by Anne Doughty
There were three speakers, one with a Lancashire accent from a Trade Union group she was quite familiar with, a second from Belfast whose articles she had read in The Worker and the third, a pale young man from the works at Lenaderg, whom she knew only by sight. They all said the same thing in different ways, put their case clearly and persuasively and drew murmurs of agreement and sometimes cheers from their audience.
Sarah could feel Tom fidgeting in distress at her side. Having worked all his life at Millbrook and been devoted to Hugh, she could imagine what he must feel at the hostile references to slave drivers and parasites, but she knew that if anything were to be done, she must not react to this familiar rhetoric. Only if she kept calm was there a remote possibility that they might listen to a different view.
She and Hugh had often discussed the threat of strike action, genuinely aimed at improving the lot of all workers, but failing through lack of funds. He had seen clearly enough what success might achieve if every textile factory in the north were to close, but the most likely outcome in the present state of the labour movement was the kind of disruption that would leave families penniless.
‘So, comrades, the case is clear …’
The original speaker, the one from Lancashire who’d said his name was Michael Donaghy, stood up again and began a vigorous summing up.
‘Unless we take action and bring the employers to their knees, you good people will be sweating your guts out to feed your families while others enjoy the fruits of your labour,’ he began, his arms embracing his silent audience. ‘Only by joint action can we achieve any progress. And I would speak particularly to you women,’ he went on, adopting a more confidential tone. ‘Women have not been active in the labour movement in this country and yet it was women who backed up the men that fought in the Land League to get a decent life for those who worked the land as tenants and labourers. Surely you are not going to let those women down, women that fought for their families, for a decent living, for a future for their children. Are you just going to pass by on the other side, or are you going to stand shoulder to shoulder with your menfolk and win this battle against those who would exploit and oppress us?’
Michael threw out his arms in another all-embracing gesture. There was a spatter of applause from the ranks of seated women and cheers from some groups of men who had chosen to stand in the side aisles and at the back of the large hall.
Before the applause had died down, Sarah left her seat, slipped quietly across the front of the platform and ran lightly up the steps to stand beside him.
‘How do you do, Michael,’ she said, holding out her hand. ‘I’m Sarah Sinton. I work at all four mills,’ she said in a normal voice, just loud enough to carry to the front rows. ‘I’d like to add a word or two, if I may,’ she said, smiling, as he took her hand.
The look of amazement on his face as he shook her hand was almost enough to encourage her, but not quite. She knew perfectly well she was taking a desperate risk, but as there was no one else to speak she would simply have to do her best.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ she began, before anyone could object. ‘I’ve listened very carefully to what our friends have had to say and most of what they’ve said I agree with. The rates of pay in the textile trade are far too low. I would also add they are grossly unfair to women. We are entirely in agreement about that,’ she added, glancing behind her at the three men, now seated and watching her carefully.
‘In many cases also, the working conditions in mills are both dangerous and damaging to health as two of our speakers have pointed out. I hope you would agree with me that this isn’t the case here,’ she went on, as she looked around the audience for the first time.
There was a murmur of assent, particularly from the women. The men sat or stood in silence. Some of them had begun to look a little uncomfortable.
‘What Michael and I might disagree about,’ she went on, raising her voice to reach the back of the hall, ‘is how best to put this situation right without causing unnecessary hardship. Sometimes it’s very hard to see a problem from a different side. I learnt that when I was still a schoolgirl and I had my first disagreement with the man who became my husband.’
She knew there was a slight catch in her voice when she referred to Hugh, but she also knew that the silence in the hall had grown deeper and that everyone was listening to her. She felt sure the audience were wondering what was coming next, even if it was only from curiosity.
‘One bitter winter’s day with snow falling, a woman came to the door of my home at Ballydown. She was carrying a baby and she was exhausted. She was on her way to the top of the hill to Hugh Sinton’s house, Rathdrum, to get a ticket for the dispensary. Some of you will remember the old ticket system before there was a dispensary in each village,’ she added, as an aside.
‘While my mother gave her tea, I ran up the hill, asked Hugh Sinton to get the brougham out and we took her to the doctor.’
She paused and took a deep breath. The heat of the hall and the tension she was feeling was making her chest painfully tight.
‘By the time we got there, the child was dead,’ she went on steadily. ‘I was so angry, I blamed Hugh personally and wouldn’t speak to him for months. When finally I did, I demanded to know why he didn’t pay his workers properly, so they could afford doctors when they needed them without a silly ticket.’
‘The answer was quite different from what I might have imagined. He agreed with me about rates of pay. Then he asked me if I knew what would happen were he to pay workers more, so that he would have to charge more for his cloth.’
Sarah paused and shook her head.
‘It never occurred to me the mills would close if Sintons put up their prices and lost their orders. There would be nothing then for the people who had worked there. There would be no money at all to buy food. And very little prospect of finding any other work. If the mills had closed, back in the nineties, there wouldn’t even have been a handful of public works to help out, as there had been during the time of the famine. There would be nothing.’
She paused and looked around her. Many of the women were nodding.
‘I don’t disagree with your analysis of the situation in the textile industry,’ she went on, turning to the three men who sat behind her. ‘I only disagree about how we go about changing it without putting hundreds of families at risk.’
‘And what would you suggest?’ Michael asked courteously enough, as he stood up and came to stand opposite her.
‘I suggest that we continue to press for government legislation to shorten hours and increase earnings. Progress has been slow. It doesn’t please me, or you, but it’s better than risking the well-being of whole communities.’
There was applause from the crowded hall, but Sarah felt no easement in the tension that surrounded her. The two other Trade Unionists where whispering together behind where she and Michael Donaghy stood facing each other.
‘Comrades,’ shouted the man from Belfast, jumping to his feet. ‘You have heard what Missus Sinton has to say. And she puts it very nicely too,’ he said, nodding his head in her direction. ‘Do nothing. Go back to work. Continue to make money for me and my family. That’s what she’s saying.’
He paused and drew himself to his full height, ignoring some hostile murmurs from the body of the hall.
‘Then let me tell you good people just how much money is stacked up in the Sinton Mills account in Banbridge and let you judge for yourselves whether this family could meet your legitimate demands for a minimum rate of thrippence an hour.’
To Sarah’s amazement and horror, he named an extraordinarily high figure which made his audience gasp. She saw Tom shake his head and drop his face in his hands.
‘Maybe Missus Sinton would like to tell us what her plans are for your money,’ he said with an unpleasant sneer as he sat down again.
As there were only three chairs on the platform, Sarah had remained standing. She was beginning to feel quite faint, what with the
heat and tension, and the need to look calm when her chest felt tight and her stomach grumbled uncomfortably. She nodded to him as he sat back in his seat with a show of preparing himself to listen. Michael glanced at her with a look she could not read, turned his back on her and went and sat beside him.
‘I am not sure the sum you mention is quite accurate,’ she began coolly, ‘but for the sake of argument we will assume it is. I should be delighted to find that it is the case,’ she said, turning back to her audience.
‘There are three reasons why this sum is so high. Firstly, we have had two very good years of trading. Secondly, unlike other companies, the directors do not share out the profits among themselves, build grand houses, take themselves off to live in London or Bath, or give substantial gifts to the right people so as to end up with titles,’ she said firmly. ‘The directors are paid a salary which you can look at in the annual report.
‘Until recently, all profits have been redeployed within the company,’ she went on. ‘They’ve been used for new machinery and equipment, so that our technology doesn’t fall behind. They’ve also been used for housing, for the co-operative shops, the dispensaries and the holiday homes at the seaside. And this recreation hall,’ she added easily, as she looked around the sea of faces.
‘Two years ago a decision was made to accumulate profits where possible and to launch a public company.’
There were jeers from the back and sides of the hall and remarks from the three men seated behind her.
‘Ohhh … that’s great news for the workers.’
‘Going public are we?’
‘Give the money to the shareholders.’
‘I haven’t finished,’ said Sarah, more sharply than she intended, as she turned to look at them.
‘The plans to go public have been delayed by the loss of a director,’ she explained. ‘But what is underway is a scheme whereby all the workers with more than two years service in any of the mills will become shareholders. If we cannot pay threepence an hour without putting the company at risk, we intend to compensate the workforce by returning to them the profits they have helped to accumulate. Perhaps the person who investigated the company’s bank account could also consult our legal advisers to ensure that what I am saying is true.’
Sarah stopped speaking, knowing that she could do little more. Her mouth was dry, her back ached and she was longing to sit down. What happened next took her completely by surprise.
A small figure wearing the white apron of a doffer, erupted from the steps at the side of the platform and advanced furiously on the three men who were once again whispering together.
‘Get up,’ she said, her hands on her hips as she stood over them. ‘Have ye no manners at all? Give Missus Sinton a chair.’
Michael Donaghy got up sheepishly and amid laughter walked across to Sarah and placed his chair behind her. She sank down gratefully amidst a round of applause.
But the newcomer on the platform had only just begun. She came forward to the edge of the platform and addressed herself to the great block of seats occupied by the spinners of Millbrook.
‘Have you people all lost leave o’ your senses?’ she demanded. ‘Can ye not mind who helped you out in the bad times? Have any of you iver been in trouble that ye diden find help here at work? You’d only to go to Doctor Stewart or Missus Sinton or Mister Hugh, God rest him. They’ve done their best for us, and most of us wou’d do our best for them. I’d be up there workin’ my frames if it weren’t for a handful o’ men who turned the power off. They ought to be ashamed of themselves. Did they ask us for our opinion? No, they didn’t,’ she said, her eyes blazing.
‘Well, I’m goin’ to ask ye now in a minit,’ she said, pausing to catch her breath.
‘That wuman,’ she said, pointing unexpectedly to Sarah, ‘carried me on her back out of this mill when it was on fire eleven year ago. I had a bad leg an’ coulden run when the fire took hold and I took fright. An’ what none of ye’s knows was who it was that started that fire, the lad that told me to go up an’ watch the fun when I was a wee girl wi’ no wit at all.’
She glared round the groups of men and boys now being scrutinised by the women sitting nearest them.
‘No, I’m not goin’ to shame him, for Mr Hugh told me I was niver to say. I’ll not break my word,’ she went on more quietly. ‘But what about youse’ns?’ she demanded in her former tone. ‘He forgave one of you for a fire that cost him dear an’ might have cost me my life. D’ye not think you’d be better to trust the likes of him and Missus Sinton here, than these men that wou’d have us out on the street. Has any of them said one word about strike pay? Do they think because we’re not up in Belfast we’re stupid? Do they not know that we can go to classes in the evenin’ an’ read the same books as them and make up our own minds?’
There were cheers and cries and loud applause.
For the first time since she’d burst onto the platform, Sarah saw the young woman take breath. Momentarily, it seemed she was taken aback by the storm she had called up, but it was only a moment.
‘C’mon then,’ she called, shooting one arm vigorously in the air and staring at the assembled company. ‘I’m goin’ back to work. Whose comin’ with me?’
A forest of arms shot into the air as every single woman registered her vote. Only among a cluster of men by the door was there no show of hands. They simply moved silently out into the bright light. A round of applause marked their going. Everyone in the hall knew they were the engine men going to switch on the power.
CHAPTER SEVEN
It was only as Sarah settled herself by Rose’s fireside and began to tell her why she’d gone over to Millbrook that the full magnitude of what had really happened slowly dawned upon her.
‘And the men simply turned off the power?’ Rose asked, her eyes wide with amazement, the tone of her voice giving away her growing anxiety. ‘What about your father?’
‘He was badly upset,’ Sarah said flatly. ‘He made no bones about it. He didn’t know what to do. To be honest, Ma, I’d no more idea then he had. Da’s never been one for public speaking, but I think he felt it so badly because he’s so sure Hugh would have known what to say and he never wants to let Hugh down.’
Sarah shook her head sadly.
‘To be honest, Ma, I’m not so sure he could have done any better than Da. It was the men who were so hostile and if it hadn’t been for the women and wee Daisy, I mightn’t have got far either. The two men from Belfast and Lancashire were trying to make out the spinners were cowards for not supporting their menfolk like the women did in the Land League. The spinners didn’t like that, but most of them didn’t know what to do until Daisy said her piece. Another time it might not go the same way,’ she ended sharply.
Rose looked at her daughter. No, she was taking no joy in her success. Before she could think of anything to say, however, Sarah went on.
‘Here am I, Ma, working as best I can for women’s rights, for better conditions in the mills, shorter hours and better pay, and along come these men with their great ideas. Bring the employers to their knees. Strike for better pay,’ she said angrily. ‘Have they no sense at all? It’s not as simple as that. Don’t they ever look and see where that road leads?
She stood up abruptly and paced back and forth across the room.
‘Sometimes I think Hugh was right,’ she said, pausing and looking down at Rose. ‘He used to say the worst thing that ever happened to him was inheriting four mills.’
Rose remembered an autumn morning long ago when Elizabeth told her how hard Hugh had struggled with the work in the mill office when his father had sent him to learn the business. Before he’d discovered his talent for repairing and inventing machinery, the mills and everything about them had been nothing to him but a constant source of anxiety and misery. That Hugh had gone on feeling the burden even after he and Sarah were married had never entered her head.
‘You worked so well together, Sarah, I don’t think I realised how hard
it was for you both.’
‘No, I don’t think I did either.’
Sarah came and dropped down wearily in her father’s chair.
‘And now the burden is falling on Da,’ she said, looking her mother straight in the face. ‘I think he feels just like I do, that he has to keep things going for Hugh’s sake. But I’m not so sure that’s what Hugh would want. So many things have changed, Ma. And they’ll go on changing and not for the better. Today is only the beginning.’
‘Oh Sarah, do you really think it’s as bad as that?’ Rose asked gently. ‘You’re very tired and it must have been quite dreadful standing up there in front of all those people. I think you were very brave.’
‘Thanks, Ma,’ she said, smiling suddenly. ‘Who was it said that the only really brave people are those who are scared but still do it?’
‘I don’t know, love, but I’m sure it’s true. Do you think Daisy was scared?’
To Rose’s surprise, Sarah laughed.
‘No, I think she was so furious with those men behaving as if the women needed jollying along that she just flew in and said her bit,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Do you know, she doesn’t even limp now? That was Richard’s doing.’
‘And Hugh’s,’ Rose added gently.
‘Yes, I didn’t know about Hugh’s part till today,’ said Sarah leaning back in her chair and glancing away towards the open door. ‘He must have taken her to see Richard himself. That’s probably when she told him who started the fire,’ she added, as she picked up her cup and drained it.
‘And she’s known all this time who started the fire back in ’01?’ asked Rose shaking her head in amazement.
‘What’s funny, Ma?’ Sarah demanded, as Rose suddenly began to smile.
