The Mill Girls of Albion Lane (6 page)

BOOK: The Mill Girls of Albion Lane
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Despite all this, Walter did try for work in the mills but his experience in the trenches had weakened him in body and spirit and made him bitter. Besides, after the drop-off in government orders for army uniforms, the Yorkshire woollen mills suffered, so he failed to find a steady job and the growing Briggs family had to fall back on Public Assistance while Rhoda brought up the children and made herself useful in the neighbourhood.

For a start, she became expert in herbal remedies – caraway seeds soaked in hot water and sprinkled with sugar for baby colic, liquorice powder for constipation at any age, mustard plasters for bronchitis. More and more of the women in Albion Lane and on Raglan Road turned to her for advice and eventually for help when their babies came. Rhoda was considered reliable and unflappable, unlike her husband who was usually to be found propping up the bar at the Cross.

Now, late on this cold and gloomy Saturday night, Rhoda made the unaccustomed move of sharing her thoughts with Lily. ‘The way things are going with Margie, I can't see her keeping the job at Kingsley's much longer, not if she starts falling out with the girls who work alongside her and causing a bad atmosphere in the spinning shed. The overlookers won't stand for that.'

‘She only fell out with one,' Lily pointed out as she kicked off her shoes to warm her feet at what was left of the fire. ‘And that was Dorothy Brumfitt, who nobody likes. From what I hear, she's a troublemaker.'

‘Watch you don't give yourself chilblains,' Rhoda warned before staring into the fire and saying nothing for a while. ‘So if they get rid of anyone, you think it'll be Dorothy?' she asked at last, seeming to take comfort from Lily's view of events. Then she changed tack. ‘As for her goings-on with boys and the like, it might help if you told her it's her job to set an example to Evie.'

‘Yes, that's a good idea,' Lily agreed. Sitting this close to her mother she noticed again the shadows and lines on her face and the raised veins on the backs of her hands. ‘I wish you wouldn't worry and run around after us all the time,' she told her softly.

‘And if I don't worry and run around, pray tell who will?' was Rhoda's stubborn response.

‘I will,' Lily promised. ‘I can do more of the ironing of a night, when I get back from work. And you don't need to do all the washing on a Monday. I could do some for you on a Sunday.'

‘And what would people think of me hanging my washing out on the Lord's day?' Rhoda shook her head.

Lily gave a little, self-mocking laugh. ‘Here I am, offering to help. I thought you'd bite my hand off.'

‘No, you know me better than that. I'll carry on until I drop – that's all I know.' Taking a grey cardigan from the back of the chair, Rhoda wrapped it around her thin shoulders. ‘If you really want to help …' she added as Lily bent to pick up her shoes and head off.

‘Yes, Mother, what is it?'

‘You can keep a closer eye on Margie from now on, see she stays on the right track.'

‘I will,' Lily promised, making her way upstairs at last.

‘Good luck, Evie! Good luck, Lily!' At a quarter past seven on Monday morning Arthur stayed at the window to wave his sisters off to work. His piping voice followed them down the steps on to the street and his pale, peaky face was pressed against the glass.

It was scarcely daylight when they set off and the morning was frosty and crisp for once rather than sodden and dank. Evie had on a crimson beret and matching woollen shawl and carried her new work pinafore rolled and tucked under her arm, while Lily had dressed up for her new job in the grey coat and hat she'd worn on Saturday night.

‘Cheerio, Arthur. Be a good boy at school today,' Lily called back. As she turned, she noticed Margie scoot out of the house and run down the hill after them, still wrapping her shawl over her head and across her chest.

‘Why did you let me sleep in?' she demanded. ‘At this rate I'll be late for work.'

‘We didn't let you sleep in,' Lily objected. ‘We told you the time and pulled the covers off you.'

‘Yes, and you refused to get out of bed,' Evie agreed.

‘There you go, ganging up on me again.' Margie's walk into work at Kingsley's was five minutes longer than her sisters' route and at this rate she'd be locked out and have to wait in the cold until the mill manager had officially docked her pay and chosen to let her in. Then she'd get a ticking-off and her week would be off to the worst possible start. ‘I'd better run,' she decided, narrowly avoiding Harry Bainbridge as he emerged from the passage wheeling his bike.

‘Whoa!' he cried, stepping back and leaning his bike against a lamp post. He clutched at his chauffeur's cap with both hands. ‘Hang on to your hats, boys, Margie Briggs is late for work!'

Evie and Lily laughed at the way he pretended to be cowed while Margie gave him a disgusted look and hurried on. Then he gave Lily a wink, picked up his bike and cycled on down the hill.

‘Ta-ta, Harry!' Evie cried.

He raised a hand to wave without turning round. ‘Want a lift?' he yelled at Margie as he overtook her before the turning on to Ghyll Road. ‘You can hop on my crossbar if you like.'

‘Thanks but no thanks,' she told him crossly. Then she hastily reconsidered the offer. ‘Why – are you going my way?'

‘I can do if you like,' he replied. ‘Come on, you'll get there quicker.'

Impulsively Margie changed her mind and in front of dozens of work-bound mill hands, she gathered up her skirt above her knees and perched side saddle on the crossbar of Harry's bike, one arm around his neck, the other hand clutching the handlebars as they careered on down the cobbled street.

Lily and Evie watched from a distance until Harry and his passenger turned on to Ghyll Road.

‘Better not tell Mother.' Evie gave Lily an apprehensive glance.

‘No, better not.' Here she was – already letting Rhoda down, Lily realized. ‘I promised to keep an eye on her and now look – everyone's staring at her.'

‘And she didn't give a fig about it,' Evie pointed out. ‘Anyway, it means she'll get to work on time.'

‘There is that,' Lily acknowledged. She considered the difference a couple of years made to a young girl's life. Three, maybe four years ago, she wouldn't have thought anything of tomboy Margie hopping on to a boy's bike and hitching a ride, or of her aged eight playing a game of cricket on the Common with the older lads like Harry, Billy and Ernie, whacking the ball for six. Not now, though. ‘But she's too old to be showing her legs to the world,' she added. ‘Anyway, like we said – mum's the word.'

‘Yes, mum's the word.'

As Lily and Evie walked on by rows of identical houses to join the flow of workers, they fell silent, each affected by nerves as they turned right on to Ghyll Road and the tall, forbidding walls of Calvert's Mill came into view.

Now Evie clutched her grey pinafore close to her chest and felt her heart race. Instead of being in with the big girls at school and shouldering the responsibility that came with the class monitor's badge, she was now the youngest of the mill girls and on the lowest rung of the ladder.

‘Chin up,' Lily told her, guessing her sister's feelings as they approached the main entrance to the mill. ‘No one's going to eat you.'

Evie smiled weakly. Her cheeks were flushed from the cold and her fingers were freezing. She knew her hand would tremble when she clocked on for the first time and she wasn't sure whether this would be due to the temperature or to pure fright, though it would probably be both.

‘You'll be fine,' Lily assured her. But Evie looked so young in her red beret, with fine strands of fair hair escaping from the thick plait that hung down her back and blowing across her rosy cheeks. As Evie's grey eyes stared up at the sooty archway, Lily's heart went out to her. ‘Come on, I'll find Annie and Sybil for you.'

Evie followed in Lily's wake, threading through the jostling crowd, under the arch and past the Enquiries office, past the wooden board advertising vacancies for piecers and lap joiners, past the safety notice reminding workers that it was forbidden to clean, adjust or oil machinery whilst in motion, then down the corridor to the entrance into the weaving shed.

‘This is where you clock on.' Lily showed Evie the machine with its large brass dial then spotted Fred Lee approaching them. ‘He'll hand you your cards and show you what to do,' she explained.

‘Hello, so this is Miss Evie Briggs!' the overlooker exclaimed with an excess of jollity for this hour on a Monday morning. He planted his feet wide apart, folded his arms and appraised Evie from head to foot before giving an approving nod. ‘Not exactly a chip off the old block, though, is she?' he commented to Lily.

It was true that Evie looked nothing like her tall, dark-haired sister. She was smaller and altogether more delicate, with a pale complexion and just at this minute she had the wide-eyed look of a wild creature coming face to face with mortal danger.

‘She's a good girl and a quick learner,' Lily insisted, putting her palm against the small of Evie's back and giving her a gentle push forward. She was relieved to see Sybil striding towards them with a smile on her face.

‘Come on, Evie, come and say hello to some of the girls while Fred goes to pick up your cards from the main office,' Sybil offered with a reassuring wink at Lily. And she took Evie's hand and dragged her past the leering overlooker, down the central aisle between the big looms whose giant, oily wheels were just clanking into action as the seven thirty buzzer sounded.

Evie glanced uncertainly over her shoulder.

‘Go!' Lily mouthed, feeling more uncomfortable than ever now that she had to leave Evie to Fred's tender mercies.

‘Don't worry, Lil – I'll look after your little sister.' He grinned.

‘That's exactly what I'm bothered about,' she muttered under her breath. But she couldn't delay because today of all days she couldn't afford to be late for Miss Valentine. So she turned and ran up the flight of back stairs leading to the mending room, arriving there just in time to see the little manageress enter from the door at the far end of Lily's new workplace.

Between the two women there were six long, narrow tables, each equipped with a stool and a new-fangled electric lamp on a stand – individual stations for the burlers and menders employed by Calvert's to finish and perfect the work carried out in the spinning and weaving sections of the mill. Three women were already sitting on their stools, taking scissors and other small tools out of tin boxes stowed on ledges underneath their tables. Two more hurried to take up their positions under the eagle eye of the supervisor.

Lily's heart beat fast as she failed to catch the eye of any of her fellow workers. She immediately had a sense that they were more stand-offish than the girls downstairs and reluctant to welcome the nervous newcomer, but Lily steeled herself to walk between the tables and meet the manageress who stood waiting for her by the far door. She passed two sturdy-limbed older women wearing dark blue aprons who were busy arranging the tools of their trade, then a woman in her thirties whom she recognized as Ethel Newby, daughter of the elderly Newbys who ran the tobacconist's and sweet shop at the bottom of Albion Lane. Next she walked between two younger women with fashionable bobbed hair, one wearing a patterned blouse, the other a warm-looking brown cardigan and a matching long, straight skirt. The table nearest to Miss Valentine was still vacant and Lily presumed that this would be the station where she would work.

‘Good morning, Lily.' The manageress greeted her primly then handed her a pair of pointed scissors, a burling iron, a packet of needles and a long piece of chalk. ‘The cost of these will be taken from your first week's wages,' she remarked, leading Lily to the vacant position. She asked the nearest girl, the one in the patterned blouse, to fetch a bolt of cloth and lay it out over the high table, giving time for Lily to perch on her stool and settle her nerves. ‘Thank you, Vera, that will be all for now. Lily, Vera will be on hand to answer any questions you may have. She's been with us for ten weeks and is moving on from learner to mender, just as you will if you make good progress in the work.'

Lily glanced at Vera, who gave a brief smile before returning to her station – the first sign of friendliness that Lily had encountered in her new job.

‘Now pay attention,' Miss Valentine instructed. ‘I want you to take your burling iron and scissors in your left hand and the chalk in your right hand. The cloth is on its reverse side, as you see. Your first job is to mark the flaws with your chalk.'

‘But how will I know where there's a flaw?' Lily asked timidly. To her it seemed that the length of grey cloth spread out on the table was perfect.

‘You will run your fingertips over the surface.' The manageress spoke precisely and professionally, having been through this process with many new girls before Lily. ‘A flaw will be felt as a small knot in the weft and the warp. This is when you take your burler and lift out the knot and loosen it with the small hook on the end then snip both ends of the thread with your scissors, ready to sew them back in so that they can't be seen. Is that clear?'

Lily nodded, eager to begin. ‘Yes, Miss Valentine.'

‘Don't sew in the ends right away, though. Mark and loosen then snip and move on, rolling up the material as you go. Sewing the ends and picks is more complicated and comes later. You know what I mean by picks?'

Again Lily nodded. ‘They're the threads going weft ways, Miss Valentine.'

‘Very good. And the threads going warp ways are …?'

‘Ends.'

The manageress nodded. ‘As I said, Vera will advise you if you feel uncertain.'

‘Thank you, Miss Valentine.' In this new situation Lily was thrown back into her schooldays. She felt ten years old again, in school and sitting at an ink-stained desk.

BOOK: The Mill Girls of Albion Lane
9.88Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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