Somewhere behind the main street she sampled the greasy mysteries of a fish and chip bar but couldn’t stomach the food and asked directions towards a decent bed and breakfast establishment. She was pointed towards the Skipton Road where the houses were bigger but still blackened with soot.

Netta knocked on several doors before a landlady eyed the cut of her best camel coat and sensible brogues and decided she was indeed a respectable young war widow looking for work in the district. The room was basic, drab and worn. It would suit her purposes. Netta said she was feeling unwell after a long journey and needed to see a doctor.

‘Up the road, turn right down the side street. Doctor’ll see you, I’m sure, but don’t go falling sick on me in the night. My man’s on day shift. He needs his sleep. Staying long, are we?’ said the landlady in her flowered overall and turban headscarf.

‘Not long, just passing through for the night,’ she replied, feeling utterly exhausted by the slow journey from Dumfries. The train had stopped at every station, from sad memories of Gretna and Carlisle to hill halts on windswept Cumberland moors to country stations amongst rivers and wooded valleys. At each screech of the brakes she just wanted to rush off the train and go back home but her limbs were strangely disobedient to her will. All the energy had drained from her. In her eyes was a picture of baby waving her off with his pudgy hand. Rage burned inside her head. If anyone else had told her that it was all for the best that she should go south and find herself work, she would have hit them.

Dr Begg had arranged for her to stay at some temporary hostel near Leeds. She even had Vida Bloom’s old letter in her hand with her last address, the one ‘kent’ face she could find in a foreign land. There was a regular train service northwards and it was promised she could come back anytime to measure baby’s progress. Peg was full of smiles and Father was generosity itself, putting enough money in her Post Office account to tide her over until she found work.

As the train rattled over the bleak Yorkshire moors and the sky grew grey and dark, so her spirits sank deeper into hopeless despair. What was the point? After sea and shore, hills and streams, this dark industrial landscape of exile sapped the last of her confidence. There was only one thing left to do and once the thought pushed its way into her head, her feet sprang into action and she jumped out of the train at the first busy station.

*