by Annie Murray
The wagons ground to a halt with metallic shrieks. The loco stopped short of the shed and let out great whooshes of smoke and steam, which billowed into the freezing air. The guard climbed down to uncouple the engine, so that it could move on to its next shunting job. Engines did not go into the shed. The wagons would be eased back by means of a rope, around a capstan drum, to the stop-blocks. Further along the yard, an inspector was checking the labels on another set of wagons before they were shunted in. Shunters were moving among the numerous lines of wagons, calling to each other, sometimes in language fit to make her blush. Another engine was moving further back in the yard, and metallic clanging sounds rang out somewhere in the distance. The cold, smoke-filled air stung Sylvia’s nostrils. She had her gloves off, tucked under her arm, and was blowing on her chapped hands, immersed in watching the scene, when the foreman started bawling at her.
‘Damn you, you horrible little man,’ she muttered, hurriedly pulling the gloves on again. ‘You nearly made me jump out of my skin,’ she added, though no one was listening.
She found she was fighting back tears. A childish urge came over her to stick her tongue out at her foreman, known as ‘Froggy’. He was one of the rudest, most unpleasant individuals she had met in her relatively sheltered life and had already reduced Sylvia to tears more than once during this first week in the Goods Yard. Any mistake she made – and there had been quite a few – he was down on her like a ton of bricks. He was on at her for dropping things, trying to push the barrows instead of pulling them, leaving loads in the wrong place because she didn’t yet know her way around properly, and generally being slow. Nothing was familiar to begin with, and Froggy was woefully bad at explaining things, so it was she who ended up looking foolish. It brought back all her old insecurities about being stupid and unable to do things properly, just the way it had been at school.
On top of that, all the muscles in her body were screaming from hours of heavy lifting and hauling of loaded barrows between the lines of wagons and the cartage area, where they were loaded onto the drays to go out for delivery in the city. Her back and shoulders felt as if she had been mown down several times by a tram, and her hands were so chapped and sore that she could hardly bear to touch anything.
Many times that week she had asked herself what on earth she was doing here, when she could be in a nice warm theatre. She thought wistfully of the stuffy darkness at the back of the stalls, of light pouring from the brightly lit stage and of the friends she had said goodbye to. But she knew that really she had done the right thing. Audrey’s letters were full of the physical discomforts of the WAAF, although she was obviously enjoying it. And Sylvia knew she could put up with the physical pain, the cold and the arduous work, because in that week she had fallen head over heels in love with the railways. The place fascinated her. She just hated working with someone so discouraging and horrible.
Known as ‘Froggy’ on account of his odd, flat fingers (Sylvia wondered with a shudder about his toes, let alone other bits of him), the foreman’s real name was Fred Bainton. When she had first started and was assigned to his team, he’d taken one look at her in her newly issued uniform – trousers, jacket, cap and heavy boots – and reeled backwards, rolling his eyes in contempt.
‘Oh no, yer gotta be ’aving me on. Not another woman! What flaming use are you gunna be? I mean, don’t take it personal, love, but this is man’s work.’ He shook his head in a manner that implied he was the one remaining sane person in a world of absurd folly. ‘I don’t need no one who can’t pull their weight. The other ’un’s bad enough, but at least that one’s got some meat on ’er bones. But you: God almighty!’ He’d stomped away, shaking his head with as much drama as Sylvia had seen on the stage of the Theatre Royal. ‘Women,’ he declaimed like something out of a Shakespearian tragedy. ‘All they give me is cowing women . . .’ She was, in fact, only the second woman so far to be taken on as a porter.
Froggy came hurrying along towards her now, a frantic, hunch-shouldered, weak-chested figure in his dark uniform jacket. He had a rodent-like face and bits of his thin hair squiggled out round the edges of his cap like little wet eels. Froggy’s basic position was that he didn’t like women and was absolutely certain they didn’t belong anywhere near his kingdom of the railways. It seemed that no evidence you might give him would change his mind. He beckoned impatiently.
‘What’re you hanging about down ’ere for? It ain’t no good standing there, dreaming about what yer boyfriend’s gunna do for yer later – this lot’s got to get over to Lawley Street.’ He hurried past her, talking frantically. ‘Not those two minks at the far end: they’re for Winson Green. I don’t know what those buggers’ve done bringing ’em in ’ere. The world’s gone mad – and all I get’s a load of cowing women . . .’ This complaint echoed through almost any utterance that Froggy made.
Sylvia had been on the point of crying again at the scornful treatment she had from him earlier, but now she swallowed her tears down angrily. Right, she thought, a blush of anger and humiliation rising in her cheeks, I’ll damn well show you, you little reptile.
She didn’t want Madge, the other porter in her team, to see her crying, either. Madge was built like a prizefighter, with legs like tree trunks. She was as tough as old boots and cut from a quite different cloth from Sylvia, who felt very feeble beside her.
‘The first thing you need for this job is a pair of gloves,’ Madge told her the first day in her foghorn of a voice, holding up her hands encased in tough leather gloves. ‘And decent boots – you can get a good pair from ’ere, and they’ll stop two and six a week off your wages till it’s paid.’ Sylvia had taken this advice, applied for the boots and bought the hard, brown gloves, which she was still wearing in. But her hands were only just recovering from their battering on the first couple of days. Everything they had to handle was rough and freezing cold to the touch.
The other two in her unloading crew came hurrying out from the mess rooms. Madge, whose surname also happened to be Porter – ‘they couldn’t ’ardly turn me down, with a name like that, could they?’ – and the checker, Bill Jones, a quiet, decent man in his fifties. In the last few days Sylvia had been on the same shift as them, which started at six in the morning and ended at two o’clock. Bill, a short, sallow-skinned man with greasy brown hair and kindly eyes, was a live-and-let-live sort of character, who was kind about their heavy work and the efforts they were making.
He showed Sylvia around when she started the job.
‘There’s air-raid shelters up along there,’ he said, pointing along the yard. ‘We don’t use ’em much – everyone tries to keep going. They’re miserable holes to sit in, anyroad – but if it gets really bad . . .’ He left her to finish the sentence.
He told her about the different sheds and about the Round Yard, which they could see over towards the passenger station. ‘You won’t need to work over there,’ Bill told her. ‘That’s a mileage yard – they charge them by the mile, like it says. Full loads only. But the customers have to organize the loading and collection, not us.’ And there was Hockley Basin at the western end of the yard, where loads were moved on to joey boats to be carried further on the canal.
‘Everything’s had to be shifted around,’ Bill told her as they stood looking across the yard. ‘The offices, I mean – because of that lot.’ He nodded at the shell of the main office block on Pitsford Street, one end of which was in the process of being rebuilt. ‘I’ll never forget that morning – after that flaming all-night raid in December, remember? I came into work and . . .’ He shook his head. ‘What a mess; you’ve never seen anything like it. The yard was full of rubble. All that bit of the block had come down along there. And that – that’s the new Top Shed. That caught it a bit. But the main thing was the offices in there: all gone. They’ve had to shuffle them about to various places. Some of them are in the basement, others have moved over to Snow Hill. Terrible.’ He looked very sorrowful. ‘Still, they’re doing a good job of puttin
g it all back. But it’s a mess. They’re talking about giving you ladies some toilets of your own.’ He smiled wryly at her. ‘Early days.’
It was Bill who showed her the ropes, the basics about how the yard worked, and both he and Madge taught her the best way to lift things.
Madge, who looked about forty to Sylvia, was in fact twenty-eight. She’d spent all her working life in factories up until now and wanted a change. All Madge talked about was her ‘feller’, who was called ‘Tone’. Tone was a boxer as well as working in a foundry. Madge talked a lot about his tattoos. Sylvia thought he sounded even more terrifying than Madge herself. But it was gratifying to see the short shrift that Madge gave to Froggy and his insulting whingeing.
‘What’s ’e got for us this time, then?’ Madge demanded, striding towards her across the cartage area where Sylvia was now waiting. Every time Sylvia saw Madge, she was amazed by the sheer girth of the woman, her vast body wrapped in blue railway overalls. A variety of vehicles were lined up waiting: lorries, Scammell transporter trucks and carts with horses between the shafts. Some of the horses were snoozing. Others had their heads down, pushing deep into their nosebags. Sylvia loved the warm, comforting smell of the horses and always spent any spare minutes she had petting them. There were also cats in the yard for keeping the rats down, and that made her feel at home too.
Bill, the checker, had his lists under his arm. ‘This is an LMS lot,’ he said. ‘A load of flour – to get across to Lawley Street.’
Madge made a face. ‘That’ll take some shifting. I ’ope you’ve ’ad yer oats, Sylvia.’ She eyed the younger woman more carefully. ‘What’s up with you?’
‘Nothing,’ Sylvia wiped her eyes and attempted a cheerful grin. She didn’t want Madge thinking she was a feeble milksop.
‘ ’As ’e been on at yer again? Look,’ Madge said confidentially. She came up close, as Bill stood tactfully aside, and Sylvia caught her ripe smell of sweat and coal dust. Her cheeks had a pink, scrubbed look.
‘Yer don’t want to take any notice of ’im.’ She jerked her head in Froggy’s direction. ‘I’d like to see that little runt doing our job. Tell yer what . . .’ She leaned her florid face close to Sylvia’s, sending a gust of breath laced with raw onion into Sylvia’s nostrils. ‘Any trouble from ’im and yer can tell ’im, I’ll come and put ’is whatsit through the mangle. That’ll shut ’im up! Not that it gets an outing very often any’ow, I don’t s’pose!’ With a wink she moved away, her massive body shaking with laughter. ‘Come on, you lucky lot – best get started.’
Sylvia followed, blushing to the roots of her hair as giggles rose inside her. She suddenly felt much better.
‘Right.’ Madge pushed her sleeves further up. Her pink, beefy arms were covered in dark-brown hairs. ‘Let me at it.’
As Bill opened up the side of the wagon, or ‘mink’ (Sylvia was beginning to learn that the Great Western rolling stock was called by a whole menagerie of nicknames), she felt nervous again. Being so new, and with Froggy and a few of the other older men so hostile, all convinced that she wouldn’t measure up, she always felt she had something to prove. The wagon was stacked full of enormous sacks of flour. Would she really be able to manage lifting them out? No one doubted it with Madge, who looked as if she could happily pick the men up with one hand and hang them on a hook to dry. But Sylvia was much slimmer and nothing like as strong.
The cartage deck was divided into twelve loading areas. Bill Jones was the checker for one of them. He called one of the drays over to line up ready. Sylvia, on her way to unload the flour, reached over and stroked the horse’s warm nose. As she and Madge climbed into the wagon with the flour sacks she was seized by a fit of sneezing.
‘Bless you!’ Madge boomed.
‘Ta.’ Sylvia stood at the entrance to the full wagon, blowing her nose and wondering how on earth they were ever going to lift the sacks. ‘I’m ready,’ she said, trying to feel optimistic.
She seized the corners of the first big sack. It was a dead weight.
‘You want to lever it round,’ Madge instructed, heaving one of the sacks onto the barrow without much apparent effort. She had her knees bent, bracing herself. ‘Come ’ere – I’ll show yer.’
There was a piece of wood that they could use for pushing under the sacks and levering them up. Sylvia watched what Madge did and copied her. She found she soon got the hang of lifting and swinging the sacks across. They worked as fast as they could, barrowing the sacks across and loading the dray carefully, so that none of its load could topple off.
‘I wonder where this lot’s off to,’ Sylvia said, arching her back to ease it for a moment, then sneezing again. Her face felt thick with dust. She pushed dark coils of her hair out of her eyes. ‘I keep thinking about all the women who’ll make bread somewhere with it.’
‘Up north – Derby or somewhere; got to be, if it’s LMS, ain’t it?’ Madge said, wiping floury sweat from her face. ‘Poor cows,’ she added, with unexpected tenderness.
Birmingham was served by both the Great Western and the London, Midland and Scottish lines. Some of the loads came into the city on the Great Western, but had to be transhipped to go forward on an LMS line. So the cargo had to be carted across town to another goods yard. During one tea break Bill had tried to explain to Sylvia the complications of checking off loads, and all the invoices required to make sure not only that every load got where it was supposed to, but also that the right people got paid for every stage of the journey. When he was halfway through Sylvia stopped him, laughing.
‘I think my head’s going to burst if you tell me any more. I never was very good with figures.’
Bill laughed too, kindly. ‘Never mind. It is hellishly involved, and it’s not your job. Let the ones who do know get on with it! You’re doing a good job where you are.’
This was a big boost of confidence for Sylvia, and she hoped Bill was not just being kind. And now, at night, when she heard the trains passing on the track beyond the garden and thought how she was part of it – ‘a tiny link in the chain’, as Audrey had written in her letter home – she thought of it all differently, with a new appreciation.
Eight
‘So, Wizz, how’s life on God’s Wonderful Railway?’
‘It is wonderful,’ Sylvia said, snuggling drowsily against Ian’s shoulder. She decided to ignore the edge of mockery in his teasing. ‘Mostly, anyway. Even though I’m more tired than I’ve ever been in my life before.’
They were in the old armchair by the kitchen range, the cosiest place in the house now that the range was lit. Sylvia was on Ian’s lap, his arms around her. Mom had gone next door to visit poor Mrs Gould. Dad and Jack were in the back room listening to the wireless, which stood on the sideboard by the table, with its accumulator. Every so often there was a burst of laughter from them, over the programme they were listening to. Cuddled up here with Ian, in the dim kitchen light, Sylvia felt so safe and warm – as if they could forget the war, the bombs and all the terrible things that were happening, just for a while. This was what it would be like when they were married, she thought.
‘Really?’ Ian wanted to know. ‘Why’s it so “wonderful?”’
She’d hardly had time to see Ian all week. There had been night after night of raids. Twice they had spent all night in the shelter.
‘Anyway,’ he went on. ‘I thought you were going to be at Snow Hill – not stuck away in the goods yard. You can’t really like it, surely?’ His refusal to take her seriously was beginning to rile her again.
‘You seem to think a girl can’t be happy doing anything if she hasn’t got a frock on!’
‘Well . . . Yes, maybe I do!’ he laughed, rumpling her hair, which she had let loose. All day she had to keep it tied up tight in a bun low in her neck, with her cap on top.
‘And stop calling me Wizz!’ she said, shaking her head away from his hand. Her dark hair lunged like a wild animal with a life of its own. ‘Just because Mr Gould has called me that, ever since I
can remember, doesn’t mean I want you to. It makes me feel about six again. Now I’m doing a proper job, you can call me by a proper name, and so can everyone else.’
‘That job doesn’t sound very proper to me – not for a lady.’
‘Oh, don’t start off again!’ She thumped him playfully in the chest. ‘As if I haven’t had that all flaming day from Froggy, the miserable so-and-so.’
‘So tell me: you have a nasty foreman, your hands look as if you’ve worked for years as a washerwoman, you say your back hurts, your shoulders hurt, your head aches and you’re so tired you can hardly stand up – so what’s so very wonderful about it, hmm?’ He jigged his knees so that she wobbled about.
‘It’s just . . .’ How could she describe it? The smell of the smoke from the engines, the teeming railyard with the wagons shunting back and forth, the carriers’ yard leading out onto Pitsford Street, full of horses and carts and trucks being filled up or waiting to go out over the weighbridge. There were all the loads, the metal stuff for munitions, the food and goods of all kinds coming in from, and going out to, firms all over the city. The offices were busy with hundreds of people hunched over desks and comptometers, working out orders, writing letters and invoices. ‘It’s full of life and busy, and it’s for the war effort. And even though it’s ever such hard work, it’s important and exciting! You never know what’s coming next: flour one day, shovels the next – never a dull moment.’ She found herself chattering about all the firms whose goods passed through the yard, reeling off names: GKN, Guest, Keen & Nettlefolds, Woolworths, the GPO. ‘It’s so busy. And Froggy gets all in a state about everything – he was actually jumping up and down on the spot the other day!’ She laughed, thinking about it. She was learning to laugh and let Froggy’s agitation wash over her.