The Mill Girls of Albion Lane

by Jenny Holmes

  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 bobb
ed 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.

  ‘I’ll speak to you again at dinner time,’ the manageress told Lily as she walked away, pitter-patter, in her dainty shoes.

  Lily swallowed hard and once more picked up a smile from her round-faced, fair-haired neighbour.

  ‘Never mind, her bark is worse than her bite,’ Vera whispered as she ran her fingers over the surface of her material, deftly marking a flaw then hooking her burling iron into the knot to loosen it.

  ‘I’ll bear that in mind, thanks,’ Lily whispered back. Nevertheless, she began work with trembling fingers.

  Soon, though, she grew absorbed in her task, appreciating the quietness of the room compared with the noise of the weaving shed and hardly noticing the ticking of the large clock on the wall next to Miss Valentine’s small office or the to-ing and froing of Jennie, the matronly looking taker-in whose job it was to lift newly delivered pieces on to her perch, which was a roller fixed to steel rods. The taker-in would pre-check a length of cloth for major flaws and mark them before carrying it to the burlers and menders for further, more detailed checking.

  ‘Take care not to miss the least little thing,’ Jennie warned Lily when she brought a fresh bolt to her station. She was a small, round, confident woman with wrinkled, rosy cheeks and an old-fashioned style. ‘Miss Valentine has eyes in the back of her head.’

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ Lily promised, already more at ease. A glance at the clock told her it was just before ten and she paused to wonder how Evie was getting along in the weaving shed below.

  ‘You know what to do with the cloth when you’re finished with it?’ Jennie enquired. ‘You have to call me back and I take it away to the flipping machine to be folded – that’s the routine.’

  ‘Ah, but not yet,’ Vera reminded them. ‘Not before Miss Valentine has come back to teach Lily mending.’

  ‘Quite right,’ Jennie confirmed. Then she leaned in towards Lily for a further chat. ‘Call me a nosy parker and tell me to mind my own business, but you wouldn’t be a Briggs from Albion Lane, by any chance?’

  ‘Yes.’ Lily wasn’t sure if talking was permitted in the mending room but it seemed rude to ignore Jennie so she continued. ‘Rhoda Briggs is my mother. Do you know her?’

  ‘Know her? I should say so. I only went to school in Overcliffe with her, though I haven’t seen her in years and her name was Preston back then. We both married and fell out of touch. How is she these days?’

  Lily noticed Vera shake her head in warning and looked up in time to see Miss Valentine leave her office. She heard the click of the manageress’s heels on the wooden floor and wondered at Jennie, who didn’t seem in the least bit afraid of the ticking-off she was about to receive.

  ‘Tell Rhoda I said hello,’ she told Lily, casually moving off.

  ‘We don’t pay you to gossip, Jennie Shaw.’ Miss Valentine blocked her way and Jennie had to stop short. ‘I’d thank you if you left our new girl to get on with her work.’

  The stout woman met the beady gaze of the manageress. Lily noticed they were of a similar age but total opposites in every other respect. Where Jennie was easy and relaxed, Miss Valentine was prim and self-contained. Jennie was large and solid, Miss Valentine a little wisp of a thing. In other words, they were chalk and cheese, but if Lily had to bet on who was the stronger personality she would back the manageress every time.

  ‘I was only being friendly and making Lily feel at home,’ Jennie protested mildly.

  Miss Valentine’s eyes narrowed behind her round glasses as she sought a way to put down this minor insurrection. ‘Please confine your friendliness to your dinner break,’ she reminded Jennie. ‘Vera and Ethel both have finished pieces waiting to be taken away for flipping so I’d be grateful if you would carry out your duties. Lily, please move aside while I show you our mending method.’

  The reprimand was enough to send Jennie scuttling off to the far side of the room and to make Lily feel very hot under the collar. Still, she paid full attention to Miss Valentine’s new instructions.

  ‘Let’s start with these two broken ends,’ she began. ‘You see how I pick up two stitches with a number-five needle, go over the next two then pick up two more?’

  Lily concentrated and nodded. ‘Yes, Miss Valentine.’

  ‘And so on, for twenty-six stitches. Then thread your needle with the broken end and pull it through. You see – now the end is invisible and you have mended approximately one inch of material.’

  Lily admired the dextrous movements of the manageress’s small fingers and wondered if she would ever learn to be so clever with her needle.

  ‘A quick mender can mend three yards in one hour,’ Miss Valentine told her. ‘So you see, Lily, you have no time to stop and chat.’

  ‘Yes, Miss Valentine. I’m sorry, Miss Valentine. It won’t happen again.’

  The manageress nodded then stepped down from the stool. ‘Remember what I showed you and now try it for yourself while I stand by and watch.’

  Lily felt her mouth go dry. This was ten times worse than school, she thought, afraid that her fingers would fumble and Miss Valentine would declare her too clumsy to do the fine work required. Before she knew it, she would be back down in the weaving shed, red faced and with her tail between her legs, on the wrong end of Fred Lee’s nasty jibes.

  ‘Begin,’ Miss Valentine instructed.

  So Lily took a deep breath and picked up her needle. Keep calm, she told
herself, don’t let yourself down. Concentrate, Lily Briggs, and prove you’re as good as the next girl at Calvert’s Mill.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘So how was your first week?’ Harry asked Lily and Evie as they left work the following Saturday. He sat behind the wheel of his boss’s shiny black Bentley, parked outside the main door, his peaked cap tipped back and his broad smile inviting a detailed account from the weary girls. He smiled warmly at Lily.

  ‘Long.’ Evie sighed. The days had been packed with action. From the moment the knocker-up had rattled his lead-tipped pole against the bedroom window of 5 Albion Lane at six thirty each morning until the five o’clock buzzer had sounded at Calvert’s she’d been on her feet. The routine was unvaried – get up and dressed in the icy-cold attic bedroom, eat breakfast then trudge down the hill to join the jostling crowd on Ghyll Road, on then almost to the junction with Canal Road and then left under the mill’s arched entrance to clock on and run errands for her fellow workers all morning long. Mash the tea and shop for dinners, trying not to forget who took three spoonfuls of sugar and who wanted a pork pie and who had ordered tripe and onions, and Lord help Evie if she got it wrong. Her afternoons had been taken up learning from Maureen Godwin what it took to be a loom cleaner.

  ‘Very long,’ Lily echoed. There’d been so much to learn under Miss Valentine’s eagle eye, and not a day had gone by so far without her missing a flaw or a broken end, or being reprimanded for working too slowly by Jennie Shaw, standing by with a knowing smile and a fresh bolt of cloth for checking.

  It was only at dinner times, when the two sisters got together with Annie and Sybil in the canteen to relax and swap cheerful stories, that the situation had been made more bearable.

  ‘Listen to you two!’ Harry teased. ‘Anyone would think you had a hard life!’

  ‘Look who’s talking, Harry Bainbridge,’ Lily retorted. ‘Sitting on your backside all day long, driving around like Lord Muck!’

  ‘Sticks and stones,’ he replied merrily. ‘Oh, you haven’t seen Billy by any chance?’