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‘You’ll wash him to a watery grave,’ a new neighbour had told Edie when she was first married. ‘And you’ll see he’ll never sail on a Friday, it’s bad
luck.’ The woman had jabbed her finger towards her. ‘You’d best get rid of that green jumper, an’ all. We don’t have owt green in Grimsby. Even the Mariners’
goalie never wears a jumper that colour. Green is for grief. And, when you’re cooking, don’t forget to smash your eggshells into smithereens.’

Edie had blinked. ‘Whatever for?’

The woman had cackled with laughter. ‘’Cos, duck, half an eggshell is big enough for a witch to sail out to sea and bring disaster to trawlers.’

Edie had laughed, but she knew better than to defy any belief no matter how ridiculous it sounded. She learned them all. She wouldn’t toy with Archie’s life; he was too precious to
her.

And his time ashore was treasured too. But besides having fun with his children, Archie would make time for lessons too, teaching them Morse code and semaphore with his big torch and with flags.
‘It’ll come in useful if you go to sea, lads,’ he said to his sons, but Beth was not to be left out.

‘I want to learn it too, Daddy.’

Archie had smiled indulgently. ‘You’ll not be a fisherman, duck. Girls don’t go to sea.’ But when Beth had pretended to pout, he had relented and included her in the
lessons. As it turned out, she had been the quickest learner of them all and soon she was sending perfect messages by both the flickering torch and the flags. She stood in front of her brothers and
Irene, arms outstretched whilst Archie watched her. Pity she’s not a lad, he thought, but then he reminded himself sharply that she would not be his pretty little Beth if she were. But her
quickness, her brightness and her eagerness to learn made his heart swell with pride.

‘Are you taking Laurence on your next trip, Archie?’ Edie had asked when their eldest son was nearing school-leaving age, but her husband had shaken his head adamantly. ‘No,
love. You know I won’t ever take any member of my family to sea with me. The lads can go when they’re ready. I’ll find them a good skipper, but it won’t be me.’

Laurence had gone to sea twice before he left school and had found the experience harrowing. He suffered appalling seasickness.

‘It’ll disappear when you go to sea for real,’ Edie had tried to reassure him. ‘You’ll be far too busy to think about being ill.’

Frank, however, first went to sea with one of Archie’s trusted pals at the age of twelve. He came home, excited and elated. ‘I weren’t sick at all,’ he told them all
proudly. ‘I want to be a skipper like me dad.’

Archie had laughed and ruffled his hair. ‘Well, you have to start as a galley boy and work your way up, but if it’s what you really want to do, lad, then I’ll not stand in your
way.’

‘What’s Laurence going to do now he’s about to leave school?’ Lil asked Edie in the summer of 1932.

‘What else can he do? It’s no use him staying on to take examinations. He’s a practical sort of chap.’ Edie smiled fondly, if a little sadly. ‘He’s not one
for book learning. I expect he’ll go to sea like most of ’em do.’

Lil eyed her friend. ‘But you don’t want him to,’ she said quietly, sensing that there was something troubling Edie.

Edie wriggled her shoulders. ‘I wouldn’t mind if only he could go with his dad, but Archie won’t hear of it.’

Lil blinked. ‘Why ever not?’

‘He doesn’t agree with folks from the same family going to sea together.’ Edie bit her lip, knowing she was touching on a painful subject for Lil, but it had to be said.
‘You know what it’s like, duck, don’t you?’

Lil nodded. On that dreadful night not only had Tom been lost, but two of his cousins had perished on the same ship. The whole Horton family had been devastated three times over. ‘I can
see his point,’ she said quietly.

‘So can I, I suppose.’ Edie sighed. ‘But I just wanted to feel that someone was keeping an eye on the lad, you know. Anyway,’ she added, brightening a little,
‘he’s not going to sea straightaway. Harry’s found him work on the dock so that should keep him out of trouble for a bit.’

Three years later, in the summer of 1935 – the same year that Beth left school – Laurence went to sea as a member of a crew for the first time. Beth, reckoned by
them all to be the clever one in the family, had stayed on at school to take her School Certificate. That summer she found work locally as a nursemaid to a Mr and Mrs Forster’s two young
children, aged four and two.

Beth had grown into a lovely girl, with long brown hair curling to her shoulders and her dark eyes were soft and gentle. When she was anxious she would twist a strand of her hair round and round
her forefinger. Yet, she did not look her age; she was slim and not very tall and many mistook her for a schoolgirl still. Perhaps this is what endeared her to young children; they felt she was one
of them, not a grown-up at all.

‘The kiddies are so sweet, Mam,’ she told Edie and Lil when she arrived home after being interviewed for the position. ‘And Mrs Forster’s French – so pretty and
dainty, but she can’t deal with two lively kids. You’d never believe it, Mam, how those two little imps run rings around their mother. They fluster her, but they seemed to take to me. I
spent the afternoon with them and Mr Forster was ever so pleased with how I got them to do as I told them, and Mrs Forster’ – Beth laughed – ‘she just couldn’t believe
it. “Why do they not do that for me?” she said.’ Beth imitated the French woman’s accent perfectly. ‘And,’ Beth added, her eyes sparkling with excitement,
‘best of all, I might get the chance to go to France to look after the children when they go to visit Madame’s parents.’

‘Oh dear,’ Edie moaned. ‘I’m losing my chicks. Laurence is going to sea and you’re going across the water too.’

‘You’ve still got Frank and Shirley and little Reggie. They’ll not be leaving home for ages yet. And there’s Irene too. She’s here more often than not.’

Lil and Beth laughed together, but Edie could only raise a weak smile.

‘And just think, Aunty Lil, Irene will have her bedroom all to herself.’ Beth had often continued to sleep next door even after Shirley’s restless nights had ceased. With
Reggie’s arrival, Edie’s little house was overflowing.

Lil grimaced. ‘I don’t think that’ll please her. She’ll miss you, Beth, sharing her room with you, whispering and giggling way into the night. We’ll all miss
you.’

‘I’ll come back often – every day I get off. But this is the perfect job for me. You know how I love looking after little ones.’

Whilst the Forsters still lived in Grimsby, Beth kept her promise, but the day came which Edie had feared. Mr Forster’s job – ‘something in imports and exports,’ Beth
told her family – took him back to France and, with great thankfulness, his wife insisted that the family should move back to her home country permanently. And she was also adamant that Beth
should go with them.

‘I cannot possibly manage without you,’ Simone Forster declared, her expressive hands fluttering in the air.

In the same week that Beth left for France, Laurence, who had done his best to overcome debilitating seasickness as a fisherman, vowed he would go to sea no more.

‘I might be able to get a job down dock. Mebbe as a barrow lad.’

‘That’s hard work.’

‘It’s all hard work, Mam, but it pays a pound a week, don’t forget. That’s good money for someone of my age.’

‘Talk to your Uncle Harry. He’ll likely be able to put in a good word for you. Mebbe he could get you work alongside him as a lumper.’

Harry was willing to help, but warned his nephew, ‘It’s tough being a lumper, Laurence. It’s wet and cold and dangerous working on ice-covered boards through the night whatever
the weather. Mind you,’ he added swiftly, ‘it’s better than going to sea, specially if you’ve got the seasickness bad.’

‘Did you never want to go to sea, Uncle Harry?’

The older man shook his head. ‘No, I didn’t. I lost me dad and a brother to the sea. I don’t like it. It’s a cruel mistress.’

‘Me dad loves it.’

‘Aye, well, there’s plenty of fishermen do and I suppose I can understand it. It’s in their blood, somehow. And your dad’s a good skipper. He’s well-liked and
trusted. Blokes who get into his crew hang on to their place as long as they can.’

‘I guessed that. Several of them have been with him for years.’

‘Aye, his mate’s been with him ten years or more, I reckon. One little tip, lad, when you start as a lumper: wear gloves, else your hands’ll be red raw in a day.’ Harry
grinned. ‘But you’ll soon get hardened to it.’

But Laurence did not take to the life on the docks any more than he had going to sea and not many weeks after Beth had gone, he left Grimsby to join the British Army.

Now, two of Edie’s fledglings had left the nest.

Whilst it had been Laurence whom the infant Irene had followed devotedly, had idolized as the big brother she would never have, as they all grew older, it was Frank with whom
she fell in love. They’d always been a threesome, Beth, Irene and Frank, though sometimes with Shirley in tow. But once Beth had gone to France with the Forster family, the two younger ones
were thrown together even more.

‘I miss Beth so much, Frank,’ Irene told him as they walked home from school together just as they always had done. But their school days were coming to an end too. In the summer,
they would sit their School Certificate and then, they too, would have to look for work. They had both stayed on at school to take the examinations even though Irene had protested that she should
leave and start bringing home a wage.

‘You’ll do no such thing, love,’ Lil had said firmly. ‘I want you to have the chances I never had.’

So, at sixteen, Frank and Irene, though they had dutifully worked hard at their schoolwork, were both itching to leave school, to find work and at last feel that they were
‘grown-ups’.

‘Yeah, me too,’ Frank said, kicking a stone so that it bounced and rattled along the pavement as they walked. ‘We made a good trio, didn’t we? It’s not quite the
same with our Shirley, is it? She’s such a mardy cow.’

Irene had giggled. ‘Poor Shirley. I feel sorry for her. She’s always been the odd one out, but she’s only twelve. She’s still a kid. I’ve tried hard with her, but
she’s – well, she’s not Beth. She was like a big sister to me – just as Laurence and you are like my brothers.’

Frank was silent, looking down at the ground and giving the stone another kick.

‘I don’t want to be your brother, Irene,’ he muttered. ‘I – I want to be your boyfriend.’

‘Eh?’ Startled, Irene had stopped and turned to face him. ‘What did you say?’

Frank was blushing, not daring to look up to meet her gaze. ‘I said, I want to be your boyfriend, not a sort of brother.’

‘Oh!’ Irene said and then, after a long pause, she smiled and continued to walk on as she said softly, ‘I think I’d like that, but—’

‘Aye, I thought there’d be a “but”,’ Frank said, disappointment in his tone. His brown eyes were sad and his dark hair flopped endearingly over his forehead.

Irene giggled. ‘I just think we should keep it secret. I reckon our mams would say we were too young.’

Frank’s head shot up as he grinned at her. ‘Oh, right. I get you. But they won’t think anything of it if we’re always together, will they?’

Irene laughed and now it was she who blushed. ‘We always are, but we just won’t have to let them see us – um – well, holding hands or – or—’

‘Kissing.’ Frank stopped again and took hold of her arm, turning her gently to face him. He planted a clumsy kiss on her mouth, but their noses bumped and they ended up laughing.

‘Reckon we need a bit of practice at that,’ Frank said.

It didn’t take very long for Frank to become a lot more expert at ‘this kissing lark’ nor did it take many weeks for their families to find out.

It was Shirley who was the talebearer.

On leaving school, Frank had gone straight to sea. There had been no problem of seasickness for him, though his choice of career had caused an argument between his parents.

‘I don’t really want him going to sea at all,’ Edie had said, ‘but if he’s set on it, then he can be with you, can’t he, Archie? You can keep an eye on
him.’

To her disappointment Archie had shaken his head and added, ‘I don’t believe in families sailing together. You know I don’t. I know it’s done, but I don’t like
it.’ Archie Kelsey was a respected skipper and able to choose his own crew. He would never take men who were related – even distantly – to one another.

Some trawlermen ridiculed him. ‘I can’t get a crew together without ’em being related, Archie. How d’you do it?’

Archie had smiled enigmatically. He’d been a fisherman for a long time and a skipper for several years. He was known as a safe pair of hands and fair with the men under him. He never
needed to look far for a crew; they returned time after time to serve under Archie Kelsey. He was saddened when, only a few years later, a trawler was lost at sea skippered by that very same
trawlerman who had questioned his rules with the loss of all the crew, which had included three members from the same family. It was one of those occasions when Archie had been sorry to be proved
right.

So Frank never sailed with his father, but he took to the life and soon earned the reputation of being a good and reliable worker.

Irene had grown into a pretty young woman with long blond curling hair, sparkling blue eyes and dimples in her cheeks when she smiled. And she smiled often. Irene had had no trouble in finding
work in a department store in Freeman Street.

‘She’s got such a nice job at Oldroyd’s on the hosiery counter,’ Lil had enthused to Edie. ‘They’re all very kind to her there and I know she’ll work
hard and do well. No mending nets for her if I have anything to do with it.’

Edie had nodded and smiled. ‘She deserves it, Lil. She’s a good girl. I think of her like one of me own – you know I do. I’m pleased for both of you. Mebbe you’ll
be able to take it a bit easier now.’

But Lil had shaken her head determinedly. ‘Oh no. I wouldn’t want her thinking she’s got to support me. She’s going to give me a bit towards the housekeeping, but
I’ve told her she ought to start saving for her bottom drawer.’