Lemon Sherbet and Dolly Blue (41 page)

Except that it is hard for me to do exactly that. I think of all the difficulties Jessie must have faced, and how closely she was
required to guard the story of her time in London. And, knowing a little more about Jessie now, my thoughts return to Mrs Sedgwick, who may not have been the chance employer I'd always assumed her to be. Mrs Sedgwick was herself Irish, and shortly before she and her husband settled in London, occupied a sturdy villa in one of the better parts of Belfast, with a gabled window and room for a servant girl. Did one of the Mee sisters work there? Young women from small towns and villages made their way to Belfast and Dublin, as well as London, and sometimes tested the shorter distance before embarking on the longer, saltier journey. Who knows? Perhaps one of the Mee girls knelt beneath that gabled roof to say her prayers. Perhaps, perhaps. It is a tempting and not wholly implausible thought, especially considering what came later. A prior connection provides a more solid foundation for Mrs Sedgwick's understanding than the story of a pregnant-young-servant-who-confessed-to-her-employer (although there were plenty of those).

And, thinking again of Mrs Sedgwick, I am drawn back to the mystery lady who came to Racecourse Road – for surely it
was
she who appeared all those years later? Until now, I've not felt able to make sufficient sense of the gap. What brought her to Chesterfield when my mum was six, if not a letter from Jessie? Jessie had other children by that stage, each one a reminder of the child who was not with her, each birthday cake (if the family ran to birthday cakes) a reminder of the date she could not acknowledge. Blow out the candles. Make a wish.

I write Mrs Sedgwick's reply – imagine her describing all the colourful books on my mum's bookshelves; her Minnie Mouse bag, doll's house and motorcycle man, and all the photographs of her which Annie proudly displayed on the piano, and dusted every
week. I think of Jessie receiving this letter. I want that for her, and of course I want it for Cora.

My grandma will always be Annie, and my great-grandparents and great-aunt Betsy, Dick and Eva. If I could choose my relatives, I'd choose them, but discovering the identity of the woman I've called Jessie Mee closes the circle, and makes me consider all over again what complex layers of loving, losing, wanting – and leaving – children underpin my family story.

My mum is the last link with this vanished world, but, in my mind's eye, all these stories continue. Cora and I will always be talking of Dick sitting in his wood with a small dog at his heels, and Betsy standing behind her counter. Annie will be forever seated at the table in the back room, fashioning a new dress with her pinking shears, and young Eva will be beside her, peeling an apple in one long straggling piece to see which letter forms when she flings the peel over her left shoulder.

p.12
      ‘We found Derbyshire…':
The Diaries of Mrs Philip Lybbe Powys, of Hardwick House
,
Oxon
, edited by Emily J. Climenson, Longmans, Green & Co., 1899, pp.24–5.

p.22
      ‘NURSE CHILD WANTED, OR TO ADOPT: James Greenwood,
The Seven Curses of London
, Basil Blackwell, 1869, p.24, quoted by Dorothy L. Haller, ‘Bastardy and Baby Farming in Victorian England',
http://www.loyno.edu/~history/journal/1989-0/haller.htm
; ‘ADOPTION… a good home', an advertisement placed by Sarah Ellis, Brixton baby farmer, in
Lloyd's Weekly Paper
, 5 June 1870; Lionel Rose,
The Massacre of the Innocents: Infanticide in Britain 1800–1939
, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986, p.98.

p.28
      ‘Besides the fumes and the gases…': Florence Bell,
At the Works: A Study of a Manufacturing Town
, Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1911 (2nd edition), pp.58–9.

p.43
      ‘It must be remembered…': Maud Pember Reeves,
Round About a Pound a Week,
G. Bell & Sons Limited, 1913; Virago edition, 1979, pp.143–4.

p.46
      December 7, 1910…: Example of Mrs E's household budget, from Maud Pember Reeves,
Round About a Pound a Week
, pp.135–6.

p.52
      ‘Families too large…': Elizabeth Dean, interviewed aged 101: Angela Holdsworth,
Out of the Doll's House: The Story of Women in the Twentieth Century
, BBC Books, 1988, p.184.

p.64
      ‘My mother died…': Elizabeth Dean, in Angela Holdsworth,
Out of the Doll's House
, p.184.

p.66
      ‘The New Industrial Schools of the Chesterfield Union',
Derbyshire Times
, 26 March 1881.

p.67–77
Information relating to the Chesterfield Children's Homes during the 1900s: D522/C/W/5/1, Children's Homes Committee Minute Book, Derbyshire Record Office, Matlock.

p.98
      ‘Q. What illustrious lady…':
Simple Catechism of the History of England, from the Invasion of the Romans to the Present Time, Adapted to the Capacities of Young Children
, from ‘Mrs Gibbon's Simple Catechisms of', Relfe Brothers, School Booksellers & General School Stationers, Charter-House Buildings, Aldersgate, 1890.

p.116
      ‘In the early twentieth century, stillborn babies…': based on an interview with Rose Ashton; Angela Holdsworth,
Out of the Doll's House
, p.112. See also ‘Out of the Doll's House', 80DH/02/, The Women's Library, London Metropolitan University.

p.118
      ‘It is more dangerous…': Slogan for the UK's first National Baby Week, 1917: Jenny Keating,
A Child for Keeps: The History of Adoption in England
, 1918–45, Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, p.22.

p.124
      ‘Xmas Day and such a sad one…': Extracts from Maria Gyte's Diary: Gerald Phizackerley (ed.),
The Diaries of Maria Gyte of Sheldon, Derbyshire, 1913–1920
, Scarthin Books, Cromford, 1999, pp.156–7.

p.160
      ‘Big strong men cried…': Veteran Collier, Coalville, Leicestershire: Gerard Noel,
The Great Lock-Out of 1926
, Constable, 1976, p.206.

p.174
      ‘Lately in the press…': Beatrice Harraden, Foreword,
The National Children Adoption Association Report 1927–28
(with ‘1928–29' handwritten on the cover), author's own.

p.176
      ‘They enter our offices…': Clara Andrew, founder of the National Children Adoption Association, NCAA booklet
c
.1919, p.10; quoted by Jenny Keating,
A Child for Keeps
, p.50.

p.178, 180
‘Until the 1926 Act was passed…': taped interview by Brian Harrison, 8SUF/B/099, 2 July 1976, Hodgson, Mrs Mary, The Women's Library, London Metropolitan University; ‘The underlying idea was
experimental…': Ethel Smyth,
Female Pipings in Eden
, Peter Davies Ltd, 1933, pp.237–8. For further information, see David Mitchell,
Queen Christabel: A Biography of Christabel Pankhurst
, Macdonald & Jane's, 1977, and June Purvis,
Emmeline Pankhurst: A Biography
, Routledge, 2002.

p.179
      ‘including the professional classes…': Clara Andrew, evidence to the Hopkinson Committee, 5 October 1920, in Jenny Keating, ‘Struggle for Identity: Issues Underlying the Enactment of the 1926 Adoption of Children Act',
University of Sussex Journal of Contemporary History
, 3 (2001), p.5.

p.181
      ‘insist on the strictest medical examination…': typed copy of undated article for
Good Housekeeping
by Susan Musson, head of the National Council for the Unmarried Mother and Child; 50PF/04/01,
c
.1927, Adoption Act 1926, The Women's Library, London Metropolitan University.

p.181
      ‘destitute or orphaned or friendless or neglected children': 50PF/04/01/1, Voluntary Social Services Handbook, 27 September 1929, The Women's Library, London Metropolitan University.

p.185
      ‘a menial, a nobody': Winifred Foley, general maid, quoted in John Burnett (ed.),
Useful Toil: Autobiographies of Working People from the 1820s to the 1920s
, Allen Lane, 1974, Penguin Books, 1984, p.227.

p.185
      ‘Do not speak unless necessary…': Mrs C. C. Peel,
Waiting at Table: A Practical Guide
, Frederick Warne and Co. Ltd, 1929, p.23.

p.186
      ‘You must remember…': ‘Nursery Routine: The Threshold of Motherhood',
Home Management
, Daily Express Publications, 1934, p.499.

p.189
      ‘huge private house…': ‘Finding Homes for Babies!'
Woman's Own
, 25 April 1936.

p.218
      ‘Mrs D of Derby is 35 years old …': Household budget quoted in Margery Spring Rice,
Working-Class Wives: Their Health and Conditions
, Penguin, 1939; Virago edition 1981, pp.176–7.

p.230
      ‘In the modern house…': ‘House Decoration: The Kitchen',
Home Management
, p.433.

p.264
      ‘Does Detective Fiction Lower our Ethical Standards?': Helena Normanton,
Good Housekeeping
, July 1931: 7HLN/C/03, Articles from ‘Good Housekeeping' by Helena Normanton, 1924–1939, The Women's Library, London Metropolitan University.

p.288
      ‘Do not feel that you must have an elaborate display of cakes…': ‘Entertaining (With information on Weddings and Christenings)',
Home Management
, p.587.

p.304
      ‘Floss stood at one window…',
Up to London to See the King
,
A Story for Six-Year-Olds
, Nelson's Supplementary Infant Readers I, Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1904, pp.40–41.

p.312
      ‘Yours is a full time job…':
Good Housekeeping
, August 1941, quoted by Juliet Gardiner,
Wartime: Britain 1939–1945
, Headline, 2004, p.182.

p.322
      ‘Mr Churchill': author's own.

p.340
      ‘Today we nearly caught a Doodle Bug…': Vere Hodgson,
Few Eggs and No Oranges, a Diary showing how Unimportant People in London and Birmingham Lived through the War Years, 1939–1945
, Dobson Books Ltd, 1976; reprinted by Persephone Books, 1999.

I've drawn on numerous family sources to write this memoir – documents, newspapers cuttings, photographs and notebooks, even a partial stocklist from the corner shop, as well as my own recollections of childhood stories and many, many conversations with my mum. The public sources I've found most useful include the following:

ARCHIVES, LIBRARIES AND MUSEUMS

The British Library; The British Newspaper Library at Colindale; Chesterfield Library, Local Studies; Chesterfield Museum; Derbyshire Record Office; The Foundling Museum; Kensington Central Library, Local Studies; The London Library; London Metropolitan Archives; The Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising; Library Archives, London School of Economics; The National Fairground Archive, Sheffield University; Royal Free Hospital Archives Centre; The Women's Library, London Metropolitan University.

DIRECTORIES, NEWSPAPERS AND MAGAZINES

Debryshire Courier
;
Derbyshire Times
;
Directory of Sheffield
;
The Era
;
Good Housekeeping
;
History and Gazeteer of Derbyshire
;
Home Chat
;
Kelly's Directory of Derbyshire
;
Modern Home
;
Punch
;
Reflections
;
The Times
;
T. P. Wood's Almanac
;
Woman's Weekly
;
Yorkshire Telegraph & Star
.

BOOKS ON CHESTERFIELD & DERBYSHIRE

Boden, F. C.,
Miner
, J. M. Dent & Sons, 1932.

Brelsford, Vernon,
A History of Brimington from the Doomsday Survey to 1937
; with new illustrations and an update by Mandy Hicken, Brimington Parish Council, 1989.

Cousins, Philip J.,
Brimington: The Changing Face of a Derbyshire Village
, Brimington Parish Council, 1994.