Biscuit Girls

by Hunter Davies

  Ivy eventually did get a move, a promotion of a sort, although at first she kept it quiet from her mother.

  ‘She always said to me, when I first told her I wanted to get a job at Carr’s, that it would be all right by her, as long as I didn’t work in the bakehouse.

  ‘For the first few years I was in the packing rooms, then one day I was told I was being moved to the bakehouse, which would mean a little bit more money. I didn’t tell my mother – not till six weeks after I had started.

  ‘The thing people had against the bakehouse was that it was very hot and very noisy. The huge ovens were on night and day so there was constant heat and smoke. Sometimes you couldn’t see for the smoke. I used to think they were on fire, especially when the bakehouse men started putting more paper in the ovens. They said it was a way of dampening the flames, which I never understood.’

  The bakehouse was also more dangerous than the packing rooms, for the trays and the biscuits had just come out of the ovens, so handling them had to be done carefully.

  ‘You could get the tips of your fingers burned if you were not careful and they would bleed. But of course you hadn’t to show any blood. Otherwise you might get sent home.

  ‘It was always well over 27 degrees Celsius in the bakehouse. But they did give you a glass of lemonade. They said it was to cool down your blood. So that was nice.’

  Not complaining, well, not too much, about conditions in the factory was typical of the times in the post-war years. Women felt fortunate to have a steady job and at Carr’s they felt they were being reasonably looked after and relatively well paid.

  It was also typical of the times and perhaps of Carlisle people generally to accept things and conditions, almost proud not be ambitious, pushy, wanting or demanding, just to accept what came, what happened, as Ivy frequently observes. This can sound defeatist, sad, perhaps pathetic, but that would give the wrong impression. Despite thinking that ‘nothing can be done, this is how it is’ you can still be cheerful and strong like Ivy, and opinionated, speaking out when necessary. You know you have a function, a place in the world, humble though it is, and you are grateful to have it, knowing your place in the great scheme of things.

  The idea of wanting to change things, demanding your rights, was rarely apparent in women workers or male workers for that matter, not during the forties and fifties. It was partly an effect of the recent war, when the population, not just service personnel, had for so long obeyed orders, did what they were told, accepted rationing and restrictions, shortages and deprivations. Putting yourself first, as opposed to your country, that all came much later.

  Chapter 4

  Dulcie

  Bubbly Dulcie in her twenties

  Dulcie was born on 26 September 1939, in Currock, one of Carlisle’s council estates. She hated her Christian name when growing up, and still does. It sounds a bit posh and theatrical, as if she might have been named after Dulcie Gray, a well-known, well-loved English actress and singer during the war years, who married Michael Denison. In fact, Dulcie was named after a well-loved actress of the pre-war years – but an amateur one local to Carlisle, Dulcie Graham-Bowman. This was a time when amateur actresses had a loyal following who attended all their shows. It was Dulcie’s grandmother, who loved the theatre, who insisted on the new baby being called Dulcie.

  Dulcie and her two younger sisters lived with their mother and grandmother. There was a father, but Dulcie has little memory of him. ‘He was hardly around. There were issues, so I never seemed to see him – and eventually they separated.’

  Also living with them was a woman Dulcie always knew as Nana. ‘She was a single mother at a time when it was disgraceful to have a baby and not be married. I think she had it adopted, then came to live with us. I never knew her relationship with my mother.’

  Dulcie’s mother worked at Carr’s icing biscuits. She did the afternoon shift, her mother looking after Dulcie and her sisters, till she came home from work. Thanks to working at Carr’s, her mother was able to buy broken biscuits very cheaply. ‘She would bring home five-pound tins and if they were all chocolate biscuits, everyone would rush, the whole street, they were like gold nuggets. My favourites were Sports biscuits. My mother never made biscuits or baked anything herself. She was too busy working. So it was wonderful when she brought any biscuits home from work. We also used to buy biscuits at Woolworths, selecting our own, and a big slab of cake.’

  Dulcie was in the Brownies and Guides and played a lot of sport, including tennis and particularly netball, representing Carlisle Girls. She followed the latest pop music on Radio Luxembourg.

  Dulcie’s mother did all the cooking, which was always fresh, as far as Dulcie remembers. They had a Sunday roast, then cold meat the next day with the vegetables fried up. They also had liver and onions, pasties and peas, usually with rice pudding for afters.

  ‘There was no convenience food in these days, not for a long time. I remember when fish fingers came in we ate them all the time. We thought they were wonderful, and so handy and easy to cook – and eat.

  ‘We usually had a bottle of sherry in the house, which was meant to be for Christmas only, but it always seemed to be going down. At Christmas we also had ginger wine, which my grandmother made. I would leave a glass out for Santa with a mince pie – which I presume my grandma drank and ate.

  ‘My grandma lived with us and when we were all out at work, she would have an old friend in during the afternoons. When my mother came home from work she would say, “they’ve been at the sherry again”. When the two old women were sitting nattering, I suppose they used to go and get the sherry bottle out.’

  Dulcie attended Upperby primary school where, so she says, she was very good and passed the Eleven Plus for the Margaret Sewell – Carlisle’s second-tier secondary school, after the crème had been selected for the high school. Girls who were directed to the Margaret Sewell were still considered to have passed the Merit.

  ‘My mother didn’t want me to go, saying she would not be able to afford the uniform, and anyway she wanted me to be a cracker packer, like her. But I insisted, so I went to the Margaret Sewell. I did well in my first year – and then I discovered boys in the Creighton School next door. It was downhill from then on. I mean, downhill with my school work.’

  She did manage to master a bit of typing, but was unable to get the hang of shorthand, which Margaret Sewell girls were taught in order to prepare them for office work.

  So when Dulcie was fifteen her mother got her desire. Dulcie left school and went straight to Carr’s. Her mother being there helped her to get an interview and be accepted. She has no memory of her nails or anything else being inspected, but then she had secured a rather unusual and attractive job, perhaps thanks to her mother’s influence.

  She was not put on a production line like her mother or like Ivy – after all, she had gone to the Maggie Ann, as the Margaret Sewell School was known locally, and could do some typing, or so she told them. She was appointed as a messenger girl.

  ‘I was the only one, as far as I remember. I used to have to go into these beautiful offices where a senior clerk would give me the post to take round all the departments, and also deliver messages and notices.’

  Dulcie was given white overalls and a cap, like the girls on the line, even though she did none of the packing. Going round, she always felt slightly sick in her stomach when she was delivering to the chocolate department because of the smell.

  She and her mother, who was still only working part-time, used to come back on the workers bus together which left from outside the main gates of the factory.

  For the next four years, Dulcie quite enjoyed her job as a messenger girl. Being able to move around, unlike Ivy and the girls on the production line, she got to know lots of people, one of whom was Eric Wallace. She was exactly the same age as him and when she arrived at Carr’s in 1954 she often played tennis with Eric at the Carr’s sports ground on Newtown Road.

  The reason why Ivy and
Dulcie and so many other people of that vintage did know Eric Wallace was that later he became famous. Well, famous in Carlisle. A household face, in fact. Not many Carr’s workers over the decades seem to have gone on to other careers, other excitements.

  During his ten years working at Carr’s, Eric had got involved in his spare time with amateur dramatics. On his days off he studied for his O levels at the Carlisle Technical College and eventually he went on to study at Durham University. He then returned to Carlisle and joined the fledgling Border TV – the smallest of the ITV regional TV companies, founded in 1961, which covered Cumberland, Westmorland, the south of Scotland and the Isle of Man. It had its own studios in Carlisle and its evening local news programme Lookaround became immensely popular. Border also created many programmes that appeared on the ITV network, such as Mr and Mrs, presented by Derek Batey, who also worked at Border. The studios were closed in 2009, though since 2013 there has been 30 minutes of regional news coming from new premises in Carlisle as ITV Border. But the old Border TV company lives on in the memories of most Cumbrians, especially memories of Eric Wallace who was greatly loved. He died in 2004, aged 66.

  Dulcie says she didn’t go out with Eric. He was just a good friend at work. At the time they were at Carr’s together, and playing the odd game of tennis, he had his eye on another pretty girl in the office. ‘Oh there were loads of good-looking girls at Carr’s at that time.’ Including Dulcie herself, with her bubbly hair and bubbly personality.

  However, after four years, Dulcie began to find the life of a messenger girl at Carr’s a bit too quiet for her liking.

  ‘The offices seem so old-fashioned, very dignified I know, with mahogany everywhere, but not much talking. I used to see Allen Carr and he would say good morning. I didn’t speak to him, but I knew who he was, one of the Carrs.’

  Allen Carr was now the chairman. He was one of Jonathan Dodgson Carr’s great-grandsons, the latest in a long line to run the family firm.

  Jonathan Dodgson Carr had three brothers, two sons and three daughters who in turn had large families, many of whom came into the firm. His younger brother John, however, left the Carlisle firm very early on, around 1858, and joined Peek Freans, a rival biscuit company in London as a partner, eventually becoming in charge. The reason for this is not known, whether there had been a row or something else.

  J.D. was a dynamic innovator and a strong personality, convinced he knew the direction in which he wanted his firm to grow and expand. By 1850, the firm owned four flour mills and had created two depots, one in Liverpool and one in London, plus of course their Caldewgate factory. Overseas, they had agents in America, Africa and in most countries of the Empire.

  The canal, which had been so vital in the early years, had finally closed in 1853, but by this time Carr’s had five of their own ships. They had a ketch called Swallow plus four steamships Swift, Surprise, Eden and Nith – the last two named after two of the Solway rivers, one flowing through Carlisle and the other Dumfries. Carr’s operated their fleet from Cumbrian ports, such as Silloth and Maryport, sending their biscuits to Liverpool, London and the world, giving Carr’s alternative transport and independence in case of any railway problems.

  But trains were now the main and most important form of transport. Carlisle had become a major railway town, with a brand-spanking-new station, the Citadel, which opened in 1847, built by Sir William Tite in the style of a Tudor palace and still one of the most handsome buildings in Carlisle. Carlisle was on the direct mainline route up from London to Glasgow, and also for getting across from the west coast to the north-east, and was one of the busiest and most important railway centres in the country. By 1876, Citadel station was a terminus for seven different railway companies – London and North-Western, Midland, North Eastern, Caledonian, North British, Glasgow and South-Western, Maryport and Carlisle. No town in the UK could boast that they had more railway companies. All of this helped Carr’s to whizz their products around Britain and the world.

  Carr’s also managed to keep up their public relations coups, building on the granting of their Royal Warrant with a series of other eye-catching achievements during the nineteenth century. They were always quick to dispatch specially made long-lasting dried biscuits whenever there were famines in the Highlands, or supplying rations to Arctic expeditions to one of the poles or to British soldiers out defending the four corners of the Empire.

  They entered competitions in the UK and Europe and won endless awards, which naturally they listed on their advertising, and had their wares displayed and on sale at major national events.

  This had started back in 1851 when Jonathan Dodgson Carr secured the contract to supply biscuits to the refreshments rooms at the Great Exhibition in London. He created a special Exhibition biscuit, which was first tried out in his family home, with all his children taking bites and giving their opinion. It doesn’t appear, from the recipe, to have been much different from their other sweet biscuits of the time, but of course having the name Exhibition biscuit stamped on it made people want to try it.

  The firm received some unexpected but wonderful publicity in 1879 at the battle of Rorke’s Drift during the Anglo–Zulu war. A handful of English soldiers managed to hold off three hundred Zulu warriors by building a barricade – made out of biscuit tins. No photographs exist of this legendary incident, nor is there proof that the biscuits were actually from Carr’s, but Carr’s claimed that the biscuits were theirs, as they had supplied them to the troops. Illustrations appeared in the London press and scale models were built, in which you can clearly see the name Carr’s. So some good PR work had been done behind the scenes.

  A booklet produced by Carr’s in 1902, ostensibly a guide to Carlisle but really about Carr’s, boasts how famous the firm had become. ‘A household word throughout the civilised world and, we may almost say, throughout the semi-civilised world, for we learn that an agency has recently been opened in Khartoum!’

  This Carr’s advertisement from the 1920s shows that Carr’s biscuits were by now being exported to America, as well as many other countries around the globe

  The story is illustrated by a photograph of a group of armed native warriors standing in awe before a tin of Carr’s biscuits. The credit on the photo states that it was from the expedition to Somaliland by H.W. Seton-Karr. Sir Henry Seton-Karr was a well-known late Victorian explorer and also an MP. Presumably Carr’s had supplied him with biscuits, on condition he sent them a snap.

  That same booklet describes the joy of visiting Carr’s biscuits, having an organised tour, and tells you what you might see, such as the Icing and Decorating Room.

  A small army of girls, all in neat overalls, are busily engaged in decorating or icing biscuits. Messrs Carr and Co have made an important feature of these goods and their Café Noir, Finger Creams, Lemon Creams, Windsor Wafers are known and appreciated all over the world. In the Packing and Forwarding Departments, the biscuits are packed by nimble-fingered girls into their various tins covered with artistic covers and packed into cases in which they are despatched to customers at home and abroad. Upwards of 300 kinds of biscuits are manufactured – fastidious indeed must be the epicure who fails to find among them something to suit his taste.

  The notion of epicures being Carr’s biscuit eaters is an attractive one, but their biscuits were indeed appealing to all strata of society. When the Titanic went down in 1912, they were munching away at Carr’s Table Water Biscuits in the first-class lounges. (Another connection with Carlisle was the chief engineer, Joseph Bell, who died in the disaster, came from the village of Farlam, just outside Carlisle.)

  Jonathan Dodgson Carr remained in day-to-day control of Carr’s till 1884, by which time the company had well over a thousand workers at their Carlisle factory.

  Girls of the ‘forwarding staff’ in 1929, in their working coats and caps, the boxes neatly stacked up ready for dispatch.

  He had taken part in several national campaigns, notably a fight to repeal the Corn Laws,
which restricted free trade and made the import of cereal crops from abroad very expensive. When this was successful, he had created for himself a specially made silk waistcoat. It had ears of corn woven into the pattern along with the word FREE. (Today, the waistcoat is on show at Tullie House Museum in Carlisle.) All his life, though, he remained a local rather than a national figure, big in biscuit circles, admired by his peers, but still living modestly in Carlisle. He walked to work each day, tall, hefty, towering and bearded, still personally involved with all aspects of his biscuit factory and his flourmills.

  One day, when purchasing grain at the market in Carlisle, he discovered that he had been given two more bags than he had bought. He asked the police to trace the person who had mistakenly given him too much, but they were unable to do so. Six months later, he went to the chief constable and placed a sum of money on his desk. ‘What’s this for?’ asked the chief constable.

  ‘It’s the money I got for the flour I milled from the two extra bags. Do what thou likes with it but it isn’t mine.’

  A description of him in 1861 records that he had a ‘massive form and benevolent countenance’. One of his grandsons, Frederick Carr, later remembered how he would perform feats of strength when going round the factory or his mills.

  ‘He lifted a twenty-stone sack of flour on to his back, took two other sacks, one under each arm, walked the length of the mill and replaced the sacks. The total weight must have been forty stone, but he did it easily. After dusting the flour off himself, he laughed and asked if anyone would like to have a try.’

  Despite being such a progressive and creative businessman, making use of steam power, immediately seeing all the possibilities in the new and wonderful railways, and exploiting any opportunities for publicity, he did come a cropper when he invested heavily in some tin mines in Cornwall. He and some friends he had encouraged to join him in the investment lost all their money. He had to sell his large house in Stanwix, Carlisle, and downsize till he made up his losses.