SEVENTEEN
LIVERPOOL
'I’m forever on trains these days,' Florence said to herself as the train she was seated in made its way from Manchester to Liverpool. It rattled noisily across the viaduct crossing the Warrington to Wigan road before finally moving on to cross the open flatlands of Chat Moss. Her head nodded dizzily as she watched the stations go by from Manchester Victoria station; Eccles, Patricroft, Newton le Willows, St Helens, Rainhill, Whiston, Huyton, Edge Hill and finally into Lime Street station in the centre of Liverpool. Though the window on her carriage was open and a fine breeze blew in quite strongly, it did nothing to cool down the overheated carriage, a fact which had been commented on by the other two passengers sharing the carriage with her. The whole country, so it appeared, was experiencing a heat wave. Though June and July were always regarded as Summer for the people living in Lancashire, this year was abnormal, with temperatures rising to almost ninety degrees at times. The nights were not much cooler and Florence had experience a most uncomfortable night’s sleep before leaving home that morning on the tram to catch the train from Trinity Street.
The final half mile into Lime Street was a terrifying experience for Florence. As the train approached each set of points prior to the station it slowed down to walking pace, and then as it traversed the points themselves the train shook and rattled. She caught her breath as the train felt as though it was jumping off the lines. Apposite Florence sat a man and a woman who Florence supposed were man and wife, as they sat so close to each other, occasionally exchanging muted words during the journey. when Florence jumped in her seat in surprise one last time the man smiled at her encouragingly and said,
'You’re alright love, it’s just the train going over the points, they’ve heated up and swelled ‘cos of the heat this past couple of weeks or so.' Florence smiled thinly at him, not fully understanding what he had meant, but she supposed from the calm look of himself and his wife that all was well. She settled back in her seat to endure the last of the journey.
When eventually, and thankfully, the train stopped at the platform under the long wide semi-circular roof of Lime Street station she rose to her feet, and turned to reach above her head for the suitcase which she had brought with her. The man opposite stood forward and reaching across her said,
'Let me get that for you love, it looks a bit heavy.' Florence smiled her gratitude to the man and turned to thank his wife also as he placed the case on the seat for her to take. Lifting it from the seat she indicated with a nod to the couple that they should go before her and leave the compartment first. The woman nodded her thanks silently and left the compartment into the corridor in front of her husband. Florence followed them into the corridor, and when it finally stopped, stepped down off the train onto the dusty noisy platform which was quickly filling with people and baggage from the train. She was amazed at the number of suitcases and trunks which some of the people were taking with them, and gazed in astonishment at the hand trucks piled high with the cases being pushed by uniformed porters, for what appeared to be one or two people only. She walked slowly behind one such truck containing five sturdy suitcases and three small cases, the man and woman walking behind the porter in procession. They themselves carried a small suitcase each. Despite the weather they both wore top coats and hats. Florence was at a loss to explain the sight she was seeing and held back in curiosity to try and discover what was going on. Eventually she saw the man take a ticket from the inside pocket of his suit, along with a large white handkerchief. They were probably sailing away to a foreign country, and the bags were their worldly possessions to accompany them on the voyage no doubt, she thought. She queued silently behind them awaiting her turn to have her ticket checked. The rest of the couple's possessions would have gone ahead of them. The man stopped suddenly and placed his suitcase on the floor, causing Florence to come to a sudden halt to avoid him, and in so doing almost collided with him. He glanced round at her, and smiling, apologised whilst at the same time taking a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his forehead with it. His wife admonished him,
'John, be careful, you almost knocked over that young lady,' and turning to Florence, looked her up and down quickly appraising her simple dress. She smiled a thin condescending smile. 'I’m sorry my dear' she said, affecting an upper class tone to her voice over her obvious Lancashire accent, which didn't fool Florence for one moment. She recognised mutton trying to act like lamb any time she saw it, whether it was Bolton mutton or Liverpool mutton. 'It is so very hot isn't it? and yet we have to wear these coats you see. We’re going to Canada you know, and it’s always cold there isn’t it?' There was a smug look on her face which Florence could not resist wiping off.
'I’m off to Australia myself in a few weeks.' She replied brightly. 'I decided against Canada as it was too cold, and I felt there were too many people going there just because they could get an assisted passage.' She swept past the woman, her nose firmly planted in the air, a wide grin creasing her face. She noticed a brief sly knowing smile of acknowledgement flicker across the face of the husband as she walked past him. If this were a football match, Florence thought to herself, it would be three nowt for Bolton Wanderers now, and swung back her shoulders as she marched along the platform.
The ticket collector looked down at the ticket which she held out to him and punched a hole in it with a small metal device which he held in his hand, and then returned it to her. Placing the ticket into the small purse she carried, she walked from the shade of the station roof out into the blazing sunshine of Lime Street. Despite the wide brimmed hat she wore, the sun still shone brightly into her eyes. She stood to one side of the wide doorway, avoiding the rush of people leaving the station, and moved into what slight shade there was by the wall, and looked up and down the street, shading the sunlight from her eyes with her hand. Across the road was a magnificent building which appeared to her to be a copy of a photograph she had once seen in a newspaper of a temple in Greece. The building was St George's Hall. Marvelling at the building, her eyes continued on to her right along Lime street until she saw a tall stone column at the end of the street. The column had a figure on top of it which seemed to her to have been built on the same grand scale as St George's Hall. Her concern was not in sightseeing though, that might come later in the day or the following morning if she had the time. She was searching for the hotel in which she had a room booked for the night. The room was booked in a hotel called the North Western Hotel, and when she had booked it using the telephone a few days earlier, the helpful man in the hotel had told her that the hotel was immediately to the right of the railway station. The decision to stay overnight had been at her father's suggestion. The whole purpose of her short visit to Liverpool was to buy a ticket for a berth on a ship to Sydney, and he felt she would not be able to find out the information she needed to enable her to make the right choice of shipping company in less than one day. He had insisted she stay overnight, and he gave her the money to pay for the stay. Florence had beamed when he made the offer and had thrown her arms around his neck.
'Oh Pa,' she squealed 'You are a lovely generous man.' He had accepted her show of gratitude with some level of embarrassment but enjoyed it anyway. Florence stepped out from the shade of the overhanging roof and looked away to her right, and there was the hotel, every bit as imposing as the hall on the opposite side of Lime Street.
She bent and took her case in one hand, it wasn't really that heavy as it contained only her nightwear, toilet things and a clean set of underwear for the following day. Holding the purse with her train ticket and hotel money in it in the other, she carefully walked down the steps from the station and along to the entrance to the hotel. This would be her first visit alone to a hotel. She and her Tommy had stayed once before in a hotel in London, shortly after she had first moved to Devonport and he had suggested, and paid for, a trip to London for the two of them. It had been a memorable couple of days. during which time Florence had learned a lot about life in general, and married life in particular. She grinned inwardly as the memories came back to her, and it suddenly came to her that her knowledge and experience of life was now so much greater than her best friend Hettie, still living next door to her parents with her own Ma and Pa in the house on Waterloo Street.
Florence walked under the wide canopy providing cover to people entering the hotel, and up the few steps into the entrance hallway. For a few moments she felt lost in the finery of the things she saw in front of her. She had not realised when she went through the door that the door had been opened for her by a young bellboy in uniform. He held the door open as she wandered through in a dream at the opulence she saw before her. Hearing the door open again behind her Florence quietly stepped to one side and back a little to move away from the thin stream of people entering the hotel behind her. She put her case on the floor by her side and looked around at the marvel of the interior decor of the reception hall. It was decorated in a light coloured marble and heavy looking wooden panels, the contrast of the two striking her, though she knew nothing of the style. Behind her, close to the doorway, the young bellboy stood watching and openly admiring her looks. Though she was obviously never going to rank amongst the more prestigious clients of the hotel, she was, he thought, one of the prettiest ones, and he was naturally drawn towards her looks. Stepping forward a pace to place himself in her eye line he lifted a hand up to the edge of the cap on his head and bowed his head slightly towards her. Florence caught sight of him and was a little startled at first. He smiled at her,
'Good afternoon Madam,' he said, noting the thin gold wedding ring on her finger. 'Can I take your case for you and help you register at the desk?' Florence was unaccustomed to being approached in public by complete strangers, but realised that he was an employee of the hotel, and was there to offer her his services.
'No, it's alright thanks, I can manage.' She returned his smile and almost immediately added quietly, 'Well you can perhaps tell me how I register. I've got a booking for a room here, just for the night, and I've never stayed here before.' She smiled at the young man and he bent to take her case from the floor.
'Follow me will you?' he asked gently returning her smile. 'I'll show you how it's done, so next time you stay in our hotel you'll be able to do it for yourself.' She grinned.
'That obvious is it?' she asked. He bent his head down so that it was a little closer to her and whispered to her,
'Some of the people we get here have their own servants, so they never know how to do anything for themselves, but I can see you are more used to doing things for yourself, and I'm more than happy to help out an attractive young lady who's a stranger in Liverpool.' Florence blushed at the complement.
'Eh you!' she admonished him, 'Less of it!' but she was grinning widely at his words nevertheless. The two of them walked slowly through the magnificent hallway towards the high dark wooden desk which stood in the middle of the far wall opposite the entrance door. When they arrived the bellboy placed her case on the floor and said to the man behind the desk,
'This young lady has a room booked for the night Mr Gilbraith. If you could take her booking details I will escort her to her room and make sure she has everything she needs.' He stood back half a pace from the desk and waited at her side. The clerk at the desk, Mr Gilbraith, looked from the bellboy to Florence and thought for a moment that the young woman in front of him was a friend of John Moxon the bellboy, and that something underhand was starting to take place, then he saw on Florence's face a look of complete and honest innocence, and realised he was wrong.
'Right Madam, if you could give me your name and address, I will just get you to sign the book for me, and then John here will take you to your room.' He glanced down as he wrote the information Florence gave him and turned to pick a key from a board on the wall behind him. Turning the book towards Florence he handed her his pen and indicated with his finger where her signature was required. She signed and he took the book back before handing the key to John, the bellboy, 'You're in room five one four Madam. That's on the top floor, you should have a good view of the city from there. I hope you enjoy your stay with us. If there is anything you require please don't hesitate to ask at the desk here, or from John or any of the staff.' Florence nodded,
'Thank you sir' she said, a little unnerved by such politeness and attentiveness. Not at all like the rather offhand treatment she had received when she and Thomas had stayed at the hotel in London.
The bellboy, John, picked up her case from the floor by her side and held out his arm to indicate a lift, set in the wall to the side of the desk.
'If you'll walk this way Madam' he said, 'We'll catch the lift. The fifth floor is a bit too much to climb, even for me.' He smiled at her and she followed the direction he was pointing and walked the few paces to the lift, which immediately frightened her to death, just from looking at it. She had never ridden in a lift before, even the ones at the Prospect Mill were an unknown entity to her. She, nor any of her workmates used them, though they were frequently enticed into them by some of the men who worked in the mill. The fear borne of the close proximity to these free and easy men translated itself automatically to the thought of any lift, and now she was being obliged to use one, with a complete stranger. She stopped in front of the lift door which was built like a cage, she could see down to the basement, and when she turned her head to look upwards was terrified to see the bottom of the lift moving down towards her. She took half a pace back and gripped both hands across her front with her small purse crumpled between them. The lift came to a noisy, rattling, thudding halt. John reached across her to open up the metal door which slide noisily back to the edge of the cage. She hesitated to step into it until John whispered gently in her ear,
'It's alright love, you'll be with me. You'll be as safe as houses, I'm up and down in them all day long.' She stepped gingerly over the threshold of the cage, looking down at the small gap between the floor of the hotel and the lift, then stepped to the rear of the lift and turned around quickly to face the door. John stepped in behind her and pulled the cage door closed behind them, then pushed the fifth floor button on the panel by the door. The lift took off with a jerk and Florence started forward with the unexpected jerk, and gripped her hands even tighter and did not relax for the whole of the brief journey to the fifth floor. The lift stopped with as loud a clang as it had started and once again she jerked and half tripped forward. John held out his hand to stop her falling, then withdrew it when he saw she was secure in her footing. He drew back the door and held his hand against it whilst Florence stepped past him with a breath of relief into the corridor. John closed the door and stepped around her, asking her to follow him down the long corridor which were lined with paintings on the walls and thick carpet on the floors. It seemed to Florence that here was a level of luxury she had never before encountered, and that their passage along to her room was silent on the carpet. She could not hear the sound of their footsteps, and the image of them both travelling along the corridor floating a few inches from the floor came to her mind. She grinned as her confidence returned and they stopped by the door to her room, number five hundred and fourteen. John inserted the key and opened the door for her. Stepping through into the small room he held the door for her. She passed him and swept her eye from wall to wall of the small bedroom. There was a door in the right hand wall. Florence pointed to it,
'Where does that lead?' she asked.
'It's your bathroom Madam.' John replied and stepped across to the door and opened it for her. Florence followed him, stopping and peeping around the door into the room. She was amazed. A bathroom of her own! She had never ever had a bathroom of her own. This was something she had never envisaged in her life before. Even at the hotel in London they had had to go along the corridor to the bathroom. Nervously she turned to John and said,
'John. This is going to be much more expensive than I thought it would be. I don't think I can afford it.' John smiled at her as he placed her suitcase on the bed against the wall opposite to the bathroom door.
'You want the truth love?' he asked. She nodded her head silently. 'It wasn't the room you booked, but when Mr Gilbraith saw me talking to you he was watching you just as much as I was, and by the time we got to the desk he was watching me for any signal I might give him. What I said to him was, this one is alright, not one of the toffee nosed ones we sometimes get. And he gave you a better room at the same price.' Florence was delighted at first then tried to find a logical reason for his appraisal of her, wondering what, if anything, would be required of her. She shook her head.
'I don't know John. I'm not sure.' John held out his hands towards her, though not at her.
'Listen love, you're not one of the stuck up sorts we get here are you? So, when we do get someone in like you, ordinary people like us, well we try to do the best for them. There's no catches, no tricks.' She smiled warmly at him.
'You're very kind John. Thank you very much. I'm sure my husband would say the same thing.' She opened her purse and fished in it for some coins to give him as a tip. John held out his hand towards her with the palm facing her.
'It's not necessary Madam. I wouldn't take anything from you. It's my pleasure to see someone enjoying our hotel. If there is anything else you need, just ask at the desk or ask for me, we're here to help you.' He turned and left the room, leaving Florence bubbling over with excitement at the prospect of staying for even only one night in this luxurious place.
She emptied her few clothes from her suitcase and took great delight in placing them in drawers and the small wardrobe which the room contained, then went into the bathroom. She grinned with delight at the prospect of using the bath, but her most immediate need was to have a wee. She hitched up her dress and dropped her drawers and squatted on the toilet which was close to a small window in the back wall. She chuckled to herself as she suddenly pictured herself sat on the toilet looking out of a window and watching the heads of people walking along the street five floors below. She saw the tops of electric trams moving noisily along Lime Street and people walking in and out of the grand St George's Hall opposite and wondered idly what sort of thing went on in the building. Florence glanced up and down the street as far as her limited view would extend, and soon realised she was in probably the tallest building on the street, she would not be overlooked as she sat here on the toilet. Hitching up her drawers and straightening down her dress she flushed the toilet using the chain hanging from the cistern above her head, and guessed that the hotel must have a massive pump somewhere to enable it to pump the water to the fifth floor. A far cry from the 'long drop' tippler they had in the back yard at home. She gazed longingly at the bath and wondered if she had time now to indulge herself in the white porcelain container, then after a quick glance at the small wristwatch Tommy had bought her, she decided she did not have the time now, but would ensure she had one later, perhaps before going to bed that night. Such luxury!
Knowing that she had lots of enquiries to make before she left for home the following day Florence took the key from the small bedside table where the bellboy had left it and walked out into the corridor, turning to lock the door to her room. My room, she thought, my own room. Ma and Pa would never hear the last of this. Down in the lobby of the hotel she sought out and quickly found her new friend, John, and asked him for directions to the shipping offices she wanted to find.
'I need to find those going to Australia,' she said to him. 'That's where my husband is stationed, he's in the Royal Navy. On the Commodore's ship' she added proudly. John thought for a moment and eventually replied,
'I think the first place you need to go to is probably the Dock Offices at the Pier Head' he said, 'They will know which ones go to Australia. Otherwise you'll be traipsing around all day from one place to the next, 'cos a lot of them don't go there. Now if it was America, that would be easier. Not fancy gong there instead?' he asked mischievously.
'No thank you kind sir,' she replied, giving him a gentle dig in the ribs. 'My husband wouldn't like it. Anyway, everybody's going there aren't they? So common!' She tipped her nose in the air theatrically. John grinned at her and said,
'Well if you can't be persuaded then I suppose it had better be the land of Kangaroos, convicts and sheep then. If you go out the front door of the hotel, turn left, there's a tram stop just a bit along on the left hand side. It not too far from the Pier Head, about a mile I'd say. The dock offices is the big white building opposite the baths and near the overhead railway.' Florence looked askance at him wondering if he was pulling her leg. 'Honest' he said grinning at her confusion, 'It's made of white stone, has a big dome and two towers either end of it and it's massive, you can't miss it.' He said.
'It's not that,' she replied, 'It's the baths I hadn't expected.'
'Well, we can't have dirty passengers going on our boats can we?' he grinned. 'So what happens is that when passengers turn up at the ships looking a bit dirty, the captain sends 'em off to the baths and they get a good scrubbin' down before they are allowed on board.' Florence still was not sure if he was joking or not, but accepted the information at face value. Anything could be true as far as her inexperience was concerned, though she somehow doubted this latest tale from John.
'So, out of here, turn left, tram to the Pier Head and get off at the building with the dome on top. Is that right?' she asked.
'Spot on love. And when you get back you can have a nice slap up meal here in the restaurant.'
'Don't know about that John. It's probably too expensive for me to eat here. I might try and find somewhere else less pricey.'
'Don't you worry yourself love. The prices are sure to be alright for you here.' He tapped the side of his nose conspiratorially and winked at her. Florence was not quite sure what he meant, but felt he meant her no harm. Following his instructions she left the hotel until she eventually came to the building he had described on the dockside by the Pier Head. Stepping down from the tram she gazed around her in wonder at a collection of sights she had never seen before in all her life. Certainly, there was the normal bustle of people darting in and out of trams, hansom cabs and office doors and a seemingly endless stream of people walking in both directions along the pavement in front of the Dock Offices and across the road to the small station of the overhead railway on the far side of a dock, but there were so many people and carts and cabs. She had never seen such a jam of them before. It was worse than Deansgate on a Saturday afternoon!
At the side of the Dock Offices was a rambling building site with a building even larger than the one she was to enter being constructed. It rose above the height of the Dock Offices and had a great tower at the front and one at the back of the building. Florence stood marvelling at it, counting seven floors above the ground floor, which appeared to be made of nothing but columns of clean pure white stone, then on top of the seventh floor the two towers were being built. It was a very impressive building she thought. She spent several minutes looking at it to take it all in, and then walked in through the front door of the Dock Office building next door.
It took her an hour to find out the full list of shipping line information she needed, from a very helpful smiling young man who's sing song Liverpudlian accent she could barely understand, but which made her smile to herself. He wore a stiff white collared shirt with a dark blue tie under a black waistcoat, and stood behind a long high counter made from a dark, almost black, wood which had small indents and chips knocked out of it by the numerous people who seemed to flock in and out of the doors all the time she was there. Despite listening very carefully to what the young man was saying she had to ask him to repeat himself slowly several times. It became a light hearted game between the two of them, he pretending he did not understand her broad Lancashire accent and the occasional Bolton dialect words thrown in, and she genuinely not being able to understand more than one word in three of his 'Scouse' accent. They both enjoyed the diversion, but in the end she left the offices with all the information relating to the correct shipping lines she needed for the following day.
..............................................................
The following day was slightly cooler than the previous days had been. The sun rose early and made the temperature rise just as quickly as it had in previous days. The sky was cloudless, and not even a slight breeze from the waterfront gave any respite as Florence left the hotel. Once again the kindness of John, the bellboy, came to her assistance by suggesting that she could leave her suitcase in the hotel lobby until such time as her train from Lime Street station was due to take her back to Bolton that afternoon; the station was only next door after all.
She caught the electric tram once again to the Pier Head station, and crossed over the road and then walked back a little way until she came to James Street. Crossing the street she examined the numbers on the doors of the various offices until she came to number thirty, the offices of Ismay, Imrie and company who were the agents for the White Star Line, one of the agents on her list to visit that day. The White Star Line together with the Blue Star Line and maybe the Aberdeen Line were the ones which she felt offered the best possibilities for her trip to Australia. There were, as John had told her, many other lines, but none of them appeared to have as many sailings to the destination she sought. By midday Florence had visited both offices and others besides, but in the end by about three thirty in the afternoon she went back to number thirty James Street.
The building containing the offices took no real act of discovery. It was a large imposing building on the corner of James Street and The Strand, right across the road from the Pier Head. It appeared to Florence to be have been built on the same grand scale as the Dock Office, but constructed from red and white stone, with several floors to it. As she entered the main double doors she was initially confused with numerous different signs directing her to different offices on different floors. A doorman, who was standing just inside the door, pointed her to the third floor using a caged lift, similar to the one in the hotel. She rode up to the third floor in the lift, with a little less trepidation than she had in the hotel lift, and when she stepped out saw, opposite her a door with the name White Star Line Australia Service painted on it above the company name. Opening the door, a small brass bell hanging from on a small brass arm above the door rang out, indicating her arrival and presence. The office was occupied by two people, a man and a woman, who were standing at a dark wood counter which itself occupied at least half the width of the office. Their heads were bent over a document on the counter and was obviously being explained to them by a clerk who stood on the other side of the counter. The clerk pointed from time to time at something in the document. They nodded their heads, their voices were almost church like murmurings in the silence of the office. As Florence stepped forward towards the counter a door set in the middle of the left hand wooden panelled wall opened. It had a frosted glass window set in the middle of which was painted in black the word PRIVATE. She glanced to the similarly wood panelled right hand wall, and saw that this one had on it four large brightly coloured posters pinned to a cork board which itself was nailed to the wall. The posters depicted several ships apparently owned and operated by the White Star Line. All the ships were sailing directly at the viewer of the poster, and were set in a clear blue sky on deceptively calm blue seas. Don’t suppose it would do them any good to show one of their ships sinking in a ranging gale with the sea full of dead and dying bodies, Florence thought to herself, grinning slyly and a little nervously.
The door in the wall behind the counter opened, and a young man dressed in a white shirt with a round collar and a thin black tie under a black waistcoat stepped through to the counter, closing the door behind him. He looked at Florence and smiled warmly,
'Can I help you Madam?' he asked. He didn't appear to have a Liverpool accent. Florence stepped to the front of the counter and rested her hands lightly on its edge, placing her purse in front of her hands.
'I want to buy a one way ticket to Sydney, Australia, for myself' she said, quickly adding, 'How often do the ships sail, how long does the voyage take and do you have one which will get me there by late September? My husband is serving on the Commodore’s ship and he will be in Sydney about the end of the month.' She smiled broadly at him and took a deep breath. The young man grinned back at her burst of speech,
'Well you certainly know what you want to know don’t you?' he said.
'Tell you the truth,' she said, 'I’ve been to so many ships agents today I got fed up with being asked the same questions time after time, so I thought it would save you and me a lot of time if I just told you straight out what it was I wanted, rather than going through the whole palaver again,' At the side of her the man stood with his wife at the counter turned his head slightly to glance at her, then turned back to concentrate on what his wife was saying. The young man serving Florence reached down beneath the counter and brought out a thick black hard backed book. He placed it on the counter and leafed through it until he found the page he needed. He examined the page and turned it over, glanced at the second page and turned back to the first page he had examined.
'Yes, this is the right one for you I think.' He finally said. He looked up at Florence across the counter and turned the book around so she could read it for herself. 'As you can see,' he began, pointing at an area of the page, 'We have five ships working the England to Australia line; the Runic, the Afric, the Persic, the Medic and the Suevic. All of them are one class ships, so there is no first second or third class. All the facilities onboard are the same for everybody, you don’t have to cook your own food like you do on some ships. It’s all done for you.' He paused and looked across the counter admiring Florence whilst she studied the information in the book about the ships he had mentioned.
'Which one is going to get me there by late September then?' she asked. The clerk took the book and swung it back around to face him once more and turned over the page to look at the next page. His finger ran down the page until he found what he was looking for.
'It looks like the Persic is the one for you,' he said. 'We sail every four weeks to Australia and the Medic gets to Sydney near to the end of this month and the Persic round about the twenty third or so of September.' He paused for a moment and added, 'The Medic will get there right at the end of this month, so it looks like the Persic is going to get there when your husband gets into port.' He looked up from the book and smiled adding, 'And the cost will be thirty pounds, and that includes your luggage, and there’s quite a good weight allowance for each passenger. We don’t crowd our ships, they carry cargo as well you see, so what space there is for passengers is quite a lot compared with pure passenger ships. They tend to crowd as many on as they can get onboard, so for the steerage passengers there isn’t a lot of space. Ours are much more comfortable, so I’ve been told,' he added. Florence paused for a moment to consider what he had said and finally made her decision.
'Right, that’s settled then. One ticket to Sydney please.' She said, and smiled widely at the clerk. He returned the smile and once again reached under the counter, coming up with a book of pre-printed tickets for the White Star Line Colonial Service. Opening the book he took a pen and a bottle of ink from beneath the counter and started to fill in the gaps in the form for her name, the cost and the date of the start of the voyage. That done, he finally took a small rubber stamp from a drawer in the counter and an ink pad. Lifting the stamp to his mouth he breathed hard on it and pressed it down into the ink pad then finally placed the stamp on a space in the printing on the ticket to print the name, SS Persic. That was it, done and dusted. Florence only had to hand over her money, and the clerk folded the ticket for her, then passed it across the counter into her eager hand.
'There you are Madam, one ticket for the SS Persic. Sailing from the George Dock, just across the road at the Pier Head in two weeks time on the second of August, arriving safe and sound in Sydney, Australia about the twenty third of September.' Florence took the ticket from him and opened it up to briefly glance at what he had written, then folded it once more and placed it into her purse which lay on the counter before her. With a broad smile across her face she looked up at the clerk.
'Thank you sir,' she said, then a thought struck her. 'Two weeks, is that all? Have to get a move one won’t I?' He nodded his head as he returned her smile.
'You will indeed Madam. This is a good time to be going to Australia.' He added. 'It’s just starting to be spring by the time you arrive, so it won’t be quite as hot as summer, give you a bit of time to get used to it, though with the weather we’ve been having this year I wouldn’t mind betting it’s not as hot there now as it is here.' Florence thought about his words.
'I hadn’t thought of that,' she said. 'I mean, it being spring there when we will be starting with autumn, it’s all different isn’t it?' The young man nodded his head in agreement and added,
'I hope you have a safe journey.' Hastily adding 'Which I am sure you will.' He suddenly remembered something he had forgotten to tell her and said, 'Oh one moment Madam, there’s a brochure for you to have as well. It tells you all about the ship and all you need to know about when you are onboard.' He rummaged down in the drawer in front of him and handed over to her the copy he found.
Florence looked briefly at the brochure and then asked,
'How many other people are there going to be on the ship?' He glanced down at the book in front of him and said,
'There will be about three hundred I would think, by the time the ship is ready for sailing.' Florence nodded her head thoughtfully and said,
'It looks like a small ship for so many passengers?' The young man smiled at her,
'Well, you will probably be dropping some off and picking some up in Cape Town and probably Melbourne on your way there.' Florence nodded her head and thanked him, as though she understood everything he had said, then picking up her purse from the counter together with the brochure, she walked from the office, stopping only to look again at the posters on the wall close to the door. The SS Persic was one of the ships depicted in the posters. Looks alright, she said to herself, and opened the door to step take the lift back down and out into the sunshine of James Street. This is it, she thought. I’m on my way now, no turning back. She stepped along James Street towards The Strand and the Pier Head, to look at the ships and sights with which she would become familiar in a little under two weeks time. She stopped to take in the sights along the Dock Road when a thought suddenly struck her, that there must be at least a hundred questions about the voyage she had not asked the young man in the steamship office. Too late now, she thought, I’ll find out later. The sun was still shining brightly, causing the white stone of the Dock Offices to seem even brighter than normal, and even the dull painted buildings of the overhead railway looked bright and welcoming in the clear blue light.
After collecting her suitcase from the hotel, and saying a farewell to John, she caught the train home to Bolton from Lime Street station, and spent the journey devouring the information contained in the brochure from the White Star Shipping Line, and the precious ticket in her purse. Just two weeks, just two weeks, was the constant thought which kept on repeating itself in her head, until eventually the train pulled into Bolton station; the sun was just starting to dip down in the sky above her as she made her way back home to Waterloo Street.
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