Chapter I
Childhood
All through my life, at least all my thinking life, I have been on a quest. My search has been with one object in view, and that object has been to find myself. I did not know when I started that Walt Whitman had said, “A man is not all included between his hat and his boots,” neither had I heard that in the olden days the worshippers of the Temple read on its portals, “Man, know thyself.” Experience has taught me that the more one knows of oneself, the more there is to know. My faith, underlying all the orthodox teaching, has been in reincarnation, and the law of cause and effect. I have always believed in God, even when I was an agnostic questioning the Vicar of our parish, though my God was not his God, nor my faith his faith.
Thanks to my mother, who allowed us great freedom of expression on all subjects, whether it was dancing or the Athanasian Creed, Spiritualism, Haeckel, Walt Whitman, Blatchford, or Paine, I grew up with a smattering of knowledge on many questions. No subject was tabooed. The only thing that was tabooed was gossiping in any form. My mother was a wonderful woman.
Only once in her life do I remember her saying anything unkind about another human soul. Her theory was: See the best in anyone and the worst will gradually fall away. Be kind to others, tolerant, and sympathetic. Her watchword was: Loyalty to teachers, school friends, workmates, and family. We were never allowed in her hearing to say either unkind things about others or to abuse others in any way. She had a great sense of humour which saved her many a heartache and bitter disappointment. She could always see that things would work out for the best in the long run, and laugh her sorrow away. She was ever ready to lend a patient ear to other people’s troubles, while at the same time showing a remarkable fortitude in her own. A verse which she used to recite to us she made part of her daily life : —
Life is only froth and bubble. Two things stand like stone, — Kindness in another’s trouble, Courage in your own.Mother was loving and affectionate, but a firm believer in discipline. The neighbours used to say that they had more trouble with their one or two children than she with all her eleven. Poor Mother, what a team she had to drive! The subtle manipulation with which she managed the reins is a wonder to us all.
Both my mother and my father were Lancashire people. My birthplace was in Lancashire, in a small cottage in the village of Springhead. The village is in a valley surrounded by the Pennine Hills. I was Mother’s fifth child and appeared on the scene on a September day, the 13th of the month, in 1879. I was in a hurry, as the correct month was November. I suffered for this rash act, as I was a weakling, wrapped in cotton-wool, for about a year. I was once told that the lesson I had to learn in life was patience. If that is true, I can only say I began life very badly indeed!
Before I was five we removed to the next village, called Shelderslow. It was nearer to the village school connected with the church that we also attended. The cottage in the village of Shelderslow was very pretty, cosily tucked in a corner next to an old manor house.
Mother believed in the motto “Early to bed,” etc., we as children did not, though we only admitted this fact among ourselves. I can see our home with its bright, roaring rosy fire, and all the children, including myself and the others younger than I, sitting on the window-sill watching the lights in the cotton factory, a few miles away, gradually going out. Those lights were our signal to retire.
In spite of the hard day’s work that Mother had done, she always found time to hear the little ones say their prayers. This time, for me, was the best time of the day. As soon as the factory lights went out and we had said our prayers, off we scampered upstairs. We were allowed to talk for about half an hour, then Mother’s voice would be heard at the foot of the stairs : “Silence, children!” Then I was happy. I began my real life, far more real, to me than the life of the day. All through my life, the day’s work over, I have lived in dreams. The dream of my childhood was always about God. I never missed one night without flying to Him as soon as silence reigned. There He sat for years, in the same cloudy arm-chair, waiting for me. Years afterwards, when I saw a photo of Tolstoy, I saw almost a duplicate of the God of my childish dreams. I confided to Him all my little troubles, and the difficulties under which I laboured at school. I was a little dunce, I could not retain anything. My little school-friend, Alice Hurst, and I were very difficult. We talked incessantly, we confided in each other, but I never told her about my intimate friendship with God, and how He helped me with many lessons. This was a secret between God and me. We were both agreed that we should Just keep our nights’ visits to each other between ourselves. It was a case of asking and having, when I went to His cloudy house every evening.
When I got a little older I travelled a good deal with God. He took me to the most wonderful places. We flew everywhere — we had to fly, living in the clouds. It was all lovely. Later, when I grew older, my dreams changed, but none surpassed those of my early childhood, and no friend that I met in my dreams took away the childish passion and devotion to God, who was my First Friend, apart from my mother.
I went to the village school when I was five. My younger sister took me, as she was much older in wisdom and common sense than I. She must have been four years of age. She had always a keen sense of responsibility, and was conscientious in all her actions — I was just the opposite. I felt no responsibility at all, and I was not conscientious about anything, in fact I do not think I really deliberately thought out anything until I was quite fifteen; I Just acted. Had I been asked why, I could not have explained any action of mine ; I only knew that I Just did it. I was a real responsibility to my younger sister. She was very patient and forbearing; she forgave me every time I did wrong.
Our home-life was happy. Our one trouble was that we had to retire much earlier than the other children of the village, and they teased the Kenney children (as we were called) with having to go to bed like babies in long clothes!
Our Sundays were always different from other days. We had our Sunday clothes; we attended Sunday School, and we went to Church twice a day. In the afternoon we were allowed to go for a walk. Our ambition was to get lost and find our way home. This led us into many difficulties and brought upon us severe punishments. Once we went in search of an aunt we had heard our mother speak of, who lived in a farm-house miles away. We only knew the name of the village. My sister Alice and I collected all the younger Kenneys together, and a few of the village children, and off we set. We tramped miles; we forgot the time, but with great perseverance we found the farm. We knocked, and a good homely woman opened the door and nearly fell when she saw, as she described it later, a Sunday School! We told her who we were and asked her whether she was not a relative. We were invited in, and much to our joy, were asked to stay to tea. We ate everything that was on the table, and before we left, bread had been borrowed from the village folk. We arrived home at nine o’clock at night in pouring rain, carrying between us the youngest child, who was about two and a half years of age. Never again did we visit the distant relative, who turned out to be no relative at all, but who might have been if things had gone differently in her life!
On Sunday evenings Mother read us stories. They all seemed to be about London life among the poor. One was A Peep Behind the Scenes. How we loved that story! The worst of it was that all the following week I was the girl in the story, and instead of doing sums or dictation my thoughts were far away, as little Meg, with the children in a garret in London, or the child of rich people. The stories made it more difficult than ever to follow the school routine.
When we were a little older we were allowed to stay up later. Our games were many, but our favourite game when Mother went out for a walk in the evenings was turning a round kitchen table upside down, putting its top on the bottom of a bowl and then putting our little fingers lightly on the legs and asking it to move. We used to get it spinning like a top. Mother always said we pushed it, but that I think was said so that we should not think of the spinning table except in play. Another game we had was to blow each other up to the roof. One of us would stand on a stool. Two would catch hold of the heels and two the toes, and we had to blow hard. It was amazing how our heads found the roof every time.
Both my father and mother were great walkers, keen on the country, and in the spring they would go miles to see the first spring flowers. The moors were our home, and the open road was our friend. The wind has always sung to me; the trees have spoken to me; the sky has consoled me; running water has soothed me; the open air has ever given me courage and enthusiasm to press on, hold tight and have the grit to carry on. I still feel that when one grows older and life buffets one about, and bruises one, those who have a real genuine love for the country have something to fly to, something to look to, and are in an enviable position. In a weird way the deepest sorrow, the keenest pain, becomes more bearable under the open sky than in a room. Is it because we get more into touch with the Higher, the True, the Eternal?
Our mother had a great belief in keeping holidays for children. It did not matter how poor we were. Mother always made some difference in our home routine on festive days. Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide were the great events; the Fifth of November was also a day to look forward to. Christmas Eve was beautiful. The house was decorated with holly and mistletoe. The younger ones always sat round the fire with Mother, and Christmas carols were sung. From the oldest to the youngest all had their Christmas stockings, and Mother and Father filled them together. Mother never punished any child from Christmas Eve until after the New Year had dawned. Holidays were holidays to Mother, and she never broke her promise that there should be no punishments to mar our Christmas-time.
Christmas Day was a day of real rejoicing.
Our toys were modest and few, but we made up with real happiness and fun. New Year was a great time also. There was the yearly Sunday School Party, and afterwards there were dialogues, recitations, cantatas, songs, and everything that goes to make up a Sunday School party in a village. Mother and Father always came: Mother very happy, very proud, and no doubt glad of the change; Father looking embarrassed when a Kenney’s name was announced. Father never seemed to have any confidence in his children, and he had very little in himself. Had he possessed this essential quality, perhaps the whole course of our lives would have been changed. My mother always said she ought to have been the man and Father the woman. He was a born nurse. No hand was more tender than his in illness; no food, when we were convalescent, tasted better than the food cooked by Father. If there was illness in the house, everything and everybody had to be sacrificed for the one who was sick.
CHAPTER II
GIRLHOOD
Both my mother and my father were very proud people.
The only genuine county people, who had connection with the Sunday School we attended, were a family named Sevill. The daughters of this family were all Sunday School teachers, and they had a lasting effect on my early life. They were devoted to Mother. They asked if they might come and visit her. Mother’s reply was very characteristic of her. “Yes, you may come, provided you come empty-handed!” Mother, because of her limited income, was not prepared to be patronized either by the church people or the county people. The Sevills appreciated this pride in my mother and came to see her at least once a week. Their one pleasure was in talking to her and asking her advice on many questions which were perplexing them at the time. They said in after years that Mother was one of the finest, strongest, and gentlest characters they had ever met, and that she had taught them many a good lesson for which they had felt grateful.
If Mother helped them, they helped me. The youngest, Miss Margaret Sevill, was my first heroine. She was my Sunday School teacher for years. She made real friends of my younger sister and myself. We often visited their beautiful old house in Hey. We took our knitting and sewing. The nights were spent chatting about all the wonderful things we would do at the next Christmas Party, choosing dialogues, cantatas, recitations, songs, etc.!
What happy evenings they were, sitting in big comfortable chairs in front of a large open grate, with its red coal fire. How I loved acting in these dialogues, provided I could be the Mary Ann of the play! This part gave me great scope. I could run wild, wave pots and pans about, which I thought all the Mary Anns of the world did, rush around and have a rollicking time. When I appeared with my smutty face, dirty apron and the blackest of hands, Father grew nervous. He would whisper to Mother, Why do they give Nan these parts to play? She’ll have the stage down before she has finished, just look at her!” And Mother looked and inwardly rocked with laughter. But I came out with flying colours. I had succeeded in doing something that people always enjoy. I had made the audience laugh heartily!
Is not the art that can drive away care and give pleasure to the toiling millions one of the oldest arts in the world? That play which can scatter the thoughts and anxieties of the practical everyday world, make tragedy look romantic, and give to the romantic wings to soar, has always received and more than deserved, universal applause.
We can laugh with or at the comedian. Great is our debt to those who have created healthy laughter.
Joyous laughter is one of the best antidotes against the serious disease of depression. There can be no melancholy where there is genuine laughter. Neither can that pestilent germ — morbidity — find root in its healthy sod.
To me there is no sight more attractive than a theatre full of eager faces, awaiting the moment when they will be swept out of themselves, and pass through the golden gates that lead to the land of living dreams, the land of song and romance.
So in our little village with its small schoolroom and miniature stage, I had one ambition, and that was to see all our fathers and mothers rock with laughter. Of all the Mary Anns on the stage none could have been more noisy, more untidy, more impossible than the Mary Ann as I represented her. She would not have kept a place for a day in any well-ordered establishment, and all the cooks that had her in their kitchen would have had to leave for a nerve cure. But we are all very simple in a village, knowing very little of life. No doubt the Seville were more amused than anyone.
They were jolly times and both children and parents looked forward to these Christmas parties.
Easter was also a happy time, though the chief event was a new scarf or tie, and on Easter Monday we had a penny and were allowed to go to what was called “The Pot Fair.” It was really a sale of china, with an odd stall for toys. As far as I can remember the china was generally cracked. I know the china dog I bought once with my penny was tailless and had a good wide crack across the back, but the salesman swore that I had got something that could not be bought any day. He spoke truly.
Then came Whitsuntide. That was a great time.
For weeks before, there were preparations made. It was the time for new dresses, new hats, new boots, new gloves. Poor Mother, how she must have struggled to clothe us anew each Whitsuntide! She used to go to the market and pick up odds and ends, a hat here and a hat there. All our dresses were home-made, all hats home-trimmed, and yet we always seemed to be dressed prettily and neatly.
Then came Whit Friday, when we assembled at the large school ready for the procession. We marched round the villages and sang at the Vicarage and in the Square in front of each Sunday School connected with the Church. Then back again to the central school, where we were rewarded with a currant bun and a mug of tea or milk. No buns tasted like those; no milk or tea had such a flavour. And so another holiday ended, and we began preparing for the next.
The Fifth of November was the next great day for the village children. For weeks we collected from the neighbours. Each person was supposed to give either money or coal. The money was for fireworks; the coal for the bonfire. The factories were also visited and they gave us great skips, as they were called; they were large baskets, and these were saved for the end of the day to create a big blaze.
We made up a song, each character of the village being introduced into it, with the object of flattering them into subscribing towards the fund. Who kept the money, who spent it, no one seemed to know ; we only knew that we had a great time, and the preparations kept us busy for weeks.
When I was ten years of age a change came into my life. My mother announced to me that I was to work in a factory. I was to join the army of half-timers; to work in the factory half the day and attend school the other half.
I received the news with mixed feelings. I was glad to escape the hated school lessons, which were a burden to me, but I had a fear of the new life. I felt a little proud, and it was a change.
The firm I went to work for was a private one under the name of Henry Atherton & Son, Though all these years have elapsed I still look back with gratitude to my first employer, who was kind, understanding, and sympathetic to his work-people. My little school-friend, Alice Hurst, was also working there, so we went to the factory together.
I wore a shawl and bright clean clogs. When I arrived at the factory I was met by a group of girls, half-timers and full-timers, who all stood round the door and stared at me. Every new girl was critically examined by the older girls. Your clogs were examined; thick or thin leather made a difference; your petticoat, your pinafore, the quality, the colour, stamped you accordingly in the eyes of these girl students of ten and thirteen.
In one voice they told me all the bad qualities of the woman I was to work under, and they summed up by saying, “Well, Annie Kenney, you are going to work for a God-fearing hypocrite, that’s all.” They cheered me up a little at the end, and told me how I could get my own back; but by the time they had finished I was trembling from head to foot, tears were in my eyes, and I had to swallow many a lump as they marched me up to the “woman ” who was to train me.
The girls had spoken truly; she was a tartar. Our conversation during the half-hour that was allowed for breakfast was one long hope that she would marry and have a daughter who would be sent to work under one of us.
It was amazing how truthfully these girls summed up character. They were a splendid set of people, and their open-handed generosity to workmates in trouble or illness, was touching. Every morning, though, for two years I cried as if my heart would break, I so dreaded the “woman” and hated the work.
There was one redeeming feature. We used to go shares in a weekly girls’ paper. It was full of wild romance, centered round titles, wealth, Mayfair, dukes, and factory girls. The one whose turn it was to pay had the first read.
There was always a ringleader among the girls, though the leadership never lasted more than a year. Sometimes it was good, sometimes bad. When I was twelve I found myself, with Alice of course, the ringleader. We were rather wild ones and the overlooker was thankful when he saw us dethroned.
In one adventure we were nearly all drowned. It was in the winter time. A deep pond near the factory was very lightly frozen over, and we insisted on every one’s sliding on it. The ice gave way and we only just saved ourselves.
Another escapade was a challenge to climb a steep wall. Everybody followed the leaders, of course, but fortunately for them the followers gave up the contest and watched the two of us nervously climbing to the top, expecting every moment to see us dashed to the ground. We succeeded amidst applause from the girls and severe condemnation from the overlooker, who threatened that he would sack the lot of us “if we did not show more sense!”
After a year of leadership we were weighed in the balance and found wanting, so we had to take our places among the rank and file again, and follow another, who to us seemed tame and dull in the extreme.
For a few weeks Alice and I went off on our own account at the breakfast half-hour and dinner hour. We made friends with the man who did the carting of coal for the factory. We amused him greatly, and coaxed him to put the two of us on the dusty coal-horse, and off we went through the streets enjoying ourselves immensely. Bad luck, however, awaited us one day: we met the overlooker. When he saw the two of us on the horse, as black as coal ourselves, he swore that he would “sack” us, and, worse than that for me, he declared that he would see my father that very night and tell him what a trouble I was. This I dreaded, as Father I knew would be very stern. Later in the day I plucked up courage, saw the overlooker, and promised that I would try and be good. So I was saved.
CHAPTER III
I LEAVE SCHOOL — THE YEAR OF MY CONFIRMATION
When I was thirteen I left school. My education was finished, my school knowledge was nil. I could not do arithmetic; I was a bad writer; geography was Greek to me; the only thing I liked was poetry. I discovered that anything I really liked I could learn without effort; it just came.
I then joined the great masses whose lives were spent spinning and weaving cotton. I was a full-timer. I rose at five o’clock in the morning. I had to be in the factory just before six, and I left at 5:30 at night.
After a hard day’s work in a hot cotton factory you have very little life left. It has always been a source of surprise to me how these boys and girls, young men and women, find the energy and inspiration to attend night-school, technical classes, cookery classes, dressmaking courses, and so on. The libraries in the Lancashire towns are a credit to the people. Is it the air of Lancashire that is so invigorating that it almost impels one to act and move?
I am afraid I cannot plead any such admirable determination to get on. I never attended a night-school; dressmaking I hated; cooking I was fairly good at if my mind was not occupied with something else. My one virtue was washing ; I could really wash clothes excellently, and my next good point was scrubbing floors. It always seemed to be unfair that those people who spent almost twelve hours away from home should on their return And more labor awaiting them, and yet this was the case in most Lancashire homes. Where you get a family who are keen on knowledge and who have ambition to make headway in life, people whose whole thoughts are centred on a totally different life to the one they are leading, it seems more unfair than ever that they should toil in the factory, toil in the home, and that all the vitality that is left must be given to mental study to attain their heart’s desire.
I was a laggard in this respect. For one thing, I knew that I should never be able to pass an examination. I hated study and I loved play and fun. I developed very late in life.
When I was fourteen I played with a doll just as naturally as children of seven play with their dolls. As soon as the factory was closed and I had finished my allotted work at home, I fled and a few of us played “factory” for the rest of the evening, our fun consisting in telling the little ones what to do!
It was not my parents’ fault that I was sent to the factory at such an early age. It was force of circumstances. No mother on earth ever showed more unselfishness than ours. She would have given, indeed did give, her life’s blood for her children. When I grew a little older she would never have stood in my way had I showed an aptitude for other work, though the change might have hit her seriously from a monetary point of view.
A few years passed, all very much the same, work all day, play at night; on Saturday afternoons, play ; on Sundays, Sunday School, Church, walks; and on Monday work again.
When I was seventeen two changes came. We removed to a village called Hey. My parents had secured a delightful old house called Whams House, which really means “the house in the valley.” It was large and cut away from other houses, and it had a large garden which was a source of joy to us all.
It was the year of my confirmation, and I had a trouble. I was not sure about the Holy Ghost, and I could not grasp the Bible teaching of Three in One, though I constantly looked at an ivy or clover leaf.
On Sunday we were all allowed to invite any friend we liked to tea. I remember we had an urn ; teapots were no good, there were so many of us. Father would be out with friends, Mother would be with us, and when we all assembled round the large table discussion would begin. At this period the elders of the family had been reading Haeckel, Spencer, Darwin. Mother would be as interested as we were until the arguments got so heated that she felt it was wise to close the discussion because of the younger children. The noise, as she said, was “enough to wake the dead.” All these discussions, though I did not really understand them, made me unwilling in later life to accept statements without proof.
To return to my “Three in One” difficulty.
I attended all the confirmation classes there were and asked if I might have a private talk with the Vicar.
I shall never forget my walk from our home to the Vicarage. For the first time I heard quite distinctly a conversation carried on between a part of me and the person I was to interview. The arguments the Vicar used to prove to me the power of the Holy Ghost were quite clear and distinct, and it seemed as though another part of me answered. When the conversation ended I found myself on the doorstep of the Vicarage.
The Vicar and I went through almost word for word the conversation that I had, as it were, rehearsed on my way to see him.
At the end of our talk he said he would allow me to be confirmed, as he thought my search for truth would lead me into an understanding of the Gospels.
I was confirmed by the Bishop of Manchester. I was quite moved by the service, but more especially when we sang the hymn, “O Jesus, I have promised to serve Thee to the end.” I inwardly felt I was going to have a struggle to keep that promise. The tragedy of it all (from an orthodox point of view) was that within a few months I found myself in the Oldham Library reading with the greatest fervor The Rational Review!
In that special edition there were sayings of Voltaire that I have never forgotten. Voltaire struck a chord in me that has vibrated ever since, but The Rational Review never changed my belief in God, and I was firmly convinced that there was hidden deep within us all something that once lit would illuminate all things both in heaven and earth.
In the same Review it said: “Voltaire did more than any other Frenchman to make the people think.” I can only say that he started a train of thought within me which has never ceased to vibrate.
One thought leads to another, one discovery leads to other unexplored regions. This year came the great change in my life. Outwardly I was the same happy-go-lucky-devil-may-care- come-and-go person as before. Inwardly it was a year of self-contemplation, deep meditation and secret communion with my higher self.
At the end of the year I had arrived at certain conclusions about life which I have never departed from. I had gained a spiritual poise which helped me.
When I was twenty life wore a still more serious aspect. I became interested in Labour, or I should say in Robert Blatchford’s articles appearing in the Clarion. His waitings on Nature, Poetry, Philosophy, Life, were my great weekly treat. Thousands of men and women in the Lancashire factories owe their education to Robert Blatchford.
He was our literary father and mother. He it was who introduced us to Walt Whitman, William Morris, Edward Carpenter, Ruskin, Omar Khayyám, the Early English Poets, Emerson, Lamb.
Robert Blatchford has always kept Labour clean, fresh, upright, virile. His downright honesty, simple sincerity, public courage, his great intellect and his big heart, have done more for Labour than Labour will ever realize. The criticism of Labour has always been that Blatchford is an arm-chair philosopher; and yet his pen has done more to voice the claims of the people than his critics have done with their united voices.
Whatever Mr. Blatchford inspired it always carried with it the clean fresh air of the countryside, and the simplicity of Nature. Robert Blatchford, through the Clarion, and his brother, Montague Blatchford, through the Vocal Choirs which were spread over the hills and dales of Lancashire and Yorkshire, were the true friends of the simple, big-hearted, book-loving, wisdom-seeking people whose lives were spent in the dark mines and the overheated cotton factories of the North.
The reading of books made me more serious, and at last I decided to join the Oldham Clarion Vocal Union. I could not sing, but I thought the practice would be good for me, and I felt I should meet others whose ideas were very much like my own, which really meant that they were Clarion readers.
It was a fine choir, and the conductor, Mr. Chatterton, was acknowledged to be practically the next best conductor to Mr. Montague Blatchford himself.
There was always one rehearsal a week, sometimes two. On Sundays, if there was a celebrated Labour man speaking, we were invited to sing at the meeting. We also joined Choir Contests in various parts of Lancashire and Yorkshire. One prize we gained I always claimed as mine, not because I sang, but because I had the good sense not to sing! So we carried away the trophy.
In the summer-time the Clarion choirs from all over the country assembled at some favourite spot, and each town competed with the others. It was a great day, and the singing that took place in the open air, or near the moors and the bracken, was beautiful — a joy that lasted for weeks. They were happy times, free from care and responsibility, and filled with a spirit of good-will to every one — enviable days which never repeat themselves!
