folks had some money to spend, rich ones 'as 'ad it long enough. I want a
new spring coat, I do, an' wheer am I going to get it? I say to them, be
thankful you're well fed and well clothed, without all the new finery you
want! And they fly back at me: "Why isn't Princess Mary thankful to go about
in her old rags, then, an' have nothing! Folks like her get van-loads, an' I
can't have a new spring coat. It's a damned shame. Princess! Bloomin' rot
about Princess! It's munney as matters, an' cos she's got lots, they give
her more! Nobody's givin' me any, an' I've as much right as anybody else.
Don't talk to me about education. It's munney as matters. I want a new
spring coat, I do, an' I shan't get it, cos there's no munney..." That's all
they care about, clothes. They think nothing of giving seven or eight
guineas for a winter coat---colliers' daughters, mind you---and two guineas
for a child's summer hat. And then they go to the Primitive Chapel in their
two-guinea hat, girls as would have been proud of a three-and-sixpenny one
in my day. I heard that at the Primitive Methodist anniversary this year,
when they have a built-up platform for the Sunday School children, like a
grandstand going almost up to th' ceiling, I heard Miss Thompson, who has
the first class of girls in the Sunday School, say there'd be over a
thousand pounds in new Sunday clothes sitting on that platform! And times
are what they are! But you can't stop them. They're mad for clothes. And
boys the same. The lads spend every penny on themselves, clothes, smoking,
drinking in the Miners' Welfare, jaunting off to Sheffield two or three
times a week. Why, it's another world. And they fear nothing, and they
respect nothing, the young don't. The older men are that patient and good,
really, they let the women take everything. And this is what it leads to.
The women are positive demons. But the lads aren't like their dads. They're
sacrificing nothing, they aren't: they're all for self. If you tell them
they ought to be putting a bit by, for a home, they say: That'll keep, that
will, I'm goin' t' enjoy myself while I can. Owt else'll keep! Oh, they're
rough an' selfish, if you like. Everything falls on the older men, an' it's
a bad outlook all round.'
Clifford began to get a new idea of his own village. The place had
always frightened him, but he had thought it more or less stable. Now---?
`Is there much Socialism, Bolshevism, among the people?' he asked.
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