door, where he stopped, turned about
face, and looked at the trembling Cathy.
“I haven’t long to live,” he said softly.
“But before I die I will kill you.” He
slammed the door so hard behind him
that a picture fell from the wall.I
n the weeks that followed that row
Deans kept away from Cathy and
Devonshire Street, although he always
made sure he was at the same pubs she
was in. Across the rows of chattering
drinkers he would watch her, talking
to this miner and that miner, her face
lighting up and relaxing into laughter.
Deans was simmering. The rage
within him was burning away as he
sensed that she had used him, that she
had picked him out for his money, that
her interest had faded because it was
spent and he’d become a working man
again.
The weeks slipped by. Then, on
Wednesday, October 4th, Cathy’s son
William was coming home from work
when he heard the unmistakable sound
of his mother screaming. He ran up
Devonshire Street just in time to see her
flee from the house and run down the
pavement towards him. Deans, carrying
a long piece of string, was close behind
her.
As she saw William, Cathy screamed
out, “He’s going to choke me!” Like a
flash William stepped in between them.
Deans, whose respiratory problem
militated against such exertion, was
panting for breath; even so, he tried
desperately to push William out of the
way. The youngster stood his ground
and, frustrated, Deans snarled at Cathy,
“I’ll shoot you!”
William laughed. Like Cathy and
his sister Norah, he too had heard it
all before from Joe Deans. Leaving the
gasping miner standing impotently on
the pavement, he ushered his mother
back indoors.
Two death threats from a man with an
uncontrollable temper and a reputation
for violence might have been more than
enough for anyone to put themselves
on the alert. Cathy Convery, however,
simply refused to take Deans seriously.
She might have thought more about it
if she had known that Deans’ post that
morning had brought him a licence to
hold a gun, an application for which he
had made a week previously.
Next day Deans was out and
alone near his home in Southwick,
Sunderland, when he spotted a friend,
Thomas Thompson, also a miner, at
Wheatsheaf Corner.
The two men passed a few minutes
in conversation. As they talked DeansSunderland during the
First World Warnot only found one, but one with money.
And if two people intent on having
a good time didn’t live quite so
comfortably on today’s equivalent of Joe
Deans’ weekly pension, Deans, who was
hopelessly in love with his Cathy, was
past noticing it. It seemed indeed that as
the cash dwindled, Deans became more
and more infatuated with his widow. As
the cash dwindled, too, it seemed that
Cathy became rather less interested in
him.
One day, a couple of years after his
return to England, Deans woke up to
the realisation that the £600 he had
brought back with him from South
Africa was all gone. He had now only
his two pensions, and while they might
have been enough to keep him, they
were not enough to keep him and Cathy
in the style to which he had accustomed
her. So to improve his cash flow, he got
a job as a coal miner.
The work was bad for his health and
his bad health preyed on his mind. He
By Albert A. Thompson
became moody. From time to time he
had threatened Cathy, now, in place of
the threats, he became uncontrollably
violent. Her reaction was to become
increasingly hostile towards him.
Coming from his shift at the mine to
Devonshire Street on Monday August
7th, 1916, he accused her of seeing
another man while he was at work. She
had heard all this before and she was
tired of it. She flared up, hotly denying
the accusation, and there was a bitter
argument. Deans grabbed a knife from
the kitchen table. “I’ll do it now!” he
yelled.
Fortunately, Cathy’s daughter Norah
was also in the room. She too had heard
it all before from Joe Deans. Now she
rushed between the two protagonists.
Deans stood back, glaring at Norah.
Silently he put the knife back on the
kitchen table and walked towards the