Today in the Pace case: 5 August

Sunday, 5 August 1928: The fifth part of Beatrice’s serialised memoir appears in the Sunday Express under the title 'A Talk to Those About to Marry'.

I try to think of what I felt as a young girl married to such a man, and when I think of it now, as a woman of thirty-seven, I wonder how it was that I stuck it for so long. Week in, week out, month in, month out, year in, year out—nothing but work, meals, rows, and beatings. [...]

There was the continual trouble of getting food, and of seeing that Harry had the best of anything that was in the house. I knew that when he came home from work he would be hungry and tired, and probably in a bad temper, and I was always on the watch to please him.

Sometimes, when I would see him coming over the fields with that walk that I knew meant a thrashing for me, I would go to meet him, and tell him of something special that I had got for his supper.

It used to happen, now and again, that by doing that I escaped a beating, and it used to happen that sometimes I did not. [...]

Pancakes were the great things to put him in a good temper, and whatever were my housekeeping difficulties, I nearly always contrived to have in the house materials for making them. If I felt trouble in the air (like our dog, Rover, I often sensed Harry’s moods beforehand), I would hurry to get some pancakes ready, and then run to meet Harry so soon as I saw him coming across the fields. (Sunday Express, 5 August 1928, p. 15)