Chapter 6: The Pull, the Ring, and the Box of Oats

The April moon had barely faded from the sky when the final Saturday of the month brought a roar that drowned out even the steady thrum of the pithead wheels. Gala Day had arrived in Chryston, and with it came a rare, brilliant burst of blue sky that turned the soot-stained brick of the High Street soft and golden. Bunting, stitched from yards of dyed flour sacks, strung its merry way from the bakery door right to the gates of the Miners’ Welfare, snapping and dancing in the fresh breeze. Almost the whole parish had turned out in their Sunday best: men scrubbed bright in their best waistcoats, women with shawls pressed sharp, and bairns darting through the crowds with sticky cheeks and pockets heavy with lucky farthings.

Right on the corner stood the Muirhead Inn, the village’s favourite pub, its windows thrown open to the day. Directly opposite it lay the wide, open village square, packed full of stalls and games, though today, the real crowd wasn’t gathered there or round the pipe band. They stood packed ten deep along the main thoroughfare, eyes fixed on the incline where a massive, timber-framed Albion motor bus sat waiting like a great iron beast.

It was dead-weight heavy, loaded with extra iron ballast and a full tank of fuel to meet the strict rules, its tyres sunk slightly into the tarmac. Coiled at its front bumper lay a thick, braided hemp rope, thick as a man’s wrist, resting like a sleeping serpent in the dust.