by Alan Hackney
Spindley’s factory (Telegraphic Address, Sprinklefome Arkpark Boltley) lay in the outer fringes of the vigorous Northern cotton town. It had been well and cheaply put up towards the end of the depression in the neglected district of Arkwright Park, but plans to have surrounded it with a small garden city (‘Integrating it with the community’ was a phrase bandied freely about at the time) had fallen through as business prospects revived, and the flat ground had been filled up to the edge of the moors with a fine confusion of sheet-glass works and semi-detached houses.
Stanley’s taxi from the station bumbled over cobbles towards the place, and having come between neat piles of oil drums and an avenue of the sort of ten-foot wooden reels of cable that are so prone to being left out in the weather, stopped before glass doors.
Face to face with industry at last, Stanley perked up and went in out of the drizzle to find his destiny.
“All the other Arts graduates came yesterday,” said a secretary as she showed Stanley to his starting point. “They’re all chemistry graduates today, but we’re fitting you in.”
The chemists had assembled in a glass cage of an office on the first floor of the building, a chubby group with the extraordinary air of juvenility peculiar to chemists. They were mostly gazing through the windows, which looked out on three sides of interminable low stacks of raw bar soap.
“Good morning. Doesn’t it smell clean?” said Stanley, and all the chemists said good morning too, and resumed their gazing.
Stanley had a look at a wall-model of soap production. The chemists presumably knew all about this, and were ignoring it. But like Mr Boyle’s Book of Colours to Pepys, it was so chemical that Stanley could understand but little of it, except that he marvelled at the label Fatty Acid at one juncture. It seemed too like a nickname to be genuine.
Shortly, they were interrupted by the arrival of the factory manager, cold-eyed in a baggy suit. With him came a collection of battered fellows in white coats and old trilby hats. Evidently a soap-making team, thought Stanley.
“These gentlemen are our top management, gentlemen,” said the factory manager, to Stanley’s incredulity. “Each of you will go round with three of them in turn and be shown the processes. After that there is lunch in the canteen before I interview you.”
*
“Starting with palm oil,” said Stanley’s first expositor. “Follow me.”
They walked in silence through lanes in the stacks of soap, and up iron stairways. On the next floor up Stanley’s nose twitched and he began to sneeze incessantly.
“Why am I sneezing?” he asked the man.
“Ditto, probably,” said the man. “Particles in the air from that end. That’s the bottom of the Ditto tower, where they’re shovelling it into those hoppers. Most people get used to it quickly.”
“That’s the stuff for—Aaah!—washing things whiter than anything else, isn’t it?” gasped Stanley.
“You’ve got the wrong idea,” said the man. “Leave that nonsense to the advertising boys in Liverpool. It’s a good product, and so’s Fome, but it’s for a different job.”
“Oh, I know it’s good,” said Stanley, “but I can’t persuade my great-aunts to use either of them. They said they tried and they got a rash.”
“They may be exceptional,” said the man. “Quite likely, but I can tell you my daughter-in-law’s baby had her nappies done in both with never a sign of a spot since birth. However, I’m taking you up here to see the palm oil.”
He opened a door and pointed out.
“There it is,” he said.
The palm oil was not, to Stanley, of enormous interest. It was the contents, apparently, of the million oil drums he had passed on the way in. From the door, however, was a fairly comprehensive view of Boltley.
“It’s not as smoky as you might think,” said Stanley.
“It’s Wakes Week,” said the man, “or you’d see the smoke all right. All the town’s shut down and off to Blackpool.”
“Oh, but you’re not having a Wakes Week. What a shame,” said Stanley. “I’d been meaning to ask about hours and holidays.”
“You can’t leave soap,” said the man, who proved to be the Soap Production Controller. “The kettles must go on, night and day. They’re the next stage, after additives. Follow me.”
*
The kettles proved to be great vats, and they climbed up more iron staircases to look in the tops of them. They were lit internally and when the porthole was opened Stanley could see a remarkable wrinkled surface below, giving an occasional bubbling puff.
“This lot’s about half done,” said the Soap Controller after a fractional glance. “See how the colour’s changing?”
“Yes, indeed,” said Stanley. “It’s going a sort of appalling grey. Do they have to stand and watch it all the time?”
He was depressed if this were indeed the prospect, but the Soap Controller had moved across to look at the next kettle and did not hear him. However, the only other human beings in sight were two chemists at a distant control panel, and one of the chemists candidates was being shown it by his guide.
They saw rough moulds and trimming, stamping and wrapping machinery.
The morale of the girls employed seemed up to par, several whistling in an odd way after they had passed. They spent a little time watching an electric-eye counter, which clicked up as fibreboard boxes filled with containers of Sprinkle passed by on a chute.
“That’s something like Scrum, isn’t it?” said Stanley, to the pain of the Soap Controller. He also tested the electric eye by waving a hand back and forth past it, so that the counter had to be reset.
*
Stanley had just recovered from his sneezing when the Soap Controller swapped him for one of the chemists and handed him over to the factory manager.
“I’ll show you the Ditto process, Mr Windrush,” said the manager bleakly.
They began climbing steps again and came out suddenly through a door on to a narrow railed ledge. Stanley, unprepared, reeled slightly at the view below, and gripped the rail firmly. They were nearly at the top of the Ditto tower.
“Through there,” said the manager, indicating a plate-glass porthole, “are the nozzles spraying the Ditto solution, and a blast of hot air is coming up the tower. That dries the particles and they fall below as powder. Now, which way will the nozzles be arranged?”
If I’m going into detergent production, thought Stanley, I’ll have to be able to answer complicated mechanical questions like that. They wouldn’t point straight down, of course, or he wouldn’t bother asking me. He considered for some time.
“They’ll squirt it in from round the edges, I imagine,” he said.
“Why shouldn’t they point straight down?” asked the manager. “That’s the obvious way. Look.”
He yanked the porthole open and there was no doubt about it. They did all point straight down. A gust of hot Ditto-filled air came out briefly and attacked Stanley.
The manager said nothing, but shut the porthole and set off down the steps.
Stanley took the opportunity of a few quick breaths in the open before going in and down to the bottom of the tower, but it was no use. Once in the Ditto-shovelling room his sneezes came on again. The manager appeared to cut short his explanatory remarks about the Ditto process and led the way to a quiet corner of the bar-soap cutting room.
“Tell me about yourself,” he asked, not without some curiosity.
Stanley blew the Ditto out of his nose, took a deep breath and began.
“Mr Windrush,” said the manager after a while, “you must realize why we are interested in you. It’s not to make better soap—that’s a job for the chemists. Your concern in production would be to make soap better. Speeding up processes, time and motion study, efficiency generally, cutting out waste time. Now just tell me quickly why you think you would succeed at that?”
“That’s extraordinarily difficult,” said Stanley. “I mean, you seem to make it terribly efficientl
y as it is, don’t you?” The Appointment Board man’s words rang in his ears. “I can offer you intelligence, a trained mind, and enormous enthusiasm for the job,” he went on. “With a person like myself with a fresh mind you might well have the whole factory organized an entirely different way.”
“We must decide whether to take the chance, Mr Windrush,” said the manager. He looked at his watch. “Would you make your way to the canteen for lunch? We shall be having visitors from the Coloured Conference later on and we must keep to schedule.”
*
Spindley’s canteen was patronized, following American practice, by management and workers alike, master and man breaking bread together in a keen atmosphere of democracy and Ditto particles. The food had a robust mass-production flavour and the tables formica tops. All the chemist candidates were chattering together at one table, but Stanley ate apart in a depressed condition.
Three workers joined his table and with a great flourishing of sauce and tomato ketchup bottles started to eat.
“New, lad?” asked one of them in a friendly tone.
“Oh, I’m just here having a look round,” said Stanley.
“Tom’ll put you right, lad,” said one of the others over his Daily Mirror. “Always ask the Union man when in doubt, eh Tom?”
“Oh, you’re the Union man?” said Stanley. “That’s very interesting. But actually I was thinking about joining the management as a trainee.”
“Fair enough,” said the man Tom. “I’ve nothing to hide. I maintain there’s the best labour relations in this factory of any in the town. I suppose you went to college?”
“Yes, Apocalypse College, Oxford,” said Stanley. “Do you know it?”
“Can’t say I do, except by repute,” said the union man. “But perhaps you can tell me: how is it that every worker given a state university education wants to become a recruit to the boss class? It’s the same with all the young chaps here from Boltley Grammar.”
“I wasn’t clever enough to get a scholarship to Oxford, though,” said Stanley. “You see, my father paid. Apocalypse was his old college too, so I got in.”
“Aye, well perhaps doing that might’ve kept someone else out,” said the man with the Daily Mirror in his blunt Boltley way. “Not that I’m blaming you, it’s the society we live in. I’d like to see a real social democracy with everyone no matter what ’is colour, class or creed standing just the same chance of a job.”
“Hear, hear, Brother Sidebotham,” said the union man. “I concur.”
“Oh, you’re absolutely right,” said Stanley, “but there’s a faint chance I might not get through. Anyway, excuse me, I’ve got to get back; they’re behind schedule. They have to get finished with us before these people from the Coloured Conference start to come round.”
“Excuse me,” said the third man, joining in the conversation for the first time, “I hope you don’t mind me asking. Are them your own teeth?”
“Oh yes,” said Stanley, in some embarrassment.
“I thought they were somehow,” said the third man, sticking relentlessly to it. “You keep them nice and white and it just crossed me mind they might be dentures.”
“Well, goodbye,” said Stanley, uncertainly, and took his tray back.
“Tom,” said Mr Sidebotham, “I wonder what these darkies are coming round for? I reckon we could do without any coloured chaps being introduced here as workers while any Boltley chap’s out of a job.”
The third man nodded.
“We ’ad enough of that on the trams,” he said.
Back in Eaton Square the next morning, with all expenses paid, Stanley was interested to see that an incident had occurred late the previous afternoon at a Boltley soap factory, in which several members of a delegation from the Coloured Conference had been inundated in an apparently accidental release of a large quantity of detergent foam.
There was, he saw, no mention of Ditto having washed them whiter.
CHAPTER 7
WHEN THE post arrived Stanley opened the letter from Spindley’s first. It came from their head office and said:
On the results of recent interviews of candidates for our Management Training Scheme it has been decided to appoint Mr R. E. G. Carp and Mr B. T. H. Philpott to posts under the Scheme.
We regret that your name does not appear among those of the successful candidates, but we should like to take this opportunity of thanking you for giving us the chance of meeting you, and we would wish you more success elsewhere.
It seemed quite likely to Stanley that it was two of the odd chemists of the previous day who bore these strange names, and he spent a little time in meditation, wondering how best to meet the challenge of industry, before opening the other letter.
This was from his father, and contained strong advice:
My dear Stanley,
I was at some loss to see why you should have left the Foreign Office in favour of the industrial world, but while such a decision must be one for you yourself to make, I must beg you to resist any offers ofemployment which may be made to you by Spindley’s.
Mr Fairwind, a valued part-time member of our community here at Sunnyglades, who runs the local sewage-disposal plant, recently gave us a graphic account of the endless battle they have to wage to combat foam resulting from the widespread use of household detergents. The whole community here has voted to refrain from their use in sympathy.
It would indeed be embarrassing to have a close relative actively associated with the production of this offensive commodity. Please let me know where you stand.
I might add that no one here feels strongly on the matter of Bumper Bars, your alternative choice.
Give my best wishes to your aunts.
Your affectionate,
Father
“I do sympathize with your father,” said Great-Aunt Dolly. “But they don’t want you, it seems, and Boltley did sound a little unpleasant.”
“If you ask my opinion,” said Great-Aunt Mildred forthrightly, “I think you’d present a better proposition for industry if you were fitter. Quite frankly, what about the judo class this evening at six?”
“I’m so sorry, Aunt,” said Stanley. “I can’t say for certain if I’ll be back from Bumper Bars in time. They’re seeing me at half past two. And I’m pushing Aunt Dolly round the park after tea. We both get exercise that way, and I’ll take some of the dogs along too, if you like.”
Bumper Bars were sited in one of the clumps of modern factories that line London’s western arteries. It is possible to reach the place from Piccadilly Circus in one move if you sit long enough in an Underground train, and this Stanley did. The train finally came out into the sunlight and scurried from one cluster of new suburban houses to the next. The Bumper environment—spoilt countryside—was as hideous in its own way as smoky Boltley had been. One of the factories was shaped like a tube of toothpaste.
Stanley was tiring of the clean box houses and the neat hoardings by the time he reached his factory, a low wide building, with low hedges, over-well kept grass, and the single word “Bumper” in chromium over the frosted glass entrance doors.
Once inside he was faced, surprisingly, by a huge bank of flowers in a spidery white-wire stand. Beyond, in what looked like a vast but carpeted aircraft hangar, row upon row of folk sat quietly busy at desks. The daylight lighting, which ruined the natural colours of the flowers, glared evenly down on all. Stanley looked in vain for any signs of the Bumper Bars themselves, but there was not a trace of them in sight.
Stanley told the receptionist his business and was led through the hangar to the office of Mr Hooper.
Mr Hooper wore an American tie and an expression of wistfulness.
“Good morning, Mr Windrush. Take a seat. Tell me,” he said, “what’s the weather like outside?”
“Oh, moderately bright,” said Stanley. “I didn’t notice particularly. Is it important for the process?”
Mr Hooper seemed to sigh.
“It certainly is, but
then we don’t take any chances. The air-conditioning keeps it always dry and at sixty-seven. No,” he went on, “I always ask because I never know. It’s usually dark when I get here in the mornings and dark when I go, and sometimes my wife says to me, ‘What about that thunderstorm?’ or, ‘We had a light fall of snow.’ You can never tell here, you see.”
There was a slight pause.
“I see Bumper Bars are bigger than ever before,” Stanley said tentatively. “At least, it said so in an advertisement I saw.”
“Yes, that’s quite true,” said Mr Hooper. “Actually, that’s because of the design of the new machinery. Num-nums and Chokers are still in batch production, but the Bumper Bars themselves are in continuous-flow production. In fact they’re made from start to finish in the one machine. It’s a hundred and eighty yards long. The ingredients go in at various points and get stamped out and the bars come out wrapped and boxed straight to the vans. But you should see the American factory.” His eyes filmed over. “They have fourteen machines like that.” He sat back, spent.
“Tell me, Mr Windrush,” he asked, “why are you so keen to get into all this? Do you know what you’re in for?”
“Well, I did try some Bumper Bars,” said Stanley, “and that hasn’t put me off. I can offer you a trained and open mind, the willingness to learn and genuine enthusiasm for the job.”
Mr Hooper’s face remained unimpressed.
“Yes, yes. But I want to know why you want to tuck yourself away in a factory. Has it ever struck you how odd it is? Isn’t it extraordinary, when you come to think of it, that any human being should be doing any job at all, day in, day out, unless he can’t think of anything else? Is there nothing else that appeals to you?”
“Oh,” said Stanley, “look here, you’re putting me off. Of course I don’t really want to be cooped up with Bumper Bars all my life. Do you think I could see this machine a hundred and eighty yards long? I saw all round Spindley’s the other day.”