The Girl from the Tanner's Yard

they were young. High Ground was alright, Dorothy liked it, but it would never be home, he thought, as he glanced at the row of desolate, near-derelict houses in the grey of the autumn afternoon. The waters from the river had swollen and burst its bank, along with the excess water from the flay-pits, and they were now lapping at his old home’s door as well as at three other houses along the terrace. If he had still been living here, the cosy kitchen they had lived in would have been flooded, and he could imagine the chaos that a flood in his old home would have entailed. It was a good job the row was empty now, although what to do with the houses, he didn’t know. They were only really fit for workshops, although even then he wondered if they would be safe.

‘I’m off now, Mr Bancroft. I’ll come tomorrow if the weather is decent. Otherwise it’ll be Monday before you see me. Although I’ll be at Lucy’s wedding on Saturday,’ Archie Robinson said, disturbing Bill from his thoughts as he gazed across the yard at his old home.

‘Listen – can you hear that noise?’ Bill held Archie back and pulled off his cap to listen to the noise that was building in volume, from the row of houses. It was a low, rumbling noise, and Bill and Archie stood still as it grew louder and louder.

‘Bloody hell, the houses are collapsing! That chimney’s on the wobble, and look at the end house, which used to be Farrington’s: the wall’s collapsing. Let’s get back, else we will be buried in all the debris.’ Archie pulled on Bill’s jacket, dragging him to the back of the yard and putting the flay-pits before them, as the whole terrace started to lose slates and chimneys, and the walls buckled like wet paper. It deafened the two of them, as they watched the devastation unfold before their eyes. Both were covered with dust and rubble from the collapse of the row into a gaping sinkhole that opened up in the ground before them, taking the once-loved homes into its depths.

‘My houses – they’ve gone, there’s nowt left! My home has been washed away. Another minute, if you hadn’t talked to me, and I’d have been inside it. I was just thinking to stay there for another hour, to see if the weather faired.’ Bill looked dumbstruck and ashen-faced as he turned to Archie. ‘God help us, if my family had still been living there, or the lads working here – I’d have had their deaths on my hands. Thank God everybody had moved out.’ He walked gingerly towards the gaping sinkhole and the remnants of Providence Row, with Archie following him. They both looked at the one piece of red-brick gable end that stood teetering on the edge of the hole. The inside walls were still covered with a bright-yellow wallpaper, reminding them both that up till several months ago it had been home to the flay-pit worker Thomas Farrington. The rest of the house was now deep down in the cavern that had once been the underground workings.

‘Well, I don’t think you’ll be moving back in there in a hurry,’ Archie said. ‘But at least there’s no damage done to the pits. You’ve still got them and the yard. Things could have been worse.’

‘I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. But aye, lad, you are right: things could be a lot worse. I could be buried down there with the house, and nobody would know. At least that saves me from pulling the bloody things down.’ Bill looked out from under his dripping wet, dust-filled hair. ‘Now I’ve just got to tell the wife and put a brave face on it all, because there’s nowt we could have done to stop it. Now get yourself home, and I’ll see you when I see you. If it’s stopped raining in the morning, we will have to have a tidy-up and make the most of what Mother Nature has left us with. That wall will have to be knocked down, else it’ll fall on somebody’s head. I don’t know about you, but my legs feel shaky. I’ve never seen anything like that before.’

Bill drew his fingers through his hair and stood and looked around him. His past life had disappeared before his eyes, and he knew it could so easily have been him along with it. He watched as Archie, with his bait box under his arm, picked his way around the rubble on his way home, leaving Bill to think how lucky he was not to have been in the house when it collapsed. He was hesitant to leave the pits as they were, but it would soon be dark, and he needed to get home to change out of his sodden clothes and tell Dorothy of the disaster that had taken place. It was the end of their home at Providence Row. It was just as well they had all settled into their new home, and that Adam had been kind enough to let them stay there.

‘Oh, Bill, you could have been killed! And is there nothing left of all of the houses?’ Dorothy and Lucy looked at Bill, as he shed his sodden clothes in front of the fire and stood in his undergarments, shivering and shaken by the day’s events, while Lucy put some dry clothes in front of him and Dorothy made him a hot, sweet drink of tea.

‘No, only a wall end, and I bet that collapses into the same hole by the morning. I only hope it doesn’t take any of the flay-pits with it. I’ve never seen the rivers rise as quick, and for there to be so much water on the land. The bridge over the river at Four Lane Ends is near to flooding. It’s got to stop raining soon.’ Bill’s hands shook as he took hold of his warm mug of