Secrets of the Sewing Bee

Standing alone in the canteen kitchen, lost in her own thoughts amid a cloud of billowing steam, Dolly didn’t notice Lucky until he was right by her side.

‘Oh my days!’ she shrieked, clutching Lucky’s arm. ‘You gave me such a fright. I was away with the fairies.’

‘I can tell,’ he grinned, reaching past her to turn off the whistling kettles. ‘You all right?’ he quizzed. ‘You look a little pale, and you’re jumping about as if you got a touch of the St Vitus’s dance. You’re not worried about invasion, are you? It’s all anyone seems to talk of since Dunkirk.’

‘Course I’m not worried,’ she scoffed. ‘Take more than a few Nazis to topple Dolly Doolaney off her perch.’

And in truth, she really hadn’t been thinking about the possibility of an invasion, though all these weeks on, she was still haunted by the terrible things she had read about Dunkirk. All those thousands of Allied troops trapped and bombarded on the beaches, the nightmare of their escape on the small flotilla of civilian boats . . . The bravery of every soldier battling on the beaches had been an example. If they could refuse to surrender, then so could she.

‘Now, what can I do for you, my darlin’?’ she asked. ‘I’m just getting ready to bring the tea trolley round.’

‘How beautiful!’ exclaimed Dolly. ‘Wherever did you get your hands on them? I thought they weren’t selling flowers down the market anymore.’

‘Aah, it’s not what you know but who,’ he winked, tapping the side of his nose.

‘It’s as plain as the nose on your face that you’ve taken a real shine to the girl,’ Dolly replied. ‘What I don’t get is why. I don’t wish to be rude, but I really don’t fancy your chances. She seems quite taken with her chap in the ministry, or if you listen to the girls’ gossip, she’s having it away with Göring himself.’

Lucky let out a long sigh and leaned back against the white-tiled wall. His handsome face lit up as he clutched the violets tightly over his heart. ‘I know she’s taken, but it’s no good, Doll,’ he said throatily. ‘I can’t look at her without wanting to kiss her. She has this effect on me. One look from her and I just lose myself.’

He wiped a hand through his dark locks and suddenly the dreamy expression of moments earlier was replaced with steely determination. ‘I know I’m punching above my weight, but if being a boxer has taught me anything, it’s never to give up until the final knockout blow. You understand what I’m saying, Doll? As long I have breath in my body, I won’t give up.’

Dolly nodded and found solace in his words. ‘Actually, Lucky, I think I do understand. It’s not over until it’s really over.’

‘Exactly, so you’ll lend me a tray and something to put these flowers in, then?’ Lucky smiled, cocking his head to one side. ‘I’ve got a little surprise for Peggy to try and win her over.’

As she bustled about preparing her tea trolley, Dolly realized that if she was going to survive, she had better take a leaf out of Lucky Johnstone’s book and start looking up to the stars instead of down to the gutter.

Out on the floor, Flossy looked up to see Archie leave his office, and from the look on his face, he meant business.

‘Shut the machines down, girls,’ he ordered, banging a cotton reel against a workbench to get their attention.

Flossy nudged Peggy and she immediately shut down her machine and looked up attentively. It had been just over a month since the forelady had packed her off home with a flea in her ear after she had injured herself. Flossy didn’t know whether it was the shock of losing a day’s wages or if she was, at last, coming to terms with her new life, but Peggy was finally knuckling down. She still kept herself to herself, but she hadn’t been so much as a second late or dared to cheek the forelady.

The mood in the factory in the eighteen days since the last of the Allied troops had been evacuated from France had been decidedly subdued. Already, army and navy uniforms had started trickling into Trout’s for repair, and it had been a stark reminder of the horrors of what had happened on those blood-drenched beaches. The fetid smell of damp khaki had filled the factory when the first bundle was unwrapped for repair. Even glacial Peggy had looked moved to tears when reports of the evacuation had drifted over from the crackly old wireless.

When the rumble of machines finally died down, Archie hoisted a large bundle and a sack onto the nearest workbench with a grunt.

‘I ain’t here to talk about St Nicholas,’ he replied. ‘Do you know how many of our boys – not to mention French troops – were rescued alive from Dunkirk? Three hundred and thirty-eight thousand! Nothing short of a miracle, is it? They were rescued by brave civilians, and of course by the likes of our own boys on board HMS Avenge – civilian and soldier, fisherman and sailor, working side by side. Do you know what that proves?’

The pugnacious little foreman paced the factory floor, hands on his hips, as the women pondered his question. He stopped and turned to face them all. ‘I predict a new kind of warfare, and it’s gonna involve all of us on the Home Front. Do you know what the talk is out on the streets? The last war was the soldiers’ war. This one is everybody’s.’

‘The reason I tell you all this is because I’m sad to report I have just heard the news that France has officially fallen. Paris is now under the control of the Nazis. Our little island stands alone.’

He pointed to the sack he had brought in. ‘Uniforms fresh from France for repair, and there will be countless more flooding in. We all have to find our backbone!’

Flossy felt the blood in her veins turn to ice at the catastrophic news, the news that they had all feared but dared not believe could really happen.

From her position behind Ivy, she could see the older woman’s shoulders start to shake.

‘But that’s the problem, Archie,’ Ivy trembled. ‘I’m too old for this lark. I don’t mind admitting that I’m terrified of an invasion, and the government must think it too. Why else have they removed the street signs in the country? The church bells are silent too unless they invade. There’s nothing between them and us now. We’re just waiting, sitting ducks . . .’ Her voice trailed off as tears consumed her.

Flossy couldn’t bear to see the woman’s suffering and leaped to her feet to put her arms round Ivy.

‘Bless you, sweetheart,’ she sobbed. ‘But surely I can’t be the only one who’s petrified, am I? No nation has defeated Hitler yet.’

‘Yeah, but they ain’t come up against us Brits, have they?’ reasoned Pat, standing up and slamming her fist down on her workbench so hard her machine rattled. ‘Over my dead body is a Nazi marching up Brick Lane! I’ll go down there and fight them bloody Germans on the beaches of Dover meself if I have to, with me bare hands and a rolling pin. Give us women the weapons and we’ll do the job! Who’s with me, girls?’

A cacophony of noise and chaos erupted on the floor as each seamstress strained to make her opinion heard over the din. Suddenly, the clanging of a loud bell chimed over it all, and a sickening silence fell over the room. Flossy felt the unmistakable prickle of panic.

Thirty sets of eyes swivelled to where a clearly vexed Vera was standing clutching an old school bell by the entrance to the foreman’s office.

‘I knew this would come in handy one day,’ she said coolly. ‘Now that I’ve got your attention, can we please stop all this hysteria? This is lamentable conduct, ladies. There’s no question of Britain being invaded. We must remain steadfast and dedicated to our work. As Mr Gladstone said, our duties are of national importance. But’ – her voice dropped to a gentler tone as she looked over to where Ivy was sitting – ‘I do appreciate your fears. Dolly’s bringing the tea trolley round, so we will break early for morning tea break. We have replies to your letters from HMS Avenge too, which I shall be handing round to those who wrote.’ With that, she strode to the wireless and switched it on.

‘The Home Service have launched a new programme, Music While You Work, to keep morale and productivity up among us workers, and a splendid idea it is too,’ the forelady said briskly. ‘Let’s listen to this while we drink our tea.’

As the lively strains of Joe Loss and his big-band orchestra floated through the factory, Vera turned to move off, but then added as an afterthought, ‘Nature has fashioned our sex for endurance, and endure we shall.’

The silky music and the prospect of tea and letters were as soothing as balm, and peace was once more restored to Trout’s. But Flossy sensed that nothing would really be the same again now.

Peggy had listened in incredulous disbelief to the foreman’s speech informing them of the fall of France. She had the queerest of sensations, as if she were watching a motion picture of her own life and she still had no idea how it came to be that she was in it. The world had quite simply gone mad.

As little as two months ago, she had the perfect life. Her biggest conundrum had been what shade of dress to wear to one of the regular dances Gerald took her to. But now perhaps it was time to start facing some uncomfortable truths. She hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him since she moved to Bethnal Green six weeks ago, and the knowledge that he might have thrown her over was a bitter pill to swallow.

Before, the war had been nothing but a minor irritation, and then had come that knock at the door that had changed everything and brought her here, to this place. Her world had turned on its axis. But Peggy was intelligent enough to know that fighting against it any longer was futile. Her mother was close to breaking point, and if they were to survive, she would have to keep a cool head and try to make a go of this job. The pitiful wage she brought home each Friday in a brown paper pay packet seemed to mean so much to her mother.

She turned to face Flossy, who winced while she rubbed her neck. ‘Are you all right?’ Peggy enquired.

‘I know what you mean,’ she sighed. ‘Sitting at these machines hour after hour, my back’s throbbing by the end of the day.’

Peggy had a grudging respect for the shy girl who had spent her life in some godforsaken home. It must have been ghastly, but she never heard a word of complaint from her lips. Perhaps if she were to take a leaf out of Flossy’s book, she might be as popular as her, or Dolly for that matter.

Flossy was certainly a better machinist than she, and Peggy had a feeling it wouldn’t be long before Vera moved her up to piecework with the more experienced workers.

‘Still, mustn’t grumble,’ went on Flossy. ‘If it doesn’t ache, it doesn’t work, and we are earning good money to be here.’

Peggy opened her mouth to say something scathing about how ten shillings a week was scarcely putting them in the same league as a Rockefeller, but decided against it. This didn’t feel like the time or place for sarcasm.

She turned round to find Lucky standing wearing a hopeful grin and a waiter’s apron over his grease-stained overalls. In his hands, he clutched a tray with a single violet, a mug of tea and a marg-spread bun. Flossy tactfully made herself scarce.

‘I thought seeing as how you won’t come for tea, I’d bring tea to you. Sorry I ain’t got no scones – a bun’s the best I could do – but I hope you like the flower,’ he grinned. ‘I put the rest on your workstation. Violets, to match the colour of your eyes.’

‘I know, but I’m afraid I couldn’t find a vase. Do you like it? I thought it was quite apt – you know, you’re the flowers; I’m the old jam jar. Made me think how unusual things can go together . . .’ His voice trailed off nervously. ‘I know it ain’t Lyons, but I thought it might help you feel more at home at Trout’s.’

‘Dizzy luxury,’ she murmured, staring at the margarine, which was starting to congeal on the surface of the penny bun.

Peggy felt excruciatingly uncomfortable. The women’s chatter had tailed off and suddenly she became aware that her and Lucky’s exchange was the focal point of the whole room. Lily glared at her with ill-concealed hatred.

‘Please, Lucky, won’t you just leave me alone?’ she pleaded in a low voice. The four walls of the factory seemed to close in on her, and the heat was ferocious. Peggy turned and ran.

Outside, by the gates to Trout’s, Peggy leaned against the high brick wall and stared enviously at best friends Daisy and Sal, giggling over a shared cigarette.

Why had she not spent more time with her friends at Lyons this last eight months, instead of devoting every spare moment to Gerald?

Just then she heard a cough. She whirled round. Lucky stood on the cobbled street, clutching the jam jar of violets, his face a picture of contrition.

‘I’m so sorry, Peggy. I didn’t mean to embarrass you in there, and I swear I ain’t mocking you,’ he said, gazing deep into her eyes. ‘I just wanted to do something nice for you, that’s all. Cheer you up . . .’

Standing in front of her, clutching his pitiful jar of flowers, Lucky didn’t look like a big, tough boxer. He looked like a lost little boy.

‘It’s me who should be apologizing to you,’ Peggy said with a grimace. ‘I’m sorry. I know you were trying to be nice. I’m just . . . Well, my life’s a little complicated right now.’

‘Friends,’ Peggy agreed with a smile, ‘but please, no more dressing up as a waiter.’

‘Hand on my heart,’ Lucky promised, beating his hand against his chest and sloshing water from the jam jar all over the front of his overalls.

‘You are the clumsiest man I know, Lucky Johnstone,’ Peggy giggled, pulling a hanky from her pinny and dabbing it against his broad chest.

‘Hello, darling,’ he smiled smoothly. ‘Perhaps I should be asking you the same thing?’

Seeing Gerald, her Gerald, standing in his pinstriped suit on the street outside Trout’s threw Peggy and for a moment she forgot her anger. Especially when from behind his back he produced the most enormous spray of exquisite red roses.

‘For you, with my most humble apologies for neglecting my favourite girl,’ he smiled.

Confused, she took the flowers. ‘Gerald, it’s been six weeks now with no word since you cancelled our date. I’ve been worried sick about you. I thought you had decided to . . . Well, I don’t know what I thought.’

‘Darling, Peggy, have you not been listening to the wireless? No, I’m sure they don’t pay attention to such matters in a factory, but since the evacuation of Dunkirk, I’ve been practically chained to my desk. Now France has fallen, well, it’s making life in the MOI impossible. I can’t discuss it, of course – national security, you understand . . .’

‘Yes, of course I understand,’ Peggy replied, not really understanding at all. Surely he could have got word to her. And what of the two weeks before Dunkirk? Gerald had conveniently neglected to mention that. Where exactly had he been then? Peggy felt her head spin with unanswered questions as she clutched his extravagant peace offering.

Gerald turned to Lucky and the two men locked eyes. Gerald might have towered over Lucky, but Lucky’s swarthy physique dwarfed his. For the first time, Peggy noticed how small Gerald’s shoulders were.

‘Lucky Johnstone. I’m the odd-job man here at Trout’s.’ He wiped his right hand on his overalls and extended it to Gerald.

But instead of shaking it, Gerald simply stared in disgust at the missing tips of Lucky’s fingers.

‘Odd-job man, eh? Jack of all trades, master of none,’ Gerald snorted. ‘Mind you, I suppose there’s not much a chap like you can do with that hand.’

Lucky’s jaw clenched and for a terrible moment Peggy thought he might strike him.

‘Anyway, darling, I’ve been at a meeting in Liverpool Street and I haven’t long before I have to get back to Whitehall, but I can spare you a few minutes for a cup of tea. Only, I really am going to have to insist you take that ghastly hairnet off: it does you no favours.’

‘I won’t have time, Gerald,’ Peggy protested, patting her hair defensively. ‘We only get ten minutes for tea break. I’ll get in dreadful trouble if I’m late.’

Gerald rolled his eyes. ‘A quick walk, then? Surely you can grant me that, seeing as I’ve come all this way to see you!’

Peggy nodded, wondering how he had managed to turn the tables and make her feel as if she were the one in the wrong.

‘That’s my girl,’ he replied, placing an arm around her shoulder and fixing Lucky with a cold stare.

‘Thank heavens for these roses,’ Gerald snorted as he guided her away from the factory gates. ‘The stench round here is quite foul. I don’t know how you bear it. You know why they built the factories in the East End, don’t you?’

He laughed heartily at his own joke and Peggy didn’t dare to look at Lucky’s face, but as they disappeared down the street, Lucky stared after them, still clutching his small jam jar of violets.

Back in her tiny attic-room lodgings that evening, Flossy looked around and sighed wearily as she rubbed her throbbing neck. Dusty evening sunshine filtered into the room, split into columns by the anti-blast tape that crisscrossed the pane. Walking to the window, she jammed it open as far as it would go and stared out across the jumbled rooftops of the East End. There wasn’t a breath of wind, but she thought she caught a whiff of rain. Sure enough, in the distance, dark clouds formed.

Flossy turned back to her tiny room. It didn’t contain much, just a single iron bed covered in a candlewick bedspread, a chair and a small chest of drawers for her clothes. The walls were bare of any pictures or photographs, just flaking, damp plaster.

The toilet facilities – such as they were – were down four flights of stairs of the former silk weaver’s house and at the bottom of the garden, and they were shared with the other occupants of the house. She didn’t know how many other people all lived squashed together in the other rooms, but she guessed dozens. The dark passages were always filled with the smell of cooking cabbage and the sound of crying babies, and when she left for work in the morning, there was always at least one poor mother bumping a heavy coach pram down the stairs.

Flossy had found the overcrowding in this area shocking, but she knew it was caused by poverty, and the tumbledown houses crammed with the hungry poor.

But for all that, Flossy adored her room, her street and the village-like atmosphere of Bethnal Green. It may have lacked wealth, but as she knew from visiting Dolly’s humble home, it was rich in family ties, loyalty and community. It was also the first time Flossy had ever had a space to call her own. She was earning ten shillings a week and learning a trade. Before she had left that day, Vera had pulled her to one side and told her she intended to move her up to sit with the more experienced women the very next day, with the promise of more complex tasks and piecework. Flossy sighed happily and walked to the single gas stove in the corner and set about fixing herself a cup of cocoa. As the tiny flame warmed the pan, contentment swelled in her chest. In her bag was a letter from Tommy, her sailor. Unlike the other women, she hadn’t ripped it open there and then. She preferred to savour it on her own.

When the cocoa was bubbling, she poured the frothy chocolate drink into a mug, sat down on her bed and pulled the letter from her bag.

The first thing she noticed was the official stamp at the top of the paper, HM Forces on Active Service. Suddenly, her own work as a seamstress didn’t seem quite so important.

Greetings, Flossy Brown,

My name is Tommy Bird. Thanks ever so much for the comforts, which we have just gratefully received on board. There is no sight these days more welcome than that of the mailboat. When she comes alongside, you have never seen so many willing and able sailors ready to give the Fleet Mail Wrens a hand in bringing the mailbags aboard.

Life is hard out here at sea, but I don’t want to burden you with tales of our hardship. I can’t tell you where I am or what I’m doing, as I can feel the censor’s hand getting twitchy already, but we are doing our damnedest to beat Jerry. I don’t want to talk about that, though. I want to hear all about the land I love the most of all. Blighty!

I’m a simple chap. Before war broke out, I worked down the docks, at the Tate & Lyle factory, and lived with my mum, dad and five older sisters – yes, five sisters. (My dad wept tears of joy when I came along!) Life was never dull, that’s for sure. There was that much squabbling over boyfriends and lipstick, and my mum was forever threatening to bang some heads together. ‘I can’t hear meself think,’ she used to say, but I loved the hubbub, and truth be told, I miss all them women fussing over me. Our house smelt like a tart’s boudoir at times, but I even miss that. There was always laughter and fun in my family and constant noise. My dad whistling, the wireless, my sisters’ latest dramas, church bells on a Sunday, the factory hooters sounding out the new shift . . .

Sometimes, when I’m up on deck on a nightwatch and a thick fog rolls in, it’s so quiet it’s deafening, and I’d do anything not to be able to hear myself think, ’cause that’s when the fear sets in. So I cast my mind back to my little house in the East End and I think of my mum’s Sunday roast, or all of us piled round the table with fish ’n’ chips on a Friday night, or bread ’n’ dripping on my lap round the fire, while Mum and my sisters sewed and sang along to the wireless.

Family life. That’s what I miss the most. You can’t beat it. I was married once too, but my wife, Sylvie, she passed. Anyway, I shan’t dwell on that. I was lucky to be surrounded by my sisters then, I don’t mind telling you. They carried me through some dark days.

Hark at me, rattling on about my family. Tell me about your mob, Flossy. I hope you’re as blessed. I’d love to hear all about them.

Cheerio, ducks. The future looks promising now.

Yours faithfully,

Tommy

Outside, there was a low rumble of thunder and a fork of lightning lit up the skies over the East End. The storm had broken and the rains began. As she carefully folded Tommy’s letter, the tears flowed freely down Flossy’s cheeks, dripping onto the paper and blurring the ink.

Tommy had just painted a picture of family life that she could only dream of. His love of Sundays had only been matched by her hatred of them. Sundays had been the worst time of all. For that was when they would be forced to don awful tweed suits and felt hats, and be marched to church in a crocodile line. Sunday service in the morning, followed by Bible classes, and after she had turned eight, a second church service on Sunday evenings.

Besides her clothes, all Flossy had to show for nearly eighteen years in the home was her ration book and her Bible. Home! What an emotive word that was, Flossy thought as she dabbed her eyes with the edge of a tea towel and stared out at the rain cascading off the guttering. It made you think of somewhere warm and inviting, with a kettle that was permanently whistling and a hearthrug on which to stretch out your toes.

The home Flossy knew had quite different connotations. Her past was a blank sheet, the walls of her room devoid of any photos bursting with the kind of rumbustious but loving family life Tommy had just described.

But there was little point feeling sorry for herself. This poor chap had lost his wife and was on active service. Flossy picked up her pencil and pad, and immediately began to compose a reply. She didn’t hold back. What was the point? She might never meet this Tommy chap in the flesh anyway. France had been invaded, good British men had lost their lives, and thousands more were getting ready to be sent to their deaths. Didn’t she owe him a letter from the heart?

Writing was cathartic. By the time she had finished, Flossy felt calmer. She had told Tommy everything about her start in life, her upbringing in the institute, her desire to discover her roots and her sorrow at hearing he had lost his wife. She was just signing her name when a sudden knock at the door startled her. Whoever could be calling at such an hour? Flossy popped the letter in her bag and tentatively opened the door a crack.

Pulling her black astrakhan fur coat round her shoulders, Peggy was a frightful sight. Her mascara had run down her pale cheeks in rivulets, and her lips were bitten white against the pale of her face.

‘Of course,’ said Flossy, ushering her in. ‘I’ll fix you a cocoa and fetch you a towel.’

Peggy settled herself down on the chair and watched as Flossy set about making her drink.

‘I hope you don’t mind my barging my way in here, but after today, and what happened with Lucky, and Gerald turning up like that out of the blue, I feel so confused. I don’t know what to think anymore,’ she whispered. ‘This morning, on our walk, he assured me he still loves me and wants to marry me when the war is over, but with France now occupied, that possibility seems more remote than ever.

‘And now he says it’s going to be even harder to get away from his desk and that I need to be patient and not get all hysterical. Oh, Flossy, I must be the most dreadful girlfriend ever.’

Flossy bit her tongue as she poured Peggy’s drink into a tin mug and topped up her own.

‘Anyway, what I’m trying to say is, I could use a friend. I thought perhaps you could persuade the others to let me join the sewing circle . . .’

‘Why, of course, Peggy!’ she smiled, pressing the mug of warm cocoa into her hands. ‘Nothing would make me happier.’

‘No, and I fear this is just the beginning,’ Flossy replied. ‘We’re going to need all the friends we can get if we’re to endure what lies ahead.’

‘But what about all the others?’ Peggy replied worriedly. ‘I haven’t exactly endeared myself to them.’

‘You leave Pat and the others to me. I’ll talk to Dolly. She’ll fix it. Deal?’

The two women bumped mugs and Flossy realized that all their happiness lay in each other. In the absence of family, friendship was everything.

Four