reading

Blackburn 1862

Jason Brindle was big enough, having just turned ten, to walk home from school. It wasn’t far, and he always crossed the one busy road with the help of the lollipop man. Today, however, his mother had arranged to meet him at the nearby Morrisons, where she had been doing the weekly food shopping. He was eager to get home and to go inside the house.

Using his mother’s key, Jason unlocked the front door while his mother lifted bags of shopping from the car boot. It was quite a new responsibility to have the small bunch of keys in his hand and to do that little job.

As he entered the house, dropping his school bag carelessly onto the floor, he heard the thud of the boot being closed and then his mother’s voice saying, “And before you disappear into that cellar, you can help me unpack these bags.”

“Oh, mum,” he moaned, unhappy at the delay in getting to his private den. Although it was a sunny Thursday afternoon in mid-October and warm enough to play outside, Jason had something more important on his mind.

The necessary chore completed, he ran into the dining room and, in the middle of the varnished wooden floor, lifted the trap-door that led down several wooden steps into the space below the house. The cellar extended under the whole house, although the area under the kitchen was blocked by a brick wall. His father, Michael, had spent many weeks the previous winter making the cellar into more useful space.

Immediately under the dining room was his father’s wine store, together with a computer desk, where his mother sometimes worked. There were also two large colourful bean-bags in which Sophie, his older sister, hung out with her friend when she wasn’t up in her bedroom being moody or experimenting with make-up.

But it was the larger space under the lounge at the front of the house that Jason headed for, throwing his school sweatshirt onto one of the bean bags as he turned. He hated it, anyway, as it was a stupid raspberry colour.

Jason was still small enough to be able to stand and to walk around the cellar without stooping like his father had to. He just had to avoid the central heating pipes and the electricity cables attached to the wooden joists that supported the floor above him. He flicked on the switch for the lighting in the room and entered. His school shoes, which he had not removed in his hurry, tapped noisily on the wooden laminate flooring.

In front of him lay the object of his mission, the reason for his excitement. Around four metres wide and a little more than two metres deep, with a hole in the middle big enough for him to sit and control the action, it was a large model railway. Well, Jason thought that it was large. He and his father had designed and built it – no, were building it – for these things are almost never finished. The people who share this hobby and passion are always adding a building here, some trees there, or changing the plan of a station or a goods siding.

It was a village in miniature, with houses, a factory, a police station, two pubs, shops, a village green, a fairground and a church – complete with a graveyard – something that Jason had demanded. In the central foreground was a large station, with four lines running through it and sidings off to the right. To the left, the four lines merged into two, by means of points, shortly before a tunnel into which trains disappeared and ran under a hill behind the church. Other trains, running in the opposite direction, emerged from the curving tunnel and entered the station.

Cars, trucks and buses stood on the painted roads that connected different parts of the village, everything in the same scale and proportion. Everything, at least most things, had been chosen to fit into the same time in history: the late nineteen fifties or the early nineteen sixties, when both steam and diesel trains ran on Britain’s railways. Some of the buildings were plastic, made from kits that they had bought, others were folded cardboard. They had put little LED lights inside the church and along the streets and the station platforms, so that the whole scene looked magical, especially when the main light in the room was switched off.

Jason and his father often visited model railway fairs and exhibitions in other towns. As well as some really good layouts, built to different scales, there were stalls where you could buy second-hand locomotives, carriages and trucks.

The main reason for his hurry to get to his model railway today was the new green diesel locomotive, number 50007, that they had bought the previous weekend. He took it out of its box and placed the wheels gently and exactly onto the silver track. He crawled under the front boards of his layout and into the central space, where the controls were positioned. When he turned on the current, nothing happened except for a quiet buzzing sound. He knew what to try. He leant over and gently pushed the locomotive. It jolted into life and began its journey.

After a few circuits, Jason decided that it was time to make the engine do some work and pull three coaches. He also set another train in motion, a small steam locomotive hauling a few odd trucks, working in the opposite direction. Once the trains were running smoothly along the rails, he crawled back outside to watch the scene from the front, especially to look at the main station.

The trains ran through or, when he made them, they stopped at the station where people were waiting. They never got on, of course. When the train pulled away from the platform, the tiny plastic people were still there. Jason enjoyed studying them with their different clothes and accessories. He imagined that a certain one was a bank manager, another a cook or a cleaner; the young woman with blonde hair and a bright blue coat probably worked in an office. But there they remained, frozen in time.

He switched off the main light in the cellar room. He liked his village best when it was dark. The painted backboard faded into the gloom. It was more realistic in the darkness. He especially enjoyed it when a passenger train with lighted carriages was coming through the tunnel towards the main station. Slowly. It was best when the train approached slowly. He could peer inside the curved tunnel and see the warm glow from the lighted carriage windows, a faint colour at first, warming and brightening during the few seconds it took before the train emerged and slid alongside the platform edge.

Almost as soon as the express entered the tunnel, the goods train trundled out of it; and Jason, bending forward, had his head so close to the trucks that he could read the tiny printed signs on them. He looked into the tunnel and noticed something deep inside its darkness. Something that he had never seen before. It was a small light. Funny: he couldn’t remember putting a lamp inside the tunnel.

Fascinated, he stared into the darkness, focusing on the strange new light. There was no train in there. Where could the light be coming from? It wasn’t moving, so far as he could tell, but it drew his eye, pulling his whole attention towards it. The darkness and the blackness seemed to close around him like a duvet, yet the light was still there. Jason wasn’t sure whether he liked this feeling, but he was so curious that he moved his right foot forward, intending to peer in even further.

Something moved under his foot. Strange. Stones … small stones. By moving his foot around, he could clearly make out that they were small stones, rough and sharp, not rounded like pebbles on the beach. Suddenly, something touched his hair. And again. But the second time it trickled down his forehead. Water? It was cold. A shrieking whistling noise came through the darkness and echoed around him.

In the same moment when he realised that he was inside a tunnel, a real tunnel, there came more sounds, terrifying sounds: the clanking of metal, together with hissing and thundering blasts. Louder, closer. He could even feel the force of the blasts. Then the smell of smoke: an oily smoke. He threw himself back against the tunnel wall as the belching iron monster powered past him. Everything – the wall, the ground and the thick nasty air – seemed to shake.

Perhaps it was just his own body that was shaking, for only now was he aware of just how much he was trembling. Whether it was from fear or from the wet, clammy coldness, he didn’t know.

Jason found a paper tissue in his pocket and he wiped his eyes which were stinging from the smoke and the soot. For a few moments he could see only a blurry picture, but there was brightness ahead of him – daylight at the end of the tunnel. Behind him there was only blackness, the train having disappeared, although he could still hear the chuffing and clanking growing fainter. Slowly, carefully, he walked towards the daylight on the flatter, less stony part of the ground, keeping close to the damp wall.

By the time he had reached the mouth of the tunnel, the smoke had cleared. The brightness of the light outside, under a partly blue, partly cloudy afternoon sky, dazzled him for a moment. The air felt colder than Eastbourne, but then he looked down at his arms and body; and he realised that he was in his school shirt. His sweater was on the bean bag.

The confused boy stood just outside the tunnel to feel some warmth from the sun that shone on his face and his front. Whatever had happened? However had he got here? Here! Wherever was he?

Ahead of him, about fifty metres away, was a building. He guessed that it was a station, but it was nothing like any station he had visited. An enormously high roof, formed of two arches, hung above two platforms, the one on the right having a siding at the near end. The platforms were odd: they were very low, only just above the level of the rails. He had seen pictures of platforms like this in other European countries. Surely, he couldn’t be in a different country.

Jason had seen films in which people had pricked themselves to check that they weren’t dreaming. He felt in the pockets of his school trousers, but there was nothing sharp. Instead, he pinched the skin of his left arm, just above his wrist. He felt it. This was scary, but the exciting and interesting kind of scary for a boy who loved trains.

For a moment he wondered what he should do next. He was not in a safe place here. Should he walk on and try to reach the station platform? He knew it was wrong to walk along railway lines. Or should he turn around and go back into the tunnel? After all, if he had arrived here through the tunnel, he ought to be able to return that way.

An angry shout roused him. “Ey – whad d’yer think yer doin’? Ged off theer!” A couple of men were standing on the other side of the tracks, pointing towards Jason. One of them, a large, heavy man, bent down, picked up a stone and drew back his arm as if preparing to throw it. Jason realised that he needed to move, and he looked around quickly for the nearest way to go. Instinct made him run towards the platform, but before he had reached safety, he heard a train’s whistle and he saw, to his horror, a black steam engine approaching him.

“Here, lad – get on here,” called a voice to his right. Waving an arm was a young man in a dark jacket and a cap. The arm caught hold of Jason and dragged him onto the platform. “Do you want to get yourself killed? That’s the coal empties.” The train of trucks rumbled past and the engine whistled again as it entered the tunnel Jason had just walked out of. “It’s taking the empty wagons back to Burnley.”

Jason studied the man’s uniform. On the front of his cap the word ‘Porter’ was stitched in gold-coloured letters. He wasn’t quite sure what ‘Porter’ meant, but he guessed that it was the man’s job. Jason was even more impressed by the buttons on the porter’s jacket: they were made of shiny metal and had a design on them. The railwayman noticed Jason’s interest. “Looking at my buttons? Nice, aren’t they?” He pulled his jacket away from his chest as far as the material would stretch and he held a button close to Jason’s face. Around the coat-of-arms at its centre were the words ‘Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway.’

“See that gentleman there? That’s Mr Pilkington. He owns two mills – both of them are stopped.”

Jason was puzzled. “Mills? Like a windmill?”

“Not from Blackburn, are you, if you’re asking me what a mill is. Blackburn is full of mills – factories that make cloth – cotton. You know what cotton is?” Jason nodded, but the porter had fallen naturally into the role of a teacher and was tugging gently on Jason’s shirt. “They say that half the people in the town work in the mills. Nowadays, most of the mills are either closed or working short time. There’s sixteen thousand cotton workers in Blackburn with no work. No work, no money.”

“But you seem happy,” Jason said.

“Happy and helpful. That’s my motto. Happy and helpful. Why not? I’ve got a job. It’s not as busy as usual, mind, and there’s less business and not so many passengers, so that means less in tips. But I’ve got my job and I can pay my rent and provide for my wife and my boy. I started a few years ago at the other station – in Bolton Road. When the two old companies became part of the Lancashire and Yorkshire, they shut that station and some of us got transferred here. It’s not bad, but that roof leaks something awful.”

Jason was only half listening. He was more than a bit confused and he was looking around him for clues to make sense of his situation. He couldn’t see a station sign and there were none of the recorded announcements that he was used to. “Which station is this?”

“This? Blackburn, of course.” The porter laughed and shook his head, “You’re a right one – all alone and lost to the world.” The last phrase was musical, as if the porter was singing a line from a song.

Blackburn. Jason knew the name. His father had told him about Blackburn. His father had grown up here. But how did he come to be in Blackburn? It was a long way from Eastbourne. While he was pondering this question, he felt something warm touch his hand.

“Here, drink this.” It was a metal mug filled with a dirty brown liquid that smelt something like coffee. “Go on, you look cold.”

The sounds that the man made were funny – his father sometimes spoke like that when he was being silly. Jason took a sip – he wasn’t very fond of coffee. The drink was warm rather than hot and it tasted slightly better than its muddy brownness looked, though not like any coffee he had drunk before.

Another man, dressed in similar clothes, but a bit older and heavier, came in and wrote something on a piece of card. He turned and looked down at Jason, then at the porter. “Whad yer got theer, lad – another waif an’ stray?”

“Found ‘im wanderin’ on t’ down line – nearly had a meeting wi’ t’coal empties.”

“He looks healthy enough. It’s about time they built some more schools – or prisons.” The man winked at Jason and chuckled as he turned back towards the door. “That’s me done for today, lad. See you in t’ morning.”

“Aye, see you, Bill.”

When the door had closed, the kindly young man said, “That’s Bill Thompson – he’s a luggage porter like me. I’m John – John West.” He held out his hand to Jason who, though not used to shaking hands, had seen adults do it when they met.

“My name’s Jason,” he replied and, shaking the man’s rather bony hand, suddenly felt quite grown up.

“How did you get here, anyway?” the porter asked.“I don’t really know – I think I walked through the tunnel, but …”

“There’s bylaws against that,” interrupted the porter, perching himself on a wooden stool. “And it’s dangerous to be in there without a lamp. The drivers can’t see anything but lights. You wouldn’t catch me walking in there. They say that it’s haunted by the ghost of a feller who was killed one Sunday while he was working on the cutting at the far end. A barrow and a big rock fell on top of him. His mate heard the wooden platform break and got out of the way, but this poor feller was deaf; died on the spot.”

Jason shivered. He liked scary stories and Horrible History books, but the porter’s story was too near and too real. He was about to explain that he hadn’t walked through the tunnel on purpose, when John West jumped up from the stool and said, “Still cold? Come with me. We’ll see if there’s something at the Lost Property office to cover you up.”

The boy followed his new friend to a nearby window, behind which stood a short, plump woman with a happy, red face. “Aggie, have you got anything to keep this young lad warm?”

Aggie looked closely at Jason for a moment and she pursed her large lips. “Draughty places, railway stations.” She turned away to the shelves behind her. “I’ll have a look.” Jason was amused by the way she had said ‘look’ like the name Luke. After a few seconds of moving items around, she grabbed a dark piece of cloth. “Here, take this shawl. No one’s going to come back for it – it’s been here for weeks.” She held it up to her face and sniffed. “Months. There you are, pet. Don’t say nobody never gave you owt.”

Though still confused, he managed to say a polite ‘thank you.’ The kind woman – even her voice was kind – smiled back at him. John firstly tried to put the shawl over Jason’s head and shoulders, like the women wore them, but he looked odd. John laughed at his own poor attempt. “He looks like one of those tramps that come into town begging.”

“Just put it around his shoulders and cross it over his chest,” suggested Aggie. “He’ll catch his death in this damp wind.”

As they walked away from Aggie’s little office, Jason stopped. On the wooden bench next to where he was standing was a newspaper. It looked unusual, so Jason picked it up. “Oh,” said John in a surprised tone, “Can you read, then?” Jason thought this was a strange question to ask a boy of ten in his fifth year at school, and he was too puzzled to reply.

The newspaper was not like any newspaper that Jason had looked at before. When he opened it out to its full-page size, it was much larger than the Eastbourne Herald and there were no pictures. There didn’t seem to be any headline or any news story on the front page, which was full of small boxes that seemed to be advertising things. The name of the paper was the Blackburn Standard.

“You can take it with you if you like,” John said. “It’s finished with – it’s yesterday’s.” Under the large title was a date: Wednesday 15th October … 1862. Jason blinked twice, and he looked back again to check.

“Yesterday’s?” the boy asked slowly.

“Aye – the fifteenth day of October.”

“So, today – now – it’s the sixteenth of October? 1862?”

The porter seemed less than excited by the boy’s reasoning. “Just so.” He looked out of the office window and licked the tip of his pencil before writing on some kind of label.

“1862,” Jason repeated, thinking aloud. “How …?”

“Aye – and if I don’t get back to work, I shan’t have a job in 1863!” He smiled, patted the boy’s head and shook his own at the strangeness of the meeting. “You’d best be off too – you don’t want the station master to catch you hanging about – especially without a ticket.”

Be off. Jason knew what the words meant, but where was he to go? Could he find a way back home? He started to walk along the platform towards the tunnel. This was so different from the stations he knew. Even on the steam railways he had visited, like the Bluebell Line. All the seats, the lamps, the trolleys and carts were different. Above all, the people and their clothes – clothes that he had only seen in a museum or on TV. The men wore long, dark jackets or coats; the one or two women he could see were in long dresses.

He reached the end of the platform and stepped down onto the trackbed. He was disappointed to see that the two workmen were now doing a job very near to the mouth of the tunnel. Wondering if he could possibly slip past them without being noticed, he stepped forward cautiously, willing them to carry on, and wishing he could become invisible for a minute.

Jason was still in the shadow of the station roof, a shadow that had lengthened in the late afternoon; but as soon as he ventured beyond it, the bigger man – the one who had shouted at him earlier saw him. “I teawd thi’ before – clear off!” he yelled, waving the arm whose hand wielded a tool.

He retreated onto the platform. That route was not open to him and he knew that he was only risking trouble if he tried it, for both the men had stopped their work to watch him. What could he do now? He looked around for the porter, but he couldn’t see him. What would his parents do?

He sat down on some sacks that were lying against the wall near the end of the platform and tried to think. ‘I’m on a station. I can’t walk out through the tunnel. Stations have railway lines and trains. Maybe if I got on a train, and the train took me into the tunnel. Maybe I could get back to Eastbourne on a train.’

Further along the platform was a sign that read ‘BOOKING OFFICE’. It had a heavy door, with a glass panel that still had the words ‘First Class Waiting Room’ etched into it from its previous use. The door opened into a room with a high ceiling. At the counter was a pale-faced man who wore small round glasses on his big nose. He didn’t look very friendly and as Jason approached, the man glared at him.

“Yes?”

“Please, sir,” began Jason, thinking that he had better be extra polite. “Can I get a ticket to Eastbourne?”

The man looked even harder at Jason. “Eastbourne? That’s an unusual one.”

“It’s in East Sussex,” offered Jason, thinking that he was being helpful.

“It may be on the moon, for all I care,” replied the ticket clerk. “The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway doesn’t go there.”

He leaned forward on his elbows and fixed his weasel-like eyes on the boy. “Now, what would a lad your age want with travelling so far – and alone?”

“It’s where I live,” Jason said, trying to stay strong, but feeling smaller and more frightened every moment.

“You’ll have to change trains at Preston, then find your way across London.” The man thought that he had noticed Jason flinch at the mention of crossing London. He scented blood.

“I think I know how to do that,” Jason said, knowing that the Eastbourne trains ran from Victoria. The man took a sharp sniff and turned to a wooden rack behind him.

“Well, then. How about you show me the colour of your money before I stamp this ticket? Once it’s stamped, it’s sold, you see; and I have to account for the money.” The man waved a small piece of card in front of the boy’s face. “It’s a ticket to Preston,” he went on. “You can book for London from there. Sixpence to Preston.”

“How far is Preston?” asked Jason, thinking that sixpence sounded very cheap for a train fare.

The man raised his eyebrows. “Eleven and a quarter miles.”

At least it was away from here and from this unpleasant man. Jason’s hand shot into the pocket of his grey trousers. Empty. He tried the other pocket. ‘Oh, no.’

“Well?” began the clerk, with a self-satisfied smile on his face. “Do you want this, or not?”

“Sorry. I’ve got no money,” Jason blurted and, hugely embarrassed, he turned and ran out onto the platform. By the time that the clerk had replaced the ticket on its shelf, Jason was back on the sacks, where he was well hidden from most of the platform.

Now he began to feel desperate. He had to get away, but he had no money. Somehow, he was alone in a strange place, in a totally different year, and without any money. He peeped from behind a pillar, hoping to catch sight of the friendly porter, but he couldn’t see him. So, he walked to the porter’s room, but it was locked. He went towards the eastern end of the platform, but the two men were still working just outside the tunnel. Maybe if he hid somewhere and waited until the men had finished, then he could walk back into the tunnel. But it might be evening by then, and he remembered that John had told him how dangerous it was in the dark.

At that moment, another train entered the station. As it approached, he considered getting into a carriage and hiding; but then he saw how small the carriages were – no more than seven metres long, each with three small compartments and, apparently, made mostly of wood. It was clear that you couldn’t walk through them to hide anywhere. They probably didn’t even have toilets. He stared at the train, so different from the ones that he normally travelled in.

Jason was suddenly aware that the station master was watching him as he gazed at the train. A large man with a beard and a very serious face, he didn’t look any friendlier than the man in the ticket office. The station master stroked his beard imperiously. Jason stepped back, away from the train.

Another large, fat man had come out of the first-class carriage and was heading towards the ‘WAY OUT’ sign. At the doorway there were no automatic ticket gates like at Eastbourne or in London, but there was a railway ticket collector. Jason knew that he didn’t have a ticket, but he decided that the man in front was so big and round that he could probably get out without being noticed.

He walked closely behind the fat man, trying to stay hidden from the inspector’s view. A few more steps and the man raised his right arm to hand over his ticket. Jason moved slightly left to stay hidden. His heart was thumping inside his chest. The man stopped and for a second Jason began to panic – why didn’t the man just carry on walking through?

Now very alert, Jason heard the man asking the ticket inspector about the times of the trains back to Preston. The inspector began talking; Jason realised that this was his chance. Pulling the shawl up over the top of his head, he stepped to the left and walked a few quick paces before breaking into a jog.

“Oi! Come here!” called a voice behind him. It was sure to be the inspector, but Jason didn’t stop to check. In a few seconds, he was outside the station building.

As he emerged into the low, orange sunlight, the first thing that he noticed was a group of seven or eight boys. Some of them looked about his age and two were smaller. Perhaps they could help him. He started to walk towards them, but as he got closer, he felt nervous. They were scruffy, dirty and quite mean-looking. Backing away from them, he stepped into the path of the fat man.

“Look where you’re going, won’t yer?” growled the man.

Two of the boys approached the man, each holding out a hand. “Can you spare a penny, sir? We’ve had nothing to eat all day.”

Jason had seen men sitting in the doorways of Eastbourne shops, holding out a paper cup for money, but he had never watched children of his age begging for pennies.

“Go away, or I’ll fetch a policeman!” and he waved his bag at them and walked away from the station.

Jason watched him go and he stood there looking around him. It was like a scene from one of those historical dramas on television that his parents liked. There were no cars, but several horses. A couple of them were standing to the right of the station, harnessed to small vehicles. One of them moved from its spot in front of a pub called The Star and Garter and trotted past. Jason was able to read the painted sign on the cab: ‘One or Two Passengers: 1s. per mile; Three or more passengers 1/6d per mile. He guessed that the numbers were prices, although he could not understand the letters and symbols; and if people paid to ride in the little carriage, it was something like a taxi.

Over to the left was a big church; near to it, a man was pushing a wooden cart that had some vegetables on it. The man looked quite old and Jason watched him putting all his strength into it.

“You lost, or summat?” barked a voice in his left ear. It was one of the scruffy boys, about Jason’s height. “Don’t suppose you’ve got any brass?”

“Brass?”

“Money.” The boy, whose face was dirty, but pale, was staring into Jason’s.

“No – I’ve got nothing.” Jason felt that he had to pull out the pockets of his shorts to prove it.

“Nice pair of shoes, though. Where’d you get ‘em?”

Jason didn’t particularly like his shoes, but glancing down he saw that some of the boys had nothing on their feet. The one who seemed to be the leader of the group had some tatty, broken shoes, one of which had a hole so large that his big toe was showing.

“You could sell ‘em – or pledge ‘em,” the boy said, nodding his head towards Jason’s feet.

“I don’t know what you mean – pledge?”

“Take ‘em to a pop-shop and get money for ‘em.”

“Pop shop?” Jason asked. What kind of English did they speak here?

“One of them shops wi’ three brass balls over t’door.”

“Oh, I know,” Jason replied. There were shops like that in the poorer streets of Eastbourne town centre. People went there to borrow money by leaving any jewellery or nice clothes for a time. Others sold their old mobile phones and gadgets for a bit of cash.

A second, slightly smaller boy spoke up. “Don’t worry. We’ve got nowt too.” The other kids were now busy trying their luck with two men in long black coats who were entering the station. “Our mother had to pledge some of our chairs. We have to share one at home.”

Jason realised then that the two were brothers and asked them where they lived. They tried to explain, but having no idea of the street names or the geography of Blackburn, Jason felt and looked even more lost. It was difficult for him to tell them where he lived and quite impossible, he thought, to say how he had arrived there.

“Do you want to come home with us? You can ‘ave some tea.”

“Okay,” agreed Jason, a bit dimly, taken by surprise at the invitation from boys who seemed to be so poor. But, of course, his pockets were empty too; they had that in common at least.

The elder brother said his name was William Henry Beckett, but that everyone called him Willie. He was eleven and the younger one, Edward, was nine. Before what Willie called ‘the distress’ both boys had worked in a cotton mill. That shocked Jason.

“You mean you had a job? You didn’t go to school?”

“We were both creelers. We got five shillings a week – each. We sometimes went to school in the afternoon, but you have to pay to go to school.”

Jason, who was not the greatest fan of going to school, thought that the idea of being able to go to work and earn money was far more exciting. However, when Edward explained that the job of a creeler was to pull the cotton thread straight so that it could be worked in a machine, it seemed less than wonderful. Especially for hours at a time.

On one side of the street where they walked, there was a huge embankment. It carried the trains westwards from the station, high above the ground. The distance between the railway and the street grew wider and they soon came to a junction where they turned left. In front of them, the railway crossed a stone bridge; behind them, Darwen Street led into the town centre.

At the bridge a wide road led off to their right. “That’s the Bolton road,” announced Willie, who had taken on the role of a local guide, reciting the names of the various pubs and beer houses with a grown-up kind of voice. He pointed out to Jason that the railway ran to Preston and to Manchester, the lines dividing a short distance out of the town. The roof of a large building was identified as the old Bolton Road station, the one where John West, the porter, had once worked.

The three boys had not walked for more than two more minutes when they came to the end of a street of small terraced houses that stood among other streets of similar houses. “This is our house – number two, Howard Street.” There was, indeed, a number, hand-painted in white on the black door of the house, at the end of the row.

Edward was mostly silent on the walk home, all the time inspecting Jason with great curiosity. He was, however, the first to speak as they entered directly from the street into a room. “Mother, we’ve fetched a boy from t’station.”

After questioning her sons as to what they had been doing at the station and hoping that they hadn’t been begging, she looked at Jason through the gloom of the early evening. “And has he got a name, your boy from the station?”

“He’s called Jason and he’s got no money,” Edward confided.

“Well, he’s in good company here, then,” said their mother.

Jason was quiet. Silent, in fact. He had never been in a room like this. Although the last light of the afternoon glowed weakly through the window, the room was already quite dark. The window had no curtains; the floor had no carpet and was not made of wooden boards, like his home in Eastbourne, but of large stone slabs. It was not a large room, but there was very little in it except for a wooden table, on which was an old lamp; there were two wooden chairs and a smaller chair, made for a young child. That was occupied by a little girl. The woman was holding a younger child on her lap, its small body nestled into the woman’s, and apparently asleep.

Edward made a dash for the one empty chair, but William Henry grabbed his younger brother’s arm before he could sit, pulling him away. “Eldest brother first,” he declared.

“Share it,” Mrs Beckett ordered. “And you’re only the eldest while James is away.”

So, there were five children in this family. At least. Jason was surprised that so many people shared such a small house.

“James is my eldest,” the mother explained to Jason. “He’s gone to Bradford looking for work. There’s not enough cotton to keep the mills open here. Plenty of wool in Yorkshire.”

Jason only nodded that he had understood. He was still trying to take in the appearance of the room. A small fire, not burning enough to give any real heat, glowed dimly. On one side of it stood a bucket that probably contained coal, but was so empty that Jason could not see any. On the other side of the fire were two metal pans and one or two other things that belonged in a kitchen. Was this how these people cooked their food, then?

“You could let your friend sit down,” the woman said to her two sons, who were still fidgeting for a larger area of the seat.

“It’s okay,” muttered Jason, feeling like an intruder.

“We’re not fixed for having guests at the moment. This time last year all three boys had work. Now there’s only their father working – and he’s on short time. Some of the furniture had to go …”

“I told him, mother,” interrupted Willie, trying to spare his mother further pain.

“… And we had a nice lot of stuff when there were four wages coming in. Still,” she continued with a firm intake of breath, “there’s plenty worse than us.”

The child in her arms began to stir, and she stood up slowly, handing the infant to Willie. “You look after Sarah for a bit. I’ll make some tea. Come and sit down, lad.”

Jason accepted the invitation and sat. The young girl who had been sitting in the smaller chair, gazing at the stranger in silent curiosity, shifted her chair so that she still had a view of Jason’s face. “I’m Ellen and I’m five and a half.”

“I’m Jason – and I’m ten.” For some reason, the two boys giggled.

“I’m Edward, and I’m the hardest boy in this street,” the younger one bragged.

“Hardest liar, more like,” sneered the elder boy, and, still cuddling little Sarah, used his hip to knock Edward off his perch and onto the floor. “Not so tough now, eh?”

Before the younger boy could take any revenge, Mrs Beckett returned with a kind of kettle. She poked at the fire with a metal stick, which Jason later learned was called a poker. She reached into the bucket and threw a few small bits of coal onto the fire, which began to burn more strongly. The kettle was then hung over the flames.

At that second, Jason became aware of another big difference between his home and theirs: they had no electricity. He looked around to check. Yes, no light fittings, no switches on the wall. So, no internet and computers and television. No tea bags, either, thought Jason a few minutes later, as he watched the process of brewing tea with deep interest. The cups were old and they didn’t match, but the tea tasted okay.

It was not long afterwards that the door opened, and a man entered. Henry Beckett, a man in his mid-thirties, crossed the room and kissed his wife, who was still doing some little job by the fire. “I’ve fetched a bit more coal,” he said, and emptied a cloth bag into the bucket. Jason noticed the dust flying, highlighted by the glowing fire. “Who’s this?” he asked, looking at the visitor.

“He’s called Jason, Father. He doesn’t live in Blackburn. He’s come home with us for some tea,” explained Willie. Jason stood, very properly, so that Mr Beckett could sit down.

“Jason? That’s an unusual name. Welcome to our home – what we have left of it.” The bitterness in his voice made his wife turn from what she was doing.

“Is everything all right, love?” she asked, although she knew him well enough to tell that something was wrong.

“We’ve been stopped.”

Mrs Beckett sighed loudly.

“Until there’s some cotton,” he continued.

“It might only be a few weeks, love,” she said, stroking his wavy hair. “Swallow Street are starting on full time next week.”

Mr Beckett shook his head sadly. “Look at us, Jason. All three of us out of work and the eldest boy gone away to find a job. This American war will ruin us yet. They’re fighting between themselves and making beggars out of us.”

A lively discussion followed, in which Mr Henry Beckett gave his views on the American Civil War, which had started the previous year, and the way that the northern ‘Yankee’ states were blocking the export of cotton from the southern states. His sons chipped in with their own observations, but Jason, sitting on the floor at the feet of Mr Beckett, his new history teacher, listened carefully. It was more interesting than the history he got at school. The Year Five Victorian project hadn’t interested him much so far, except when they talked about the railways. But this was much more real: this was actually happening to people around him.

Finally, after lighting the lamp on the table, he threw a small coin to Willie. “Go round to Jepson’s and get a jug of beer for us.” While Willie was gone, Henry washed himself and questioned Jason about where he lived, and whether there was work for people in Eastbourne. Jason told the truth when he said he didn’t really know, but he found it more difficult to explain how and why he came to be in Blackburn.

Mrs Beckett, whom her husband addressed as ‘Jen,’ had been busy cutting bread; she placed the carved loaf on the table, along with a large chunk of cheese and a peeled onion. Willie soon returned with the beer, and the small meal was shared among the seven people. Jason was a little hesitant before drinking the beer, but after seeing the other children sipping it, he ignored the strange smell and tried it. Unusual – not sweet like the drinks he often had at home, but not horrible. He thought it tasted of the garden.

The faces huddled around the table looked warm yet spooky and full of mystery in the light that came from the lamp. Jason guessed by the warm smell that it burned some kind of oil. They talked of James, the eldest child, who was almost fifteen. He had been something called a piecer at a nearby mill until it was closed. He and another lad had decided to use the bit of money that they had over from their last wage and had taken the train to Bradford two weeks ago. The family had not heard from him since then.

“I just hope he’s all right. Happen we’ll get a letter soon. He can write and it’s only a penny to send a letter,” she said, with obvious anxiety in her voice.

“Don’t fret, love,” replied Henry. “He can look after himself – and that lad he’s with won’t stand for any nonsense. Hands like shovels, thad ‘un.” And then he burped loudly, which made Jason smile; Ellen, who had kindly shared her chair with the visitor, began to giggle.

“Henry Beckett!” exclaimed his wife, as if scolding him.

“The sign of a good onion, love,” he replied. And everybody laughed.

“All the same,” added Jen, suddenly serious again. “He’s my firstborn; and I worry.”

That made Jason think about his own mother – what would she think when she couldn’t find him? What would his father say when he arrived home from work? He had already been in Blackburn a few hours. Would they be panicking, calling the police? Maybe now that it was dark, he could head back to the railway station and get to the tunnel without being noticed.