Today in the Pace Case, 22 July 1928

Sunday, 22 July 1928: the second instalment of Beatrice Pace's life story appears in the Sunday Express.

Sunday Express, 22 July 1928, p. 11 (Click for larger image)

Beatrice wrote about some of her new experiences...

Now, I realise that what takes my breath away is only ordinary to other people.

The other day, while I was at Windsor, one of my new friends said to me after dinner, “Mrs. Pace, will you have some coffee?” I thought, “Well, now, I’ve never tasted it,” and I said so. Everybody at table laughed and looked surprised.

I felt quite silly as they watched me drinking it smiling at me. … I thought about it afterwards and I decided to tell about it here, so that you will understand how different everything is for me now.

...her late husband's strange behaviour....

When the mood was on him he didn’t care what he did.

I have already said that all the years we were together he never once looked me straight in the eyes or called me by a soft name. I think that was one of the worst things in my life with him. To be treated like a machine, and to bear his children, and to feel all the time that he only thought about me as something that was his, and that he never cared about me in myself—that did make me feel horrible.

...

Often after thrashing me he would throw down his stick and start whistling and singing.

What Harry sang after beating me was always the same song: “I’m Henery the Eighth, I am,” Henery the Eighth I am, I am,” and the rest of it.

I can see it sounds funny now, and it makes me laugh, but it didn’t at the time.

...and her inability to leave him:

I am sure you will all say that if Harry was mad, I must have been madder to stay by him and put up with it, but as I said at the beginning, Harry was my man, and I had to stick to him. I had loved no other man, and he was all I had. I was not then as sad and bitter as I grew to be as time went on, and I had hope.

Today in the Pace case: 12 August

Sunday, 12 August 1928: The sixth part of Beatrice’s serialised memoir appears in the Sunday Express, titled 'The Beginning of a New Life'.

My housekeeping money used to very between 15s. and £1 a week. Sometimes it was 10s., and sometimes it was nothing. And on that I had to feed Harry, myself, and the children. Most of the money used to go on tea, sugar, bread, milk, lard to fry in and sometimes a little butter for the bread. I and the children used to live almost entirely on boiled potatoes and friend onion, while I took care that Harry used to have bacon, eggs and cheese. (Sunday Express, 12 August 1928, p. 12.)

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)

Today in the Pace case: 29 July

Sunday, 29 July 1928: The fourth part of Beatrice’s serialised memoir appears in the Sunday Express, under the title 'A Talk to Wives by Mrs. Pace'.

Since I began my story in the “Sunday Express” I have had hundreds of letters from women, all of them kind, but many of them saying what amounts to this: You have had a terrible time in your married life: you have suffered terrible pain and anxiety in being accused of a murder you did not commit. Your husband treated you worse than an animal, and yet expected you to mother his children and keep his home. Why were you such a fool as to put up with it? We would not have done so for a week, let alone eighteen years. We would have run away. That is the question I have been asked, and I think I can answer it.

Today in the Pace case: 22 July

Sunday, 22 July 1928: The third part of Beatrice’s serialised memoir appears in the Sunday Express.

Today in the Pace case: 15 July

Sunday, 15 July 1928: The second part of Beatrice’s serialised memoir appears in the Sunday Express.

(Sunday Express, 15 July 1928, p. 1: Beatrice Pace, with Alice Sayes holding Jean Pace)

Today in the Pace case: 8 July

Sunday, 8 July 1928: The first part of Beatrice’s serialised memoir appears in the Sunday Express.

Sunday Express, 8 July 1928, p. 1 (Click for larger image.)

Today in the Pace case: 7 July

Saturday, 7 July 1928: The publication rights to Beatrice’s life story are sold to the Sunday Express for a substantial sum. Beatrice, accompanied by her friend Alice Sayes, departs Coleford for a holiday in Windsor.