Listen to the Trees and Other Curious Tales

George, nicknamed “Geordie” by his mates although his origins were not that far north, was making his way home after attending his local town’s football match.

The match had been hard fought, the rules were somewhat more robust than today’s, and despite their physical presence his town managed only a draw. It had resulted in two goals each, a few broken lips and one possible broken arm as well as lots of bruised shins.

The persistent cold had not helped that much and the depth of snow had been not very much different on the pitch as it was on the ground and the roads that George was now walking home along. The north-east of England had a reputation for being very cold in winter and in February of this year 1927, it was no different from the expectations of the hardy sort that lived here.

The country was still recovering from the effects of the Great War, many men of the north-east would never come home and among those that did, many were never the same men again. Some being so shocked by the horrors of the conflict that their minds might never repair. To add to the miseries, unemployment had reached a record high with nearly three quarters of available men, out of work.

What kept a spark alight in men’s hearts was the weekly, Saturday afternoon football match that was viewed by almost all of them as something, almost, of a religious experience.

The snow was laid heavy and unmoving despite some severe winds that had blown in off the coast, giving it a firm, icy coating.

George, a young man lucky to be in employment although in no more than a labouring job, was classed as a platelayer. He worked hard during long cold days laying down new railway lines for the expanding local steel and iron works. He was favoured by this occupation, the wages being better than straightforward labouring. He was able to afford his shared lodgings, food and a few pence for the home football fixture; away fixtures were not even a consideration in his thoughts.

During this last week, the snow had been falling steadily during mostly daytime to freeze hard at night as the temperatures dropped to a very bitter low and the sharp winds blew in off the sea.

The match finished, George had the couple of miles to walk home and as long as he kept putting one foot in front of the other in his only pair of boots, his working boots, he could stave off the cold beneath them. He had on a good pair of socks, essential for working outside in the cold hard ground, and these served him well.

George had been very lucky finding another job when he had given up his first one as a blast furnace labourer. He had seen his good friend cruelly killed by a hot spill of molten steel that he could not avoid and it had shaken him up badly.

His employer had understood, unusually, that the two of them had worked well together but now that partnership had been cruelly ripped apart. George still very much a young man of nineteen was unable to continue in any effective way at the furnaces.

He was offered a job away from the heat of the furnaces out into the open where the connecting railways lines between the various steelworks were expanding as quickly as the works themselves. From the almost unbearable heat to the freezing cold, George coped well and soon picked up the skills necessary as part of a team putting down the new railway lines.

The work was demanding but with a well developed set of muscles he was well suited to this change. His fellow workers were friendly enough. He even enjoyed the occasional pint of beer with them on the way home from the hard slog of a twelve hour day, while he still had a few pennies left in his pocket.

The work had been particularly demanding these last few weeks. The cold had swept in off the north-sea to bring ever increasing quantities of snow and freezing ice. The rail lines had to be constructed and the platelayer gangs just had to get on with it, whatever the weather brought.

George was still contemplating this on his silent, solitary trudge home, his only scarf wrapped tightly round his neck and tucked inside the neat woollen jacket that he could wear when away from the grime of work. There he wore a battered old woollen one that his aunt had given to him.

One of his uncle’s old cast-offs that had been kept back and not thrown away (very little was ever thrown away these days) before he left home to find his own lodgings closer to his place of work.

George had been raised by his aunt and uncle, not knowing his own real parents or being given any great explanation of how his situation had arisen in the first place. He didn’t question what he didn’t know. What he didn’t know couldn’t bother him. He just got on with life.

With a little bit of luck, the fire at his lodgings would still be smouldering. If his fellow ground floor lodger, who he believed had also been at the match, arrived back to their two-up, two-down (they both occupied two adjacent small rooms downstairs) he would ensure a few lumps of the precious fresh coal were placed on his fire to keep it going. George likewise would keep an eye open for his friend’s fire keeping it going if he wasn’t there; they had a good friendly, look-after-each-other relationship which suited them both.

If the fire had gone out, either himself or his downstairs co-lodger would have to go out into the back yard and chop some sticks from the few logs they had, to start the fire all over again and that would be a cold task on a day like today.

There were no locks on their doors, only on the outside doors. Movement between the two rooms was straightforward and they did trust each other, besides they had nothing worth stealing.

George was looking forward to the meagre warmth of his room and he had perhaps another twenty minutes or so trudging along the cold snow laden pavement to reach it. Tonight he would get onto his bed of a basic, straw filled palliasse, with his clothes still on and two heavy blankets pulled up close.

He did not have to go to work on a Sunday, a rare employment privilege, and all the town had come to a halt on Saturday afternoons, just in time for the football. He could enjoy a rare warm night, if the fire kept smouldering. Breaking the ice on the water trough in the back yard could wait until later in the following morning. George was letting his mind wander; the thrills but also disappointments of the football and the graft he has to put in each week.

“Mustn’t complain,” he mumbled to himself. “There’s always the next match.”

The meagre food he could afford, his only clothes that would last him for the foreseeable future and the small weekly wage he received would get him through the week. A few coins left in his pocket at the end of next week would come in useful, perhaps for a beer or two.

These thoughts were not entertaining him, perhaps the cold was penetrating his head, there had to be something better than his situation in life. Other men at the match all seemed better off than him but how to achieve what they had?

Then his thoughts veered again to his few lodging possessions, an old wooden bed with its straw filled palliasse and two heavy blankets, but no table and no chair. He had tried saving for an old wooden chair but had never achieved enough saving to afford one, even from someone’s house clearance and there was always one of those each week. “Poor bastards,” George thought.

The sky suddenly turned dark. George looked up to see the black billows beneath the grey clouds swoop and swirl and seem even closer than they had only a short while earlier. A flurry of snow blew with a cold blast to the back of his neck and he quickly pulled his flat cap, also woollen, hard down as far as it would go to cover his ears; he adjusted his scarf to better protect his exposed neck.

“Only a short way to go now,” George mumbled to himself as he was now close to the centre of town. “A few more blocks and then you’re there.”

“There has to be something better than this,” he thought to himself.

He had seen many of the older men in the steel works and some of his fellow workers on the rail laying team, who had not reached their fifties but looked many years older, well worn down by the hard labour.

“What happens to those of us who can’t make it as far as these old guys?” he was talking to and questioning himself again in his thoughts.

He was becoming morose and he was aware of it but he had to consider how he could improve his lot and so his mind wandered on.

“Is it the workhouse, where we all go when we can no longer do a decent day’s work?” came to his thoughts.

The workhouse was still in business but he had never wanted to go too close to just in case he might suddenly find himself inside, never to get back out again. There were lots of stories passed round of funny ‘goings-on’ at that place of terror, most of them probably untrue just to scare children, but George had no intention of finding out for himself.

“Come on you fool, turn the corner and in ten minutes you will be out of this. Look forward to making a brew on the fire,” he was convincing himself by talking out loud. There was a little tea left in the old metal tin under the bed which would make a few brews. Some milk left in the jug, filled last week by the dairy rounds man with his horse and cart, was still fresh as it had been left outside in the cold most of the time

As he reached the corner of this particular street he turned into a much broader road. At the end of this and across another main road, devoid almost of all traffic, he would, in two or three minutes, be in his lodgings.

This route now took him past the drill-hall of the local volunteer battalion and his mind wandered to whom these men must be. He had never seen them forming up in the street or marching anywhere. From where he lodged he walked in the opposite direction to his place of work and had never seen any of the men in uniform. Of course coming back from work only as far as his lodgings he saw nothing either.

He understood from the odd story that these volunteers went away at weekends to learn soldiering, were paid for their time and received free and hearty meals. He had also come to understand that perhaps the reason he never saw them was because he was always either off to work very early in the mornings or back to his lodgings late on.

The thought of soldiering had crossed his mind a few times especially since the Great War had ended and peace was in the air.

If, and it was a big if, he saw himself thinking about the uniform life, there would have to be no chance of another war or of putting his life on the line as many of the generation before had done and then lost it. This was something else to occupy his mind as the last five minutes of his walk home was now about to start.

As he came past the recess that framed the large double doors of the drill-hall, a figure in the gloom called out to him.

“Please Sir, please buy Sir, just one penny for a box Sir,” the weak, baleful, voice of a young girl called out.

George tried hard to come to a halt, nearly falling over on the ice covered snow as he slid a few paces past the doorway. Re-establishing his balance he turned to see who had spoken and who had suddenly caught his thoughts to falter.

There in the gloom of the recess, George could just make out a barefoot young girl stood in her rags of clothes, holding a battered wooden tray.

“Please Sir, just a halfpenny for a Lucifer Sir, please,” the pitiful voice called out again.

The word ‘Lucifer’ was not heard that often, it belonged to an age gone by when the matches of dangerous white phosphorous were labelled by that name. Now the words ‘safety matches’ were commonly used but George guessed that old names often take a long time to die out.

Here was a miserable looking ‘match girl’ still trying to sell her wares on this cold and snowing afternoon. She had rags for a skirt and what must be the remains of a blouse beneath her grey tattered wool shawl tied loosely over her shoulders. Glancing down at her feet, George was shocked to see her bare feet, filthy and with the skin cut in places, almost dancing from side to side on the cold tiled entrance. A little snow had penetrated into the recess and her dancing was trying to push it away as well as keeping the circulation in her feet going.

George had seen match girls before, they were a common sight especially in those areas where much poverty existed, shops were unlikely to be open and hawkers did not always frequent. This poor urchin was a sight, however, he had never encountered before.

This was a shock to him; even the poor would be wearing shoes or clogs of some sort.

“Are you a gypsy?” he found himself asking for some reason. “Have you been sent out to beg and sell matches?” he queried further.

He was wary of gypsies, if they were indeed in the area, they had a bad reputation and he didn’t want to fall fowl of any of them.

“Oh no Sir,” the ragged figure replied, “no Sir, not me Sir. I’m an honest girl Sir, trying to sell a few matches Sir.”

George stood dumbfounded and lost for further words.

“Why,” he started but got no further as the wind and now heavier snow than a few minutes ago swirled past him into the recess. He shivered at the onslaught and the poor wretch shuddered equally and most visibly.

“Because I have to Sir. If I don’t sell anything, I can’t go home Sir. My mother will beat me Sir,” she continued to stutter her words through chattering teeth.

“Please Sir, just one Sir. I can sell you a box for a penny Sir or perhaps two Lucifers for a ha’penny. Oh please Sir,” she was begging now.

George had his answer but he still couldn’t conceive of sending a young girl in tattered rags, possibly nine or ten years old and in her bare feet to earn a few pennies for her mother; how cruel could this be?

“Is this what happens when only the workhouse beckons as families fall on hard time?” he thought to himself. George was now hurting inside at the realisation of such poverty and the sight before him. He didn’t have much himself but he did have a heart and it was being disturbed.

“If I buy a Lucifer, a match,” he corrected himself, “will you go straight home and get out of this terrible weather,” he asked her. But this was a question not for a young child, an infant, but someone a little older, yet she was selling matches and begging for a sale. “Who had the experience here?” he questioned himself.

“I can’t promise anything Sir,” she replied as she shuffled the tray she held in front of her.

The boxes rattled in the tray and George realised that she knew something about selling. “How many years has she been doing this?” he thought to himself.

“Oh please Sir, I need to sell one more box Sir, just a penny Sir, and I can go home,” she pleaded pitifully.

That was enough for George. Giving away a penny that he might need in the week seemed a bit foolhardy, every penny counted to keep him going. For this poor wretch it was surely the same but she was at the far end of survival.

She was begging for life, begging for food and all it would take today was a penny box of matches. He had no idea how many matches would be in the box, perhaps twenty, perhaps many less, but something was telling him that it didn’t matter.

He had been wondering how life for him could possibly be worse and here presented to him by some fateful chance, was the answer. He actually felt his emotions rise and tears almost start; he had to hold them back.

Was this some sort of religious experience that had been thrust upon him, had God been listening to him, his worries about his standard of life and his whining of how to improve himself, and then sent him an answer?

George was now trembling but it was not with the cold, but with a solid realisation of what life could become if events turned for the worse or were possibly forced upon you.

“Oh please Sir, just one match then Sir, or can I can give you two for a ha’penny Sir?” she begged again.

Had God heard his thoughts and sent him a lesson to consider; life could be worse and here it was indeed laid out before him.

The little girl’s dark eyes were peering up at him out of the grimy countenance that was her face framed with a raggy mess of unkempt and filthy hair.

George fumbled in his pockets and pulled out two coins; tuppence. He had much more in his pocket, that was to get him through the week, and fortunately the first two coins he had pulled from the loose collection, turned out to be two pennies.

A box of matches would always come in useful; he had one at his lodgings to relight his meagre fire if it ever did go out. Not ever having become a smoker of cigarettes or pipe, he had no use for matches for those items. Something in him stirred, a feeling of pity and a wish to help someone so desperately in need of a little money in a way that he did not.

A realisation struck him that compared to this waif, he was doing well in life and he should never allow himself to fall into the dreadful condition that she, and presumably her mother and any other siblings have to endure. He was a strong well built man, she a starving, skinny, unwashed waif in rags clinging to life resisting her ultimate fate of the workhouse. He had the ability to direct his life, insofar as he could, but certainly in a way that this ragged urchin selling half filled boxes of matches did not.

His Damascus moment realised itself and formed the many words of his thoughts, words that he had heard from his uncle so long ago.

“You make of yourself what you can in life, what you wish to be, fighting against whatever is thrown at you. If you have the strength and opportunity, then take it, do not fall by the wayside or you may end up destitute and be unable to rise again.”

“This poor thing must be the example that the words are meant for,” he let his thoughts continue.

“You are what you make of yourself,” he now repeated out loud.

“I beg your pardon Sir.”

She did not know what he meant by these words.

“Will you buy from me Sir? Please Sir; just one match Sir,” she tried once more.

A new strength filled his body as the wretch stared at him wondering what his words might mean.

The two pennies that he was holding, he offered to the wide eyed girl.

“Do you want to buy two boxes now Sir?” she queried in hope.

“No thank you,” he replied, “just the one. Please keep the two pennies, they will do more for you than for me. Your need is much greater than mine.”

He accepted the one box from her, it was clearly not full but he cared not, he felt good for offering some chartable help to a wretch who needed it most.

The consideration of the charity he had just provided directed his thoughts to a church near to his lodgings which he had considered at one time attending. He was not any sort of devout Christian but a reconnection with his faith, so he had thought at the time, just might be what he was in need of.

He had turned up on a Sunday morning at his local church, a month or so ago, in the same clothes he was now wearing, his best clothes, to be told that he could sit at the back only if he refrained from talking to any of the regular parishioners. He was also told that he looked like one of the football ruffians or workmen of the area and the church did not want any of those sorts upsetting the congregation who were God fearing, clean, and respectable church-going people.

Of course he was a workman, but turned out as neatly as he could; he had even managed to scrape away the weeks chin stubble with an old cut throat razor that really need some sharpening attention.

George had been offended at this response to his presence but kept his own council and sat quietly on the bench at the very back of the church. He was not offered a prayer or hymn book and could not join in the service except for one hymn which he remembered from his few school days. As he started to join in the singing, the people to his front, a few rows ahead, turned and glared most severely at him. He got the message; sit quietly and your presence will be tolerated.

Needless to say, before that hymn had finished, George was no longer sat within the church but was wending his way back to his lodgings most upset and grumbling to himself.

“If that’s Christian charity,” he had muttered, “then you can keep it, stuff it, I don’t want any of it.”

Now he had found the real meaning of charity with this unfortunate urchin selling half filled boxes of matches and his sudden clarity of thought and purpose.

He was not at the bottom of the social pile and should stop considering that he was with the troubles he believed were hanging round his neck. There was a long way to fall to reach the level of this poor girl and his eyes and efforts need now to be directed upwards for as far as he could go, wherever that may be.

“Stop looking down at your feet, man, direct your eyes up to where, with the right attitude, you could go,” he continued to think to himself.

His eyes did drop, albeit one more time, to meet the gaze of the poor girl.

“How far do you have to go to get home, girl?” he asked her as his sense of reality was suddenly sharpened by a pick up in the biting breeze to something much stronger and laden heavy with more flurries of freezing snow.

“To the new port area,” she replied, “but I think I had better stay here, Sir, and shelter until the morrow.”

George knew the area where she probably lived, some two to three miles away. She was barely alive now and would surely freeze to death before she reached there. There were many accounts of the poor dying this year from the cold of the harsh conditions of winter. Deaths were known to occur not only in the open but also in the hovels that the poor called their homes. How could a Christian God permit such deaths, such suffering? Was this Christian God deliberately letting the poor suffer so badly, as he now so clearly saw that he did, and for what reason?

This made no sense.

He had felt the reality of real charity as he had given the girl two pennies but now knew that he must do more. He was determined to make of himself all that he could and that perhaps he had better start here and straight away with his changed character.

“Will you trust me girl?” he asked much to her surprise.

“You have been kind to me Sir, I thank you Sir. But I don’t know what you mean, Sir,” she replied tentatively.

“What is your name, girl?” he asked her another question.

“Why Alice, Sir,” she responded carefully.

Alice was George’s aunt’s name, the lady who had raised him as her own, along with his uncle Fred. That struck a cord deep inside George; his aunt had led a poor but respectable life.

Street life had been a caring one with everyone knowing everyone else and all helping each other as needs may arise. George realised at that moment where a lot of his new found view of life had come from; most of it had been there all along, he had been just too concerned with himself to see it. But his forward looking view now added to his self awareness giving him a new impetus in life.

“You cannot stay here tonight,” he told her, “it is too far for you to attempt to walk home and you will surely freeze if you try. It is becoming much colder now and before long it will be dark and really cold and you will freeze to your death here. Do you trust me,” he asked her once again as he now shuddered at the cold biting through his flesh to the bones.

“Yes Sir,” the reply came back with a voice that was also shuddering at this sudden further onslaught of the freezing conditions.

“You must come with me,” he told her, “or you will surely die tonight.”

“No Sir, I must not, I am not that kind of girl, Sir.”

She was openly declaring that for a young mind, she knew more of the world than she really ought to, or was it George who had not expected her to have this sort of knowledge.

“If needs be Sir, the cold will take me. I know you not Sir,” her voice stuttered with a sense of panic or was it perhaps the cold.

He hesitated no more and reaching down with one arm behind her legs hoisted her up into his arms away from the cold floor upon which she would surely die this night. He was surprised at the little weight she had and the protruding hips and ribs which can be felt through her flimsy garments.

Her tray with the few boxes and loose matches stayed with her and did not spill to the ground; she grasped it firmly not wishing to lose a single match.

“Oh please Sir, no Sir. Sir, Sir, what are you doing, no Sir,” she pleaded in panic with what little strength she had left.

“Trust me,” he insisted, “tonight you will sleep inside, out of this terrible weather, before a warm fire and tomorrow, when you are stronger, you can leave to walk home. I will not harm you; you will be safe. I am a decent man, you must trust me.”

There was something in the way that he spoke that calmed her fears.

“Are you with the Sally-Army?” she wanted to know.

“No. I’m just someone who came along when you needed help the most,” he explained. “And what’s more, you have taught me a most valuable lesson,” he added.

That made no sense to her but she was almost beyond arguing.

George stepped off carefully towards his lodgings, not wishing to miss his footing and drop his precious load onto the slippery ice and snow.

His thoughts turned to those people who seemed to be overflowing with wealth. He had to pass one of their big, fancy houses on the way to the football and wondered why it was that so many people like him could be poverty stricken or like the waif in his arms, so desperately poor, while they enjoyed enormous wealth.

“Where is your mother and father?” he asked her.

“I don’t have any, I think Sir,” came he reply. “I live with another girl like me. We have a lady who cares for us; she gets the matches that we sell. We give her the money and she lets us sleep in her room and gives us something to eat.”

She had volunteered a lot of information and George could only think that was because she felt some sort of safety in his arms. She wanted to talk, perhaps and George was ready to listen.

“How long have you been selling matches?” he asked another question as he stepped steadily and carefully onwards.

“After my mother and father left me,” she replied. “I think they went into the workhouse Sir so I ran away Sir. I didn’t want to go there. You won’t take me there will you Sir?”

“No. not at all, trust me,” he replied. “When did your parents go there?” He wanted some more information.

“A long time ago Sir,” she replied shuddering as the biting cold reached her barely protected frame even though she was cradled in George’s strong arms.

“Sometimes last year, I think Sir,” she added.

She was shaking badly now and George decided he would not ask any more questions.

He reached the back-alley to the rear of his lodgings and after a few yards along the cobbles entered the back yard. Past the outside toilet, no more than a plank over a refuse bin in a ramshackle brick hut that would be emptied once every couple of weeks. He kept a ceramic chamber pot under his bed, among many other things, that was incredibly useful during the winter months.

He had to lower her to the ground to find the back door key in his pocket. Quickly, he had the door open and ushered her inside away from the desperate cold.

Inside the first room entered by the door, he took her straight to his bed, laid her down. Taking the match tray from her and placing it on the floor, he put one of his blankets over her. Locking the door he realised that the fireplace was nicely alight, not blazing, but with a few pieces of fresh coal starting to flame nicely. He put his head through the dividing door to his friend, the other downstairs lodger, and nodded in appreciation that, being back here before George, he had placed a few lumps of coal on the embers of his fire. They were friends and looked after each other from time to time, especially where the fires were concerned.

Young Alice could not believe the kindness that was being shown to her despite the filthy, unkempt condition she was in. George had placed her into his bed with a woollen blanket drawn across her and with a fire taking the chill off the air. While she lay there not fully comprehending the kindness she had been shown and still nervous of the possible motives for it, the warmth and comfort overtook her rapidly and she was soon fast asleep.

“Look at the poor wretch,” thought George to himself, “this is how much further I could fall if everything went wrong, if I didn’t try to improve myself.”

“I must make of myself what I can without moaning about my plight or I could possibly end up as a beggar like this child or even worse, in the workhouse; that I will not allow to happen.”

“I have been given an example, by God perhaps? I don’t know,” he continued to think to himself. “She was in the entrance doorway to the Drill Hall; is that it?” he was questioning events and himself.

He thought hard and long after wrapping a blanket round himself to lie on the floor before the fire, and swore to himself that he was going to improve his lot, whatever it might take.

“The Drill Hall, that’s it,” he muttered to himself as he drifted off to an uncomfortable nights sleep. “Tomorrow night, I will go and see what the score is.”

~ o ~

On 6^th June 1944 George, now having risen through the ranks because of his dedication and skill, becoming the most senior of all the soldiers in his Battalion, was among the first ashore during the Normandy landings.

~ o ~

The little match girl? Who knows what happened to her, George never saw her again but equally never forgot her or the lesson her pitiful life had given him.

~ o ~

Author’s Note.   

George was a close and very dear friend of mine for many, many years.

I must have heard this story of his quite a few times; George was very keen on telling it to anyone who was interested enough to listen.

He considered that the encounter with the match girl was indeed a ‘Damascus’ moment in his life making a profound impact on his way of thinking and attitude to improving his lot.

It certainly seemed to work as, from the very poor beginnings he told me about, he became the proud, honest and positive man that I came to know in his later life.

He also told a few other stories of his time as a soldier in World War 2 and was indeed among the first ashore during the Normandy invasion in June 1944. He was a decorated veteran who I respected greatly and consider it a tribute to him to put into print the inspirational story he told me.

George passed away many years ago but his story continued to linger with me, enough to put it into writing, ultimately here.

~ o ~