‘Straight away, sir,’ Harry told Roland Tannerson. ‘Except that I’ve to find accommodation for my wife and children first and bring them down from Holderness – would Monday be suitable? Start of next week? Erm, what sort of work will I be doing, sir, and what about wages?’

Tannerson gave a dry laugh. ‘I wondered when you might get round to asking.’ He told Harry what to expect in wages, which was six shillings a week. It was roughly what he earned at the farm, but he would now have to pay rent out of it.

Tannerson must have noticed his drooping expression, even though Harry had nodded in agreement. ‘Not as much as you expected?’

Harry decided to be honest and tell him what he earned now. ‘It’s just that I onny pay a peppercorn rent, sir, and we keep our own hens and grow vegetables and suchlike; I doubt we can do that in town.’

Tannerson considered. ‘Right, I’ll give you an extra shilling a week towards your rent; I know what it’s like to be without money. How old are your children?’ When Harry told him, he said, ‘Can’t be easy, I know, and your wife can’t work either, with young children, though some have to when they’re desperate. Well, we’ll see how you shape up in your first month; if you work well there’ll be a rise in wages. I believe in being fair. Now then, watch out where you look for accommodation. There are some hovels round here that you wouldn’t keep pigs in. Don’t go down the Groves, because that’s where the Irish live.’

‘I’ve nowt against Irish, sir,’ Harry said.

‘Nor have I.’ Tannerson grinned as he agreed. ‘But they tend to keep to themselves and some of them live in dire conditions. No fault of theirs,’ he hastened to add. ‘Some of them share a room with several other families and their landlords do nothing to make their lives bearable but charge exorbitant rents for the privilege of living without running water or their own privy.’

‘Thank you, sir. I appreciate your advice and your job offer. You won’t regret it. I’m not a shirker; you’ll get your money’s worth out of me.’ Harry touched his forehead. ‘Six o’clock sharp on Monday morning.’

He set off down unknown streets. Some were full of warehouses and workshops and no housing, others had small terraced houses set in the midst of industry, but Harry didn’t enquire about any of them. He couldn’t bring Ellen and the children to live in a noisy dusty atmosphere such as this, and after walking about for half an hour or so he was beginning to despair of finding anything suitable; he worried too that he might miss the carrier to take him home.