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MidReal Story
an english late victorian family are leaving the liverpool docks
Anonymous
May 2
Scenario:an english late victorian family are leaving the liverpool docks to emigrate to canada
Create my version of this story
We were just two of the hundreds of people gathered on the Liverpool docks, waiting for our ship to board.
As far as I could see there were children, women and men, all with their own stories and reasons for making the same decision that my family had.
The crowds were bigger than any I had ever seen in England, but then my life in the small village of Beckley had been a quiet one.
I’d spent many evenings curled up in front of the fire with my parents and my sisters, sipping tea and listening to the rain fall on the cobblestones outside.
But those days were long gone.
My father had died three years ago, and my sisters had married and moved away.
My mother had come to live with us, but it was a struggle to get by with only John’s wages to support us.
We had no choice.
We had to go to Canada.
The noise of the crowd rose around us, with men shouting orders and people calling goodbyes to their loved ones.
I heard the barking of dogs and the cries of children, some of whom had probably never left their homes before.
John stood beside me, tall and broad shouldered, his fair complexion contrasting with his dark hair.
He was thirty years old now, but he still looked like the man I had fallen in love with when we were both so much younger.
Our son William tugged on my skirt.
“Mammy, when will we get to go on the ship?
I want to see it!”
I reached out a hand to him.
“Soon, love, soon.”
Sarah clung to her father’s leg, looking up at him with big eyes.
“Will you carry me, daddy?”
John lifted her into his arms and gave her a kiss on her rosy cheek.
“Of course I will.” He turned to me.
“Can you take William?”
I took William’s hand and felt the softness of his small fingers against mine.
It was hard to believe that he was already five years old; he seemed so much smaller than that when he stood beside his sister.
As we stood in line to board, I had a moment of doubt.
Had we made the wrong decision?
Should we have stayed in England and tried to make it work?
But I knew that we had no choice.
We could no longer afford to stay here, not and feed our family.
It had been hard to leave our home, the place where John and I had met, married, and brought our children into the world.
And it was even harder to leave our families.
I thought about my mother, who had wept as she said goodbye to us, and my sisters, who had come to wave us off.
Would I ever see them again?
What if something happened to them, and I never had the chance to say goodbye?
The more I thought about it, the harder it became to hold back my own tears.
But I couldn’t let myself cry, not now, not here.
Not in front of John and the children.
A hand came to rest on my shoulder; John gave me a gentle squeeze.
