The Mill Girls of Albion Lane

by Jenny Holmes

  ‘Mam!’ he said again. His face was white and there were tears in his eyes.

  ‘Do as you’re told,’ she insisted.

  Lily got the picture – the usual thing had happened whereby her father had staggered back from the Green Cross and started picking on Arthur, snarling at him for nothing, thrusting his moustached face up against the boy and prodding him with his finger. From past experience, Lily guessed that Rhoda probably hadn’t even tried to stop her husband. She’d just let him wear himself out then fall asleep at the table and knew now it would be better to get Arthur out of his father’s way before he roused himself from his drunken stupor. Since Evie had left the house before her sisters in order to stay over with a friend, Lily was the only one left for Rhoda to turn to.

  Lily’s spirits sank as she saw her evening out vanish in a puff of smoke but she bore it as well as she could. ‘Come on, Arthur, cheer up. You like it at Granddad Preston’s house. You get a bedroom all to yourself.’

  Cowed, he put on his jacket and hat with Lily’s help and before long they were out of the house, walking hand in hand up Albion Lane.

  ‘We can ride the tram if you like,’ she told him to cheer him up.

  Free of the dark, tense atmosphere of the house, Arthur’s face brightened and he played a favourite game of avoiding cracks in the pavement. Tread on a crack and an angry bear would be sure to leap out from behind a wall. He ran ahead of Lily, concentrating so hard on the stone flags that he ran full tilt into a gang of young men gathered under the gas lamp at the top of the hill.

  ‘Watch out, littl’un!’ Billy Robertshaw cried as Arthur cannoned into him and landed flat on his back. ‘You want to watch where you’re going.’

  Lily ran to pick him up and dust him down and she was busy doing this when Harry Bainbridge spoke up.

  ‘Hello, Lily. Where are you off to all dolled up?’

  ‘Oh, Harry, hello.’ Distracted by Arthur’s accident, she didn’t pay much attention to Harry, who was hanging around street corners with his pals in the lull between attending his regular Saturday-afternoon football match and the start of his evening out. ‘Arthur, you’ve got to look where you’re going.’

  ‘My arm hurts,’ he whimpered.

  ‘Here, I’ll give it a rub.’

  ‘Let’s start again, shall we?’ Harry teased, quickly taking on his own role and that of Lily by facing first one way then jumping round to face the other, clearing his throat and projecting his words like an actor in the theatre. In fact, with his fair hair and clean-cut good looks, and especially in the uniform he wore as Stanley Calvert’s chauffeur, Harry did have something of the matinée idol about him – an impression that Lily had noted before and might have appreciated again now if she hadn’t been so busy looking after Arthur. At any rate, Harry was set on claiming her attention. ‘I say, “Hello, Lily. Where are you off to all dolled up?” Then you say, “Hello, Harry. Thanks for asking. I’m going out on the town with Annie and Sybil. You boys can join us later if you like.”’

  Lily blushed. ‘Sorry, but as it happens Arthur and me are off to Overcliffe, to Granddad Preston’s house.’

  ‘And you needed to wear your best bib and tucker for that?’

  ‘Don’t ask.’ She sighed. She would gladly have stopped for a longer chat with Harry, except that a tram was due any minute and she still had to drop by at Annie’s house to let her know her night out had been called off at the last minute.

  ‘We saw your Margie dashing off into town not long back,’ Ernie Durant commented. Ernie stood between Billy and Harry, who were both tall. The butcher’s son only came up to their shoulders and, with his fresh face, freckles and boyish expression looked the youngest of the three, though Ernie was twenty-four and Harry and Billy twenty-two. ‘She hopped on the number twelve quick as a shot. Blink and she was gone.’

  ‘Ernie was put out because it looked like she was off to meet someone special,’ Harry commented with a meaningful wink.

  ‘Don’t listen to him,’ Ernie blustered. ‘Margie’s a free agent. She can do what she likes.’ But it was true that he had a soft spot for the middle Briggs girl, even though she was eight years younger than him and, as Harry and Billy kept telling him, well out of his league as regards looks and style.

  ‘No need to fret, Ernie. Margie’s out tonight with the usual gang of girls from Kingsley’s,’ Lily told him. ‘Anyway, I’m sorry, boys, but I have to go.’

  ‘Everyone’s in a rush tonight,’ Harry said, his face shadowed by the peak of his tweed cap, which didn’t, however, hide the twinkle in his grey eyes.

  ‘Well, I’ll be seeing you, I expect,’ she told him, intent on hiding her blushes as she hurried off, this time keeping firm hold of Arthur’s hand. ‘By the way, good news – I’ve got myself a new job,’ she called over her shoulder.

  It was Harry who broke away from the group, jogged after her and caught her up at the junction with Overcliffe Road. ‘Will you be moving from Calvert’s?’ he wanted to know.

  ‘No, I’ll be in the mending shop there. More money, Harry – that is good, isn’t it?’ While she talked she kept an eye out for the tram coming up from town and said a reluctant yes to Arthur’s request for him to take a quick look at the brewery horses on the Common. ‘Watch the road, though,’ she yelled after him as he crossed over the steel tracks.

  ‘That’s champion,’ Harry replied.

  ‘That’s just what I said to Miss Valentine – champion!’ Her normally serious face lit up with a bright, infectious smile. It was nice of Harry to pay special attention to her news and the smile was meant to show him that she appreciated it.

  ‘I’m happy for you, Lily. You deserve it.’

  She blushed again at the compliment then modestly switched attention away from her own success. ‘I expect you’re glad you never went after mill work, Harry?’

  ‘Yes, I’m pretty settled where I am at Moor House, thanks.’

  ‘Yes, I know you. There’s nothing you like better than to swank around in your posh uniform,’ Lily teased. Privately she had to admit Harry was a sight for sore eyes each morning as she glimpsed him leaving his house and cycling down the side alley in his light grey chauffeur’s jacket with the shiny silver buttons and the matching cap. Not that she would tell him this because it was generally acknowledged that Harry Bainbridge’s head was big enough already. ‘Oh no!’ she said suddenly.

  ‘What?’ For a moment Harry thought Arthur must have got into more trouble.

  ‘The tram’s coming and I forgot to call in at Annie’s house.’

  Sure enough the yellow and black tram rattled along the steel rails towards them and Arthur darted out of the gloom, across the road to join them.

  ‘Can you pass on a message for me?’ she asked Harry. ‘Tell her I’ve to take Arthur to Granddad Preston’s so not to wait for me.’

  ‘Right-oh,’ Harry agreed. ‘See you in a while, Lily.’ And he went away, cheerfully repeating the message to himself.

  The double-decker tram spat out sparks from its overhead cable and clicked along the rails as it approached the stop and ground to a halt. To Lily’s surprise, Margie stepped from the platform on to the pavement. She looked flustered, red in the face and close to tears.

  ‘Margie, what’s wrong?’ Lily wanted to know.

  ‘Nothing. Nothing’s wrong,’ Margie insisted.

  Unconvinced, Lily saw the conductor hovering, his finger raised, ready to press the bell. ‘You sure you’re all right?’

  Margie nodded and sniffed back the tears.

  ‘Are you getting on this tram or not?’ the conductor barked at Lily from the platform.

  ‘No, I’ll wait for the next one,’ she replied, not liking to leave her sister in this state.

  So the tram set off without them.

  ‘What happened? Did your pals let you down?’ Lily wanted to know. ‘Did you fall out with one of them?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ Margie answered quickly. ‘Dorothy Brumfitt – I alwa
ys knew she was a nasty piece of work. To tell you the truth, I can’t stand the sight of her. When I found out she was going along to the Assembly Rooms with the rest of the gang, I changed my mind.’

  ‘So you hopped on the tram back home? That’s not like you, Margie, to miss out on a bit of excitement over the likes of Dorothy Brumfitt.’

  ‘Well, that’s what happened.’ Margie sighed and looked deflated. ‘Anyway, where are you and Arthur off to?’

  Lily told her the tale but was only halfway through when Margie interrupted. ‘There’s no point us both giving up our night out, is there? Why don’t you let me take Arthur to Overcliffe instead?’

  Here was another surprise for Lily – Margie offering to help for a change. ‘Are you sure?’ she asked.

  ‘Certain.’ Grabbing Arthur’s hand, Margie stood at the kerb, ostentatiously on the lookout for the next tram.

  Where was the harm? Lily thought. As long as her sister got Arthur safely installed at Granddad Preston’s, what difference did it make who took him? And she still had time to catch up with Annie and Sybil. ‘He’s to stay over,’ she explained hurriedly. ‘Chapel in the morning, dinner with Granddad then home for tea.’

  ‘I see. It’s like that, is it?’ Margie quickly picked up on the reason behind the visit. ‘Father’s back from the Green Cross and worse for wear.’

  ‘Yes, you know how it is.’ Lily sighed, stepping in before Margie could say too much in front of Arthur. ‘Is that all right with you?’

  ‘I’m not sure about chapel.’ Margie winked at her little brother, who immediately joined the conspiracy to miss Sunday School and grinned up at her.

  ‘Please yourselves about that,’ Lily laughed, glad that Margie had bounced back from the disappointment over her ruined evening.

  ‘So off you go,’ Margie insisted.

  ‘Ta-ta then and be a good boy,’ Lily told Arthur. ‘Tell Granddad hello from me.’

  She turned to retrace her steps down Albion Lane, chuffed that she could meet up with the girls after all and share her good news. The three of them would go to the market and buy a treat of chocolate or boiled sweets to celebrate and now she fancied dancing rather than the pictures. She would forsake Jean Harlow and vote for the Assembly Rooms where she, Annie and Sybil would foxtrot the night away.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‘I should raise the hem of that skirt a couple of inches next time you get a chance,’ Sybil advised Lily as the three girls walked from the Cliff Street market towards town. Fog had crept into the town from the high moor above Overcliffe and dimmed the street lamps so that they had to watch their footing on the greasy pavements. ‘You’ve got a nice pair of legs – I’d show them off if I was you.’

  Lily disagreed. ‘Long skirts are all the rage again, don’t you know?’

  Just like Sybil and Lily, Annie loved to talk of fashion and considered herself an expert. ‘I say the legs have it,’ she decided. ‘It’s a shame to let them go to waste, Lil.’

  They laughed as they trod the wet streets, Annie jingling her recently purchased slave bracelets and all three discussing the cost of the silver signet rings they’d seen on one of the market stalls.

  ‘With your new wage coming in you’ll soon be able to save up for one of them,’ Sybil told Lily. ‘You can even get it engraved.’

  ‘Why would she?’ Annie objected. ‘Lily’s got no sweetheart to give it to.’

  ‘No, not for her sweetheart, silly,’ Sybil teased. ‘For herself. I say she’d suit a dainty ring on one of her slim fingers.’

  ‘Will you please stop talking about my legs and my fingers?’ Lily attempted a serious protest but her wide smile spoiled the effect.

  ‘And what about her hair?’ Sybil went on regardless. ‘Now that she’s gone up in the world, don’t you think she would suit a nice Marcel Wave?’

  ‘I am here!’ Lily objected. It was funny – people were always talking about her in the third person, as if she were invisible. I need to make more of a mark, she told herself, be more like Annie who you just couldn’t miss in her jingle-jangle bangles and flowery dresses.

  Annie rolled on, sidestepping a muddy puddle then linking arms with Lily as they approached the grandiose Assembly Rooms built by the town council just before the Great War.

  ‘Lily’s hair doesn’t need a permanent wave,’ she insisted. ‘It curls all by itself.’

  ‘Worse luck,’ Lily grumbled. ‘What wouldn’t I give for nice sleek hair like our Margie’s?’

  They went on, absorbed in the pros and cons of naturally wavy hair until they joined the crowd outside the dance hall with its carved stone entrance depicting romantic women with flowing robes and luxuriant locks.

  ‘My treat,’ Lily offered as they joined the back of the queue.

  ‘No, you keep your pennies in your pocket,’ Annie argued.

  ‘Yes, just this once we’ll pay,’ Sybil agreed. ‘To celebrate you moving upstairs.’

  Lily gave in as they shuffled slowly towards the box office where they had to pay their threepenny entrance fees. ‘How are you feeling about Monday, by the way?’ Sybil asked. ‘Are you having kittens?’

  ‘A bit.’ Lily nodded. She stood aside for a large, fair-haired girl who pushed through the queue to join Billy Robertshaw at the front. It was Dorothy Brumfitt – trust her to use her elbows, Lily thought, watching her link arms with a moody-looking Billy and recalling the row Margie had told her about.

  ‘Manners!’ Sybil grumbled.

  ‘I don’t blame you, Lil,’ Annie went on. ‘I’d be wetting myself if I knew I had to work under Miss Valentine.’

  ‘She’s not as bad as they say,’ Lily replied, remembering how fair and straightforward the manageress had appeared in the office earlier that day. ‘She probably comes across as strict to make up for her size. She doesn’t want people to think they can push her around.’

  ‘Lily, wash that blue chalk off your hand. Lily Briggs, what are you thinking? Don’t you see you missed two broken ends?’ Sybil did a good job of mimicking Miss Valentine’s high, quick voice.

  ‘Oh Lily, love, shan’t you miss us when you move up?’ Annie sang out when she’d got over her fit of giggles. They reached the box office at last and she slid payment for herself and Lily under the glass screen.

  ‘’Cos we’ll miss you in the shed,’ Sybil promised. ‘Especially with sourpuss Florence White taking your place.’

  Touched, Lily promised to meet up with her old friends every dinner time. ‘If I’m late, save me a place in the canteen. We’ll be able to have our chats just the same.’

  ‘And it’s not as if we’ve been able to talk while we work in any case,’ Sybil observed. ‘Not with the racket in there and Fred Lee watching our every move.’

  ‘Ugh!’ Annie and Lily shuddered in unison at the mention of the overlooker’s name. They handed their coats and hats over the counter at the cloakroom and waited for Lily to do the same.

  ‘Are we ready?’ Sybil asked.

  Standing side by side they examined themselves in the mirror on the wall – Lily in the lilac dress she’d sewn and taken great pains over, Annie in turquoise flowered silk with a dropped waist and a sweetheart neckline, Sybil in candy-striped voile with a high collar and full skirt. They smoothed and patted their hair, straightened their dresses and checked their lipstick.

  ‘Ready as we’ll ever be,’ Annie confirmed, leading the way into the hall.

  The sight that met them made their hearts beat faster. The dance hall was long and wide with a polished wooden floor and rows of electric lights with marbled glass shades suspended from a high ceiling. Floor-length, red plush curtains added a touch of glamour and were drawn against the cold dark of the November night. As the three girls entered the already crowded room, which was thick with cigarette smoke, a five-piece band on a raised platform struck up a familiar waltz.

  ‘There’s hardly room to move,’ Annie complained, but she’d already picked out Robert Drummond standing head and shoulders ab
ove the crowd and she quickly made her way down the side of the room to nab him for this dance before anyone else did.

  Sybil shook her head. ‘That girl’s got no shame.’

  Lily laughed. ‘Maybe we should warn him: “Watch out, Robert – Annie’s after you!”’

  ‘It’s too late – he’s already smitten. He danced with her all night long the last time we were here.’

  Sybil and Lily kept on smiling and chatting as Annie reached her target and the tall motor mechanic quickly succumbed to her charms. She said something to him with a pout and a pretty tilt of her head towards the dancing couples. He nodded and stubbed out his cigarette. Next moment, his arm was around Annie’s slim waist and they were stepping on to the floor.

  Less bold than Annie, Sybil and Lily had to make do with partnering each other for this first dance, which was already well underway. They didn’t care – they would still enjoy themselves with Sybil taking the man’s part and steering Lily around the room, taking care not to get their toes stepped on by the clod-hopping feet of the butchers’ boys, grocers, brewery workers and mill hands who regularly filled the Assembly Rooms on a Saturday night. Though they were done up in brogues, snazzy blazers and neatly pressed trousers, the local lads were no match for Douglas Fairbanks when it came to steering girls through the Viennese waltz.

  ‘Watch out, Ernie!’ Sybil cried as Harry’s stocky pal backed into them so hard that his partner, Hilda Crabtree, who worked alongside Margie and Dorothy in Kingsley’s spinning shed, stumbled against him and had to be clutched to his chest to stop her from falling to the floor.

  ‘You did that on purpose!’ Lily protested.

  Ernie winked and set Hilda back on her feet. ‘Hilda’s not complaining,’ he pointed out before he whisked her off in another direction. For the moment he seemed to have dropped his longstanding crush on Margie and was discovering that Hilda was a more than satisfactory replacement.

  And so it went on from waltz to quickstep to foxtrot, with only an occasional glimpse of a smiling Annie whirling by in Robert’s arms, the skirt of her floral dress billowing out, bracelets jingling. Lily and Sybil danced more sedately until Lily was surprised by a tap on her shoulder and turned to accept an invitation from Harry to dance to a new waltz tune called ‘Goodnight, Sweetheart’ while Sybil said yes to a man she didn’t recognize – older than your normal Assembly Rooms partner, of medium build and dressed in a dark blue suit. He had a streak of grey at his temples, strong features and a confident air.