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without ’em being related, Archie. How d’you do it?’
    Archie had smiled enigmatically. He’d been a fisherman for a long time and a skipper for several years. He was known as a safe pair of hands and fair with the men under him. He never
needed to look far for a crew; they returned time after time to serve under Archie Kelsey. He was saddened when, only a few years later, a trawler was lost at sea skippered by that very same
trawlerman who had questioned his rules with the loss of all the crew, which had included three members from the same family. It was one of those occasions when Archie had been sorry to be proved
right.
    So Frank never sailed with his father, but he took to the life and soon earned the reputation of being a good and reliable worker.
    Irene had grown into a pretty young woman with long blond curling hair, sparkling blue eyes and dimples in her cheeks when she smiled. And she smiled often. Irene had had no trouble in finding
work in a department store in Freeman Street.
    ‘She’s got such a nice job at Oldroyd’s on the hosiery counter,’ Lil had enthused to Edie. ‘They’re all very kind to her there and I know she’ll work
hard and do well. No mending nets for her if I have anything to do with it.’
    Edie had nodded and smiled. ‘She deserves it, Lil. She’s a good girl. I think of her like one of me own – you know I do. I’m pleased for both of you. Mebbe you’ll
be able to take it a bit easier now.’
    But Lil had shaken her head determinedly. ‘Oh no. I wouldn’t want her thinking she’s got to support me. She’s going to give me a bit towards the housekeeping, but
I’ve told her she ought to start saving for her bottom drawer.’
    Edie had laughed. ‘But that’s a long way off yet, Lil. She’s got to meet a nice young man first.’
    ‘True, but she’s a pretty girl – though I suppose I shouldn’t say it about me own daughter.’
    ‘Well, if she wants to meet a prospective husband, Lil, she’ll have to stop going around so much with our Frank.’
    Whenever he was at home from sea, Frank, feeling rich and important with money in his pocket, would splash out on his girl. They’d go to the cinema for a bob’s worth of dark, as he
put it, sitting in the back row of the stalls, holding hands and even sneaking a kiss whenever they thought no one would see them. But someone did see them and couldn’t wait to get home to
tell her mother. Shirley, on a special treat with her school friends one Friday evening, spotted her brother and Irene cuddling in the back row of the cinema.
    ‘Our Frank’s got himself a girlfriend, then,’ she announced, almost before she was through the scullery and into the living room. Edie was sitting near the range with a pile of
socks for mending on her knee. She was on her own, Archie was at sea and, although the wireless had been tuned to one of her favourite programmes, Edie had turned it off before the late news came
on. She glanced up at Shirley, but the girl went back into the scullery to make cocoa for them both, deliberately keeping her mother in suspense. But Edie was used to Shirley’s dramatics and
she calmly carried on with her mending and waited patiently until the young girl could contain her news no longer.
    ‘Did you enjoy the pictures?’ Edie asked mildly as Shirley carried two mugs back into the living room and placed one beside her mother. ‘What did you see?’
    ‘We went to the Savoy. It was Charlie Chaplin in
Modern Times
and then there was a Mickey Mouse cartoon. But it was what was going on in the back row that was even more interesting
than the films.’
    Edie said nothing, keeping her gaze firmly fixed on her sewing.
    ‘Didn’t you hear what I said? Frank’s got a girlfriend.’
    ‘I heard.’
    ‘I thought you’d say he was too young,’ Shirley said, miffed because her mother wasn’t displaying the interest – or the sense of shock – the girl had hoped
for.
    Edie dipped her head so that