Chapter 2
‘Good afternoon,’ Reg observed dryly when Bobby walked into the parlour. The editor was seated behind his desk with Tony on the other side, looking like a naughty schoolboy summoned to the headmaster.
Bobby wondered what Reg wanted to speak to them about.
Nothing bad, she hoped. Running a rural magazine in these days of paper shortages and wartime uncertainty was a fraught business.
The little mag seemed to be doing well – enough for Reg to increase their salaries to two pounds a week – but still, Bobby thought he must struggle to afford two staff reporters.
Two pounds wasn’t a large salary – quite the reverse. Bobby and Tony had earned a pound more a week when they had worked together on the Bradford Courier, and even that was a modest wage. Nevertheless, eighty shillings a week was still a lot for Reg to be paying out.
When Bobby had left for the WAAF in spring, her brother-in-law had been taken on as The Tyke’s only staff reporter in her place.
She hadn’t expected her old job back when she left the Air Force six months later – indeed, she had assured Reg she wouldn’t want it if it would mean laying off Tony.
It had knocked her for six when Reg had said he wanted her back on The Tyke, working alongside her old Courier colleague.
Bobby believed Reg might actually have missed her, although it was the last thing the gruff Yorkshireman would ever admit.
She was glad to be back, but her old job came with new challenges, not least of which was the lack of space.
With three workers and their desks crammed into the parlour, there was precious little space for anything else – in fact, the room had now abandoned any pretence of being a parlour at all.
It looked like what it was – an office – and the Atherton family were forced to retreat to the kitchen for their living space.
Mary bore it stoically, but Bobby knew it was devastating for the houseproud Daleswoman to have no room in which to rest and entertain.
The space was foggy with tobacco now as Tony chain-smoked his way through the day, and every weekend Mary diligently scrubbed the ceiling above his desk to remove a persistent yellow ring.
Tony himself was the other challenge. His work had improved since he and Bobby last worked together, but as at the Courier, he was prone to belligerence if he felt his female colleague was being favoured over him.
As a man, he saw himself as naturally Bobby’s superior at work.
It rankled whenever he was reminded that they were, in fact, equals.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ Bobby said in answer to Reg’s sarcastic ‘good afternoon’. ‘I’ll make it up before I leave.’
‘Aye, see you do. No, don’t start work,’ Reg said, seeing she was heading for her desk. ‘I want to talk to the pair of you.’
Bobby pulled her chair over to sit beside Tony. She flashed her fellow reporter a questioning look, but Tony just shrugged.
She felt her stomach lurch with anxiety, and winced at a movement from the baby in response.
Was she going to be sacked? Could Reg have discovered her secret?
He was a kind man underneath his sternness, and Bobby knew he both respected and liked her.
Nevertheless, he had traditional ideas about women in the workplace.
It had been difficult enough to persuade him to keep her on once she became a wife.
As a mother, he’d never accept she ought to be anywhere but at home.
Tony looked worried as well. Bobby wondered if he, too, was fearful his head was on the block.
Feckless and workshy for most of his career, Tony had earned a reputation back in Bradford that had rendered him virtually unemployable there.
This job, low paid as it was, had been a lifeline to him when he had been an out-of-work new husband.
It had allowed him to move his pregnant wife nearer to her family, and provided them with a grace-and-favour home in the form of Cow House Cottage.
He would be in an even worse position if he lost his place than Bobby.
‘Um, did we do anything wrong?’ Bobby asked Reg.
She was determined, if paying their salaries was the issue, to offer her resignation in place of Tony’s.
God knew she needed to be earning, but if Tony lost his job he might never get another.
Worse, he might follow through on a plan to move his family to Liverpool, and take Lilian away from her.
‘Since you mention it,’ Reg said, frowning. ‘Third time you’ve been late since I took you back on. Not like you, lass.’
Bobby flushed. It had been Lilian who had distracted her today, but early-morning vomiting had caused her lateness on previous occasions. She couldn’t tell Reg that, of course, but she was fast running out of excuses.
‘I know, and it’s not good enough,’ she said. ‘I’m still getting into a routine at home and… but you don’t care about that. It won’t happen again.’
‘See it doesn’t.’
‘What about me? What did I do?’ Tony demanded. ‘I’m always at my desk before nine.’
‘Aye, smoking with your feet up.’ Reg looked faintly amused. ‘Have the pair of you got guilty consciences or what?’
Bobby felt another stab of worry. Did he know?
‘Um, how do you mean?’ she asked.
‘I summon you both here and straight off you’re trying to work out what you’ve done wrong. I’ve summat to tell you, that’s all.’
Bobby and Tony exchanged puzzled looks.
‘Well, boss, what is it?’ Tony asked, lighting one of his smelly Egyptian cigarettes.
‘Just this.’ Reg handed Bobby a lumpy envelope. ‘My missus has given The Tyke its marching orders at long last. I think those fags of yours were the last straw, Tony. You’re moving out.’
Bobby looked at the envelope. ‘What do you mean, moving out?’
‘Into new premises. There’s a key in there. I’m trusting you to open up, Bobby, so mind you knock this lateness on the head.’
‘Where are we moving to?’ Tony asked. He didn’t look particularly perturbed by the news.
Bobby supposed it was all one to Tony where he smoked.
But to her, for whom Moorside Farm and The Tyke had always been inextricably linked, it felt earth-shattering to think of their little team working anywhere else.
Reg coughed as a stream of smoke from Tony’s cigarette hit him in the face. ‘For God’s sake, lad, turn to one side if you must smoke them things. As to where you’re moving to, there’s a shed behind Ginger Parry’s place. You seen it?’
Tony snorted. ‘A shed?’
‘Aye, well, best I can do at the minute.’
‘We can’t run a magazine from a shed.’
Reg shrugged. ‘Why not? It’s in good nick, and I’ve had the place fettled smart.’
‘Did you say it’s on Captain Parry’s land?’ Bobby asked.
‘Aye, the field behind his cottage. Ginger’s not using it so he said we could have it in exchange for a couple of eggs a week from our hens. Pete Dixon’s coming round to shift the desks this afternoon so you’ll be ready to start there Monday.’
Bobby felt like she was in a dream. A new office!
That meant no more cosy chats with Mary during her dinner hour.
No more friendly hand snuffles from Reg’s old wolfhounds, Barney and Winnie, as they lay across her feet while she worked.
No more would she look up to the welcome sight of Mary’s tea tray appearing round the door…
She frowned as something else Reg had said registered.
‘What do you mean, you’ll be ready to start on Monday?’ she asked. ‘You’re coming too, aren’t you?’
Reg gave a hoarse laugh. ‘Me, sit in an old shed all day with mustard gas on the lungs and shrapnel in one leg? Nay, that’s for young folk. Dick Minchin would have my guts for garters.’
‘You’re going to keep working here? How will we know what you want us to do?’
Reg sighed. He looked suddenly older as he slumped back in his chair.
‘You don’t need me to tell you what to do,’ he said quietly, and the way he met Bobby’s eyes told her these words weren’t intended for Tony. ‘You know the mag as well as I ever did. Happen even better.’
‘But it’s yours, Reg. Your baby.’
‘Half the letters we had while you were off to war were about you,’ he told her, somewhat wistfully.
‘“What happened to the nice young lady who wrote the bits to make us laugh?”. Well, now I’ve got two of you trained up, seems daft not to let my old bones have a rest. Mary’s been nagging me about it ever since I gave you your job back, Bobby. ’
Reg was seized by another coughing fit. Bobby wondered if there was more to these than Tony’s smoke.
She hadn’t realised Reg’s lungs had been affected by gas in the last war.
And he did look tired – she’d noticed the change when she’d returned from the WAAF.
Still, Reg must really be feeling his age if he was willing to take a step back from The Tyke.
As Mary often complained, he lived and breathed for that magazine.
‘I don’t get it,’ Tony said, stubbing out his cigarette in one of the ashtrays Mary had placed discreetly around the room. ‘Who’s in charge then? Someone has to be.’
Reg mopped his mouth with a handkerchief and nodded to Bobby. ‘She is. I’m promoting her to deputy editor. I’ll still be editor-in-chief, but that don’t mean I’ll be hovering over your shoulders, don’t worry. I’ll just stop in from time to time and cast my eye over things.’
Bobby sat up straighter. ‘Deputy editor! Really?’
‘Aye.’ Reg smiled. ‘Told you there’d be an editor job in your future, didn’t I? There’ll be a bit extra in your pay packet to reflect the promotion. Not a lot, mind, but another three bob a week. That’s as much as I can afford for now.’
Tony looked appalled. ‘You’re promoting her over me?’
‘Oh, don’t sound so shocked,’ Reg said, rolling his eyes. ‘She’s got more experience, that’s all.’
‘She might have more experience on this rag but I’m the more experienced journalist. I was a seasoned newspaperman when she was just the girl who made the tea.’
Bobby glared at him. ‘You know, I can hear you, Tony.’