Hill, on a slide as the lads 'ad made last winter, an' broke his thigh, and
that finished him, poor old man, it did seem a shame. Well, he left all his
money to Tattie: didn't leave the boys a penny. An' Tattie, I know, is five
years---yes, she's fifty-three last autumn. And you know they were such
Chapel people, my word! She taught Sunday school for thirty years, till her
father died. And then she started carrying on with a fellow from Kinbrook, I
don't know if you know him, an oldish fellow with a red nose, rather
dandified, Willcock, as works in Harrison's woodyard. Well he's sixty-five,
if he's a day, yet you'd have thought they were a pair of young
turtle-doves, to see them, arm in arm, and kissing at the gate: yes, an' she
sitting on his knee right in the bay window on Pye Croft Road, for anybody
to see. And he's got sons over forty: only lost his wife two years ago. If
old James Allsopp hasn't risen from his grave, it's because there is no
rising: for he kept her that strict! Now they're married and gone to live
down at Kinbrook, and they say she goes round in a dressing-gown from
morning to night, a veritable sight. I'm sure it's awful, the way the old
ones go on! Why they're a lot worse than the young, and a sight more
disgusting. I lay it down to the pictures, myself. But you can't keep them
away. I was always saying: go to a good instructive film, but do for
goodness sake keep away from these melodramas and love films. Anyhow keep
the children away! But there you are, grown-ups are worse than the children:
and the old ones beat the band. Talk about morality! Nobody cares a thing.
Folks does as they like, and much better off they are for it, I must say.
But they're having to draw their horns in nowadays, now th' pits are working
so bad, and they haven't got the money. And the grumbling they do, it's
awful, especially the women. The men are so good and patient! What can they
do, poor chaps! But the women, oh, they do carry on! They go and show off,
giving contributions for a wedding present for Princess Mary, and then when
they see all the grand things that's been given, they simply rave: who's
she, any better than anybody else! Why doesn't Swan & Edgar give me one fur
coat, instead of giving her six. I wish I'd kept my ten shillings! What's
she going to give me, I should like to know? Here I can't get a new spring
coat, my dad's working that bad, and she gets van-loads. It's time as poor
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