大象传媒

Night & Day is the story of two sisters living in a working class area of Liverpool in the early part of the twentieth century. It tells of happiness and sadness in their young lives and the moving from their mother鈥檚 home at 127 Duke Street in the year 1941.

It was a lovely warm August in the year 1911 when Catharine and Joseph McEvoy of White Street in the town centre of Liverpool awaited the birth of their first child. They had been in-service together before they wed in their early twenties and Joseph had moved on to the tailoring trade which was a natural step towards a career for himself and also very popular in the city at that time. Catharine had ideas of her own, one of which was to have a lodging house, perhaps in nearby Duke Street 鈥� giving a temporary home to sailors and people on their own living a lonely existence in their sometimes latter years. The couple were delighted with the birth of their daughter, Connie, a dark haired, grey-eyed beauty.

After a year had passed Catharine and Joseph moved to 127 Duke Street and so began the dream that was to become a reality.
Catharine would stand on her own front steps and breathe the early sea-air from the river and would say to Connie how much she loved her own home and it was surely the healthiest spot in all of the city.
Baby Peggy arrived a couple of years later and Catharine and Joseph鈥檚 world was complete, especially after the death of their twin boys born the year previously.

Between the two world wars Catharine鈥檚 business thrived, mostly accommodating sailors who travelled from Liverpool to Boston in the USA. She worked very hard for her family and many long hours running a busy but happy lodging house.
Connie and Peggy grew up with lots of people around them and never knew what it was to have an empty house. Their mother鈥檚 sister, Aunt Mary, was a constant visitor to the house and often brought their cousin Vincent with her. It was Aunt Mary who coaxed Connie to her really early introduction to piano lessons, which were usually once a week at the aunt鈥檚 house.

Peggy was taking a step towards Joseph鈥檚 career and became very interested in the trade, but she was also a do-it-yourself young lady and could turn her hand to many a man鈥檚 role in the home, and also in car maintenance. Catharine often described her daughter as 鈥渘ight and day鈥� because of their different looks and personalities 鈥� in fact they were complete opposites!

Connie obtained work at fourteen opposite her home in Duke Street in a printing firm. Catharine wanted her to work in the office at first but as there were no openings at that time 鈥� the only vacancies were in the factory 鈥� she decided to let her daughter learn the trade of bookbinder.
Connie served a period of seven years learning the trade, from the age of fourteen to twenty one, earning only a few shillings a week. Connie enjoyed her leisure time with friends who lived locally, and in particular her close friend from school days, Chrissie, who accompanied her on holidays to the Isle of Man and Blackpool.

In 1928 Joseph died at an early age with a chest complaint, leaving Catharine to carry on with her lodging house. He was sadly missed by all his family especially his daughters who were now aged seventeen and fourteen years old.

When Connie was in her early twenties she met and fell in love with a young man called Bill Mustin, who was a worker at a local oil refinery. They married in the thirties and had a daughter and a son. In 1941 Bill was called up and went to serve his country in the Royal Artillery as a gunner. Connie stayed with her mother at the family home in Duke Street and decided to return to the printing trade on a part-time basis. Peggy was a very big help to her older sister in caring for the children (Marge and Terry) and also to her own mother in the running of the lodging house.

Christmas of 1941 was a very sad time for all the family especially Connie and Peggy. Catharine died on Christmas Day, having suffered two previous strokes. Christmas would never be the same for her daughters!

Connie felt her mother鈥檚 house was not the same without her and decided, with Peggy, to move to another part of the city near the women鈥檚 hospital in Catherine Street. Only a few years after this move Peggy was very ill with asthma and died of pneumonia in 1944. Connie was on her own with two young children and a husband serving in the army.

January 1945 was the worst time for Connie and her children when a telegram from the army arrived at the new address to inform Connie that her husband had been killed in action on the 5th January. She was absolutely devastated and asked her young daughter Marge to take the news to her mother-in-law who lived in the south end of the city. Bill鈥檚 mother and sisters were all very upset at the bad news and it took them all a long time to accept the fact that their beloved Bill was no longer with them. His funeral took place at a private cemetery in the Faroe Islands and the Padre wrote to Connie about the funeral, which entailed five battalions. Bill was only thirty-five years old.

It took Connie a long time to overcome her grief losing her mother, sister and husband during the war years, and because of her two young children she found the strength to soldier on with her life 鈥� completely living for her daughter and son (aged nine years and six years). Everyone who knew her said she lived for her children.

In 1953 Connie decided to move from her home once again. This time to the outskirts of the city which entailed a journey of thirty minutes. She became more of a recluse leaving the city centre and hardly left her home in the evenings after arriving home from work in the printing factory. Her daughter had reached seventeen and was working in the city centre in an office as a shorthand typist. Connie鈥檚 son began a career as a police cadet, later becoming a police constable at the age of twenty-one.
The move from the city centre was really away from Connie鈥檚 roots and was really a very bad move for her and the children, making all three of them lonely and depressed.

Years passed by and Connie鈥檚 life consisted of bus rides to work and home again, just watching television in the evenings and catching up with her household chores. When Connie鈥檚 daughter married in 1960 she was very upset as she could see more loneliness ahead of her. Her son stayed with her another nine years and he eventually married in 1969 leaving Connie completely on her own.

In 1975 Connie鈥檚 son and daughter-in-law, Maureen, decided to buy a house in St Helens and asked his mother to be a caretaker for him whilst he lived with his wife at Maureen鈥檚 old address in Blackbrook. Connie agreed to do this and lived there until 1990. The house was in the Eccleston area of St Helens and was really a family-sized house, far too big for one person. After much correspondence with various housing associations and local council departments, Connie's daughter, Marge, found sheltered accommodation for her mother in the Prescot area of Knowsley borough council.
Connie liked this flat very much and didn鈥檛 mind having to pay a full rent as she had her war pension and old age pension to pay her way independently.
After only six months at her new address she had a bad fall in the bathroom and was taken to the local hospital for x-rays. The hospital kept her under observation and after a fortnight she died on a warm summer day in July 1990. She was seventy-eight years old
.
Connie鈥檚 funeral was five days later at St Helens cemetery, where she was buried by her son and daughter-in-law in a new grave, which had recently been blessed by the Archbishop of the diocese. Connie was laid to rest, peace was hers at last 鈥� she had outlived her own family and her husband鈥檚 family! Her only survivors were Marge and Terry, her children, now aged fifty-four and fifty-one years. Life would never be the same for them even though both were married.
The link in their lives had gone forever 鈥� the family had broken up through death in the past and once again in the present time.

'This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by 大象传媒 Radio Merseyside鈥檚 People鈥檚 War team on behalf of the author and has been added to the site with his / her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.'

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.