by AJ Pearce
By the time everything was set up for the interview, Anne had been at the factory for nearly a month, which was perfect timing to ask her about both her initial reaction to a job in munitions and how she was getting on now that she had settled in.
When the day of the visit finally came, however, while I was very much looking forward to seeing Anne and meeting her friends, I had to admit to a forceful bout of first night nerves.
As much as I had tried to play it down both at work and with Bunty and Charles, the enormity of my very first journalistic assignment had been giving me butterflies for days.
At a quarter to six o’clock in the morning, I lay in bed looking forward to what felt like a mixture of Christmas Day and the biggest exam of my life. I had read and re-read a Highly Confidential document sent from the factory’s Public Relations Manager and now repeated parts of it out loud in the dark.
‘“Chandlers is a large engineering organisation reporting to the Ministry of Supply and making parts for guns,’ I recited. ‘Production is on a twenty-four-hour basis with three shifts per day. It employs over fifteen hundred women and aims to recruit at least double that figure.” It takes over an hour to get there on the bus, and on Thursdays the canteen always does sponge with a sauce.’
Anne had told me about the bus and the sponge.
‘Come on, Lake,’ I said. ‘You’ve been dreaming of this since you were twelve.’
Lolling in bed talking to myself was not going to get anything done.
My clothes and bag were ready and hanging up outside the huge Edwardian wardrobe that dominated my bedroom. I wanted to give the Factory Director an impression of maturity while also looking approachable to Anne’s friends, so had enlisted Bunty to help choose what I should wear. I even ran through my decision with Charles when he phoned to wish me good luck, although he hadn’t the slightest idea about clothes.
‘Well, Em,’ he said brightly, ‘that sounds top drawer. I had no idea that adding a square pocket to a jacket tells people you are both professional and friendly at the same time. I must say, it’s like some sort of code.’
‘It is,’ I said. ‘I am only sorry you didn’t realise it before. You have been missing vital information for months.’
‘I couldn’t be more ashamed,’ said Charles. ‘You’re going out with a dud.’
Then he had wished me good luck and told me that I already sounded like a journalist of the highest order and everyone would be enormously impressed.
I dressed quickly and checked my bag to make sure I had everything I needed. The brown leather case held a letter of introduction from Mr Collins, approvals in writing from two different Ministries and another set referring to the man from the Photographic News Agencies who was coming to take photographs after I had had lunch with Anne and her friends.
By far the best of all were the cards I had been given by Mrs Mahoney the previous day.
Miss E. Lake
Careers Editor
WOMAN’S FRIEND MAGAZINE
Launceston Press Ltd,
Launceston House, London EC4.
Telephone Central 6271
Even though I knew the job title wasn’t true, it didn’t matter. I usually stood five foot four inches high. With these I felt at least six foot two.
I also had my reporter’s notebook including a long list of questions, a spare notebook, two pens, three pencils, and two hankies. I was fully prepared and ready, but at the last minute after a stern look in the mirror, I quickly took off my earrings, wiped away the precious lipstick I had applied and switched my perfectly acceptable and smart brown felt hat for a sort of flowerpot thing that did me no favours at all.
Bunty was already up and in the kitchen when I rushed downstairs to make a sandwich to eat on the train.
‘Morning,’ she said, then did a double-take when she saw me. ‘Good grief. I don’t wish to be unkind, but what on earth’s that?’
‘Do I look awful?’ I asked. ‘I was trying for gravitas.’
‘That’s one way of putting it,’ said Bunty. ‘I love you dearly, Em, but if you turn up in that, they’ll lock you up. Go and get rid of that terrifying hat, and I’ll make you a sandwich. AND PUT ON SOME LIPSTICK,’ she shouted as I thanked her and belted back up to my room.
Three hours later, and looking slightly more acceptable again, I had arrived in Berkshire and was waiting outside the railway station for my lift to the factory. The rain was hurling itself down in the sort of way which makes you feel it is bearing a personal grudge, and I began to wonder if it would have been easier to try to find a bus. Unlike Anne who had a twenty-minute walk and then an hour’s ride to work, I had been told that Mr Terry, the Factory Director, would come to collect me himself.
Twenty minutes after the agreed time, finally, a shiny black Austin 16 drew up to the kerb. It was just the sort of impressive car one would imagine a man in charge of a large factory to own, not least as he must be getting special permission to have the petrol to run it.
As the windscreen wipers clunked their way back and forth, I could just make out a large, dark-haired man. He looked out of the window and stared straight past me.
Turning the collar of my coat up against the rain, I strode up to the car and knocked on the window. It didn’t feel the most dignified start to my reporting career, but it was either that or wave frantically and risk looking slightly mad.
The window rolled down an inch.
‘Yes?’ said the gentleman, clearly unused to lunatics accosting him in his car.
‘Mr Terry?’ I shouted, aiming to be heard above the wind which was whipping itself up into a state.
‘Mmm?’
‘I’m Miss Lake. From Woman’s Friend magazine. For the interviews?’
‘Oh!’ he said and wound up the window. Then, just as I thought he was going to drive away, he got out and ran around to open the passenger door for me.
‘In you go,’ he shouted, slamming the door behind me and just missing my foot. Then he ran back and got in again on his side.
‘How do you do?’ I said, wriggling round to face him.
‘Terry,’ he answered, shaking my hand, or rather, just holding it for several moments. ‘Factory Director,’ he said, still holding on. ‘Thought a chap was coming. Our Public Relations Manager mentioned a Mr Collie?’
‘Mr Collins,’ I said. ‘Our Editor. He has instructed me to write the feature. It should have been in the confirmation letter from the Ministry.’
‘Shame. Thought he’d like a ride in the jalopy. You won’t like cars of course, but we always welcome ladies.’
Then he smiled with lots of teeth and started the car, and before I could say anything we hurtled away from the station as if we were on the run from the police.
Mr Terry had the air of a man who was used to attention. He was perhaps fifty and although slightly going to fat, looked like the sort of man who would wallop himself in the stomach and say, ‘See that? All muscle,’ to someone who hadn’t really wanted to know.
As we drove at breakneck speed and Mr Terry narrowly avoided hitting a delivery boy on a bicycle and then a rag and bone man’s horse, he gave me his own version of the history of the factory, helpfully explaining that since he had joined the operation, it had started doing tremendously well.
‘I’m not surprised the Ministry is interested,’ he said. ‘The results speak for themselves – or would if the Censors let us. Ha! And our ladies couldn’t be happier. Good pay, good hours. They’ll all say it. Mr Rice will tell you what you need to know. He’s one of the Works Managers.’
Mr Terry spoke in the same manner as he drove, with the result that listening to him was like being verbally run over. I told myself not to go with my first impression. The journey took us just over fifteen minutes and Mr Terry didn’t bother with brakes until the very last moment when the car had to stop at the security gates to the factory.
‘Morning boys,’ he said, saluting the guard as if he was their Commanding Officer. ‘I have Miss L
ake here from the press.’
The security guard looked at me and asked me to get out of the car. I did as I was told and passed him my identification documents together with the folder of introductory letters.
‘She’ll just be in Shed Twelve,’ said Mr Terry. ‘And the canteen.’
The guard pursed his lips, checking everything as I stood by the car being looked at by one of his colleagues until he gave me back the folder together with a piece of paper with my details, a stamp with the date and BLUE SHIFT DAY PASS ONLY. Then he handed me a large badge that read VISITOR and TO BE ACCOMPANIED AT ALL TIMES, and said that under no circumstances was I to go anywhere on my own. Finally, he looked through my bag, which I didn’t mind though I was self-conscious about the remains of my sandwich.
With the OK to continue, I rushed back to the car and Mr Terry made the engine roar before we took off again. As we drove along a wide road with numerous others leading off it to vast camouflaged buildings, all with blacked-out windows or no windows at all, we passed a long line of lorries on their way to the exit. The whole place was bigger than the village I had grown up in.
‘Can you tell me about some of these buildings?’ I asked.
‘You’ll like the canteen,’ said Mr Terry. ‘I don’t eat there.’
He drove to the front door of a huge two-storey building, stopping just before we hit a brass sign with his name on it.
I opened the door and climbed out of the car, pausing for a moment to straighten my jacket and compose myself after the dare-devil ride.
Mr Terry stood by the entrance to the building, waiting for my full attention. Looking very much like the cat who got the cream and was then offered a second helping, he opened his arms.
‘This is it, young lady,’ he said, loudly. ‘Welcome to Chandlers.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
They’re Better Than a Lot of the Men
AFTER HIS FANFARE, Mr Terry ushered me through an unremarkable set of steel doors and into a small foyer with three wooden chairs and a low metal table with copies of The Motor magazine on it. A receptionist sat behind a small hatch with a grille on it which made the room look rather like a railway station ticket office. Also there, to my great delight, was Anne, who was standing to attention and looking very professional in dark trousers and a brown coat, her hair sensibly tied back and half hidden under a blue knitted snood. She was smiling broadly, and I very much wished I could say hello properly and give her a hug.
Next to her stood a stocky, balding gentleman whose face did not exactly say, ‘Welcoming Committee.’ No wonder Anne looked as if she was on parade.
‘Ah hah,’ said Mr Terry. ‘Mr Rice. And, um . . .’
‘Mrs Oliver,’ I said, before it became too obvious that he either didn’t know or had forgotten Anne’s name.
‘How do you do, Mr Rice?’ I said, realising I had just blotted my copybook by saying hello to Anne first. ‘Miss Emmeline Lake. I’m very pleased to meet you. Launceston Press is most indebted to you for your help.’
‘Mmm,’ said Mr Rice. I stretched out my hand, daring him not to shake it. ‘How d’you do,’ he continued, looking cross.
Mr Terry appeared to have lost interest. He looked over to the receptionist and shouted, ‘Noreen,’ at her, to which she diligently replied, ‘Good morning, Mr Terry,’ and he seemed to cheer up.
‘Miss Lake,’ he said. ‘I will leave you in the capable hands of Mr Rice and your friend. Good day.’
And without mentioning when I might be able to interview him properly about women recruits, he strode off through a door marked PRIVATE and was gone.
The three of us stood in silence for a moment. Anne surreptitiously raised her eyebrows at me.
‘It was very good of Mr Terry to come to the station,’ I said, to fill the lull.
‘If I had that car and his petrol, so should I,’ said Mr Rice. ‘Miss Lake, this is a very busy factory. Where are you from, again, and how long will this take?’
Anne frowned, but after Mr Terry’s non-stop gushing, I found myself preferring Mr Rice’s straightforward approach.
‘I’m from Woman’s Friend magazine,’ I said. ‘I’m here to write an article on women war workers. It’s part of the Government’s recruitment drive.’
‘That explains it,’ snorted Mr Rice. ‘If there isn’t a knighthood handed out here by the end of the war, I’ll watch a pig fly past in a Spitfire.’
Anne stared innocently at the ceiling for all the world looking as if she didn’t know who he meant. I wondered whether I was supposed to laugh or not. Mr Rice looked at me.
‘I’ve worked at Chandlers most of my adult life,’ he said as if it told me everything I needed to know. He turned to the receptionist, his tone less stern. ‘Mrs Noakes, I’m assuming you know about Miss Lake’s visit? Thank you. Come on, Miss Lake, I’ll give you a tour. Mrs Oliver, you know the way.’
As Mrs Noreen Noakes nodded and gave a friendly smile, Anne opened a door and led us down a long corridor. Even before we left the reception area, I could hear the rumble of machinery.
‘This is Shed Twelve,’ said Mr Rice, walking beside me. ‘It’s one of the biggest. You’ll see that Management are upstairs and if they care to, they can watch what everyone is doing. It’s not the same for all the sheds, so you can decide for yourself if Mrs Oliver is lucky or not to be in this one.’
We stopped at a pair of heavy double doors. Mr Rice looked at me, as if inspecting a machine.
‘Your shoes are all right, but Mrs Oliver, can you please give Miss Lake a scarf for her hair. You’ll be fine with those earrings. There’s nothing likely to go “Bang” in here. Watch your step as it can get greasy. Stay close, and don’t put your hands or face near anything noisy or moving.’
‘You don’t really need this,’ whispered Anne as she showed me how to twist the scarf into a sort of turban over my hair. ‘That’s it, tuck in the ends. Don’t worry about the bang thing. He just means there’s no explosives.’
I nodded and tried not to look relieved. Anne mentioned explosives as a casual aside. The last time I saw her she had been gently handing bread and jam to her daughter. I was very impressed.
As Mr Rice opened the doors and motioned me to follow, I entered an entirely different world. A small army of women were working at benches or standing at thumping great pieces of machinery, pulling levers, pushing through unidentifiable chunks of metal or deftly changing parts that were being cut or hammered into shape. Kitted out in the same uniform of brown overalls or coats as Anne, they all had their hair tied back in a wide variety of different coloured scarves, as if to remind you that they were individuals and not just additional cogs in the factory machine.
A few men with clipboards were walking around looking over the women’s shoulders and occasionally speaking to them, although I couldn’t imagine how anyone could hear a word. The rumbling I heard before had now become an almost deafening roar from the hundreds of drilling, cutting and pounding machines.
Mr Rice gave an unexpected wink. ‘You’ll get used to it,’ he shouted, not unkindly.
‘Right you are,’ I shouted back. There was no point trying to pretend I had seen anything like this before. The noise was overwhelming, as if every bus in the country had stopped outside your house with its engine running, while people took it in turns to whack it with huge iron bars and scrape nails along the sides.
For a moment I was embarrassed that it was a shock to me, as if I was just on a day out from my little office in London. But after months of the Blitz and night after night of planes and guns and the falling of bombs, I felt I’d earned the right to look Mr Rice in the eye. I had no need to apologise that being in a factory was new to me.
More than anything, I wanted to understand what the women were working on. I watched as some yelled information at each other, while others pored over their work, deep in concentration. A few were even managing to chat. One or two nodded at Anne. Everyone knew exactly what they were doing and as if they had been wor
king there all their lives. It was one of the most striking things I had ever seen.
‘I’m on one of the capstans,’ yelled Anne, as we went over to a woman deftly switching instruments over to set them drilling like mad. ‘Watch out, there’s swarf all over the place. I’ll go and find Sally. She’ll clear it up.’
‘It’s part of the barrel,’ bellowed Mr Rice. ‘After here they go onto Fourteen for the next stage.’ He paused for a moment and then fixed me with a stare. ‘Miss Lake, if you want to know about women workers, I can tell you that this lot are all right. Some of them talk too much,’ he nodded at a group nearby, ‘but they’re doing good work.’
‘Are they all new recruits?’ I shouted, as we moved on and a fearsome piece of kit smacked down on some metal, squashing it flat and threatening to burst my eardrums.
‘Most of them.’ Mr Rice warmed to his subject. ‘They’re better than a lot of the men I’ve dealt with over the years.’ He gave a quick, unexpected grin. ‘That’s surprised you, hasn’t it? I bet you reckoned I think women can’t do the job.’
I denied the thought as we moved away from the production line to where it was very slightly quieter. ‘Why is it the women make such good workers?’ I asked, partly to see if he was just humouring me, and partly because if he had a good answer, it could work perfectly in the article I wanted to write.
‘Miss Lake,’ said Mr Rice. ‘Have you a brother, or a sweetheart who’s joined up?’
‘Yes, both,’ I said. ‘RAF and Artillery.’
‘Good lads,’ said Mr Rice. ‘And the main thing you care about is that they’ll be safe and come home in one piece?’
‘Of course. That and winning the war.’
‘Well, in my view that’s why the women work well. They’ve a personal interest in knowing full care has gone into every single weapon or piece of metal that comes out of this factory.’