He tossed an envelope at her as he left the room.
He took the stairs two at a time. The doctor quickly followed. The children charged after them. Marjorie ran onto the sidewalk. She could see them walking quickly up Whitley Road, their heads together looking at the papers. Kenny flew out behind her trying to get a better look, but ran into a shopper and knocked her grocery bag out of her arms. Kenny said he was sorry as he bent down to help her, but she was angry and just yelled at him to watch where he was going. She told him to get away from her and that she would pick up her own things. She called him a “little heathen” and shooed him away and threatened to call the police. Kenny glared at her and said he was sorry again. People stopped and stared at the children. Marjorie asked them what they were looking at. She hated the look in their eyes. Well, she did not care today. She just wanted to get back inside.
Malcolm Jackson whistled as he looked through the Arnison applications. It had been a good day. He was lucky to get the medical examiner on such short notice. Now, he could write to Gordon Green at the Fairbridge Society’s headquarters in London as soon as he got back to his office and tell him — mission accomplished — four more youngsters for Fairbridge. It was not a moment too soon, as far as he was concerned. He was happy that headquarters listened to his letter recommending they let him remove the children as quickly as possible. He smiled to himself. He liked rescuing the area from the children of Tyneside.
Three
Adrift
Take them away! Take them away!
Out of the gutter, the ooze and the slime,
Where little vermin paddle and crawl,
Till they grow and ripen into crime ...
Take them away o’er the rolling sea![1]
February 8, 1937
Early the following Monday, the four children watched the platform in dismay, their little faces plastered on the train window. The train chugged out of the Whitley Bay train station, taking them away and leaving their mum and their older sister, Phyllis, standing on the platform. Where were they going? Why did their mum send them away? Had they been bad? It frightened them to watch their mum wipe at the tears running down her cheeks. Marjorie’s own tears were impossible to stop. She watched the two figures grow smaller and smaller until she could not see them anymore.
Would they be going to the same place as Norman and Fred? She would like to see them again. They would help. She hoped that her brothers were together. Some of the kids at school told her that Fred had gone to one jail and Norman to another. Maybe those kids were right. Maybe her brothers were in jail. Maybe they were going to jail too.
Marjorie turned to Joyce and asked if they sent kids to jail. Joyce looked alarmed and said no, she hoped not, her voice betraying her panic. She gave Marjorie a warning look and told her not to be so daft. She assured her sister that they were not going to jail, then and nodded towards the two younger ones. Their eyes had begun to open wide with this new fear.
Marjorie rubbed her cheek, leaving a smudge of tears. She looked to Joyce for answers. “Well, smarty pants, where are we going then?” She challenged, but Joyce didn’t know. They huddled together — clinging in fear and grief.
Audrey wiggled away first, pulling her doll out from under her coat. She held it close to her. Wiping at their tears, the children turned to look out the window again. Kenny pointed to the sheep in the fields. They had been told that Norman was sent to work on a farm. Kenny suggested that maybe they sent Norman to that farm. But no, Joyce knew he was sent much further away. The new sights distracted them, and, for the moment at least, they forgot their plight.
Two elderly women sat across the aisle from the children. Mary,[2] the stouter of the two, was keeping a close eye on the children. Her glasses were perched on the bottom of her nose and she looked over the top of them as her knitting needles automatically clicked out “knit two, purl two.” She put her knitting down and asked the children where their parents were and why were they travelling alone. The four children looked over but turned back to the window without answering.
The entrance to Whitley Bay train station, shown as it looked in 2007, has altered little since 1937. During their visit, Marjorie and Joyce walked from 106 Whitley Road to the station and caught the train to Newcastle upon Tyne, just like they did in February 1937.
Photo by Patricia Skidmore.
Her companion, Dora, a thin, nervous woman, implored her to not talk to the tatty children. But Mary did not listen as she tried to find out their story. “Look at them,” she told Dora, “the oldest cannot be more than nine or ten years old and the youngest bairn is just a wee whip of a thing.” She could not for the life of her understand why they were on the train by themselves. She shook her head in disbelief.
Dora looked up from her knitting and suggested that the children were probably up to no good. She said to Mary, her voice high, “See what happens when you try to save a few bob! If we’d got first-class tickets like I wanted, we would not be sitting in this third-class coach. We will get nits from them for sure. Look at that one scratching at her head! Just ignore them, Mary, please. They probably do not have any tickets. The ticket man will take care of them.” She shook her head, making no effort to keep her voice low or to hide the distaste she felt at being so close to the little group.
Mary would not let it go. She told Dora that the children did have tickets because she saw their mother hand them to the older girl. She tried to illicit some compassion from Dora, so she asked if she saw the fuss the little girl made. The older one had to clutch her and pull her onto the train. Tears were flowing from everyone. But Dora said she hadn’t noticed anything. Mary continued, stating that she simply could not understand it. The girl on the platform looked positively heartbroken. “It was quite a commotion, I tell you, Dora. This world is coming to no good. Imagine sending little children off alone.”
Paying no heed to her friend, Mary stared over at the group determined to find some answers. She asked the children again, a little louder this time, why they looked so sad and why they were travelling alone. However, the children turned away again and said nothing.
They found some safety in looking out the window, and kept their eyes glued to the view and watched their world whiz by. The trip to Newcastle did not take long and soon the buildings were closer and closer together. Audrey was the first to point out the huge church steeple.
Just before the train pulled into the station, Mary and Dora put away their knitting. Dora started to get up, but Mary grabbed her arm, nodded towards the children, and told her that she was going to wait to get off after the children because she wanted to see what they did when they got off the train. She wondered what they would do if there was no one to meet them. She couldn’t bear to think of them stranded in the busy train station. Dora shook her head, and muttered that she could not understand why her friend concerned herself with things that were not her business. These children were not her responsibility, but she knew that once her friend had made up her mind to get involved there was no stopping her, so she sat back down.
Their train entered the enormous station and squealed to a stop. They heard the announcement — Newcastle Central Station. Joyce turned to her siblings and told them that they were to get off here. Joyce’s voice had a new edge to it. Their mum had told them that someone would meet them on the platform beneath the big clock. She said that the clock would be easy to see. Joyce hesitated, then quickly stood up and told everyone to follow her. Marjorie dawdled, as if she did not want to leave the train but followed
