Meg watched her mother as she slept, peering through the darkness, reassured by the sound of her breathing. It was not yet light as she heard the church clock chimes and she yawned as she dressed quickly and pulled her covers back in place upon her bed.
‘I hope that you’re not going to wake me every morning at this time when you go to work,’ Sarah said sleepily as her big sister wakened her from her slumber. She pulled the covers back over herself.
‘Shush, you’ll wake Mam, and besides, you can go back to sleep for another hour or two. But when you do get up, remember what I told you last night: make sure Mam has everything she needs. Go to the market and beg some firewood, but don’t go trailing out around the streets and leave her too long. You’ve to look after her and take responsibility while I’m at work,’ Meg lectured her young sister, even though she knew Sarah usually did anything other than what she was told by her older sister.
Meg made her way down the stairs in darkness and sat down in the chair next to the fire that still had a few glowing embers. She pushed some dry sticks into the oven and she watched as it came back to life. As the light from the fire lit the room, she placed the kettle above the flames before slicing a thin slice of bread for both her and her mother. That along with a cup of tea that was going to be breakfast for Agnes, just in case her younger sister didn’t show her mother the same care as she would have done.
She carefully and silently crept back upstairs, placing the meagre breakfast on the table next to her mother, as they’d arranged the evening before. She looked at her mother and breathed in heavily. She hated leaving her mother in Sarah’s care, but somebody had to earn some money to help them live. What little savings Agnes had were now spent and there was little charity shown by the good and great of Leeds. If they weren’t careful the poorhouse beckoned and nobody with any pride wanted to end up in there.
She returned downstairs, her stomach churning as she pulled her shawl around her shoulders. She took a quick sip of the weak tea and a bite of the crust of bread she had allowed herself and then stepped outside into the square. The smell from the midden that the whole row used to empty their chamber pots into assaulted her nostrils. It was always the worst first thing in the morning when the air was still and clear and she had to stop herself from retching as she made her way quickly out of the square by the light of the gaslight.
‘Morning,’ she said quietly to the knocker-upper with his long pole as he tapped on the bedroom windows of those who had paid him for their early morning call. She would have liked to ask him to have done the same for her, but it was an expense that she could ill afford.
‘Morning, miss. It’s a cold one this morning,’ the elderly man said as he moved on to his next client.
‘It is,’ Meg agreed as she clutched her shawl around her and hurried on her way.
She must not be late for her first day with Ted Lund. Her stomach continued to churn as she approached the shop which had the bakery behind it. It looked to be still in darkness as she turned the door handle. The sign was still showing closed as she tried the handle to get in. Was there another way in that she didn’t know about or was Ted not opening today?
‘He’ll not be here yet for another half-hour yet,’ the knocker-upper called to her from across the street. ‘He likes his bed too much does Ted, never mind that everyone is waiting for the bread before going to the mill.’ He then moved on to his next port of call as Meg stood shivering on the step in the cold morning’s light.
‘What are you doing shivering there for?’ Ted demanded a few minutes later when he finally appeared. ‘You should have come and knocked me up, you know where I live. Folk will be waiting for us. You had better shape yourself better when you set about baking else I can do without your so-called help.’
Ted glared at Meg as he opened the door and walked quickly into the back of the bakery where he set about lighting the fires underneath the ovens that were built into the walls of the building.
Meg said nothing. She hadn’t realized that awakening Ted was part of her job too. She watched as the baker placed kindling and coal underneath the huge arched ovens and closed the heavy iron doors of them to build the heat up within. Then with his coal-blackened hands, he carried a bag of milled flour into the small bakehouse, putting it down against Meg’s feet and nodding to a huge mixing bowl. ‘Don’t just stand there. You are here to help me, so get mixing some bread. Think on you are making enough for nearly a hundred folk, so make sure you make enough. There are bread tins over there – fill forty of those and make some plaits and cottage loaves. Make sure you leave it to rise enough, I don’t want bricks,’ Ted instructed as he lugged another bag to her side and then brought her enough yeast to make sure the bread rose well.
Meg looked at both sacks and started filling the mixing bowl with more flour than she had ever handled before in her life.
‘Nay, lass, mix it with some sawdust from the other bag before you start adding the yeast and salt and you’ll need some water from the pump out in the yard. You go and get that and I’ll add the sawdust.’ Ted shook his head. He’d never made his bread with a hundred per cent pure flour for years and he wasn’t about to now.
‘You add sawdust to your bread – are you supposed to do that?’ Meg asked as she reached for a metal bucket to get the water in.
‘I can do what I want, there’s nobody out there to stop me. I’m not a bloody millionaire and folk have never complained about my bread. You say nowt to nobody mind, else you’ll not be stopping long with me. Besides, some bakers add plaster of Paris. That’s worse – it makes the bread claggy and you can taste it. At least this sawdust is so fine you don’t know it’s in there. Now, stop gawping and get that water, else we are never going to have owt to sell today,’ Ted said sharply and watched as Meg walked past him and out of the back door to the small yard where his water pump was.
Meg stood at the pump and looked around her. The yard was a mess. There were used flour bags and crates stacked up all around it and she nearly squealed as a rat ran along the wall top as she pumped water from the iron pump. The kitchen wasn’t much better, she thought, as she lifted the bucket full of water from under the pump, spilling some on her skirts making them wet and cold. They’ll soon dry, she thought, as she watched the smoke from the ovens rise up the chimney into the damp winter’s air and felt the warmth of the kitchen as she opened the door with her bucket of water in her hands. How long had Ted been getting away with adding sawdust to his bread, she wondered as she watched him mix the concoction and mutter to her not to mix the yeast and salt together as they didn’t like one another, before he added the water and made the huge amount of dough, which he then stepped out of the way for Meg to knead.
‘Put your back in it lass – give it a good pummelling, it needs some air putting into it.’
Meg had never kneaded so much dough, and her arms and hands ached as she stood back and looked at the mountain of dough on the wooden table.
‘Right, that’ll do,’ Ted told her finally. ‘Now make your plaits and cottage loaves and I’ll make the tin loaves. I’ll have to, else we’ll have no bread ready for them that work on the early shift at the mill. You should have worked faster,’ he growled as he took half the dough away and started dividing it into the bread tins and covering them with the dirtiest tea towels that Meg had ever seen to enable them to rise in the now warm kitchen. Then he put them on a tray on the wooden shelves that surrounded the bakery’s walls.
Meg divided the dough and started to roll a third into the larger round bun of the cottage loaf. Then she rolled smaller buns to be placed on top to make the cottage loaf.
But when she reached for a knife and started to mark the bread with decorative lines around the larger bun, Ted stopped her. ‘We will have nowt fancy on my bread,’ he told her. ‘Folk like it just as it is, no decoration. As long as it tastes right they’ll not be bothered what it looks like and you are wasting time.’
Ted looked across at the lass with fancy ideas as she placed twenty cottage loaves next to his on the proving racks.
‘My mam says you eat with your eyes and that food should look pretty,’ Meg said as she went to what dough she had left and divided it again into three to plait into a loaf.
‘Tah! Your mother and you talk rubbish. Folk isn’t bothered about what they eat as long as their bellies are full. When you’ve done that, you can go and sweep the shop out and open it up. Yesterday’s bread wants selling before I put the fresh batches out. They that are in a rush to get to work are usually not that fussy. I’ll bake the bread once it has risen; I’m not trusting you with my ovens yet,’ Ted said as he quickly glanced at the rising bread and stoked his ovens up.
Meg finished plaiting her loaves and then took hold of the brush which, like everything else at the bakery, had seen better days. It was nearly bare of bristles, she noticed, as she left the warmth of the bakery and went into the shop. She stood for a second in the gas light’s shadow and wondered if her decision to work for Ted Lund had been sound. His bread was far from right. He was duping his own customers by adding sawdust, so no wonder his bread tasted of nothing and was not popular.
She looked at the stale bread that she was supposed to sell as fresh and screwed her nose up. Some of it looked and felt more like two days old. A couple of the loaves even had Ted’s charcoaled fingerprints on them where he had picked them up with dirty fingers from the fire. Cleanliness and freshness were obviously of no importance to Ted, she thought, as she took hold of the brush and started to sweep the scraps and rubbish from the previous day from off the floor. That might be his way of working, but she had been brought up to do differently.
She made the most of the bristleless brush and turned the shop sign to say that the bakery was open for custom. In half an hour the mill whistles would be heard all over Leeds summoning their workers into the woollen, flax and cotton factories that made the city of Leeds one of the wealthiest in Yorkshire. The sound of clogs running on the cobbled streets would fill the air along with the chatter of the mill girls and the banter of the men trying to chat them up.
Ted would probably be proven right. If they were in a rush and just needed something to fill their bellies at dinner time they would be grateful for his stale bread. She was best saying nothing and just doing her job. After all, she was just a shopgirl – and a shopgirl who needed every penny she could earn so best she’d not say what she was thinking to her new employer.
Meg finished sweeping the floor and then went back into the bakehouse. The smell of freshly baked bread was beginning to fill the air and the warmth from the ovens made her see the bakery in a different light. Ted Lund could have a good business if he could only be bothered, she thought, as she watched him push another dozen or so loaves into his oven on a flat paddle. But who was she to think as much? She was new to the job and had to earn his respect if she was to stay working for him.
She watched as he pulled the first newly baked batch from the ovens. She realized that Ted had once loved and been a master of his craft from the efficient way he moved as he emptied the bread tins and left the bread to cool, once he had tapped each loaf on the bottom to make sure it was baked through. Why had he lost love for his work? She’d never lose her love of baking if the shop was hers, she found herself thinking as she gazed around the bakehouse.
‘Stop your gawping. Put that apron on that’s behind the door and go and stand behind the counter!’ Ted yelled at her. ‘Folk won’t wait to be served.’
Sweat ran down his forehead from the heat of the fires as he kept them fed with fuel. ‘Tin loaves and cottage loaves are a penny ha’penny and plaits are a penny. We don’t do tick – they’ve to show their brass first or they go without.’
Ted watched the lass jump to his words as she put on the apron and vanished back into the shop without replying. He sighed, wiped his hands on his apron, and went to repick one of the loaves up made by Meg. It looked and felt good; she was going to be worth her money once she’d got used to his ways.
It was a shame that his own daughter and wife were no longer alive. They would have filled the bakery with the love that only women could put into baking and he would not have needed the lass. Perhaps the lass might give him a new injection of life or perhaps she could at leastmake his life easier on the days he didn’t want to leave his bed when he hadn’t the heart to take on the world. Time would tell, he thought, as he heard Meg serving the early morning rush.
‘You’re new! Has old misery guts taken you on to help?’ Daisy Truelove looked Meg up and down and passed her a penny ha’penny for her bread and stood waiting for a reply.
‘Yes, I’m on trial. I hope he keeps me on, we need the money.’ Meg smiled at the young lass who was on her way to the mill for her day’s shift.
‘Well if you can, put me a loaf of fresh bread to one side for me in the morning. I know this will be yesterday’s if not older,’ Daisy said. ‘The other week, my loaf had started to go mouldy. Lord knows how old it was! I wouldn’t shop here but you are handy before I make my way to the mill. I’m a blanket weaver – the pay is poor but at least I help my family keep a roof over our head. A fresh loaf to look forward to would be grand.’ Daisy smiled and took the loaf that Meg had wrapped up in white paper for her and placed it under her arm. ‘I’m Daisy, by the way, I live four doors down.’
‘I’m Meg, and I’ll try and do that for you on Monday if I can.’ The young lass looked about her own age of seventeen and guessed she was luckier than her – at least Meg wasn’t working in the noisy, hot and dusty world of the mill. There, wool was spun into thread to be made into blankets by young lasses with quick hands and quick eyes in order to save fingers and lives.
‘That’ll be grand, I daren’t ask miserable old Lund, else he’d stop serving me altogether. Grumpy old bastard.’
Daisy winked and then made her way out of the door as she heard the factory whistle blow once more to summon her to her life of servitude.
‘I thought your mother said you were good at baking bread. I could build a bloody house with these loaves.’
Ted entered the shop with a board filled with the freshly baked bread. He’d heard the shop bell ringing continuously in the last hour and he knew that the old bread would nearly have sold out and now that the factory workers had cleared him of yesterday’s bread he would need his new loaves for the regulars that shopped between eight and one when he closed. He looked at the scowl on Meg’s face as she wondered whether to answer him back about her baking skills.
‘I’m sorry, perhaps I’m not used to adding sawdust into the mix,’ Meg said more sharply than she intended.
‘Keep your voice down, lass, anybody could walk in. I told you not to talk about our secret. On Monday perhaps a lighter touch is needed,’ Ted said as he filled his empty shelves up with the newly baked bread.
He couldn’t let his new apprentice think she had the upper hand on him and his bread baking – but at the same time she had made his life easier. He had recognized over the course of the few hours she had been in his shop that it had made his load a lot lighter. Meg would be a boon to him once she had come around to his ways.
The morning flew by for Meg. First, there had been the factory workers in their rush to get to work, then there were the wives and daughters making sure that there was fresh bread on the table for their loved ones, and then finally those that came in when they had decided they were out of bread or just wanted to idle the day and have somebody to share their troubles and woes with. All had been glad to see a new face over the counter of the bakery. Ted Lund had no time to hear anybody’s woes, so a young lass with a welcoming smile and caring way was to be welcomed in the austere bakery.
Meg heard the clock on the wall above her head strike one. It was dinner time and the shop always closed at one, once the morning rush had finished. There were but a few loaves left from the morning’s baking so Ted would have to be up and going sooner, she thought, as she turned the notice on the shop’s door to Closed after hearing Ted yell at her to shut for the day. She breathed a sigh of relief. The time had soon gone but in the back of her mind when serving each customer she had been worrying about her mother and sister at home on their own. She quickly untied her apron strings and hung it up behind the bakehouse door.
‘I’ll be away now, Mr Lund. Or do you want me to sweep up and tidy the shelves? I’ve covered what bread is left and pulled down the blind.’ Meg stood in front of her new boss and waited to see what he wanted her to do.
‘Nay that can be done in the morning, the ovens are out now and I’m away to my bed. It’s been a hard morning.’ Ted yawned and looked at her. ‘Be here on time come Monday and remember our secret: don’t be going telling your mother about my ingredients,’ he growled.
‘No, Mr Lund, I won’t and I’ll be here on time. Do you want me to come and knock of you if it gets past five?’ Meg asked as she watched him slip on his well-worn coat.
‘If I’m not here you best had. You are taking up a bit of my time having to teach you everything and things have taken longer than usual with you being under my feet,’ he said, virtually shoving her out of the shop as he locked the door behind them both without looking at what bread was left on the shop shelves. ‘I’ll see you on Monday morning, Myra, bright and early.’ He didn’t turn his head as Meg reminded him that her name was Meg, not Myra, as he walked down the street to his home and bed.
Meg shook her head. He couldn’t even be bothered to remember her name and a little gratitude would not have gone amiss for the work she had put in that morning. He was no better than most employers – he just wanted as much work out of you that he could.
She wrapped her shawl around her and started to run down the street back to her home in Sykes Yard. Would her mother still be in bed or would she have managed to wash and dress herself? All had been left for her to make herself comfortable; the coal scuttle had been left filled as well as the kettle. As long as she had managed the stairs by herself she should be fine. She knew Sarah was at home and should show her mother some care but she also knew her sister to be selfish and easily led if there was something better to be doing than looking after her ailing mother.