‘Anyways, he were an ’ero that day,’ she would boast proudly to her friends.
In explanation to less well-informed friends, she would say reflectively, ‘He were a lively lad. He swum in the canal ever since he were a kid, and won a few races in his time. It isn’t his fault that he never had a trade. He had to start earning a living the day he were twelve – or he’d have starved. So he took what there was – he went down to the docks with his dad and he’s been there ever since, poor lad.’
After she married him, she ruminated, he had kept up his skill by swimming in the nearby Wapping dock, if there were no ships tied up in it.
Both of them knew that such trespassing was illegal, but she never said a word to anyone about it, because it was such a welcome relief to him after working in claustrophobic warehouses or ships’ holds, or from the fetid confinement of their overcrowded, noisy court dwelling: from her point of view, it was much better than his getting drunk with his pals in the Baltic or the Coburg.
The dock master and the other men working the dock knew his face. They never attempted to stop him unless there was a boat coming in to berth, in which case, they would warn him for his own safety. But in the depth of the Depression of the 1930s boats were few and far between.
One fine Tuesday morning in April, however, instead of trying for work or swimming in the dock, he was hanging around the Pier Head for another reason, while at the same time watching the ferries come and go across the river. On Sundays, during good weather, watching the river traffic was a popular after-church occupation for Liverpool people.
On this weekday, however, there was an unusually large crowd, because HMS Ark Royal was being launched from the other side of the river: the Pier Head was a perfect place from which to view it. Chances of getting any work, he had decided, were remote, and his Sundays off would never offer such a good spectacle as the launch of a big ship. Better, by far, to be present at this historic occasion.
He made the excuse to himself that his back hurt abominably from a particularly heavy job he had done the previous day: working today would only make the pain worse. He hoped that Martha would never find out that he had failed to go to the stand, as usual, in hope of getting work.
On Sundays, if he did not go down to the Pier Head, he preferred to lie on the old mattress on the floor of the family’s single room. There, he rested and enjoyed the rare quiet, while Martha herded six of their nine children to the nearby church. As a live-in servant, Lizzie usually attended the church closest to her employer’s home; Colleen, aged ten, lay fighting tuberculosis of the hip in Leasowe Children’s Hospital, far away on the other side of the River Mersey; and James, little Number Nine, was babysat by their neighbour, Mary Margaret, who lived in the back room upstairs.
Nowadays, Mary Margaret always said she coughed too much to be welcome at Mass – the noise disturbed the praying. But, in truth, though she loved the glittering little church with its theatrical service, she no longer had the energy to walk that far.
This particular Tuesday, amongst the many others strolling up and down or waiting for the launch, Patrick recognised a well-known city councillor. Most Merseysiders had seen his ruddy, moustached visage more than once in either the Evening Express or the Liverpool Echo. He was a man much given to noisy controversy on any subject which might give him publicity and convince Liverpudlians of his care of their city.
Outstanding in a crowd of mostly thin people, the councillor’s well-padded frame, encased in a three-piece suit, with a bowler hat rammed firmly on his head and a walking stick beneath his arm, suggested a successful man well content with himself.
His dirty macintosh flapping in the wind, Patrick watched him with the lazy indifference of the unemployed and hungry, as the floating landing stage heaved gently beneath their feet.
He was standing near the end of the stage, where a small private yacht with a broken mast had been temporarily moored: he had wandered over to look at the little craft. The councillor reached the end of his stroll at the same point, but, before turning back, paused beside him to peer down at the stricken boat.
‘Must’ve got caught in last night’s storm,’ he remarked to Patrick, as he turned to view him with friendly condescension.
‘Oh, aye,’ replied Patrick. ‘Real bad, it was.’ He was not interested enough to continue the conversation, or to warn the stupid man when he unwisely stepped over the guarding chain to look more closely at the little yacht.
While docking, a ferry bumped into the floating stage. The stage gave an unexpectedly big heave. The councillor staggered, failed to regain his balance, stumbled over a mooring rope and with a mighty plop fell into the river.
Patrick stared dumbly as the water settled again. Then the councillor, his bowler hat bobbing slowly downstream, came spluttering to the surface.
It became obvious to Patrick as the man floundered that the councillor could not swim. The current began to push the struggling man away from the stage, and, before going under again, he screamed for help.
Patrick swore to Martha, afterwards, that he did not plunge in to save him because he was a councillor and therefore important.
‘Might’ve left the silly bugger to fend for hisself, if I’d remembered,’ he told Martha scornfully. ‘What use is he to folk like us? And him a Prottie, too.’
But Protestant or not, he did instinctively plunge in to rescue the drowning man. A few powerful strokes and he caught him by the collar of his jacket. He shouted to him to stop struggling, but it took a second or two for the instruction to penetrate. Then, to Patrick’s relief, the councillor obeyed.
Swimming on his back, Patrick began to tow him towards the landing stage.
The current was against them and it took all Patrick’s strength to make headway towards the stage, where, as the accident was noticed, there was sudden activity.
With one hand Patrick finally managed to grab a hold on the gunwale of the little yacht.
As a crowd of helpers rushed to the edge of the stage, all shouting advice at once, the yacht threatened to turn over. One would-be rescuer with more sense threw a life buoy with a rope attached to it.
The current pushed the buoy away. A swift jerk brought it closer, and Patrick and the terrified councillor thankfully grasped its looped ropes.
In addition, a small rowing boat nudged at Patrick’s back, as its owner shipped his oars. Breathless after his quick row towards them, the rower gasped encouragement to both men to ‘’Old on, there, na. Seen you dive in, I did. Soon get you out.’
With the aid of an assortment of idlers, the city councillor was roughly heaved back onto the landing stage, while a panting Patrick hauled himself out.
Sitting on the edge of the stage, Patrick wiped the water from his face with his hands. Then he took his boots off and emptied the water out of them. He examined them ruefully. ‘Should have took them off,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Nobody should try swimming in boots.’
Reclining on the stage, supported by two friendly ferrymen, it seemed as if the councillor spat up half the Mersey River before both he and Patrick were escorted into the nearest warm place, the Pier Head teashop.
The sopping wet councillor was soon seated in the tiny café. A mug of hot tea was immediately proffered him by the startled woman in charge; she kept asking no one in particular, ‘Whatever happened to him, poor bugger?’
Near him stood the owner of the little rowing boat, who had helped to push the pair of them up out of the water. He was nearly as wet as the other two.
In the opinion of the boat owner, this chap in a three-piece suit was obviously a Somebody. Though he did not recollect who he was, it seemed likely that he might receive