The Mill Girls of Albion Lane

by Jenny Holmes

  ‘Who’s that?’ Lily asked Harry, who, while he didn’t exactly have two left feet, was the type of partner who had to repeat the one-two-three rhythm under his breath in order to keep time.

  ‘No idea. I’ve only seen him in this neck of the woods once or twice and I’ve never bothered to ask his name,’ he told Lily. ‘He looks like a commercial traveller to me.’ The answer put him off his stride.

  ‘One-two-three, one-two-three.’ Lily counted Harry back in and they were off again, Harry with a gentlemanly hand placed squarely in the small of Lily’s back, Lily having to tilt her head to meet his gaze.

  ‘The last time I saw you, you and Arthur were off to your granddad’s,’ he reminded her when they were firmly settled in.

  ‘I know but there was a last-minute change of plan. Margie offered to do it for me instead.’

  ‘Blow me down – she didn’t, did she?’ His eyebrows shot up in comic disbelief as he took charge and steered Lily across the floor, his hand firm against her lower back.

  ‘Honestly, she did.’ To her surprise, Lily had to struggle to keep her voice calm. Why had her heartbeat suddenly quickened? she wondered.

  ‘Well, it worked out nicely for you, at any rate. It means you could come out and celebrate with your pals.’

  Lily was pleased that he’d remembered her good news. She noticed for the second time that evening that Harry, who had dressed up smartly in blazer and grey flannel trousers, was chattier and more attentive than usual, and she felt disappointed when the waltz finished and a new tune began, causing quite a few couples to leave the dance floor.

  ‘What’s this music they’re playing?’ he asked, looking around dubiously at the empty spaces and tugging awkwardly at the knot of the pale blue silk tie he’d chosen especially to impress the girls. He’d seen a picture-house poster of Clark Gable wearing one just like it so judged himself to be at the height of fashion.

  Lily held on to him and listened hard. ‘Foxtrot, I think. Yes, this is a foxtrot. I could teach you if you like.’

  ‘I think I’ve reached the limits of my dancing prowess!’ Harry laughed, shaking his head as he led her to the side of the room. They were soon joined by Sybil, whose slick commercial traveller had moved on to a new partner, and by Ernie and Hilda, the latter complaining loudly of bruised toes.

  ‘I swear, Ernie, that’s the last dance I have with you,’ Hilda moaned.

  ‘Never mind – plenty more fish in the sea,’ he retorted. And he was off again, trawling down the side of the room, picking a mousy-haired girl in a pale yellow dress who caught his eye.

  Still groaning, Hilda kicked off one of her shoes and wriggled her toes. ‘Where’s your Margie got to?’ she asked Lily in passing. ‘I’m surprised I haven’t seen her tonight. She never turned up outside the market to meet us like she said.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Sure I’m sure. We waited for her then Dorothy turned up and said Margie had decided against coming after all. She’s not poorly, is she?’

  ‘No.’ Lily stayed tight-lipped about the argument between Dorothy and her sister, reckoning that it was up to Margie to mention the topic at a later date if she felt like it.

  ‘It’s not like Margie.’ Hilda winced as she slid her foot back into her shoe. Then she cast a critical eye over Ernie’s new dance partner as they attempted the complicated steps of the foxtrot. ‘Yellow’s the wrong colour for her. It makes her look washed out,’ she concluded.

  ‘Do you fancy this dance?’ Lily asked Sybil, partly to get away from moaning-minnie Hilda.

  ‘Not half,’ Sybil agreed. And they were back on the floor, smiling at members of the band as they passed the stage, skirts flaring as they twirled.

  By half past nine, after three hours of non-stop dancing, Lily’s face was hot and her feet ached but she’d had a marvellous time.

  ‘You’re not leaving already?’ Annie called from the arms of her handsome mechanic as they slow-waltzed by. They made a perfect couple – Robert with a lock of his slicked-back hair curling down on to his broad forehead but otherwise dapper; Annie with flushed cheeks, one slim hand raised and resting lightly on his shoulder, the other clasped firmly by her partner, who seemed to have no intention of ever letting go.

  Lily pointed to the clock on the wall. ‘I have to catch the next tram home, remember.’

  ‘Poor you,’ Annie commiserated. Her father was dead and her worn-down mother was way past caring what time she got home.

  Sybil too was happily being swept off her feet again by the commercial traveller, so it was Ernie and Harry who offered to ride the tram with Lily.

  ‘Don’t bother about me,’ she told them, handing over her ticket to collect her coat. ‘I’ll be fine, thanks.’

  ‘Who says we’re bothered about you?’ Ernie countered as he loosened his tie, undid his top button then took out a packet of cigarettes. ‘It just so happens we’re on our way too.’

  ‘What’s the matter, Ern – did Hilda warn all the other girls about your two left feet?’

  ‘Say what you like to me, Lily Briggs, it’s water off a duck’s back.’ Undented, Ernie offered his cigarettes to Lily and Harry who both shook their heads. ‘As a matter of fact, Harry and me fancied getting back for a pint at the Cross before closing time.’

  ‘The foxtrot was too much for you both, was it?’ As they came down the steps of the Assembly Rooms into the fog and heavy drizzle, Lily turned up her coat collar for the cold wait at the nearby tram stop. ‘Never mind, I’m sure the girls of Overcliffe Assembly Rooms will get over their disappointment in time.’

  The easy conversation between Ernie and Lily flowed on while Harry stayed noticeably quiet until the tram appeared and they stepped on to the platform for the short journey home. The tram was crowded, so Lily stood in the aisle between Ernie and Harry. When the rocking motion on the bend at Chapel Street threw her against Harry, he steadied her with a hand and she gave him a grateful smile. What’s come over me? she secretly wondered. Why am I so hot and bothered every time Harry Bainbridge looks at me in a certain way?

  ‘Here’s our stop,’ Ernie said at last, peering out into the rain-soaked night. Harry pushed ahead along the gangway, making space for Lily and Ernie to follow. The conductor pressed the bell, the tram stopped and the three of them alighted.

  ‘How about fishcake and chips on me?’ Harry offered as they stood outside Pennington’s at the top of Raglan Road and he felt inside his trouser pockets. ‘I reckon I can scrape the pennies together.’

  Ernie looked put out. ‘I thought we’d agreed on a pint?’

  ‘And anyway I have to get back home,’ Lily said quickly, though with a pang of regret. ‘Thanks, Harry – maybe next time.’

  So Harry and Ernie walked Lily down Raglan Road, through the alley on to Albion Lane where they deposited her at her house then walked on to the Green Cross.

  She waited a while, letting their footsteps recede, staring up the three worn stone steps to her front door while she rehearsed what she would say about it being her and not Margie turning the key in the lock.

  Let’s hope they’ve both gone to bed and I can leave the explanations until tomorrow morning, she thought. But there was a light on in the living room and she braced herself to face her mother’s barrage of questions. ‘What’s happened? Where’s Margie, pray tell?’ on and on, with Father slouched in the fireside chair or already dead to the world and snoring in bed.

  Lily squared her shoulders. ‘“Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, boys, smile,”’ she hummed jauntily to herself as she mounted the steps and opened the door.

  Nothing, not her mother’s world-weary nagging or her father’s drunkenness, could spoil this day of all days unless she, Lily Briggs, chose to let it.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ‘Before you ask,’ Lily whispered as she opened the door into the living room to find Rhoda sitting alone by the dying fire, ‘Margie’s at Granddad Preston’s with Arthur.’

 
If Rhoda was surprised, she didn’t let it show. ‘That’s all right then,’ she said without lifting her gaze from the embers.

  ‘You don’t mind?’

  ‘No. It’ll keep Margie out of mischief for a change.’

  ‘Well, I’ll say goodnight.’ A relieved Lily was about to close the door and creep upstairs to bed when Rhoda stopped her.

  ‘Oh Lily, I only wish Margie had half your common sense,’ she said with a sigh.

  Recognizing her mother’s need to share her burdens – a rare thing with her – Lily came into the room, closing the door to make sure her father wouldn’t overhear. ‘Why, what’s wrong, Mother? Has something happened?’

  Rhoda tapped the arm of her chair. ‘I don’t know. You tell me – why did your sister give up her Saturday night out?’

  For her mother’s sake Lily played down the worries lurking at the back of her own mind. ‘There was a bit of an argument between Margie and one of her chums, that’s all – nothing to worry about.’

  ‘Fighting over a boy now, is she?’ Rhoda’s voice was sharp and suspicious.

  ‘No, not that I know of.’

  ‘Aye, but it will be.’

  Lily faltered and hovered uncertainly by the door. ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘It always is – that’s why.’ Rhoda gave Lily one of her long, direct stares. ‘When two girls fall out over nothing, there’s a boy in the picture – mark my words.’

  ‘I don’t know about that, Mother.’ Lily frowned then offered to help. ‘What can I do? Would you like me to talk to Margie when she gets back tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes, if you think you can do any good. Stop fidgeting by the door, Lily, come over here and sit.’

  So Lily went and perched on the arm of her mother’s chair, thinking through what had just been said. ‘I can’t be sure that she’ll listen to me, though.’

  ‘Well, I’m sure of one thing – nothing I try with your sister does any good. She turns right around and does the opposite. If I say don’t throw away your hard-earned wages on one big night out, she’s on with her dancing shoes and out of the door before you can say Jack Robinson. And she’s always hankering after silk stockings and other silly things that she can’t afford. I don’t know where she gets it from.’

  ‘Not from you, Mother.’ Lily smiled sadly. She couldn’t ever imagine a time when Rhoda had been young and carefree.

  ‘No, well, I never had the money.’

  ‘I know. It must have been hard.’

  ‘It was. Remember, I married your father when I wasn’t much older than Margie is now. I never had two halfpennies of my own to rub together when I was her age and after I married it went downhill from there.’

  The wry comment, made without self-pity, summed up Rhoda’s early life. The youngest of five children, one of whom – a girl – had died in infancy, Rhoda had lost her mother to scarlet fever at the age of ten and her father, Bert Preston, had stayed on in the rented house in Overcliffe with his young girl and three lads, Robert, William and Richard.

  The children were left to drag themselves up while their father went out to work hauling coal from the open-cast mine at Welby to the mills in the valley below, which meant long days for little pay. Rhoda had to pick up where her mother left off, doing the washing, ironing, baking and generally making ends meet. It left little time for schoolwork and by the time Rhoda reached fourteen she found herself employed first as a scavenger at Kingsley’s, a job she hated because the machines would whirr and hiss above her as she crawled underneath to gather up fibres of wool, then as a lap joiner in the spinning shed at Calvert’s, which wasn’t much better.

  So it came as a relief when, at seventeen, she ran across Walter Briggs who had recently moved into the area for work and was knocking on doors looking for lodgings. Rhoda’s father, strapped for cash as always, squeezed an extra bed into the room he shared with the three boys and charged Walter the princely sum of two shillings and sixpence per week.

  Bert Preston might not have raced ahead with the arrangement quite so hastily, Rhoda reflected later, if he’d realized that within the year Walter would have proposed marriage to Rhoda and whisked her off from the crowded house in Overcliffe to live in a basement dwelling close to the canal.

  ‘There was bad feeling between them after that and my father never really got over it,’ she would tell her own children. ‘I was piggy in the middle. I mean, how was Father meant to cope, with me married and living on Canal Road? That was the thing.’

  Down in the damp cellar, conditions were bad, especially when the children came along – Lily in the first year of marriage, then a gap of four years until Margie, then two years between her and Evie, and finally Arthur, a full eight years after that.

  Meanwhile the war had started. Two of Rhoda’s brothers, Robert and William, were killed early on – Robert at Mons and his brother not long after. Richard, the youngest, survived almost until Armistice Day then died not in the trenches but travelling through Belgium on the back of a supply wagon. It came under attack from the retreating Germans and a shell blew the last surviving Preston boy clean out of the vehicle. He died instantly.

  In his house on the hill, Bert grieved for his three sons and turned eventually to his estranged daughter for consolation.

  In contrast to the Prestons, Walter had succeeded in avoiding military service on the grounds of having a weak chest. It was at this time that he found their family – comprising Rhoda and Lily, and Margie already on the way – the house on Albion Lane at a rent they could afford. They lived there contentedly until 1915, when the powers that be cornered Walter and shipped him out to France. He was allowed to return home in January 1917 to convalesce from deep shrapnel wounds to his left side, but was then shipped back to the trenches for the rest of the war.

  ‘Never mind that he’d been blown to bits and had bad shell shock,’ Rhoda told her eldest daughter when Lily grew old enough to ask questions about the ugly scarring she saw all down one side of her father’s body. ‘They sent him back without a second thought.’

  ‘As soon as he walked in through the door I saw it would never be the same,’ Rhoda reflected from time to time and without obvious emotion. ‘Your father’s not a bad man – never was and never will be. But I took one look at him when he came back and saw the life had gone out of him for good.’

  Despite all this, Walter did try for work in the mills but his experience in the trenches had weakened him in body and spirit and made him bitter. Besides, after the drop-off in government orders for army uniforms, the Yorkshire woollen mills suffered, so he failed to find a steady job and the growing Briggs family had to fall back on Public Assistance while Rhoda brought up the children and made herself useful in the neighbourhood.

  For a start, she became expert in herbal remedies – caraway seeds soaked in hot water and sprinkled with sugar for baby colic, liquorice powder for constipation at any age, mustard plasters for bronchitis. More and more of the women in Albion Lane and on Raglan Road turned to her for advice and eventually for help when their babies came. Rhoda was considered reliable and unflappable, unlike her husband who was usually to be found propping up the bar at the Cross.

  Now, late on this cold and gloomy Saturday night, Rhoda made the unaccustomed move of sharing her thoughts with Lily. ‘The way things are going with Margie, I can’t see her keeping the job at Kingsley’s much longer, not if she starts falling out with the girls who work alongside her and causing a bad atmosphere in the spinning shed. The overlookers won’t stand for that.’

  ‘She only fell out with one,’ Lily pointed out as she kicked off her shoes to warm her feet at what was left of the fire. ‘And that was Dorothy Brumfitt, who nobody likes. From what I hear, she’s a troublemaker.’

  ‘Watch you don’t give yourself chilblains,’ Rhoda warned before staring into the fire and saying nothing for a while. ‘So if they get rid of anyone, you think it’ll be Dorothy?’ she asked at last, seeming to take comfort from Lily’s view of
events. Then she changed tack. ‘As for her goings-on with boys and the like, it might help if you told her it’s her job to set an example to Evie.’

  ‘Yes, that’s a good idea,’ Lily agreed. Sitting this close to her mother she noticed again the shadows and lines on her face and the raised veins on the backs of her hands. ‘I wish you wouldn’t worry and run around after us all the time,’ she told her softly.

  ‘And if I don’t worry and run around, pray tell who will?’ was Rhoda’s stubborn response.

  ‘I will,’ Lily promised. ‘I can do more of the ironing of a night, when I get back from work. And you don’t need to do all the washing on a Monday. I could do some for you on a Sunday.’

  ‘And what would people think of me hanging my washing out on the Lord’s day?’ Rhoda shook her head.

  Lily gave a little, self-mocking laugh. ‘Here I am, offering to help. I thought you’d bite my hand off.’

  ‘No, you know me better than that. I’ll carry on until I drop – that’s all I know.’ Taking a grey cardigan from the back of the chair, Rhoda wrapped it around her thin shoulders. ‘If you really want to help …’ she added as Lily bent to pick up her shoes and head off.

  ‘Yes, Mother, what is it?’

  ‘You can keep a closer eye on Margie from now on, see she stays on the right track.’

  ‘I will,’ Lily promised, making her way upstairs at last.

  ‘Good luck, Evie! Good luck, Lily!’ At a quarter past seven on Monday morning Arthur stayed at the window to wave his sisters off to work. His piping voice followed them down the steps on to the street and his pale, peaky face was pressed against the glass.