Dad went to the open hay door and looked out. Low Beulah, our farm, were built on far side of Dender Mere from the village, and from up in our loft you got a good view right over our fields to Dale End. All on a sudden Dad picked me up and swung me onto his shoulders.

"Tek a good look at that land, Betsy," he said. "Don't matter a toss now that tha's only a lass. Soon there'll be nowt here for any bugger to work at, save only the fishes."

I'd no idea what he meant, but it were grand for him to be taking notice of me for a change, and I recall how his bony shoulder dug into my bare legs, and how his coarse, springy hair felt in my little fists and how he smelled of sheep and earth and hay.

I think he forgot I were up there till I got a bit uncomfortable and moved. Then he gave a little start and said, "Things to do still. Nowt stops till all stops." And he dropped me to the floor with a thump and slid down the ladder. That were typical. Telling me off for being up there one minute, then forgetting my existence the next.

I stayed up a long while till Mam started shouting for me. She caught me clambering down the ladder and gave me a clout on my leg and yelled at me for being up there. But I said nowt about Dad, 'cos it wouldn't have eased my pain and it would just have got him in bother too.

Time went on. A year maybe. Hard to say. That age a month can seem a minute and a minute a month if you're in trouble. I know I got started at the village school. That's where most of my definite memories start too. But funny enough, I still didn't have any real idea what them men were doing down at Dale End. I think I just got used to them. It seemed like they'd been there almost as long as I had. Then sometime in my second year at school, I heard some of the older kids talking about us all moving to Danby Primary. We hated Danby Primary. We just had two teachers, Mrs. Winter and Miss Lavery, but they had six or seven and one of them was a man with a black eye-patch and a split cane that he used to beat the children with if they got their sums wrong. At least that's what we'd heard.