Child from Home by John Wright Page B

(often called a jerry) under our bed at home; a necessary evil as the lav was outside. When we went to the toilet during the day we always said, ‘I’m just going down the yard.’ Unable to hold it any longer I wet the bed and, fearful of the consequences, I cowered under the covers on the damp warmth of the saturated sheets. I lay there full of shame and guilt and I thought the reek of ammonia must surely be noticed and I would be found out, but nothing happened. I lay there choking on the fumes that rose from the stinking palliasse wishing it would go away but, like me, it had nowhere else to go. Trembling with cold, I tried to smother my sobs in the now wet pillow. I lay there – a lonely, home-sick, ashamed four-year-old who badly needed his mother – shivering in the darkness for what seemed like hours until, exhausted, I dozed off, wrapped uneasily in a ragged veil of sleep.
    The following morning, when my ‘crime’ was discovered, nothing was said and I was bathed and dressed by Miss Waters who was a caring, sympathetic and likeable young woman. The thin mattresses on our small metal-framed beds were filled with straw and chaff and were, fortunately, easily emptied, washed, dried and refilled, and when Mam came to work that morning and learned of my accident she gave me a big cuddle, a hug and a kiss.
    â€˜I couldn’t help it Mam, it just came.’ I mumbled tearfully.
    â€˜Never mind darling, just forget about it. Things will soon get better,’ she said in her soothing manner. It was not an unusual occurrence, but I was to live with the guilt and shame of it for some time to come.
    A few days later the gaunt-featured and prim Miss Thorne took George and I to have our hair cut in Pickering. Her auburn hair, parted on the right, was tied back giving her a severe appearance but she was nice to us, although firm when necessary. Spaven brought out and yoked up the trap. In retrospect, his surname seemed a little inappropriate for a man in charge of horses, as the word ‘spavin’ is defined as ‘disease or distension on the inside of the hock of a horse’. Miss Thorne sat with us in the trap, which was always readily available for our use, and which she referred to as a Governess cart.
    It was our first time in one and we loved sitting on the hard, wooden side seats of the highly polished carriage. The wooden-spoked wheels were twice my height and the burnished brass rail at the front gleamed in the autumn sunshine as Spaven busied himself with the harness. As we set off, the rhythmic rippling of the horse’s sleek flanks fascinated me; the muscular haunches twitched constantly and it swished its long tail about to stop the swarms of tormenting, stinging gadflies from settling. The sharp resinous tang of pine-scented air mingled with the faint leathery smell of horse.
    We travelled on a different route this time and, as we headed south on the long straight forest tracks, we quietly absorbed the stillness and gazed at the luxuriant greenery. We watched red squirrels collecting nuts and cones to store up for the winter. The forest was mostly made up of sentinel-like spruce trees with greyish-brown flaky bark, but the pine trees had more deeply fissured, crusty-looking trunks. The brooding stillness was broken only by the gentle rustling of leaves and the rhythmic and leisurely clip-clop of the hooves of the sleek brown mare. A slight autumnal haze hung over the leafy vale and we could hear the soft murmuring of a beck.
    The bay mare crossed a shallow ford, or water-splash as we called them, beside which was a stone footbridge with white handrails. It nestled in the depths of a small valley and a little way past it a path led up to Kelton Banks Farm. ‘Mr Ward owns that farm,’ Spaven told Miss Thorne. ‘They keep several Shire ’osses stabled there. They do various jobs on t’farm as well as pullin’ t’snowplough, which is kept ready in