We nibbled at our chocolate, washed it down with a few ‘scoofs’ of lemonade and then stashed the bottles at the back of the tomes in our deep drawers. Being a working girl was going to be heaven.
At the end of the week, I opened my pay poke, a marvellous feeling, and said, ‘How much am I owing for the chocolate, Evelyn?’ I knew it was six times a penny ha’penny because we worked six days a week (Saturdays until one o’clock), but to my amazement, and delight, she smiled, ‘I can’t remember how many we’ve had. I’ll start keeping a note next week.’
My spirits rocketed in the following weeks. No note was ever kept, and for the whole year I was there, we each consumed ninepence per week of the profits – less than five of today’s pence – not that such reckoning entered my head.
To those who say we were stealing, all I can say is that it didn’t seem like it at the time. Others, more broadminded, may only wonder how we didn’t get sick of chocolate – on the contrary, I began a lifelong obsession for it – but after a while, Evelyn said to ask Jim for two tins of condensed milk instead. These were the smallest tins that Nestles made, selling in the shops at two old pence, but, like the chocolate, the wholesale price was one and half – not that we paid for them, either.
In writing this, I do feel ashamed, and guilty, about what we did but I was only fifteen remember, and at that age, you didn’t argue with your immediate boss. You didn’t argue with anyone older than you . . . except your mother, and you could guarantee that you’d be punished for that.
In addition to what we took without permission, there were the legitimate perks of the job. New lines were constantly being introduced, and a box of the newest was always set on a table behind us for customers (the retailers) to sample. Evelyn and I usually had a few to see how they tasted, but we once devoured practically a whole 12-lb box – but perhaps I’m exaggerating. Maltesers weigh very little, so 12-lb would have needed a gigantic container. At any rate, whatever the weight, we disposed of most of it. This would have been in late 1937 or the first half of 1938, and even a handful at a time wasn’t enough for us. Thank goodness most of the shopkeepers had managed to sample one or two before we finished the box altogether, and Mr Steel was very pleased with the orders that flooded in. Maltesers had taken a trick with the general public, too.
Evelyn had another job – at the dog track on Saturday afternoons – and when she asked me if I would like to make a bit of extra cash, I jumped at the chance. Four shillings (twenty of today’s pence) for two hours? When I was only getting seven and six (just over 37 pence) for a whole week’s work?
The track was approximately where Asda is now at the Bridge of Dee, so I’d to take the tram down Holburn Street and come off at the terminus. Evelyn was actually quite far up the hierarchy of employees here, so she showed me where I had to stand and then left the girl at the next position to explain what we had to do. It was simple enough. We were in the same wooden building as the totalisator (don’t ask) and we paid out to those who had placed their bet on the winning dog via this machine.
Perhaps ten of us stood at a long counter with a sliding hatch in front of each person, which we had to open to pay out, and close to check our cash and get ready for the next race. There was a bonus in this, a little something that Evelyn hadn’t mentioned. Many of the ‘punters’ left a tip, sometimes as small as thruppence, but helping to add up to quite a decent sum at the end of the two hours. Some were more benevolent. If there was an odd amount in their winnings, anything up to half a crown, they didn’t pick it up. In contrast to this, those who had really big wins usually didn’t leave as much as a penny.
I soon realised that the big winners were part of a syndicate, and every member of that syndicate had to get his exact share supposing the total amount was into the hundreds of pounds. Even the odd amounts had to be shared, nothing for the person who paid out the cash.
We come now to the incident I mentioned. It took place in July, on the last day of the Glasgow Fair week, and the place was packed with Glaswegians – loud, jokey men . . . unless they were crossed in some way. Then they became even louder and horribly aggressive. We workers weren’t allowed to watch any of the races – the premise being that if we won something people would say we had inside knowledge. In reality, we knew nothing about the dogs themselves, or of what happened on the racetrack, but on this occasion, having everything ready for the next payout in plenty of time, and being truly curious as to what went on, I opened my hatch to take a wee peep.
The noise was building up, the electric bunny was flashing round with the hounds in hot pursuit. Every man there was shouting at the pitch of his voice to encourage the dog he had backed. Suddenly, and most unexpectedly, a jacket was thrown on to the track right in the path of the leading greyhound. The poor terrified animal jerked to a halt, and the others, puzzled at what was going on, pulled up beside him.
The last dog sauntered past them all to come in first!
We found out later that the jacket had been thrown by a man whose dog, ahead for most of the way, was being beaten in the last seconds of the race, but he couldn’t have envisaged the result of his action.
Over the din made by men outraged because their dog should have been first, came the announcement on the tannoy. ‘The winner is Wandering Boy.’ This was probably not his name, but all the names were similar to that.
I had never heard a rabble like that which started now (never since, either), but it hushed hopefully as the next announcement started – ‘The first dog past the post is adjudged to be the winner, no matter what happened on the track. That is the rule.’
Despite the renewed roars of objection, we inside the booth were instructed to obey the order, and paid out to only a handful of men, who had taken their lives in their hands to push through the angry mob to claim their rights. All winnings paid, we closed our hatches double quick before the horde of menacing, threatening, waving arms reached us.
Terror-stricken and shaking with fear, we young lassies expected the wooden walls to be knocked down and a vengeance-seeking crowd to swarm in and take all the money . . . and perhaps finish us off, as well. We wanted to turn and flee . . . but we couldn’t! Each hatch, window and door was mobbed by furious monsters and, after an hour or so, even the most self-confident of us were tearfully wailing that our mothers would be worrying about us not being home.
Then someone had the bright idea of pulling the night watchman’s camp bed out of a cupboard and setting it up under the skylight. This was on the part of the roof nearest the road, an outside area blocked off from the public. There was no shortage of young male volunteers to push us upwards from the back, and ignoring where their hands strayed and what we must have been displaying, we scrambled out on to the corrugated iron, slid down and tore off without looking back.
I don’t think this incident was ever reported to the police. The manager hadn’t wanted any further trouble, nor would he have courted any adverse publicity, so it wasn’t in the local newspaper, either. It did, however, leave a lasting memory with me, and, I’m sure, with the other girls, too.
My mother had been worried about me, but that didn’t stop her from walking into me for being late home. She didn’t believe my excuse . . . not at first, anyway.
There was another benefit to the two extra hours I was working each week. Even giving Mum a couple of shillings extra, I still had enough along with the tips, to buy a coat for myself for the first time. I took a few weeks to save up the twenty-five shillings (£1.25), but, by Jove, I was proud of it.
(I am writing this in August 2003, so imagine my astonishment to see, in the magazine of Scotland’s Mail on Sunday, a picture of that same coat, a brown belted tweed, with the instructions to today’s young ladies to look out for 1940s style coats – the latest fashion at £140. I bought mine in 1938. I wish I had kept it!)
I would likely have worked at the ‘Dogs’ for years, but I was forced to leave for the good of my health. For some inexplicable reason, it was almost eigh
teen months before I contracted scabies, a most annoying and irritating affliction. Having suffered the terrible itch between my fingers for over a week, I went to the doctor, who told me to wash myself with sulphur soap only, and to change my vest daily, ironing the clean one before putting it on. That applied to both my vests, of course.
‘And you’d better give up that Saturday job,’ he added, darkly. ‘Even when you think you’re clear, you could be infected again.’
The trouble did clear in a few weeks, but I took the doctor’s advice. When most people had seen me scratching, they had kept well away from me, as if I had a dirty disease . . . which I suppose it was. It originated from handling money – a new meaning to the description ‘filthy lucre’?
I had been working for Mr Steel for almost a year when he told me he wouldn’t mind if I looked for another job. ‘I can’t afford to pay more wages,’ he explained, ‘so I change my office girls every year. They get better jobs easily enough.’
Naturally, Mum thought that my work hadn’t been up to standard, but she did eventually come round and I took to scanning the Situations Vacant column in the evening paper. There was no shortage of jobs, and I was soon accepted as junior clerkess by Van den Berghs and Jurgens (Stork Margarine). The wage was 12/6 (an increase of 5/-, or 25p) and would be increased yearly . . . if I passed The Royal Society of Arts exams in Shorthand, Book-keeping and Typing, at Elementary, Intermediate and Advanced Levels.
This office was situated within the Coast Lines sheds on Jamieson’s Quay, as I mentioned earlier, and the atmosphere was completely different from Steel and Co. There was one lady of indeterminate age – we did discover it eventually – two juniors, at newly sixteen I was most junior, and one clerk aged seventeen or eighteen. Miss Murray had a beautiful antique rolltop desk, with dozens of fascinating cubbyholes inside, while the rest of us sat at a long high counter on high stools, with feet dangling and whatever we were working on spread out in front of us on the sloping surface. There was also one typewriter on a table facing the door, for the use of all. Miss Murray and Hazel had an early lunch break, from 12 to l.30, so George and I had to wait until they came back before we had ours.
Being in the Coast Lines sheds meant that one or other of the four storemen was always liable to pop in, but George still managed to make the most of boy being alone with girl. Let me stress, however, that nothing really out of place happened, just a tentative touch here and there – above the waist, of course – a shy hurried kiss (sort of), and there was always lots of suggestive remarks made by the storemen. I didn’t complain – I quite liked it – physical and verbal.
Working so much amongst older men extended my vocabulary, and Mum was soon objecting to the more than risqué jokes being bandied around our table. I could give as good as the lodgers, the jokes . . . and the swearing, I’m sorry to say. Mind you, the words we used would be regarded as pretty mild today.
One of my first duties, repeated daily, was to type out address labels for the deliveries. Each box had to have its destination marked clearly, for the benefit of the carrier, wherever it was going.
I was getting on well when I came to an order slip for four boxes Stork for Maud Home, Maud. Knowing that Maud was a lady’s name as well as being the name of a village in Aberdeenshire, I typed out four labels for Miss Maud Home, Maud. How was I to know that Maud Home was a Mental Hospital in Maud? You can imagine the hilarity my labels caused. I was teased about it for months.
It must have been around a year later that a new junior was taken on, and the typing of the labels was no longer my responsibility. All went well for a week or so and then – I could have kissed her – Peggy made out a whole set to ‘Mr. H. M. Prison, Peterhead.’ Now even I would have got that one right, but I didn’t join in the laughter. I knew how it felt to be at the receiving end.
While I was still the youngest in Van den Berghs and Jurgens, as in Steel and Co., I was sent to the bank every day. I also had to post the mail at the Post Office at the corner of Regent’s Quay and Market Street. This dual task entailed a double journey – along Jamieson’s Quay to South Market Street, along the edge of the harbour then crossing Regent’s Quay to push the letters into the slot in the wall. Then I’d to come back, pass the end of Jamieson’s Quay and carry on along South Market Street to the bank at the corner of Palmerston Road. It was like completing a rectangle when starting from half-way down one side.
The money to be banked was in cheques and paper money mostly – there was once a £50 note, a real rarity in those days and the only one I’ve ever seen to this day – and some coins, so they were put safely inside a strong manila envelope.
Oh, no, I hear you thinking, she couldn’t have? But yes, one day I did. My head likely full of the remarks the boys on the coal boats had shouted as I passed, some quite complimentary, I rammed all the envelopes in my hand well down into the letterbox. Then, realising what I’d done, my blood ran cold and I crept into the Post Office itself to ask if they could give me that special envelope back.
‘You can’t have it back,’ said one assistant. ‘Once it’s gone through that slot, it belongs to His Majesty’s Mail.’
‘But it wasn’t meant to be in His Majesty’s mail,’ I wailed.
‘You put it in the box, so it becomes mail.’
‘Is there no way to get it out again?’
‘No.’
One of the men behind the counter took pity on me, however. ‘If you come back at three, and ask the postie who empties the box, he might look for it and hand it over, but I can’t promise. It’s really against the law.’
But I needed it before three – that’s when the bank closed – so I trailed back to Jamieson’s Quay and confessed what I’d done. I must have looked pretty woebegone by this time, so Miss Murray just said, ‘Go and tell the bank you’ll be late with our deposit, then go back to the Post Office and when the postman comes to empty the box, ask him nicely if he’ll give you our envelope back. If he does, take it to the bank, and if he doesn’t, my head will roll, as well as yours. The deposit slips have to be date stamped with the correct day, or Head Office will go mad.’
Luckily, when the postie came, he saw the funny side of it, found the big envelope and handed it over with a smile. ‘Keep your mind on your job after this, lass.’
‘I will, and thank you very much.’
Very relieved, I started to retrace my steps once again, but my ordeal did not end there. For a change, I crossed to the other side of the street before heading for Palmerston Road, and having passed Waterloo Goods Station and a large granite block belonging to A.R.Gray, I came to a row of shops with tenement houses above them. I must explain here that this was long before tights were invented and because I had discarded the liberty bodices as childish, and refused to wear a corset or a suspender belt no matter how much my mother ranted, I kept my stockings up with wide black garters.
I was nipping along quite smartly – it wasn’t ladylike to run, but it was after three thirty – when horror of horrors, one of my garters snapped, my right stocking slid down my leg and I grabbed at it with my right hand – the hand that was carrying the bank money. As I’ve already said, there was only a handful of coins inside, but they spewed out on to the paving slabs like an avalanche and I was just about to gather them together when I saw some trawlermen rolling towards me. There is something very distinctive about the way trawlermen walk, just like the waves rolling. There would be hell to pay if any money went missing, but I was in an awkward position, bent over with my hand again clamped round the calf of my leg to prevent stocking and garter from falling out below my skirt. This garment, thankfully, was one I’d made myself and was fairly long . . . if not very elegant.
There was only one thing to do. Opening the nearest tenement door – there were no security entry systems then – I stepped inside and stood with my back against the wall, thankful that I’d come that way instead of along the side of the harbour where the dock workers and ships’ crews would have been reve
lling in my predicament . . . and I’d have had nowhere to hide.
I considered taking off the loose stocking altogether, but I couldn’t walk around with only one stocking on. Apart from looking ridiculous, I’d be frozen. Secure in my isolation, I lifted my skirt and took hold of the home-made garter. I always bought the elastic and sewed them myself, because the ones in the shops were too fancy, and too expensive. The problem wasn’t as bad as I had feared. It was just my stitching that had come undone . . . but I had no needle or thread to fix it.
I did have enough sense to think of a solution, though, so I held the two ends together and tied them into a firm knot, took off my shoe and stretched the restored garter over my foot. Then I pulled up the errant stocking that had reached my ankle, and just as I was about to pull up the garter to secure it, the street door opened. I don’t know who was the most surprised, the two men or me. My skirt was up round my waist – I was wearing a pair of interlock directoire knickers (not at all sexy but it was winter) – and my stocking had descended to my ankle once more, as if needing the garter for support, which, of course, it did, didn’t it.
It was the older of the men who spoke; the younger was too intent on looking where he shouldn’t. ‘You dropped your money, lass, so we picked it up for you.’ He couldn’t hide the mischievous glint in his eyes.
‘Thank you.’ I sheepishly accepted the envelope of paper money and the handful of coins.
His eyes went to the floor. ‘That’s the worst o’ wearing garters, but I see you managed to tie it in a knot.’
‘Yes, thank you.’ I didn’t know what else to say.
‘I could tie it flatter than that, if you like?’
‘It’ll be all right the way it is, thank you.’
‘Rightio, then, but maybe you should check the cash is a’ there?’
Gift from the Gallowgate Page 8
