Page 116 - lady-chatterlys-lover

er one was a schoolteacher in Chesterfield; she came home
weekends, when she wasn’t asked out somewhere. Young
folks enjoyed themselves nowadays, not like when she, Ivy
Bolton, was young.
Ted Bolton was twenty-eight when lie was killed in an
explosion down th’ pit. The butty in front shouted to them
all to lie down quick, there were four of them. And they all
lay down in time, only Ted, and it killed him. Then at the
inquiry, on the masters’ side they said Ted had been fright-
ened, and trying to run away, and not obeying orders, so
it was like his fault really. So the compensation was only
three hundred pounds, and they made out as if it was more
of a gift than legal compensation, because it was really the
man’s own fault. And they wouldn’t let her have the money
down; she wanted to have a little shop. But they said she’d
no doubt squander it, perhaps in drink! So she had to draw
it thirty shillings a week. Yes, she had to go every Monday
morning down to the offices, and stand there a couple of
hours waiting her turn; yes, for almost four years she went
every Monday. And what could she do with two little chil-
dren on her hands? But Ted’s mother was very good to her.
When the baby could toddle she’d keep both the children
for the day, while she, Ivy Bolton, went to Sheffield, and at-
tended classes in ambulance, and then the fourth year she
even took a nursing course and got qualified. She was deter-
mined to be independent and keep her children. So she was
assistant at Uthwaite hospital, just a little place, for a while.
But when the Company, the Tevershall Colliery Compa-
ny, really Sir Geoffrey, saw that she could get on by herself,

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