Mill Girls by Johnson Tracy

Author:Johnson, Tracy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ebury Publishing

Almost 80 years later, as a 93-year-old lady, it’s funny thinking back to the young, naïve girl I was then. I worked in there for 45 years and, trust me, my enthusiasm never lasted that long! But I have fond memories of the mill, including family, friendship and love – especially meeting my husband. I also wanted to let people know what happened and give them an insight into what working life was really like, back then.

It’s so different from today. I don’t think some people, especially the younger ones, would be able to comprehend it. In those days, you were just relieved and glad to get a job (and keep it) that you’d never think about leaving. Whereas today, if workers aren’t happy, for whatever reason, they leave and find a new job or claim benefits – the two choices we never had. There wasn’t the variety of jobs when I was 14 years old and leaving school, so the mill was the obvious choice, living in Chatburn. It was a good source of employment, especially for our village, but today people wouldn’t put up with the conditions. Yet, oddly enough, I didn’t think they were that bad at the time. It’s only now when I reflect back on it and compare it to the modern world that I see how some things wouldn’t be allowed today. I also think we’ve gone too far the other way now. For example, in my last week in the mill before I retired at 59, we got a canteen and one of the lady workers was asked if she’d shift jobs and work in there instead. That wouldn’t happen today, but back then people rallied round and, if you suddenly shifted jobs, you just accepted it and did it. Today, they’d either pack it in or there are so many rules and regulations the manager wouldn’t be able to do it. But back then you didn’t bother as you were just thankful to have a job – regardless of how much you disliked it. However, you probably won’t be able to begin to understand what I mean, until I explain a bit more about what it was like working in the mill, but, to get a taste of who I am and what my life was like, I thought it best to start from the beginning.

I was born Marjorie Barnes on 15 April 1920 to William Barnes and Jane Hitchen. We lived at 72 St Paul’s Street, in Low Moor, an area of Clitheroe in Lancashire, a market town in the borough of the Ribble Valley and home to Clitheroe Castle, believed to be one of the smallest Norman keeps in the country. At that time, Clitheroe was the same as the rest of the country in that it was in Depression with real poverty. Men had returned home from the Great War expecting life to be wonderful, only to find they had no jobs to return to and were instead forced to experience the long queues at the Employment Exchange.

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