town. Last year they’d been invited out to Temple Newsam, the year before as far as Harrogate. He’d made enough to buy a new dress for his wife and clothes for his children. Roger was five and he’d just started the lad playing the fiddle, some simple fingering and learning how to hold it, exactly the way his own father had taught him.
He didn’t read music, none of the Waits did, but he had a quick ear. All he needed was to listen to something twice and he could play it, every note perfect. The others would pick it up from him and within half an hour they’d have it arranged and ready to perform. There was a melody he’d had in his head for days, one that wouldn’t go away. Josh was still trying to decide if he’d heard it somewhere or if it was a gift from God. He hummed it as he walked.
So far it had all been quiet. Several people had shot off muskets and fowling pieces, but no one had been hurt. No children had fallen into the flames, there hadn’t been any fights…all the trouble would happen later, once the families had drifted away. And it would come, it did every year. But then they’d be ready for it. This year, perhaps, the apprentices would at least manage to hit the statue of Queen Anne with their stones, unless they were already too drunk.
He stood close to the large fire, watching the shadows jump and warming his bones. Someone passed him a jug and he took a drink of ale, good twice-brewed that went down perfectly. He started to amble away, then turned at the sound of hooves. Someone riding in along the Newcastle Road.
He stood at the side, a hand raised, hoping they saw him. Three horses, together, slowing to a canter as they reached the houses.
“Welcome, friends,” Josh called loudly. “What brings you here so late?”
The man in front reined in close, his mount wet with sweat and wild-eyed. The two behind kept their distance, the animals pawing the ground as they breathed heavily.
“I need to speak to the magistrates,” the man said urgently. “There’s important news.”
People had begun to drift over from the fire, curious about the newcomers and pressing closer to see their faces.
“I know him!” someone shouted from the back of the crowd. “It’s that preacher.”
Josh looked up sharply. The horse moved enough for the light to catch the man’s face. Aye, it was true enough, Josh thought. That was John Wesley. Two months before they’d been quick enough to pelt him with stones when he stood up to speak. Now they were pressing close to hear whatever news he might be carrying.
“I’ll take you,” Josh told him, turning to see Theosophus Johnson and Robert Newman at his side, their cudgels at the ready. “Gentlemen,” he said to the riders, “follow me.”
He’d heard some of the aldermen talking about the Rose and Crown when they’d gathered to light the bonfire. With luck, a few of them might still be there. It was no more than two hundred yards, the light from the flames bright enough to guide them.
The stable lad came out as soon as he heard voices, taking the beasts as Josh led the men inside. Six of the aldermen were gathered around the table closest to the fire. Some of them looked close to sleep, heads lolling, while three of them laughed and drank. Almost a dozen empty bottles sat between them. Josh coughed, hoping one of them would notice him, then again, louder, when no one turned his head.
“Sirs,” he said in the voice he used to keep order in the town, and waited until the men quieted. Eyes blinked open. “Mr. Wesley’s arrived with important information.”
The preacher stepped forward. He stood tall, looking down with distaste.
“I’ve just come down from the north. People are fleeing. I’ve been told that the Pretender’s crossed by Carlisle. He’s in England. You need to prepare, sirs.”
There was a brief moment of silence, when time seemed to stand still, then a babble of voices, each one trying to rise above all the others. Josh saw a couple of men slip out. In the room, Alderman Atkinson tried to calm the noise.
He’d heard all he needed. The Scots were south of the border, the Jacobites were coming. He walked out into the night, the fires still burning. But the crowds had gone, simply vanished into the darkness. A few young men wandered, but they looked lost, without purpose.
He marched down Briggate. What would he do if the Scots arrived? Would he take up a sword and fight? Or would he take his wife and his children on the road south, hoping to find safety somewhere.
Suddenly the tune came back into his mind. It was transformed this time, martial and stirring, an accompaniment to his steps. Yes, he thought, this is it. He could already hear the other instruments. It would be excellent for the upcoming balls. If any of them were still here.

A Year And A Day

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A year and a day. For centuries, in English law, it was a vital time period. It was the minimum sentence that could be given for any crime ruled to be a felony. And in the case of a death, if it occurred a year and a day (or more) after the initial event, the death couldn’t be called murder.
A year and a day ago I moved back to Leeds. Back home. I remember when I was young and couldn’t wait to leave a city I found so restricting and small. I came back often over the years, but I saw it with an outsider’s eyes. Its decline and the way it rose again.
I began collecting books on Leeds history – I’m still not sure exactly why – and immersing myself in them. Then I started writing novels set there. By that time I’d returned to England after a few decades abroad. My ambivalent feelings towards the place had turned to love. Well, revisiting an old love, really. I came here more often, and discovered more and more about that place (something I’m still doing).
Finally, with all the right stars aligned, it was time to return.
A year ago tonight, we walked the streets I’d walked when I was a teenager. Past my old school, which stands on the far side of the fields from where we live now. I kept encountering the ghost of the younger me, so naïve and hopeful.
He’s gone now, not even a glimpse at the corner of my eye, but it was strange to meet him. The ghosts now aren’t from my own past, but my family’s. The places in Leeds where they lived and loved and worked. They feed me history, not just of Leeds, but how they existed, and urge me to write it down.
So it’s been a year and a day. And I’m content.

Behind the Gods of Gold

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I’d always said I’d never write a Victorian crime novel. I was certain of it. With so many already out there, what was left to add?
But somehow, I reckoned without Leeds tapping me on the shoulder.
Walk through the city and the Victorian era doesn’t just echo. It roars. It’s a time you can literally reach out and touch. The city’s architectural jewels are its grand Victorian buildings – the Town Hall, the Corn Exchange, and the solid, powerful edifices put up by the banks and insurance companies. They were the bricks and mortar promises of solidity, propriety and prosperity. A reminder of when this was one of the industrial powerhouses of the British Empire. And at the other end of the scale, the back-to-back houses in places like Harehills and Kirkstall stand as brusque accusations of the poverty so rife back then.
A world away, yet still close enough to be a very real part of today. But I wasn’t interested.
Then Leeds gave me the tale of its Gas Strike.
By 1890, the workers had begun to organise. The unions had were gaining strength. And that year, with the Leeds Gas Strike, they showed their power. Their terms of work changed by the council, wages cut, jobs slashed, the gas workers had no choice but to walk out. ‘Replacement workers’ were drafted in from Manchester and London to stoke the furnaces and keep the gas flowing. But they didn’t know they’d have to face a mob thousands strong. In fact, they’d been recruited under false pretences, believing they’d be employed at a new works. As soon as they discovered the truth, most abandoned their posts. The lights were flickering. Factories were closing. Within three days the strikers had their victory. For austere times it was an glorious story: the workers won.
I was intrigued. This might be a tale worth telling.

Reading more about the strike led to Tom Maguire. He was a young labour activist in Leeds, still in his middle twenties in 1890, a believer who helped build the labour movement, and became one of the founders of the Independent Labour Party. More than that, he was a poet (it’s a line from one of his works that gives Gods of Gold its title) who died in poverty in 1895 – yet thousands reportedly lined the roads as his coffin was taken to the cemetery.
There was definitely something here. But it needed something more personal to tip the scales and make me renege on my no-Victorian promise.
A couple of years ago I wrote a short story that took its inspiration from Atkinson Grimshaw’s dark, evocative painting Reflections On The Aire: On Strike, Leeds 1879. It shows the river, almost empty of ships, and a woman standing alone on the bank, clutching a bundle. Annabelle Atkinson. That was what I called her. And even then I knew we had unfinished business. She was too powerful, too vibrant a character to ever be satisfied with a single, brief appearance.
But she bided her time. It was only when I was researching the Gas Strike that she came and sat beside me in a swish of velvet.
‘I know all about this, luv,’ she said with a smile. ‘I was there, remember? Do you want me to tell you about it?’
So Annabelle introduced me to her fiancé, Detective Inspector Tom Harper, and the other characters in her life. We strolled along the streets of Hunslet and the Leylands together, drank in the Victoria in Sheepscar, were jostled by the crowds on Briggate and window-shopped in the Grand Pygmalion on Boar Lane. We sang along with the music hall tunes they loved – “My Old Man,” “Sidney The One-Week Wonder,” “’Enerey The Eighth”.
After that, how could I walk away?
Especially when with them came the ghosts of my own family, of Isaac Nickson who brought his wife and children to Leeds from Malton in the 1820s, of his descendants – William, John William, Harold Ewart – and the stories they had to tell me.
I couldn’t refuse. I didn’t even have a choice any more.
‘Tom Harper pounded down Briggate, the hobnails from his boots scattering sparks behind him…’

A Leeds Storytime

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It’s been a long time since I wrote a #leedsstorytime on Twitter. Taking a folk tale and re-telling it, maybe embellishing it a little. Because if the stories from the tradition aren’t told, they wither.

There was a place called Jenny White’s Hole in Leeds. It was a set of stairs between two houses on the Calls, leading directly down into the River Aire. No one seems to know about Jenny herself. This is my take on how it got its name.

Jenny White was a pretty Leeds lass, courted by all the lads. She worked as a mill hand and took her fun in the evenings. It was a time of factories and smoke, the bitter taste of soot in the air. But Jenny was young, she loved life. People danced to fiddlers and sang the songs they’d known all their lives. It was a hard life, but there was sun in it, too.
The lads threw their caps at Jenny. They all wanted her. But she only had eyes for Joshua, a handsome lad with cruel eyes. He paid her no mind, though. He could have any girl he desired, and his father was a mill foreman, with power and prestige. But his friends told him to court her. She was a right bobby dazzler, she’d make a good wife. So he looked. She was pretty.
More than that, she was willing. Where lads usually did her bidding, she was willing to make all the time she had for him. Joshua, though, saw her weakness. She loved him with all her heart, but he treated her cruelly. He wouldn’t turn up when he promised, just leave her standing for hours, lonely and heartbroken. Even when they were together, he’d hardly give her attention. Unless they were alone. In those moments she felt happy.
So she was overjoyed when Joshua suggested they wed. He might not be perfect, but he’d be hers forever. Yet she quickly learned that married life with Joshua was worse than courting him. Much worse.
He’d stay out in the beershops until all hours, coming home drunk and taking out his anger on her. After a year of this, Jenny White understood the gap between the hope of her heart and her life. He wasn’t going to change, for her or for anyone. She had nothing and no one; her parents had died.
With each day the feelings grew worse. And there was no way out, no escape. To a friend she bemoaned “the marriage vows as false as dicer’s oaths.” One night Joshua didn’t come home at all. Part of her hoped he might have died, to free her. But someone told her he’d left the inn with a young, pretty girl.
Despondent, Jenny began to walk. Her route took her along the Calls, a street of low, dark houses, poor and dismal. Between two houses stood a set of steps, leading down into the chilly, damp blackness. Jenny followed them. And as she placed one foot in front of another, her spirit began to lighten, as if she might fly away. Down she went, as the water of the river lapped around her feet. Down until it reached her knees.
Someone saw her disappear down the stairs and ran, looking to stop her. But when he looked, there was no Jenny in the water. She’d moved out of sight and out of this world. No body was ever found, although people searched.
Some said she’d drowned. Others believed she’d drifted until she found a place where lovers spoke truly. Where hearts were safe and words were bonds. Perhaps she’d slipped through to somewhere she could smile and laugh again. But it seemed as if she gone through a hole in the world. Which is why that spot became known as Jenny White’s Hole.

A Little Bit Of History For The Soul

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It’s a time to look forward to: Heritage Days. The weekend when so many older buildings are open, free of charge, to the public. Many of them aren’t even on show for the rest of the year. And Leeds is definitely blessed with them – 83 this time around. It’s impossible to see every one over a single weekend, of course.
This time around it began with a tour of Beckett Street cemetery. Far more interesting than it sounds, one of the oldest municipal cemeteries in Britain (the oldest is in Hunslet, also in Leeds), which contains the fascinating subscription graves (or guinea graves, as they’re known). For a guinea, the dead could be commemorated on a gravestone, rather than be buried nameless. The downside is that there will be five or six bodies in the grace, and more on the other side of the stone. Even in death, they’re as crowded and packed together as they were in life.
But the place does have the grave of Tom Maguire, who features as a minor character in Gods of Gold, and who, in life, was one of the founders of the Independent Labour Party in 1893. A great man.

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Sunday was Gipton Well, about half a mile from where I grew up. It’s a place to take the waters, just small, but once only one of many spas dotted around Leeds. Built in 1671, it’s fed by a small spring, and the privileged few who used it would wade or sit in the water, removing clothes in the outer room, which also had a fireplace, before plunging into the cold pool. The place has resonance for me, as the climax of The Constant Lovers takes place there. Going inside for the first time in many years, it was just as I remembered it – but in better, cared-for shape.

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And then, Whitkirk Church, which dates from the 15th century, with a tower completed by 1440, and a continuous line of priests since 1185, although there was a church mentioned in the Domesday Book. Originally a Knights Templar church (it’s close to Temple Newsman, which was owned by the Templars, and there are two small houses close by with Templar crosses), it’s been renovated a couple of times, but still retains a beautiful medieval simplicity – although some of the memorials are very elaborate for as small church.

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The graveyard also has this wonderful headstone. A very modern sentiment. No names or date on it, just these words.

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The highlight of 2014’s Heritage Days, though, was a chance to tour Templeworks in Holbeck. The area was one of the Victorian industrial powerhouses of Leeds, although manufacturing is long since a thing of the past.
When it opened it 1841, Temple Mill (as it was then) was very modern. It was the brainchild of John Marshall, who’d run Marshall’s Mill next door since the 1790s.

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The frontage of Temple Mill is a replica of the Temple of Horus at Edfu in Egypt.

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Behind that, though, it was thoroughly modern. The mill itself was the largest room in the world, with 17 exits in case of fire.

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Used for spinning flax, it ran without electricity, powered by steam, generated in the cellar, while the light came from a forest of skylights on the roof that look like something from a science fiction film; they must have seemed completely alien at the time.

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To provide the heat and humidity needed for spinning flax, all the iron pillars holding up the ceiling in the mill were hollowed, allowing water to trickle down naturally. The moisture level was increase by turfing the roof and having sheep crop the grass there (they were transported up and down in the world’s first hydraulic lift).
Marshall was a hard master, but also enlightened to a degree. He ran a crèche for the women who worked at the mill and there was schooling for the young workers until they were 12.
The building was in continuous use into the 21st century, last as a catalogue headquarters for Kay’s. These days, though, as Templeworks, it’s an artist’s co-op that survives without funding. Much of the income is generated from TV companies filming there, but it also hosts theatre and music events.
That reinvention is wonderful, but typical of what’s going on across Holbeck. The factories have gone, but these days it’s the digital hub of Leeds – and what is digital except the industry of the 21st century?
But some of the history is left behind in the fabric. Like these wonderful chimneys still standing at Tower Works, both of them based on old Italian church towers. Like Temple Mill, they’re a reminder that there could even be romance in industry.

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The Book Launch

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Thank you so much to everyone who came to the launch for Gods of Gold last night, and those who couldn’t make it but were there in spirit. It was held at the Leeds Library, the oldest subscription library in Britain, founded in 1768 and in the same location since 1808. I was in the ‘new room,’ which only dates from 1880…

I’m grateful to the staff there for their work, and for having me as a guest. They also had the Yorkshire Weekly News from July 1890 on display, with a very long (and wonderfully biased) story about the Gas Strike that forms the backdrop to Gods of Gold (hint: they weren’t happy that the workers won).

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There was wine (of course) and two people brought homemade cake, which was delicious. The only downside was that those sitting there had to listen to me wittering on.

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On the upside, there was time to mingle. I got to meet old friends and new, including my MP, Fabian Hamilton, and a wonderful woman of 93, very spry and alert, who was able to tell me about Kirkgate and Bell’s Pharmacy in the 1920s and 1930s. I feel incredibly privileged to have had everyone come out for me and this book.

Thanks, too, to Radish Books for taking care of the book sales. I was astonished when the pile was devoured by customers in seconds (even my own copy vanished, but thankfully someone returned it). It’s a pretty magical feeling when someone ask you to sign a book for them. Events like last night make all the hard work of writing worthwhile. And even more grateful to everyone at Severn House for their belief in my work.

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Thank you all.

Annabelle Atkinson and Mr. Grimshaw

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Annabelle Atkinson is deep at the heart of Gods of Gold. The whole idea began with her, really. But she made her first appearance in this story I gave to Leeds Book Club a couple of years ago. And after that, she would leave me alone; she still hasn’t.

But, as the book launch for Gods of Gold is tomorrow night, here’s the first time Annabelle showed herself. A little different, a little younger, but still recognisable…

Inspired by the painting Reflections on the Aire: On Strike, Leeds 1879, by Atkinson Grimshaw

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On both sides of the river rows of factory chimneys stood straight and tall and silent, bricks blackened to the colour of night. Smoke was only rising from a few today, but the smell of soot was everywhere, on the breath and on the clothes. It was the shank of an October afternoon and the gas lamps were already lit, dusk gathering in the shadows.
He stood and looked at the water. Where barges should be crowded against the warehouses like puppies around a teat there was nothing. Just a single boat moored in the middle of the Aire, no sails set, its masts spindly and bare as a prison hulk.
He coughed a little, took the handkerchief from his pocket and spat delicately into it. This was the time of year when it always began, when men and women found their lungs tender, when the foul air caught and clemmed in the chest and the odour from the gasworks cut through everything so that even the bitter winter snow tasted of it.
What sun there was hung low in the west, half-hidden by clouds. A few more minutes and he’d be finished then walk home to Knostrop, leave the stink and stench of Leeds for trees and grass and the sweet smell of fresher air. First, though, he needed to complete the sketch, to capture these moments.
Tomorrow he’d start in the studio, to try and find the mood that overwhelmed him now, Leeds in the still of the warehousemen’s strike, no lading, no voices shouting, no press of people and trade along the river.
“What tha’ doing?”
He turned. He hadn’t heard her come along the towpath. But there she was, peering over his shoulder at the lines on the pad, the shadings and simple strokes that were his shorthand.
“Tha’ drawing?”
“Sketching,” he answered with a smile and slipping the charcoal into his jacket pocket.
“Aye, it’s not bad,” she told him with approval, reaching out a finger with the nail bitten short and rimmed with dirt. “I like that,” she said, pointing at the way he’d highlight the buildings as they vanished towards the bridge, hinting at the cuts and alleys and what lay beyond.
“Thank you.”
He studied her properly, a girl who was almost a woman, in an old dress whose pattern had faded, the hem damp and discoloured where she’d walked across the wet grass. She wore her small, tattered hat pinned into her hair.
At most she was twenty, he judged. As she opened her mouth to speak he could see that one of her teeth was missing, the others yellowed, and her face held the start of lines that belonged to a woman twice her age. Her cheeks were sunk from hunger, the bones of her wrists like twigs. But her eyes were clear and full of mischief. She carried a bundle in her left hand. At first he thought she was a ragpicker, done for the day; then he noticed how she cradled it close and understood it was what little she owned in the world.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Anabelle Atkinson, sir,” she replied with the faintest of smiles. “Me mam said she wanted summat nice around her.”
He nodded, watching the water and the sky again. In a minute the sky would part, leaving the sun pale as lemon reflecting on the river. Perhaps the last sun of the year, except for a few days when the sun would sparkle on the snow around his home. He held his breath for a moment, ready to work quickly.
“My name’s Atkinson, too,” he said distracted by the light, committing it to memory.
“Happen as we’re related, then.” He could feel her eyes on him. “But mebbe not.”
“It’s my middle name,” he explained quietly, “but I prefer it to my Christian name.”
“Why’s that, then?”
Very quickly he fumbled in his pocket, drawing out coloured pencils and adding to the sketch, the reflections on the river, the gold of a fading sun mingling with the browns and greens of the dirty water, smudging with the edge of his hand, thinking, putting it all away in his memory for tomorrow when he’d sit in the studio with his paints.
“It suits me better,” he answered her finally, squinting at his work, then at the scene before adding some more touches.
“That’s right,” she said slowly, as he was about to add more umber to the water. “That’s it.” There was awe in her voice, as if she couldn’t believe nature could be captured that way. “It looks alive.”
“It’s just preparation,” he explained. “I’ll paint it soon.”
“That what you are, then? An artist?”
“I am.”
He was a successful one, too. Whatever he put on canvas sold, almost before it had dried. For the last nineteen years it had been his living, since he broke away from the tedium of being a railway clerk, the job he thought might crush his heart. With no training and only the support of his wife, he’d known that painting could make his soul sing. These days he was a wealthy man, one who’d made art pay him well. Now they knew him all around the country; in London any man would deign to receive him.
“You must make a bob or two.”
Grimshaw smiled.
“I get by.”
“You’ve got good clothes and you talk posh.”
He chuckled.
“Don’t be fooled. I’m not as posh as you’d think. I grew up in Wortley and my father worked on the railways. What about you, Annabelle Atkinson? Where do you live?”
“Me mam’s in one of them houses up on the Bank.”
He knew them, squalid back-to-backs with no grass or green, some of the worst housing in Leeds. No good air and the children ragged as tinkers’ brats. It was where the Irish lived, crammed together in dwellings that everyone said should be pulled down.
“How many of you?”
“Only four now. I’m not there no more, though. Had a job as a maid in one of them big houses out past Headingley.”
“Had?” He eyed her sharply.
“They didn’t like me having gentleman callers. Said it wasn’t proper for someone in my station.” She put on a voice as she spoke and her eyes flashed with anger. “Me mam won’t have me back. No room, not if I’m not bringing in a wage.”
“What are you going to do?”
She shrugged.
“I’ll find summat. There’s always work for them as is willing to graft.”
He thought of the life in her and his own children, six alive and the ten who’d died. Of his wife, twenty-two years married, with her stern face and the eternal look of weariness.
“Where are you going to sleep?”
“There’s rooms. At least when they turned me out they paid what they owed. I’ll not go short for a while.”
He looked down at the sketch. It caught everything well, and it would be a good painting, another one to bring in a good ten pounds or more. But it was a landscape unpeopled.
“Annabelle Atkinson, can you do something for me?”
“What?” she asked warily, too familiar with the ways of men.
“Just stand about ten yards down the path, that’s all.”
“Why?”
He tapped the drawing with a fingernail.
“I want to put you in this, that’s all?”
“Me?” She laughed. “Go on, you don’t want me in that.”
“I do. Please.”
She shook her head, smiling all the while.
“You’re daft, you are.” But she still moved along the path, looking back over her shoulder. “Here?”
“Yes. Look out over the river. That’s it. Stay there.”
He was deft, seeing how she held the bundle, her bare arms, the hem of the dress high enough to show bare ankles, and a sense of longing in the way she held herself.
“I’m done,” he told her after a minute and she came back to him.
“That’s me?” she asked.
“It is.”
“Do I really look like that?”
“That’s how I see you,” he said with a smile. She kept staring at the paper.
“You’ll put that in your painting?”
“With more detail, yes.”
“What?”
“The pattern of the dress, things like that.”
Self-consciously she smoothed down the old material, her face suddenly proud, looking younger and less careworn. He dug into his trouser pocket, pulling out two guineas.
“This is for you.”
“What? All this?”
“I’m an artist. I pay my models.”
“But I didn’t do owt. I just stood over there,” she protested.
“I sketched you, and you’ll be in the painting. That makes you my model. Here, take it.”
Almost guiltily she plucked the money from his hand, tucking it away in the pocket of her dress.
“Thank you, sir,” she said quietly. “You’ve made my day, you have.”
“As you’ve made mine, Annabelle Atkinson.” He closed the sketch pad and put away the pencils and charcoal, then tipped his hat to her before walking away.
“So what is your name, then?” she asked.
“Atkinson Grimshaw.” He handed her his card. “I wish you and your baby well.”
“Me in a painting. There’s no one as’ll believe that.” She began to laugh, letting it rise into a full-throated roar, and he laughed with her.