Winners and Losers Read Online Free

to the soft Welsh lilt.
    â€˜I don’t think so, sir,’ Megan whispered timidly.
    â€˜You sure?’ he persisted.
    â€˜Yes, sir.’
    â€˜You weren’t out with the men on the picket lines around the Glamorgan Colliery yesterday afternoon?’
    â€˜No, sir.’
    â€˜Miss Williams was with me all yesterday afternoon, officer,’ Betty lied coolly. ‘We were at the women’s knitting circle.’
    â€˜And what was it that you were knitting, Mrs Morgan?’ the sergeant enquired.
    â€˜Blankets for poor unfortunates, Sergeant Lamb.’
    â€˜Why is it that I can never believe a word you say, Mrs Morgan?’ He turned his attention from Megan to Betty, just as the older woman had intended. Her husband, Ned Morgan, was a union official and Betty knew the authorities had marked her, along with all the members of the strike leaders’ families, as a potential troublemaker.
    The queue moved forward; Betty gave Megan a slight push. They sidestepped past the police and out of the door. A dozen officers had circled a crowd of collier boys on the pavement, three of Megan’s cousins among them. A constable Megan recognized as Gwyn Jenkins, a local man, and before the strike a friend of her uncle’s, was talking to them.
    â€˜Come on now, boys, no one wants any trouble. I’m asking nicely. Leave here and go up the mountain. You never know, if you take your dogs you may even find a rabbit or two to take home to your mothers for the pot,’ Gwyn coaxed persuasively.
    â€˜Haven’t you heard?’ one of the wags answered back. ‘The bunnies are on strike too. They won’t come out of their burrows.’
    â€˜Then send the dogs down after them to draw blood.’ Gwyn looked from the boy to the officers beside him. ‘Please, do as you’ve been asked, son, and you have my word no one will get hurt.’
    The boys gazed impassively back. But just as Megan expected her eldest cousin to do something stupid, the boys turned and headed up the nearest hill.
    Betty took Megan’s arm. Daring to breathe again, they walked on. It was a freezing, damp, grey November day, but that hadn’t deterred a crowd of young men from playing football with a tin can on the only flattened area of mountainside high above the rows of terraced houses. Their whoops and shouts carried down towards them on the wind.
    â€˜I’m glad someone can forget the strike, if only for a few hours,’ Betty said philosophically, as they crossed the road to avoid yet another group of police officers.
    â€˜I wish I could.’
    â€˜It must be hard on you, with your uncle not being able to pay your wages,’ Betty commiserated.
    â€˜If it was up to me I’d be happy to carry on doing the housework and taking care of the family for my keep.’
    â€˜Your what?’ Betty laughed.
    â€˜What passes for keep these days,’ Megan amended. ‘But ever since I started working for him I’ve sent ten shillings a week home to my father.’
    â€˜Your uncle pays you fifteen shillings a week, right?’
    â€˜He did until the strike started. It’s the going rate for a housekeeper.’
    â€˜It was,’ Betty nodded sagely, ‘but it seems to me that your father’s been getting a lot more than the going rate from a daughter. I used to count myself lucky to get ten shillings a month from my Annie when she was in service before she married.’
    â€˜Things aren’t easy at home. It’s hard trying to make ends meet on a hill farm and aside from Mam and Dad I’ve two younger sisters and brothers. I don’t like to think of them suffering on my account. I know I should look for a paying job, but -’
    â€˜They’re harder to find than gold in the valleys these days, especially for women,’ Betty observed.
    â€˜And I’d hate to leave my uncle. Who’d look after his house and family if I