The Legacy: Trouble Comes Disguised As Family (Unspoken Book 2) by T. Belshaw (the best books to read .txt) 📗

The first few pictures were of Alice’s mum and dad standing in front of the farmhouse and in the back yard near the pig pens. Above each photograph was a short description and a date. Alice herself appeared after the fifth page, at first as a baby, then a toddler. After that were a few school aged pictures, with one showing Alice and her best friend Amy, holding hands to the backdrop of the town’s annual fair. There was also a photo of Alice and Amy in the Old Bull, looking slightly the worse for wear, standing in a group with two, tall, dark-haired men who had their arms draped around the girl’s shoulders. At the top off the page was the tagline: The Long Arm of the Law. Bodkin and Ferris. Movie Night. Jan 1939. Interest piqued; Jess jotted down a quick note. Check out the policemen in the photograph.

Towards the back of the album were some grainy black and white photos of Alice with Martha and Marjorie. Right at the back, tucked into the cover, were half a dozen loose pictures of the farm workers and their families. The final two were of Alice and her Gangster Lawyer, Godfrey, standing arm in arm next to the very Alvis that Jess herself had been riding in only a few days before.

Smiling, Jess closed the album and ran her hand over the soft, leather cover.

‘Lovely memories, Nana,’ she said to herself.

Jess made a sandwich and poured a glass of milk, then opened her notebook and wrote 1940 on a clean page. Picking up the memoir from the top of the pile, she took a sip of milk, opened the jotter and began to read.

April 1940

There are no entries for January and February in this volume, mainly because there wasn’t much to relate. The freezing cold weather that arrived during late December continued over the next eight weeks with very few days getting above freezing. It was recorded as being the coldest winter for 45 years.

Very little work was done on the farm. The lads turned up every morning, but after milking and feeding, they were generally sent home to sit by their coal fires for the rest of the day.

Rationing of basic foodstuffs had been introduced in January and it was a major shock to the majority of the population. We had it easier, living on a farm, and although, feeling guilty we cut back ourselves, we didn’t have the same privations as the rest of the public as we produced milk and made our own cheese and butter. Despite offers from many quarters, we steadfastly refused to sell to the newly created black market, and let the government agencies have the bulk of our produce.

By mid-March the worst of it was over but the land was so wet we couldn’t do a lot in the fields. The previous autumn, the government had decreed that farmers should plough up the pastures that were normally left fallow, but as the land had been frozen for all those weeks, we hadn’t had a chance to do it.

In the second week of April, we led Bessie, our aging shire horse, out of her paddock, harnessed her up and began to plough one of the three fields that had been left to nature.

Bessie loved being out in the fields and she was spoiled rotten by the lads. Before the rationing came in, they would feed her sugar lumps, but now that sugar was in short supply, they fed her apples, and mint humbugs, ignoring my half-hearted warnings that she would get fat or her teeth would fall out.

We had discussed retiring her during the winter, but because we could only dream of buying a tractor and because trained shire horses were now priced at a premium, we decided that she was fit enough for at least one more year of farm work, though we would keep a sharp eye on her for any sign of weakness. Bessie had her own paddock and a double-stalled, stable. Through the summer months she would be brought out to help clear fallen trees and drag the sawn up trunks into the hedge bottoms to block up any gaps that would allow our sheep to get out onto the lane.

Bessie also made appearances at the country show held in our town every summer and had been the proud winner of a dozen rosettes over the years. The local kids always made a fuss over her whether at the show or whether walking with me or one of the lads around the country lanes during the warm summer evenings.

I had often wondered if she ever felt lonely, but Barney, who knew horses as well as anyone, said she was happy enough. During the summer of 1939 we put a young mare in with her while its owner went into hospital for a minor operation, but we had to separate them after a few hours because Bessie wouldn’t stop biting her.

Barney suggested we try again with an unwanted foal, or invest in another shire horse when she finally retired.

‘She might get bored when she’s stuck in the paddock, week in, week out. We should have a chat about it in the autumn, Missis.’

As it turned out, she got company much sooner than that.

The next morning, Tinker Toby arrived at the farm with his donkey drawn cart. Toby was famous in the area. He was in his seventies, with a mass of unkempt, white hair sticking out at all angles from beneath his large-brimmed, floppy, felt hat. He lived in a ramshackle hut at the junction of Main Street and the Gillingham Road where he sorted and sold the piles of scrap metal, rags and other items the residents of the town couldn’t find a use for. The place had been condemned twice and had been earmarked for demolition for over ten years, but when the contractors turned up to begin work, they found a crowd of angry locals