adequate, which they will be, she will cut free from Breaseborough, and rear her children in a more pleasant environment. She will do well in her School Certificate. She has not worked as hard as Bessie, but who has? Ada has worked hard enough. She has worked for freedom. She can parse and prose.
The Barrons still live in Cotterhall, of course, and will remain there for decades to come. And it is towards Laburnum House, the home of the Barron family, that Ada and Bessie now make their way, not as shy schoolgirls, but as invited guests. Mrs Barron has invited them to tea. It is a Saturday in late June. The weather is uncertain: as they walk, the sun clouds over. Perhaps it will rain. The girls are walking to Cotterhall by choice, but it is understood that one of the boys will escort them back. Perhaps they will be offered a lift in the new Morris Minor. (It has been rumoured that Elsie Scrimshaw has been seen on the back of Phil Barron’s brand-new BSA motorbike: can this be true?) The girls are honoured by this invitation, and are dressed in their best: Ada colourful in a bright floral pink frock, Bessie ladylike in a pale blue and cream two-piece.
The Barrons are one of the most important families in unimportant Cotterhall. This is a neighbourhood without an aristocracy, and with very little of a middle class: there is a public house in Breaseborough called the Wardale Arms, and the hospital, built in 1906, is called the Wardale Hospital, but nobody ever spares much of a thought for the mythical and absent Lord Wardale, whereas there is much talk in town and roundabout about the Barrons. They have done well for themselves. Old Grandpa Bill Barron, recently deceased, had started work at the age of fourteen at Gospel Well Brewery, owned in those days by the Clarksons: he had become a foreman, married a Clarkson, and set up his own little bottle-making business in a warehouse and yard behind the stone quarry. It was long known as Barron’s Yard. The business had prospered, and at this period prospers still. Under Bill’s son Ebenezer (Ben) Barron the firm had diversified from beer and pop bottles to a range of cheap fancyware: cake stands, jugs, fruit dishes, sugar bowls, tumblers. These are attractive, tubby, friendly pieces, pleasing and familiar to the eyes of most of the locals, and the range does well. Should Ben think of introducing new lines, or should he stick with the old faithfuls? Eldest son Bennett Barron is keen on innovation, but so far he has not had much clout. Bennett has gone into the family business with vigour and ideas, and now he is beginning to get a little impatient with the old man, who is stubborn and will not listen to anything new. Bennett has been to London, to a trade fair at Wembley, where he has fallen in love with the new celluloids and phenolics, and with a magical semisynthetic milk stone which he longs to manufacture and develop. He is sure it is the thing of the future. His father thinks celluloid is trash, and will not last. He will be certain that polymers are a dead end.
There are four boys in the family. There is go-ahead, industrious Bennett, a chip off the old block. Then comes philandering Phil, in theory in partnership with haulage contractor Stan Lomax, but in practice in love with his motorbike; he spends too much time roaring around the country lanes and over the moors and drinking in the Fox, the Three Horseshoes, and the Ferry Boat Inn. Alfred works for Castle Confections, for a maternal uncle: they specialize in liquorice toffee. Then comes Joe, the afterthought, who hopes, unlike his brothers, to be allowed to go to university. There are two sisters, Rowena and Ivy. Rowena works as bookkeeper for Ben and Bennett, having volunteered to replace a character known as Ratty Red who had been fiddling the figures. She is not very good at figures, but she is much better at them than Ben. She sits in a dark little office filling in ledgers, and is said to be saving up her
The Barrons still live in Cotterhall, of course, and will remain there for decades to come. And it is towards Laburnum House, the home of the Barron family, that Ada and Bessie now make their way, not as shy schoolgirls, but as invited guests. Mrs Barron has invited them to tea. It is a Saturday in late June. The weather is uncertain: as they walk, the sun clouds over. Perhaps it will rain. The girls are walking to Cotterhall by choice, but it is understood that one of the boys will escort them back. Perhaps they will be offered a lift in the new Morris Minor. (It has been rumoured that Elsie Scrimshaw has been seen on the back of Phil Barron’s brand-new BSA motorbike: can this be true?) The girls are honoured by this invitation, and are dressed in their best: Ada colourful in a bright floral pink frock, Bessie ladylike in a pale blue and cream two-piece.
The Barrons are one of the most important families in unimportant Cotterhall. This is a neighbourhood without an aristocracy, and with very little of a middle class: there is a public house in Breaseborough called the Wardale Arms, and the hospital, built in 1906, is called the Wardale Hospital, but nobody ever spares much of a thought for the mythical and absent Lord Wardale, whereas there is much talk in town and roundabout about the Barrons. They have done well for themselves. Old Grandpa Bill Barron, recently deceased, had started work at the age of fourteen at Gospel Well Brewery, owned in those days by the Clarksons: he had become a foreman, married a Clarkson, and set up his own little bottle-making business in a warehouse and yard behind the stone quarry. It was long known as Barron’s Yard. The business had prospered, and at this period prospers still. Under Bill’s son Ebenezer (Ben) Barron the firm had diversified from beer and pop bottles to a range of cheap fancyware: cake stands, jugs, fruit dishes, sugar bowls, tumblers. These are attractive, tubby, friendly pieces, pleasing and familiar to the eyes of most of the locals, and the range does well. Should Ben think of introducing new lines, or should he stick with the old faithfuls? Eldest son Bennett Barron is keen on innovation, but so far he has not had much clout. Bennett has gone into the family business with vigour and ideas, and now he is beginning to get a little impatient with the old man, who is stubborn and will not listen to anything new. Bennett has been to London, to a trade fair at Wembley, where he has fallen in love with the new celluloids and phenolics, and with a magical semisynthetic milk stone which he longs to manufacture and develop. He is sure it is the thing of the future. His father thinks celluloid is trash, and will not last. He will be certain that polymers are a dead end.
There are four boys in the family. There is go-ahead, industrious Bennett, a chip off the old block. Then comes philandering Phil, in theory in partnership with haulage contractor Stan Lomax, but in practice in love with his motorbike; he spends too much time roaring around the country lanes and over the moors and drinking in the Fox, the Three Horseshoes, and the Ferry Boat Inn. Alfred works for Castle Confections, for a maternal uncle: they specialize in liquorice toffee. Then comes Joe, the afterthought, who hopes, unlike his brothers, to be allowed to go to university. There are two sisters, Rowena and Ivy. Rowena works as bookkeeper for Ben and Bennett, having volunteered to replace a character known as Ratty Red who had been fiddling the figures. She is not very good at figures, but she is much better at them than Ben. She sits in a dark little office filling in ledgers, and is said to be saving up her
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