The Green and Pleasant Land- Chapter Four: Doss House Despair on the Cusp of the Great Depression

In the Winter of 1928, my family were like migratory beasts of the plain because we never rested. We just kept moving in search of safety and food, always fearful of calamities coming for us at each corner we took. So we upped sticks for Bradford in the damp dusk of February with not much more than the shirts on our backs because Barnsley was our yesterday.

As we fled, Alberta and I questioned our mother about why we had to leave but were hushed by her. "This is not a concern for children. Forget Barnsley."

Dad was more sentimental than Mum. He couldn't forget or let go of some things, no matter how; superfluous they were to our present circumstances. He took to our new life- mementoes from his past that, in our changed surroundings, pricked him with the sharpness of a thorn. He carried on our journey to Bradford a portrait of his dad and some books of poetry and history tied together with string.

"Why did you bring that rubbish,” my mum barked as we struggled onto a bus where all the hard wooden seats were already occupied.

In response, Dad said nothing because he had no defence except a belief that things would get brighter for us. Mum refused to let it go.

"You would have taken the bloody piano if it weren't down at pawn shop to pay for the bus tickets."

Mum secured lodgings for us at a doss house near where the university is now located. But in the 1920s, the neighbourhood was a febrile slum. A dosshouse was the last refuge for people before homelessness or the workhouse. Our rent was cheaper than other tenants because mum took on the dubious responsibility of collecting rent from the other lodgers who, like us, were skint.

Marion's death, my dad's unemployment and her surviving children's hunger hardened my mum's heart to the trials and travails of strangers, which made her an excellent rent collector for the absentee landlord. On the surface, to strangers, she was friendly enough if it got her something. However, underneath Mum's smiles and jokes were sharp daggers ready to plunge into anyone who threatened our survival.