Tommy Branning

Tommy Branning is Daisy Branning’s older brother and one of Sunday Small’s closest companions during their childhood in the workhouse. Protective of Daisy and wary of a future that repeatedly separates them, he nevertheless develops ambitions beyond institutional life: first imagining work with wood, then looking toward a farm, carpentry, or the sea. Daisy’s death breaks the hopeful household he had begun to find at Whittleford Lodge and leads him to leave, carrying his grief with him.

Identity and Workhouse Upbringing

Tommy enters the story as an orphan living in the workhouse with Daisy, after their mother’s death. Sunday has taken both siblings under her wing, especially because they remember the family life they have lost. Daisy tells Sunday about the meals their mother used to cook, the cakes she baked, and the cosy house they had shared; Tommy, in turn, remains fiercely protective of his younger sister. Their ties are an important part of his identity: even in an institution that keeps children and adults, and boys and girls, in separate sections, he looks for ways to stay connected to Daisy.

The workhouse’s routines place limits on that connection. Residents are divided into separate sections, and their labor is assigned according to age, strength, and skill. Boys may be sent to oakum picking, bone crushing, or garden work; Tommy later learns carpentry in the workshop. The divisions are physical as well as social: during outdoor exercise, a fence separates the girls’ yard from the boys’. It is at this barrier that Tommy repeatedly seeks news of Daisy and speaks with Sunday. The fence frames a childhood in which companionship persists, but access to loved ones is never assured.

A Protective Brother and a Future Beyond the Institution

When Tommy is eleven, he is tall for his age but dangerously thin. He has unruly, curling hair and a black eye from a scuffle in the boys’ quarters. His bravado about being able to look after himself gives way when he thinks of Daisy in the sickbay with a fever. He asks Sunday to look after his sister, and Sunday promises that she will. The exchange makes clear how much of Tommy’s attention is directed toward Daisy’s safety, even when he is not able to be beside her.

Tommy also begins to picture a working life outside the workhouse. After learning carpentry, he tells Sunday that he has enjoyed the workshop and might like to work with wood once he gets out. His hope is cautious; he immediately doubts whether he will ever leave. Sunday answers with a shared vision of farm life: they will care for animals, grow their own food, and be free from hunger and harm. The farm represents more than a job. In their conversation, it becomes an imagined alternative to the cold, restrictive institution and a future in which the friends might remain together.

That future is delayed by the siblings’ separation. Tommy had previously been placed on a farm, but the farmer returned him to the workhouse within weeks, calling him worthless and workshy. Sunday believes that judgment is unfair and suspects Tommy did not try because he was distressed at leaving Daisy behind. His failed placement thus shows the difficulty of interpreting a child’s prospects apart from his attachments: what appears to an employer as a failure to work may, in Sunday’s understanding, be bound up with worry for his sister.

Whittleford Lodge and the Life He Builds There

When Sunday leaves the workhouse for employment, she promises to visit Daisy and Tommy every Sunday afternoon. She also tells Daisy she will save her wages until she can help bring the siblings out. Tommy’s own eventual place at Whittleford Lodge gives him a more settled working life. He proves capable at odd jobs around the household, where Biddy Spooner and Annie help make a home for the young people who come to work there.

At the Lodge, Tommy finds pleasure in caring for animals. He becomes devoted to two Tamworth pigs that Biddy Spooner has bought, and the household also keeps chickens and a cockerel. His attentiveness is visible in small domestic tasks: he gathers fresh eggs from his jacket pockets and offers them to Annie for a sponge cake. These scenes contrast with his earlier uncertainty at the workhouse. He is no longer only imagining a life of useful work; he has responsibilities, companions, and animals whose care forms part of his daily routine.

The contrast is not complete happiness. Daisy is pregnant and increasingly unwell, while the rest of the household appears comparatively content. Annie continues helping with the evening meal because Sunday would otherwise have too much work while Daisy is away from her duties. Tommy’s own happiness at the Lodge therefore exists alongside his concern for his sister, just as his earlier hopes had been inseparable from the question of whether Daisy could remain with him.

Daisy’s Death and Tommy’s Grief

When Daisy goes missing, Tommy asks whether she has been found. He learns that a young pregnant girl’s body has been recovered from the canal and that the description matches the sister he reported missing. The news confirms her death. Sunday remembers Tommy’s cry of denial, and grief overtakes her as well. For him, the loss is especially devastating: he has already lost his parents, and Daisy was the last member of his immediate family.

After Daisy’s funeral, Tommy does not cry again and says little. He continues working as hard as before, if not harder, but his behavior changes the way those around him see him. Biddy Spooner observes that the cheerful young man she welcomed into her home has been replaced by a sullen, hard-faced figure who seems to be pushing himself to his limits. She worries that he is keeping his pain inside and wishes he would let himself grieve openly. His silence does not mean the loss has passed; his relentless work offers no sign that he has come to terms with it.

Departure and Narrative Significance

Tommy eventually leaves Whittleford Lodge. In a letter to the household, he explains that life there has been difficult since Daisy died and that he sees her everywhere. With no one left there who can keep him, he has decided to go away for a while. He has not chosen a destination: he may train as a carpenter or go to sea. The uncertainty echoes his earlier hopes of working with wood, but now those possibilities belong to a future he will pursue alone rather than to the shared farm life he once imagined with Sunday.

His letter also shows consideration for others even as he withdraws. He says that his savings will support him for a time, asks Sunday to feed the animals, thanks Biddy Spooner for what she did for him and Daisy, and promises to visit one day. He notes that the Lodge can replace him with someone from the workhouse, giving another young person a chance. His departure is therefore both a response to bereavement and a practical relinquishing of his place to someone else. Through Tommy, the story traces how childhood loyalty can shape work and belonging, and how a home that once offered refuge may become inseparable from the person whose loss makes it painful to remain.