The Hired Man Narrations

Narration I - Before Work Song

At the end of the last century (1800s), millions of people in this country worked on the land.
Most of them were hired labourers, wages were small and starvation was staved off by part
payment in-kind* and by growing their own food, housing usually of a very low quality was also
part of the deal.

This deal was secured at hirings which took place every six months. Men and women came to a
local market town and offered themselves for hire. Once they had accepted the terms, shaken
hands and taken the "luck penny", they were bound to that master and might find themselves in
isolation, punitively overworked and with no redress for the next six months.

These hirings were also occasions for meeting old friends and relations, many having left their
families at the age of twelve or thirteen. At this time trade unionism was fighting to establish
itself against wide spread opposition, meanwhile seven year old children could be chained to a
machine literally and set to work for twelve hours a day.

*paid or given in goods, commodities, or services instead of money

Narration II - Before Who Will You Marry Then?

The village of Crossbridge was just as small and parochial as the place Emily had left with such
bold hopes. Sally - the daughter of a small time farmer - was her only companion through the
day, with the occasional exception of Jackson Pennington for whom Emily held an increasing
fascination.

Meanwhile Isaac was pursuing his great love - fox hunting - a past time so addictive to some in
that area that it came to posses the lives of men from all backgrounds. John Peel, a local man,
would be their hero.

Narration III - Opening of Act Two

About sixteen years have passed. The Tallentires like so many hundreds of thousands of others,
have moved off the land and sought out the industrial cities where wages were higher. In his
case, John has gone to the west Cumbrian coast to work in the privately owned pits* with his
brother Seth. These mines were regularly subject to disasters, in one at about this time two
hundred men and boys were killed.
Emily had two children. May, now sixteen and Harry a couple of years younger, and these two
having taken a half day holiday trip into the country to Crossbridge, from where John and Emily
had set out on their marriage, at the end of the last century (1800s).

*mines, especially coal mines

Narration IV - Before Farewell Song

After the great waves of First World War volunteers had been exhausted, recruiting officers
swept over the country in much the same way as they had done for hundreds of years. The
patriotism of the young men would be stirred or they would see it as a way out of boredom, or
they would get drunk and do it for a bet, and the British army would have more men for the
trenches.

"Come and see em', you should see em'! There's me Dad and Uncle Isaac and Uncle Seth and
everyone! Come on there's a band and everything!"

Narration V - After War Song

After the Great War the land fit for heroes soon turned out to be a land of broken promises,
millions were worse off than they had been before the war in 1914. The bitter reality of the
working class life was relieved by excursions on which at very little cost people would gather and
be part of a pageant of optimism.

The Crossbridge friendly society's annual day would be one such an occasion. This one, in 1920,
was however to be the last of its kind. These friendly societies had helped the poor and needy of
the Parish for over a hundred years, but times had moved on and other sources of help had
supplanted them. But a day like this would summon back those who had enjoyed such days in
the past. Among them, John and Emily.