The Bobbin Girls

by Freda Lightfoot

  The hours were long and the work hard, the only respite being a short break for a brew of tea morning and afternoon, and a half-hour for the midday meal, taken in the canteen which was little more than a cottage kitchen. This would normally be where Lizzie worked, warming the girls’ soup, brewing tea and providing a simple but substantial meal for those with money to pay for it. In her absence, the girls had to bring sandwiches or a cold meat pie from home, and one of them would brew the tea, with the usual comments that it had been made out of dish cloths.

  ‘Are you coming to the canteen with us?’ Deirdre Swainson, a raw-boned girl of about seventeen, asked on Alena’s first day. She had already formed the opinion that Deirdre was rather simpleminded, since she spent much of the time giggling over nothing in particular.

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  But Alena soon discovered the cause of the giggles. She found a dead mouse in her bait can, reposing beside her jam sandwiches. Although it had turned her stomach and forced her to go hungry throughout that long day, she’d been proud of her own reaction. She hadn’t screamed or wept or complained to a soul. She’d merely smiled wryly, tossed the mouse away and closed up the tin again, making no comment whatsoever.

  Her work mates, however, seemed disappointed, perhaps wishing for a more dramatic reaction. The next day she found a cockroach, very much alive and working its way through her cheese sandwich.

  Alena had been grateful in those early days for having been brought up with brothers. Tricks and jokes were apparently commonplace amongst the girls, in particular against newcomers, but no worse than she’d experienced on a day-to-day basis at home. Certainly there were plenty more played on her, most often, she suspected, by Dolly Sutton, who still seemed to hold some sort of grudge against her despite now being ‘family’.

  Once, while she was away at the lavatory, someone put grease on her machine handles; a dangerous if fairly common prank, making Alena’s hands slip the moment she started to use it. Fortunately, she only ruined one bobbin with no other damage done before she realised, and laughed with the best of them as she cleaned the stuff off.

  Aware the other girls were watching her and still weighing her up, she knew that the important thing was to take it all in good part. Life in a mill could be monotonous without a sense of humour and, despite her misery at losing Rob, she battled hard to keep her own intact.

  Very little effort was made by the foreman, a hard-faced man called Stan Renshaw, to explain the work properly to her. One of the girls would sometimes be deputed to give a short demonstration of some process or other, and then she’d be left to get on with it. This was apparently the way things were done. She spent a good deal of time on what was known as the apprentice machine, so-called because you put two bits of wood on and took two off. It took thirty seconds to learn but having to do this repetitive task for nine hours a day nearly drove Alena mad with boredom.

  Dust matted her hair, flew in her eyes, clogged her throat and rubbed against every part of her skin.

  Another day she was working on a machine that bored the blanks before they were sent to the roughing lathe to be shaped into a small bobbin or, more correctly, a reel. She was cold and hungry, looking forward to the sandwiches that hopefully this time would not be contaminated. She’d taken particular care to keep the box in her sight at all times this morning. Perhaps if her mind hadn’t been so occupied, she wouldn’t have been so easily distracted.

  ‘Look out!’ a voice cried, slightly muffled against the noise of the machinery but close enough to make Alena half turn, startled by the unexpected sound and alarmed at what the problem might be. The spindle, left spinning free, missed her arm by a half inch and Edith was on to her in a second.

  ‘You daft lump! See what you nearly did? You should never turn away like that. You could have ended up with a hole in your elbow instead of in that bobbin - and at four thousand revs a second there wouldn’t have been much of it left. Keep your wits about you, girl. If you want to stay in one piece.’

  Alena glared at Dolly but saw no point in trying to pass the blame on to her, certainly not in public, for she’d deny any part in the accident and make Alena look stupid.

  As the winter days dragged on and work in the mill grew colder and harder, Alena gritted her teeth and got on with it, knowing that any complaints would only make matters worse. She rose at six-thirty, ate her breakfast, made up her sandwiches, then dressed warmly in thick jumper and skirt, long scarf, woollen socks and boots. With one of Tom’s old caps pulled down over her curls, she would ride to the mill before it was light on the precious new bicycle bought for her last Christmas by her brothers. Alena came to appreciate this gift more and more. She polished it carefully, oiled and greased it, learned how to cope with a slack chain and mend punctures. And she always made sure that her lamp worked properly, because of the darkness of the twisting lanes. There was nothing she loved better than to join the stream of workers on that early-morning ride to the mill each morning: watch the world wake up, the navy blue of the sky lighten to paler blue or soft lemon, hear the birds shake out their feathers and herald the new day with a song. Best of all, she loved free-wheeling back down the hill again each evening.

  It was always important to get home in good time. Lizzie would be waiting for her, knowing that the moment Alena arrived she could take a break from the claustrophobic sick room, brew a cup of tea, and put her feet up for a while. Mother and daughter had grown closer as they shared the onerous task of caring for Ray.

  So on the evening Alena discovered her tyres had been slashed she did not see the joke at all. She stood in the mill yard glaring at the damage, quite breathless with rage. Stamping her foot and kicking the offending article did no good either. She knew well enough that whether she stopped to change the wheel, or set out to walk home, she was bound to be late and Ma would worry and grow even more tired and irritable.

  ‘Damn and blast them!’ she yelled, only to be rewarded by laughter as Billy Warren came rumbling by at precisely that moment. ‘Oh, aye, they did that to me once or twice,’ he said without pause as he cycled past.

  ‘I’ll have their guts for garters!’ Alena shouted after him, shaking her fist, but that only made him laugh all the more.

  ‘Waste of time. They’ll only do it again.’

  She saw then that Billy’s own tyres were flat as pancakes, the wheels bumping along on their metal rims. Soft in the head, Billy was. Too easy-going for his own good, people said. But Alena Townsen wasn’t soft. Oh, dear me, no. Wheeling her bike home, rubber tyres flapping, it was time, she decided, to retaliate.

  A few discreet enquiries brought blank stares and amused shake of the head but Sandra Myers, a quiet, thin, softly pretty girl who’d rarely spoken a word to Alena thus far, whispered the name of the culprit while they were having their half-hour dinner break the next day.

  Dolly, as suspected.

  ‘I saw her checking out your bike in the sheds last night. Told me if she had to walk, why not you. She also said as how you might find a rat in your bait tin next time,’ Sandra concluded, voice raw with horror.

  Alena went white at the thought. A mouse, or even a live cockroach, was one thing; a rat, of which there were undoubtedly plenty around the mill and the mill leat, was another matter entirely. If one got inside the mill buildings, a trap had to be brought in and everyone put on their guard - another reason for the sacking tied so tightly around legs, since vermin could so easily hide in the deep shavings.

  ‘We’ll see about that.’

  She tackled Dolly on the subject that very evening. Alena came upon her toddling home looking like a round ripe apple, being in the last months of her pregnancy. She denied the accusation, of course, but then Alena hadn’t expected anything different.

  ‘I know it was you, Dolly.’

  ‘Somebody been telling tales?’ she asked, looking annoyed. Alena said nothing.

  ‘I’ve enough on me plate. What would I be doing, bothering about you?’ Eyes widen
ing in false innocence.

  ‘Exactly what I’d like to know. You seem to have a personal grudge against me, Dolly. You’re not still peeved about those dustbins, surely?’

  ‘Don’t be childish.’

  ‘So what is it?’

  ‘I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Oh, yes, you have. You’ve all had your bit of fun with me. First the livestock, then the grease. Good laugh all round. But this is more serious. Have you any idea how much tyres cost?’

  ‘Like I said, I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Smirking, Dolly tossed her head and walked on, lips pressed together, one hand shielding the rounded curve of her stomach.

  The next morning Dolly was set to demonstrate to Alena how to operate the pressing machine. The larger bobbin barrels, already bored through the centre following the grain of the wood, had to be glued on to the ends or flanges, then pressed firmly together on the press. After that the edges were rounded off and drilled on a V-borer with two or more holes, so that the flanges could be pegged securely on to the barrel.

  Alena, usually quick to learn, pretended not to understand how to feed through the squares of wood, or put the glue in the top roller. Then, in her clumsiness, she ‘accidentally’ dropped the pot of glue. It splashed down Dolly’s legs and rivers of it ran into her clogs. The expression on the girl’s face was a picture, while all the other women in the room roared with laughter at the state she was in.

  ‘Yer one of us now, lass,’ said old Edith, grinning from ear to ear. ‘You all right?’ she asked of Dolly, who insisted with a grim smile as firmly stuck to her face as her feet were stuck fast in the evil-smelling stuff swilling around her feet, that yes, she was very well, thank you very much. So desperate was she to pretend there was nothing wrong, she refused even to take off her clogs and clean them out.

  ‘Eeh, I laughed till I cried, I did that!’ Edith kept saying for days afterwards. ‘How she got her smelly socks off when she got home, I daren’t think. She must’ve had to cut ‘em out of them clogs of hers.’ And off she’d go again into great gusts of laughter.

  Alena had no more trouble after that. Sandra became a firm friend, even more so when the girl admitted that she’d long since developed a crush on Alena’s brother Harry. ‘Not that he’s ever noticed me. Never spoke a word to me, in fact.’

  ‘Then it’s time he did. You’d best come and meet him properly. I owe you that much at least. Only you might have to wait a while. Alena cautioned. ‘Things are a bit tricky at home right now. Sandra nodded in sympathetic understanding.

  Oh, yes, thought Alena, life wouldn’t be too bad in the mill. In fact, it was picking up nicely. She took great delight in describing this success in one of her regular long letters to Rob.

  ‘I hope you like your new school,’ she wrote. ‘You say very little about it in your letters, except how you hate rugby. What do you do? What are the masters like? Have you made lots of new friends? It’s been difficult getting used to my new job in the mill, and I miss having you to talk to.’

  She was a little afraid that he might have made too many friends, and forget all about her.

  Nothing could have been further from the truth. School had turned out to be every bit as awful as Rob had feared. Cold, depressing, and deadly lonely, with each passing day he came to hate it more and more. The first few weeks had been the worst when he’d never seemed to get anything quite right. He’d done exactly as he was told: got up at seven-thirty, eaten his breakfast, made his bed and tidied his already neat locker, knowing he must be ready for lessons at a quarter to nine. But even on that very first morning things had gone wrong. For some reason his pillow had disappeared while he was at breakfast, and Matron, on her dormitory inspection, had not been pleased.

  ‘This is not a good start, Hollinthwaite,’ she’d boomed in a voice that soared over the top of her pouter bosom.

  ‘No, Matron,’ he’d agreed, addressing the bare sheet where the pillow had been when he’d gone for breakfast.

  ‘I shall look for an improvement tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes, Matron.’

  After that he’d asked a boy the way to his first class, somehow mixed up the directions and ended up in entirely the wrong place. By the time he’d found his way to the right room he was twenty minutes late. Only the fact that it was his first day saved him.

  The next lesson had been French, and since his mother had been fluent in the language, he faced it with a degree of equanimity. Unfortunately, though the master was pleased with his translation skills, his schoolmates were not.

  ‘We don’t like swots,’ one whispered fiercely in his ear. ‘Or sucking up.’

  This was a remark which at first he did not understand but was to become all too familiar. By the end of that first long day, not a soul had spoken to him.

  The biggest humiliation came when they found one of Alena’s letters. Colin Briggs, a fat boy who liked to throw his weight around - literally - found it tucked inside Rob’s pillowcase and read it out loud to the whole dormitory, making particular fun of her parting words.

  ‘She says she misses him,’ Briggs announced to guffaws of laughter.

  Rob tried to snatch it but was held back, so could do nothing but listen in impotent rage while everyone made fun, jeering at him for getting a letter from a girl!

  Just proves how soppy you are,’ Briggs said.

  Rob finally managed to grab the letter and put it in his pyjama pocket, then curled up in his bed, red-faced and smarting with embarrassment, as the laughter bubbled around him.

  Life at number 14 Birkwith Row fell into a depressing and mind numbing routine. Each day Ray seemed to grow physically weaker even as his temper grew shorter. It was a relief when he slept, though it never seemed to be for long. His loud, complaining voice would call out for a drink or his medicine, or to be turned over because of some ache or pain, at all hours of the day or night. His speech had become confused, the words often jumbled or unclear. But the Townsen family learned to understand his every word. He’d shout that someone had left a ton weight lying on top of him, which would turn out to be his arm, though not for the world would any of them dare tell him so.

  Lizzie, forced to give up her work in the mill to stay home and look after him, suffered the brunt of his ill temper, and eagerly looked forward to hearing the day’s activities from her family when they returned home. But she grew lonely as well as exhausted. Ray Townsen was hardly an ideal patient. Alena could think of little worse than being shut up for twenty-four hours a day with her father at the best of times, let alone in his present mood

  ‘I’ve allus worked,’ she explained to Alena. ‘I miss the companionship of the girls at the mill - making their brews, warming their soup, listening to their troubles and so on. And who’ll mend their cuts and sores now I’m not there? I can’t see Mr Hollinthwaite paying someone to do what I did for naught. Has he got someone else to mind the canteen?’

  Alena shook her head. ‘The girls are taking it in turns till you can come back.’

  A smile flickered fleetingly over her mother’s face, making her look younger, if only for a fraction of a second, as she thought of her job still open for her. By rights, Hollinthwaite owed her a favour. It was as much his fault as anybody’s that Ray was like this. A right mess they’re probably making of it, an’ all,’ she laughed.

  ‘Even James Hollinthwaite wouldn’t be so cruel as to give away your job with Dad like this.’

  ‘Aye, well, let’s hope not.’ But the worry still showed in her fidgety fingers and puckered brow. ‘Though when I’ll get back, God knows. Who else could I persuade to look after your father? Only, I do miss having money of me own in me pocket. Money we need. I know the boys do what they can but they have their own lives to lead, and their own futures to save for. I can’t be dependent upon them.’

  No matter how much Alena or her brothers assured her that they were willing and eager to pay to keep her at home, Lizzie became more and more des
pondent. But then she had a point. Jim had confided his intentions of marrying Ruby Pratt, his long-time sweetheart, come the summer. Tom had already gone, of course. Kit at twenty-one didn’t earn much, and with his bad chest spent as much time off work as in it. As for Alena, she couldn’t even keep herself on the money she got. So that left Harry, and it didn’t seem quite fair to expect him to keep the lot of them.

  ‘Times are hard,’ Lizzie insisted. ‘What if the mill should go on short time, or one of the boys be laid off or become sick?’

  Harry wrapped his big arms about his mother in a huge bear-like hug. ‘Or the whole village go up in flames, or the vicar run off with the organist to a desert island? Aw, come on, Ma, haven’t we enough worries to be going on with, without thinking up things that haven’t happened yet? ‘Smiling shame-faced at her grinning son, Lizzie allowed herself to be comforted.

  Jim set down his newspaper and picked up his fork. ‘Look what’s happening to steel, coal and ship building, not to mention cotton, which most concerns us. Production is half what it used to be, and exports are well down, so a man has to look after himself these days.’

  A fact with which Lizzie didn’t disagree. She just wished her family wasn’t so beholden to James Hollinthwaite. She had this prickly feeling between her shoulder blades that he’d take the least opportunity to be rid of the lot of them, favour owed or not.

  ‘There’s talk in the papers that the country might go bankrupt. If that’s true, then it’s survival of the fittest, eh?’ Jim said. stabbing at a plump sausage and making hot fat spurt everywhere.

  ‘Now who’s talking daft? Who ever heard of a country going bankrupt?’ Lizzie was laughing as she dabbed at the spots of grease on the clean cloth. ‘Eat your tea, and don’t count on things till they happen, like your brother says.’