A group of older girls pranced out of the girls’ entrance and stopped to play jump rope. They were the smart girls who never got into any trouble and they were the teacher’s favourites. Their proper shoes and socks and their neatly plaited hair, tied with pretty ribbons, caused a bad feeling to surface in Marjorie’s stomach. Sometimes she hated her family for being so poor.
She remembered their leaving the John Street brownstone house; her family snuck out in the middle of the night. They went out by the side garden, and in the quiet of the night its squeaky gate seemed loud enough to wake the entire neighbourhood. Marjorie, roused from her sleep by a sudden noise, heard her mum tell her big sister Phyllis to hurry and get the younger ones dressed.
“What are we doing? What is going on?” She heard her sister whisper.
Her mum’s voice was low. “The landlord is coming in the morning to kick us out if we don’t have the rent money and I don’t have the money, so I am going to save him the trouble. Now, will you please help me?”
That move brought them to this Rockcliffe School, but they missed days and days of school. Marjorie had crossed her fingers and imagined really hard that they could stay at their Cullercoats School or even go back to their Whitley Park School, but it wasn’t to be. Her mum had left them all with different neighbours and friends while she looked for somewhere else to live. She finally found a place on Victoria Avenue, but it meant changing schools. Marjorie didn’t care too much by then, as she hated having to be away from her mum and all that was important was that they were all back together again. She told her mum to never leave her again.
Rockcliffe School looked the same in 2010 as it did when Marjorie attended in 1936–37.
Photo by Patricia Skidmore.
The children had been at the Rockcliffe School since the beginning of November, and, just after Christmas, they had to move again, this time to Whitley Road. Marjorie wanted to stay at their house on Victoria Avenue. It was easy to skip school from there. They would just walk down Victoria Avenue to the promenade and then, instead of turning right and going on to their school, they would run down the path to the beach. She and Joyce or Kenny and whoever else skipped school with them would stay on the beach the entire day. Playing down on the beach was so much nicer than sitting in school. No matter what they played at, they would always keep their eyes open for lost money and other pickings.
Marjorie was happiest at the beach. Sometimes they would walk all the way to St. Mary’s Lighthouse and if they found a low tide, they would walk over to the island and explore around the lighthouse. Her big brother Norman went over one day, and he forgot to pay attention to the tides so he had to stay overnight until the tide was low again the next morning.
The beach was the best place in the world. No matter where they moved to in the area, Whitley Bay or Cullercoats or Monkseaton, they always stayed close to the beach. Sometimes they would build sandcastles, and at other times they played pirates. They would climb on the cliffs, even though their mother said they would get a whipping for even thinking of going near the cliffs. Kenny slipped once and tumbled down almost to the bottom. Terrified, Marjorie had scrambled down to get him. What if he was dead? By the time she reached him, blood covered his face. She dragged him home, watching his face, and hoping that he would not die. When they got to the door, her mother had a fit. Kenny wailed when he heard his mother’s voice.
“What happened here? Where were you two?” she yelled at Marjorie. “Why aren’t you in school?”
“We were up on the cliffs at the sands and Kenny slipped,” Marjorie blurted, even though she was afraid of a whipping. Her mother grabbed a cloth. She wiped the blood away from his face. Marjorie could see that it was just a large scrape above his forehead. None of his brain stuck out. He would probably live.
Her mother was more sad than mad. She scolded them for climbing on the cliffs and warned them again to stay away from that part of the beach because of the danger. She asked them what would they do if the tide was in and he fell in the water and drowned. Marjorie and Kenny did not have an answer. They just shrugged their shoulders. She gave Kenny a clean rag to hold on his cut and when it stopped bleeding she told them to go outside and play, as it was too late to go back to school. She told Marjorie to take the two little ones and look after them and reminded them to be careful, since they could not afford the doctor.
Marjorie and her sister Joyce are standing by 106 Whitley Road. The upstairs flat, located above the brick wall, is where Marjorie was living in February 1937. From there, it was just a quick run down to the beach.
Photo by Patricia Skidmore.
That had happened at their Victoria Avenue house. Or, was it at the Victoria Terrace house? Their many moves made it difficult to remember which house was which. She liked the Victoria Avenue house because it was much bigger than the flat they lived in now. They didn’t have much furniture to put in it but that gave them lots of room to play. Her mum pawned most of their things just so they could get by.
It was cold at their old Victoria Avenue house though, especially when the winter wind blew off the ocean. The inside of their house never seemed much warmer than the outside. They had to plug money in the gas meter to keep warm, but they rarely had any coins. Once when the meter man came by to collect the money, Marjorie heard him mutter that they must have found a way to get the gas heater to work without money. She wanted to tell him that he was wrong, that they just put all their clothes on and tried to keep warm by running through the rooms playing tag or hide and seek. The worst part though, was when they had to go to the outhouse in the back corner of the yard, especially when the wind was blowing and it was teeming with rain.
The main room of their new flat, above the butcher’s shop on Whitley Road, was warmer because the front of the building faced away from the ocean. There were good things about living here. Sometimes the butcher gave their mum some bones for soups and a couple of times there were bits of meat left on the bones. Whitley Road was a busy road and there were always exciting things happening along it. The best part was they did not have to change schools with this move. Now they lived closer to Rockcliffe School, and it was easier to get to school on time.
“Hey!”
Marjorie jumped down from the fence. The fancy girls were walking towards her.
“Why are you just sitting there? Are you staring at us? What are you looking at?” The biggest girl glared down at Marjorie.
Before Marjorie could answer, a pretty girl, her long plaits swinging from side to side, sneered at her, “Ooh, let’s get out of here, my mom said her brothers are in jail. We don’t want to talk to her!” She made a horrible face, turned up her nose, and walked away. The other two tossed their ribbon-clad heads and followed her.
Marjorie stared after them. “They are not! They are at a different school. It’s not fair. You are horrible!” She hissed at the girls and quickly ran off.
The clouds flying overhead caught her attention. They blotted out the light and made the sky black. They were so low that she felt she could reach up and touch them. The ever-present gulls swooped and played in the wind. They seemed to be touching the clouds. Oh, she would love to fly like the birds. The gulls never seemed to mind the weather, except when it really