The Advert
Rochdale, a prosperous industrial town in a deep Pennine valley was in no-mans land between Yorkshire and Lancashire. It tilted towards the Lancashire cotton industry but also sported woollen mills of Yorkshire descent and a good dose of heavy engineering. Jobs were plentiful as the mill owners attempted by all means to increase their personal wealth and their labourers were therefore fickle and switched allegiances at will. Debbie, a skilled spinner and weaver frequently turned from one mill to another largely at the insistence of the bosses. A sturdy girl with a mass of ruddy hair kept in check by a cotton cap was not a pretty girl but had a cheery smile and strong personality assisted by ‘a reeght gob on her’ which she used mercilessly against her supervisors and foremen hence her frequent dismissals. She was the middle child of a family of ten, four having died in early childhood and the eldest brother Adam having emigrated to America.
Adam managed a successful department store in New York and frequently sent money to support the grateful family and offered to pay passage for any of them to join him in his enterprise. So far there had been no takers but mother hoped and encouraged Debbie to take up the offer being the most disruptive of her brood. Debbie was seriously courting Joe Pickthall who worked for a coal merchant, delivering sacks of coal off a horse drawn cart from dawn to dusk. He was a big strong lad built like a proverbial brick outside lav so the work was easy for him.
During the warm summer months, they would set off after work on Saturday lunchtime and wander up into the Pennine hills. Their favourite spot was Studley Pike monument, past the only remaining bit of paved Roman road in the Pennines. This high fell top overlooked the devil’s cauldron of smoky, dark and foreboding Rochdale town below. With a bottle of water, a lardy bun and a pork pie for sustenance they often spent the night in the heather when Debbie would allow Joe to go beyond first base but no further as they cuddled under his army great coat inherited from his grandfather. They loved each other and expected to marry. Debbie, on the spur of a moment, as was her want, decided that they should marry in America and planned to take up Adam’s offer of passage paid for. She would then save up and send money to Joe for his ticket.
On 3rd of May 1932 Debbie strode up the gangway of the Pride of Liverpool with her small suitcase tied up with string and was directed to steerage, the cheapest of crossings. To her dismay and irritation which she vented forcefully on every seaman and official in the harbour in New York she found that her trunk with her precious wedding apparel missing or more likely stolen.
A year later Joe having been fed up of waiting was to be found in temporary lodgings on Fredrick Street, near the harbour pool in Manchester attempting to find a position of stoker on any ship bound for New York. One evening, perusing the Manchester Gazette he spied an advert for “a wedding dress, unused,” in 5, Edward Street, which according to the landlady was only a few rows of terraces away. Mrs. Weaver of Edward Street assured him that it was brand new, totally unused because it had been far too big for her daughter and she couldn’t take it back to the shop because it was far away in Liverpool. After much bargaining Joe happily secured the dress for two pounds including a large cardboard box it came in.
As luck or coincidence would have it, he was hired by the skipper of the Pride of Liverpool who was stocking up the coal hole plus a load of mixed cargo in Manchester and sailing down to the ship canal to pick up passengers in Liverpool bound for America. Being used to shovelling coal, filling sacks, in Rochdale, stoking the ship’s boilers was no hardship for Joe.
On arrival in New York to a warm greeting, Joe handed over the box, now adorned by an American wildflower picked off the wayside to an excited Debbie as a surprise present. As she opened it she was heard to exclaim, “My God, it’s only me own wedding dress that Millie the seamstress on Industrial Road made for me a year ago!”
