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ALAN SILLITOE
But a hard time was had
b~'
husbands and wives alike, though
all three women are now alive. and all three husbands are dead.
Yet Edith, who was one of the be:;t, undoubtedly got the worst.
Burton's early and inevitable confrontation with Blonk resulted
in Edith and her subsequent eight children being more or less cut
off from her parents. It was a ban that Burton put on her husband
more than his daughter, for whenever better-off members of the
family from Leeds or St. Neots (having heard of her plight ) brought
clothes for the children, Burton always saw that she got them.
As
far as I could make out she seemed to be his favorite daughter,
probably because she was the most high-spirited and independent
of them in getting away from him sooner than any of the others,
and because she eventually had a fiercer struggle than the rest,
never letting any man tame or break her, nor allowing circum–
stances to dull her heart.
In any case Burton often did have a kind enough word for
those of her children he met in the fields around Engine Town,
and his wife never turned them empty-handed from her door, though
they were often afraid to go there for fea r of meeting Burton, who
could be harsh enough to them if he was in a bad mood.
Edith was my favorite aunt. She was tall, had reddish hair,
blue eyes, and a well-formed body. Why she appeared more pro–
foundly connected to me than anyone else I don 't know, but through–
out my childhood she had a great knack of organizing food for her
eight children, and whenever I was near her house at mealtimes–
which was often - there was always the chance of getting some of
it. She never complained at seeing me queue up with the rest,
though there was little enough to go round.
When I was five weeks old a malfunctioning of the heart got
me in its grip. My face and body turned blue, and I seemed to
be
at the point of death. My mother was also ill, and though it was
early April, snow was falling and lay thi ck on the ground. Edith
wrapped me in a shawl, put on her coat, and set off with me across
the open quarter-mile stretch of the park to get me to the doctor's
place beyond, not knowing - she told me later - whether I would
be dead or alive when she opened the shawl in his surgery.
:\ few years later she and
my
muther got hold of tickets for an
organ recital at the Albert Hall in Nottingham. They took me with
