Mary, Quite Contrary by Mary Essinger

Author:Mary Essinger
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Leicester;textile industry;1940s;strong female protagonist;female biography;1950s;midlands
Publisher: The Conrad Press
Published: 2016-06-07T17:57:38+00:00

Part Two

What happened next - In My Fashion

V

The Underwear Factory

My first job was at an underwear factory. After climbing the grey stone stairs there was a huge clock-face with about two hundred numbers round its rim. After selecting my card from the rack on the wall I had to turn the arm of the clock till it reached my number and then punch in the time of arrival. Clocking in for somebody else meant getting the sack on the spot.

We all had to get clocked on by 8 am. Right on the dot of 8 o’clock the doors were locked and not opened again till 8.15. Anyone who arrived later than 8.15 had to go in, shame-faced, by the front door, at 8.30.

This lockout system was to make workers prompt, which it probably did, but meant lost wages and a fifteen-minute wait in the cold if the tram happened to be late. I could never see the point of a lockout system – if workers were needed why keep them outside?

At that time, in 1948, jobs were advertised in the Leicester Mercury in two or three long columns under ‘Hosiery Operatives’ and sub-headed ‘Cutters’, ‘Menders’, ‘Overlockers’ and other operations. Some said ‘School Leavers Welcome’. The economy was booming and there were lots of jobs.

‘School leavers’ then meant fourteen-year-olds and that’s how old I was when I first encountered the factory of Arthur Foister’s Cherub works on Charles Street on a sunny September morning wearing a new dirndl skirt and carrying a school report. I walked in through the front entrance, the only time I would ever see it except when I was late. Standing in the oak panelled vestibule I pressed a bell that said, ‘Please ring for attention’. A hatch opened like a speakeasy and a girl not much older than me said in a superior way, ‘Wait here for the forelady.’

The forelady wore a white overall and I followed her to a small room and stood while she sat making notes at a desk. She took down my age, name and address and asked questions.

Forelady: ‘Have you ever used a sewing machine?’

Me: ‘Yes, I make my own clothes.’

Forelady: ‘Did you make that skirt?’

Me: ‘No, I bought it specially… ‘

Forelady: ‘Well, specially for what?’

Me: ‘For this interview.’

Forelady: ‘When you make your own clothes do you cut them out yourself?’

Me: ‘Yes.’

Forelady: ‘Start on Monday, back entrance. The normal time is eight o’clock but, on your first day only, you start at nine. Ask for Mrs Wells in the cutting room on the top floor. The rate is twenty-five shillings weekly and you will be paid a week in hand.’

She didn’t ask to see my school report but I was glad to get out into the street because my new skirt was too loose and needed hitching up.

Me: ‘What does a week in hand mean?’

Mother: ‘It means there’s no pay the first week. You will be paid at the end of the second week for the work you did on the first.

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