Johnny Swanson - Eleanor Updale [98]
Winnie answered. ‘With us, Johnny. With all three of us.’
‘You mean …?’ said Johnny, guessing the answer but still wanting to ask. ‘You mean you are going to get married?’ Halfway through the question his voice cracked and swooped into a different register.
‘Well, that’s the end of Auntie Ada,’ laughed Hutch. ‘She won’t be making any more telephone calls!’
‘Do you know, I’m rather sorry to see the back of her,’ said Winnie. ‘She may have caused a lot of trouble, but in a way she brought us together.’
‘Yes,’ said Hutch. ‘We’re going to be a real family, Johnny. You, Winnie and Olwen will come and live with me over the shop.’
Johnny thought for a moment, imagining his new life. ‘Does that mean I’ll be Johnny Hutchinson?’
Winnie glanced across at the picture in its tortoiseshell frame, and Hutch answered for her. ‘No, Johnny. I couldn’t do that to your dad. He might never have known you, but he would have been proud of you – of all your funny schemes and scrapes, and of the hard work and bravery that saved your mother’s life. I couldn’t take away his name from the last, and best, thing he left behind.’ He patted Johnny’s golden curls. ‘Dear boy. I swear that in the years ahead I will love and care for you as if you were my own child. But I promise you, because I think it is the right and proper thing, that whatever happens, you will always be Johnny Swanson.’
A note about money
In 1929 British money worked in a different way:
The smallest coin was a farthing.
Two of those made a halfpenny (pronounced haypny).
Two of those made a penny.
There was a small silver coin worth three pennies, called a threepenny bit.
The sixpence was a slightly bigger silver coin.
Two sixpences made one shilling (worth twelve pennies, or 5p in modern money).
The two-shilling coin was called a florin.
A large coin, called a half-crown, was worth two shillings and sixpence.
A crown was worth five shillings.
After that there were bank notes, worth ten shillings (50p in modern money), one pound, five pounds, ten pounds, and so on.
One pound was worth twenty shillings, or two hundred and forty pennies.
Sums of money were written like this:
One penny 1d.
Sixpence 6d.
One shilling 1s. or 1/-
One shilling and fourpence 1/4
Two pounds, nine shillings
and elevenpence £2 9s. 11d. or 49/11
A daily paper cost 1d. A weekly comic cost 2d. (less than one penny in our ‘new’ money.)
In an age when very few people had bank accounts or chequebooks, sending even small sums of money through the post was impractical and insecure, not least because the coins were so heavy. For this reason, postal orders were popular. You paid the money in at your local post office, and received an official coupon which the recipient could cash in at their post office, or use again to send to someone else.
Without postal orders, Johnny Swanson would never have been able to run his business.
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Contents
Author’s Note
Chapter 1 - Athletics, Autumn 1929
Chapter 2 - The Peace Mug
Chapter 3 - Sending Off
Chapter 4 - The Medical
Chapter 5 - Letters
Chapter 6 - Clearing Up
Chapter 7 - The Landlord
Chapter 8 - The Sanatorium
Chapter 9 - The Advertiser
Chapter 10 - In Business
Chapter 11 - Umckaloabo
Chapter 12 - The Private Box
Chapter 13 - Raking It In
Chapter 14 - Remembrance Day
Chapter 15 - Missing
Chapter 16 - The Clong
Chapter 17 - The Row
Chapter 18 - Winnie’s Walk
Chapter 19 - News
Chapter 20 - Questioning
Chapter 21 - The Suspect
Chapter 22 - Guilty
Chapter 23 - High-Class Information
Chapter 24 - The Hearing
Chapter 25 - Alone
Chapter 26 - The Farmer
Chapter 27 - Outcasts
Chapter 28 - Taking Charge
Chapter 29 - The Prison Visit
Chapter 30 - At Home with Hutch
Chapter 31 - Looking for Mrs Langford
Chapter 32 - The Dark Rock
Chapter 33 - Johnny’s Journey
Chapter 34 - At Craig-Y-Nos
Chapter 35 - The Theatre
Chapter 36 - In the Toilets
Chapter 37 - The Office
Chapter 38 - Deathwatch
Chapter 39 - A Matter of