Archie Williams originally hailed from the valley’s of Wales. He knew all about temperance, he had grown up with it, had it stuffed down his throat at Chapel, leaflets brandished in his face in the street by the Band of Hope and the Salvation Army and lectured on it by his ma. Temperance was one reason why Archie had moved to London, because alcohol, was what got him through the day.
Archie needed alcohol because of his other reason for moving to London, the brewers dray that had run him over in the street, and maimed his legs, meaning that he wasn’t fit to go down the pit. His ma and da couldn’t have useless mouths at home so he had headed for London, eventually finding skilled work in the armaments industry, just as the tension was building up in the naval race with Germany.
Which is why, on the 2nd November 1916, Archie was comfortably ensconced in the Dog and Duck in Waltham Abbey, downing the watery pints imposed on him by a government that listened too much to the self righteous, prim and proper busybodies who tried to limit what he could drink, and who therefore were condemning him to a life of pain. Or they would be were not Ted the barman willing to slip in the odd gin or whisky chaser into his pint. He smiled to himself and eased down the warming mixture and the pain, a pain which he acknowledged had kept him out of the trenches unlike his brothers, one of whom he would now never see again and one who was supposed to be a prisoner somewhere. Suddenly looking up he saw a flustered figure in a bowler hat and brown foreman’s coat thrusting his way through the crowd at the bar, what on earth did Brewster want at this time of day, shift was over surely.
The honorable Herbert Asquith, or squiffy to his friends and enemies, looked at the paper in front of him waiting for the dancing words to calm down. The coalition was undoubtedly in trouble, he massaged his temple, had he got the resolve to keep going, he wasn’t sure, so he poured himself another whisky.
“It’s all those damn women Archie, they just don’t know what they are doing I’m at the end of my tether really, they can’t be trusted we need a man down there keeping an eye, especially now we are handling all that nitro”
Archie sighed, the diatribe was so familiar he probably could have delivered it for Brewster himself. Still a couple of beers seemed to have calmed him down.
“anyway you don’t mind do you”
“Mind what” said Archie startled as he realised that he had probably turned off and screened out what Brewster had been saying.
“Pulling another shift tonight, I’ve got no-one else I can rely on now Simkins has gone off sick, if only John Drew hadn’t been called up, anyway if you could go in for 8 and cover till midnight that would really help. I can’t leave those women without a man to keep an eye, God knows what would happen.”
There was a pause in which Archie took another big swallow, he wasn’t really keen and he didn’t like going in after he’d been drinking.
“They’ll be a couple of quid more in your pay packet on Friday,” said Brewster temptingly.
“OK, I’ll do it”.
David Lloyd George viewed Haldane with distaste across the green baize table. The two cabinet and party colleagues were almost polar opposites, Lloyd George the man of the people who was rapidly heading towards the conservatives and Haldane the aristocrat who was showing an alarming sympathy for organized labour.
“So if the tories pull the plug on squiffy, you’ll follow him into the wilderness?”
Haldane sighed, tugged his waistcoat and looked back firmly.
“I see no reason to replace the PM and I despise the way in which you and the conservatives and the press have been undermining him.”
“So you’d split the party”
“No you’re the one that’s doing that”
Lloyd George sighed and looked out the window, somewhere out there men were dying in their thousands while the Government was stuck with an incompetent drunk as Prime Minister. There needed to be a change.
“Mr Williams, its stuck again”
Archie looked up from his bench to see the diminutive figure of Mabel Carlow. Despite the pallor of her complexion, one shared by all the workers at the Mills, she managed to look alluring. Most shifts she came to see him with a problem that only he could sort out. He grinned, stood up and picked up his tool bag.
“Well I’d best see what can be done then lass, can’t have your figures going down can we”
She smiled faintly and he thought that the slightly smutty comment had been worth it. Perhaps she’d fancy a drink, perhaps something more you never know, in these upside down days even a cripple like him could get a bit of comfort now and again. He made his slightly unsteady way with happy thoughts on his mind, turning his head to make sure Mabel was following
It was just as he was passing shell stack number one, carelessly placed alongside the nitroglycerine store, that he slipped on the oil, a wild slip that sent his tools high in the air, the huge wrench flying towards the nitro cage…..
DAILY MAIL 3Rd November 1916 Late Edition
HUGE EXPLOSION AT WALTHAM ABBEY GUNPOWDER MILLS
BLAST TURNED NIGHT TO DAY
THERE MAY BE A THOUSAND DEAD
HUNDREDS OF FAMILIES HOMELESS
SHELL STOCKS LIKELY TO BE AFFECTED
PRIME MINISTER TO FACE EMERGENCY DEBATE IN THE COMMONS.
Archie needed alcohol because of his other reason for moving to London, the brewers dray that had run him over in the street, and maimed his legs, meaning that he wasn’t fit to go down the pit. His ma and da couldn’t have useless mouths at home so he had headed for London, eventually finding skilled work in the armaments industry, just as the tension was building up in the naval race with Germany.
Which is why, on the 2nd November 1916, Archie was comfortably ensconced in the Dog and Duck in Waltham Abbey, downing the watery pints imposed on him by a government that listened too much to the self righteous, prim and proper busybodies who tried to limit what he could drink, and who therefore were condemning him to a life of pain. Or they would be were not Ted the barman willing to slip in the odd gin or whisky chaser into his pint. He smiled to himself and eased down the warming mixture and the pain, a pain which he acknowledged had kept him out of the trenches unlike his brothers, one of whom he would now never see again and one who was supposed to be a prisoner somewhere. Suddenly looking up he saw a flustered figure in a bowler hat and brown foreman’s coat thrusting his way through the crowd at the bar, what on earth did Brewster want at this time of day, shift was over surely.
The honorable Herbert Asquith, or squiffy to his friends and enemies, looked at the paper in front of him waiting for the dancing words to calm down. The coalition was undoubtedly in trouble, he massaged his temple, had he got the resolve to keep going, he wasn’t sure, so he poured himself another whisky.
“It’s all those damn women Archie, they just don’t know what they are doing I’m at the end of my tether really, they can’t be trusted we need a man down there keeping an eye, especially now we are handling all that nitro”
Archie sighed, the diatribe was so familiar he probably could have delivered it for Brewster himself. Still a couple of beers seemed to have calmed him down.
“anyway you don’t mind do you”
“Mind what” said Archie startled as he realised that he had probably turned off and screened out what Brewster had been saying.
“Pulling another shift tonight, I’ve got no-one else I can rely on now Simkins has gone off sick, if only John Drew hadn’t been called up, anyway if you could go in for 8 and cover till midnight that would really help. I can’t leave those women without a man to keep an eye, God knows what would happen.”
There was a pause in which Archie took another big swallow, he wasn’t really keen and he didn’t like going in after he’d been drinking.
“They’ll be a couple of quid more in your pay packet on Friday,” said Brewster temptingly.
“OK, I’ll do it”.
David Lloyd George viewed Haldane with distaste across the green baize table. The two cabinet and party colleagues were almost polar opposites, Lloyd George the man of the people who was rapidly heading towards the conservatives and Haldane the aristocrat who was showing an alarming sympathy for organized labour.
“So if the tories pull the plug on squiffy, you’ll follow him into the wilderness?”
Haldane sighed, tugged his waistcoat and looked back firmly.
“I see no reason to replace the PM and I despise the way in which you and the conservatives and the press have been undermining him.”
“So you’d split the party”
“No you’re the one that’s doing that”
Lloyd George sighed and looked out the window, somewhere out there men were dying in their thousands while the Government was stuck with an incompetent drunk as Prime Minister. There needed to be a change.
“Mr Williams, its stuck again”
Archie looked up from his bench to see the diminutive figure of Mabel Carlow. Despite the pallor of her complexion, one shared by all the workers at the Mills, she managed to look alluring. Most shifts she came to see him with a problem that only he could sort out. He grinned, stood up and picked up his tool bag.
“Well I’d best see what can be done then lass, can’t have your figures going down can we”
She smiled faintly and he thought that the slightly smutty comment had been worth it. Perhaps she’d fancy a drink, perhaps something more you never know, in these upside down days even a cripple like him could get a bit of comfort now and again. He made his slightly unsteady way with happy thoughts on his mind, turning his head to make sure Mabel was following
It was just as he was passing shell stack number one, carelessly placed alongside the nitroglycerine store, that he slipped on the oil, a wild slip that sent his tools high in the air, the huge wrench flying towards the nitro cage…..
DAILY MAIL 3Rd November 1916 Late Edition
HUGE EXPLOSION AT WALTHAM ABBEY GUNPOWDER MILLS
BLAST TURNED NIGHT TO DAY
THERE MAY BE A THOUSAND DEAD
HUNDREDS OF FAMILIES HOMELESS
SHELL STOCKS LIKELY TO BE AFFECTED
PRIME MINISTER TO FACE EMERGENCY DEBATE IN THE COMMONS.
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