Lily was attaching collars to soldiers’ tunics, a tiresome business which meant pushing several thicknesses of serge through her sewing machine and doing some of the sewing by hand. Opposite her, twenty-nine-year-old Sarah Bright, the bent-backed mother of four children, had left her bench for the privy several times since eight. The wheel of her machine had been stopping and starting all morning as she tried to continue her work, and finally, at eleven o’clock, it ceased altogether as Sarah stopped, stared blindly into space and collapsed across the machine in a faint. She was sent home, with no pay. To qualify for half a day’s pay a woman had to work until dinner-time, at one.
That day, during their dinner break, the women gathered outside the factory on the shabby grass, stretched out or leaning against the factory walls. Some girls collected coppers, and went for mugs of tea, or soup, or packets of chips or pies, which they gave round. Lily sat next to her friend, Becky Rosenthal, who was fanning herself with a newspaper. ‘Poor old Sarah – easier to go on the street than work here,’ Lily remarked.
‘Oh, don’t say that, Lily,’ protested Becky, in her strongly accented English. The family had arrived from Russia only a few years before, a mother, father and five children, speaking only Yiddish.
‘I do say it,’ said Lily.
‘Ah – you aren’t really thinking about what that life is like,’ Becky said. ‘The shame of it – and you die young.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Lily. ‘And working here you live to a nice old age, eh? Well, who’d want to? Better off dead, that’s what I think.’
‘Save your money, marry a good man, maybe open a little shop,’ Becky told her.
‘You Yids are all the same – save, save, open a little shop,’ Lily told her.
Becky shrugged her thin shoulders and glanced backwards over her shoulder at the factory. ‘You want to stay here all your life?’ she asked.
Lily sighed.
‘She’s on about her shop again, ain’t she?’ said the woman leaning against the wall on Lily’s other side.
‘Everybody’s got to have a dream,’ Lily remarked wisely.
‘Not when you get to my age,’ her neighbour responded bitterly. She’d been deserted by her husband and was bringing up two children in an attic on what she earned at Warren’s. An old woman looked after the children during the day. Everything depended on her own health and strength, and the collapse of Sarah Bright had upset her.
‘Emigration, that’s the answer,’ Lily said definitely. ‘New country, more opportunities.’
‘All right if you can get the money to go,’ the woman said. ‘Best to be content with the little you’ve got.’
That was the trouble with the East End, Lily thought. Practically no one ever had the money even to begin to make a dream come true. The happy ones were those who didn’t dream.
Mrs Frayne came to the door of the factory. ‘Back to work,’ she called out. ‘Come on, back to work.’
As Lily sat down at her machine, she saw Sarah Bright already back in position, her pale-brown hair scraped back and held in a clump at the back with a rubber band. Her face was yellow. Lily saw the sick woman’s hand tremble as she picked up a khaki tunic and began to machine a sleeve into it. She must have come back at dinner-time, hoping to work through the afternoon and earn at least half a day’s pay. Lily hoped it was nothing catching. Illnesses travelled from woman to woman like wildfire in the enclosed conditions of the factory. Still, Mrs Frayne had let her come back, thought Lily, so probably she was all right, expecting another baby, no doubt. You lost a tooth with every child, Lily knew, and Sarah’s mouth bore witness to this fact. One at the front and several at the back had rotted and been extracted. At her present rate, a child a year, by the time she was forty she’d have hardly any teeth left.
Lily began to work, but as the afternoon wore on, it became plainer and plainer that Sarah was still unwell. One of the women on Lily’s side of the bench leaned forward, ignoring the forewoman, and hissed, ‘Sarah, for God’s sake go home. It’s not worth it.’
But Sarah only looked at her desperately and bent to her work again. The room grew hotter. ‘Poor cow, she’s swaying,’ muttered Lily’s neighbour.
‘Whyn’t she go home then?’ muttered Lily.
‘Got to pay the rent, like all of us,’ the woman told her, angry at Lily’s indifference.
Meanwhile Robert and Harriet Warren, Frannie, Cora and Elizabeth had been to the Natural History Museum, picnicked in Hyde Park and gone to the Zoo, where it began to rain. Robert, standing under a tree with his wife and the three girls, looking at some monkeys in a cage, drier than he was, said, ‘Well. It seems our outing is over. I should have had to have left in a moment anyway. Now – who would like to come with Father and see, for the first time, one of the factories where he works so hard to keep you in shoes, stockings and ribbons? I must make a brief visit – no days off for me.’
‘What a good idea,’ said Harriet, spotting, as no doubt he had, that either he or she and the girls would otherwise, in such heavy rain, have to take a cab. It would be more economical if the party stayed together, took their hired carriage to the East End, and then all returned to Linden Grove in it. Through both the Warrens’ heads ran the reflection that they had hired their carriage for the day, so they might as well get full use from it.
So they went to Cork Street, on the way passing down the Strand, exclaiming at the sight of St Paul’s, then, with some doubt appearing on the girls’ faces, entering the poverty of the East End. From the carriage windows they saw poorly dressed people, children without shoes, entrances to squalid courts where lines of laundry were strung in the rain.
Cora said, ‘Is the factory here? It’s not a very nice place.’
Her father said, ‘Daddies have to go to areas like this to earn money, so that their little angel faces don’t have to live here themselves.’
Elizabeth asked, ‘Why are the people here so poor?’
‘Because they’ve got no money, of course,’ Frannie said, and giggled.
‘But why not?’ Elizabeth asked again.
‘By and large,’ Robert told her, ‘they’re poor because they lack the energy and intelligence to do something for themselves. If they worked and saved as we do, in most cases they could improve their situations. Some do, of course, but they do not remain here any longer than they need to.’
‘I’m afraid drink often has something to do with it,’ Harriet said. ‘As you see, there’s a public house on every corner.’
As the horse turned into Commercial Road, Cora sensed that they had reached their destination, and appealed, ‘Do we have to stay here, Dadda? Can’t we go away now?’
‘Perhaps it would be better if you got out, Robert, and we turned straight round and went home,’ Harriet suggested.
‘Perhaps not,’ Robert told her. ‘After all, we’re here now. I see no reason why you all should not have the salutary experience of seeing where your bread and butter comes from. Nor do I see why I should have to return on an underground train or an omnibus, squashed up among the hoi polloi, while you clop home in comfort. My business will only take half an hour.’
‘I shall sit here,’ Harriet said firmly. She rose a little from her seat, arranged her skirts and sat down again, leaning against the back of the carriage.
‘You may do as you please,’ her husband told her. By now his new clerk, a tall, bespectacled young man of twenty, was on the pavement.
‘Mr Osgood has already arrived,’ he told Robert. ‘He’s in the office.’
‘Good,’ said Robert. ‘Will you send Miss Bennett? The young ladies would like to see the factory.’
Cora whispered to Frannie, ‘Where is this factory, anyway? This is just a house.’
Frannie whispered back, ‘I think it’s at the back, down that alley.’
‘Ugh,’ said Cora, looking at the high walls of the alleyway leading into the rear of the Cork Street house.
Robert left the carriage and went inside the
office. But his secretary, Miss Bennett, had hurried out and was waiting. Harriet said, ‘Girls, I do not advise you to go to see the factory. Sit here with me, and as soon as Father has finished his business, we will go home.’
‘He said we had to,’ Cora complained.
‘Not in so many words,’ Harriet said. ‘I say, do not.’
A low conversation took place inside the carriage.
‘I’m going,’ said Cora.
‘I’m not,’ said Frannie.
‘You’re mean,’ said Cora.
‘Don’t speak to your sister in that way,’ rebuked her mother.
‘Well, I’m going if Elizabeth goes. Dadda said we had to. Frannie’ll get into trouble. So be it,’ Cora said. ‘Elizabeth, you’ll come, won’t you?’
‘I suppose so,’ Elizabeth said, and she and Cora got out of the carriage.
Miss Bennett led them through the alleyway to the untended ground at the back of the houses. Ahead, across the length of the scrubby garden, lay the long wooden factory building.
‘Forty women work there,’ Miss Bennett said in a low voice. She was timid in front of her employer’s children. There are forty-two sewing machines.’
‘What are they making?’ asked Elizabeth.
‘There is a contract with the War Office for soldiers’ uniforms.’
‘So they’re all Sister Susies, sewing shirts for soldiers,’ said Cora.
‘Shirts – and other things,’ Miss Bennett said. They approached the building. Through the windows the women could be seen crouched over their sewing machines.
‘It seems to smell,’ Cora objected. Miss Bennett did not know how to respond. ‘It smells poor,’ Cora added, identifying the smell. ‘Ugh – that’s a privy, isn’t it?’ she said, pointing to the outhouse at the side of the building.
Miss Bennett, with a sinking heart, led her employer’s daughter and niece to the factory door. She suspected all might not go well here.
Inside the factory, Sarah Bright’s workmate was reaching across Sarah, who was slumped back in her chair, half unconscious of what was going on, and turning the handle of her machine, pushing some of the material through, then drawing back to go on with her own work. If Sarah could not pull round, the other woman would be forced to do this, undetected, for two hours, or Sarah would not be able to collect her afternoon’s pay. To Lily, opposite, the chances of success looked slim.
Just then Sarah fell off her chair. The forewoman was up in a moment. She stood over the prone woman, shouting, ‘Sarah Bright – go home. You should never have come back in the first place.’
‘She’s ill,’ called out one woman.
‘Is that all you’ve got to say? I hope you’ll be giving her her pay before she goes,’ Lily added.
There were other protesting voices. ‘Give her a drink of water, can’t you? At least pick her up off the floor before you start lecturing.’
The forewoman responded by pulling the half-fainting Sarah to her feet. ‘Someone will have to take her home.’
‘What about her pay?’ the women were calling out. All the machines had stopped. Women had left the benches to cluster round the sick woman. The forewoman became nervous. She said, ‘She can’t have any pay. She hasn’t finished the afternoon.’
From her position opposite, Lily called, ‘She’s done half a day’s work in all. She should get the money.’
There was a chorus of voices: ‘That’s right.’
‘She’s done five hours.’
‘She should get her half a day.’
‘Give her her pay.’
‘Have a bloody heart,’ shouted Lily to Mrs Frayne. ‘Talk to Warren. You can fix it.’
‘I’m sorry, half a day’s half a day, not an hour here and an hour there. In any case, she hasn’t been fit to work. And you can all get back. I’m warning you, unless you all sit down and continue your work, you won’t be paid either.’
‘You bitch!’ shouted a woman from the end of the room.
‘Those are Mr Warren’s rules,’ the forewoman said, some fear in her voice.
‘Then fetch Warren’s clerk – fetch Warren himself,’ Lily shouted. ‘The old skinflint, let him answer.’
‘That’s right – fetch Warren,’ cried another woman. And they all, but for the most intimidated, stood up and, banging on their workbenches, shouted, ‘Fetch Warren! Fetch Warren!’
It had been a hot day. They had been sitting for hours. They were irritated and tired. Lily jumped on to the bench, pulled up her skirt, and began to skip to and fro, singing, ‘Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves, Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.’
It was into this scene, with women clustering round the fainting Sarah, the forewoman standing on her dais shouting for order, women banging their benches and shouting, and Lily dancing and singing on the workbench, that the unfortunate Miss Bennett led Cora and Elizabeth.
‘Oh my goodness,’ said Miss Bennett, pausing in the doorway. ‘Whatever’s going on?’
Lily, with her instinct for the centre of the stage, concluded her song, ‘Never, never, never shall be slaves,’ and cried, ‘This is a demand. We want Warren. We want Sarah’s half-day’s pay. We want tea breaks and another privy. Conditions here are rotten. We want Warren. We want Warren.’
The forewoman cried, ‘Lily Strugnell. Come down off that bench.’
Miss Bennett stood, not knowing what to do. Cora was open-mouthed. She had never seen so many poor women, never seen women losing their tempers so openly, never seen a place like this one. Elizabeth wondered what was going on. Did this happen often? Why had the thin girl in the faded dress been standing on the bench singing ‘Rule Britannia’? What was she haranguing the others about? Why were five women coming towards them now, carrying another who seemed to be unconscious?
Now, suddenly, there were running feet behind them, and her Uncle Robert, followed by his clerk, appeared in the doorway, sweeping Miss Bennett and the girls inside in their haste.
‘What is this noise? What in God’s name is going on here?’ shouted Robert Warren. The women fell silent, all but Lily. Trembling now, she spoke up: ‘Sarah Bright’s sick and Mrs Frayne won’t give her her half-day’s pay.’
‘Because she hasn’t worked half a day, Mr Warren,’ Mrs Frayne said.
‘She worked three hours this morning and two this afternoon,’ insisted Lily. ‘So she should get paid. She needs the money. She’s got four children.’
‘Her children are her own affair,’ Mrs Frayne said. ‘Not Mr Warren’s.’
‘It’s not fair,’ Lily cut in. She was beginning to feel embarrassed as she stood on the workbench in her cracked boots, particularly as in front of her were two girls of roughly her own age, each in a white dress with ribbons in their smooth hair. They looked so clean and composed.
Robert Warren was not going to allow his forewoman and a worker to dispute a matter concerning him in his presence.
‘It’s entirely fair,’ he said. ‘If the woman hasn’t worked the right hours at the right time, she is not paid, and that is that.’ To Lily he said, ‘Get off that bench at once. And I want the rest of you women to get back to work now, before another moment has passed, or you’ll all find yourselves short at the end of the day.’
Lily lost her head. She knew she was going to be sacked anyway. She addressed the other women: ‘Nine pence! Nine measly pence is what all this is about! This man here works you ten hours a day in a building no better than a dog kennel, and sells your work for more than you’ll see in a lifetime, and now he can’t even be generous enough to give a few coppers to a sick woman who’s worked here for three long years, a woman with a family to feed. That’s your boss. That’s the man you’re working for. That’s the man who’s grinding you down. You should bloody well strike, strike now, walk out, leave him with his soldiers’ uniforms, his leaking roof and his filthy privy.’ Turning to Robert Warren she said, ‘You can stick your head in it.’
‘Get off that bench!’ shouted Robe
rt Warren. ‘You’re sacked, without pay. If you ever come near this place again, I’ll call the police. You’ll live to regret this.’
Lily got down. She walked past Robert Warren. Doing so, she made a rude gesture and told him, ‘Regret it? Never. Best clay’s work I ever done.’ Her back straightened. She said into his face, ‘You know where you can put your job. I’m going to be on the halls. I’m going to be an artiste.’
Then she passed through the door. Robert Warren burst into a loud, artificial laugh. ‘Artiste! Artiste, indeed! It’s plain to me what you’re going to become. Whatever happens, don’t you ever dare to come crawling back here looking for work.’
Chapter Seven
Lily took little notice of Robert Warren’s contempt and incredulity about her plan to become a music-hall artiste. Admittedly, this ambition was shared by every Tom, Dick and Harry, or Sarah, Annie and Jane. For this was the high point of the British music halls. Even in the year of Lily’s birth there were thirty-six in London alone. Dublin boasted nine, Liverpool eight, Birmingham six. Almost three hundred now existed all over the country. Over the previous ten years, big entrepreneurs had taken over groups of halls, developing their own circuits. These halls were divided into ‘good’ and ‘bad’, the good being palaces of gilt and pillars, like latter-day churches for audiences, whose thirst for songs, comedy, short-skirted ballet girls, bird imitators, players on the musical saw, magicians, ventriloquists and performing animals was unquenchable. Lily might not have known all this. What she did know was that, whatever Robert Warren said or thought, there was plenty of opportunity for talent, even for a girl of thirteen from a poor family, and she had that talent.
When she returned from work at four in the afternoon, looking cocky and shameless, Queenie instantly understood what had happened. Lily had got herself sacked. Her hands on her hips, she faced her daughter furiously, shouting.
Lily had expected this, had not looked forward to it, but had no choice but to endure it. Queenie was a powerful speaker. Charlie said she must have got it from her Irish father, who had been dead now for twenty-five years. The Irish, as everyone knew, had the gift of the gab. However, Queenie’s diatribes owed nothing to the Blarney Stone; they were terrifying, bitter, depressing and hopeless. They went over and over the sadnesses and injustices of Queenie’s life, past and present, and predicted an awful future. Her own mother had been left a young widow with two daughters, and had kept them from starvation by working twelve-hour days in a shoe factory. This had put Queenie in charge of the house and her younger sister at ten years old. Her life had been hard, according to her speeches, and was still hard, her family ungrateful and selfish. She herself had never known any peace and never would. Her back ached continually, she was ill, she would not last long. Charlie was useless in many ways, her children a burden to her. Once started, Queenie seemed driven to go on and on, ranting and raving, unable to stop speaking. Interruptions only fuelled her bitterness and desperation.
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