Each morning, Annie made sure that she clocked in at the works bang on time and was seated at her press ready for the bell to ring.
She was getting used to the hours of work, which in the beginning had felt like an eternity. For the first days she had gone home with pains in her back and neck, her fingers cut to ribbons. And her wages were always less than she expected. She was not as fast as the others yet and there were so many stoppages – for her overall; for the Sick Club; a penny for once not getting back inside on time when work began again at two o’clock; another penny, the first week, for wastage, which evidently went into the ‘Waste Fund’ to be divided up at Christmas.
There was a lot to learn. Firstly, to add to the exhaustion, she discovered that all the obligatory cleaning of their presses and workplaces was to be done on Saturday mornings. She was beginning to feel as if she lived her whole life at Masters and Hogg.
Gradually she came to understand how the factory worked. The room where they pressed out blanks for pen nibs was one of many. Whenever the bell rang and they knocked off work, women came streaming out of a host of similar rooms where they worked at presses designed for the many processes it took to produce a finished pen nib.
There were presses for stamping a pattern on to each nib, for piercing a tiny hole in each to let the air through, for raising them into a curved shape, for splitting each nib at the tip. In another room, she saw long straps with wheels high up by the ceiling, the straps turning hour after hour, working machines which ground the nibs smooth. She learned, with increasing amazement, that on the lower floors, as well as the rollers for making the steel strips for her blanks, were ovens for annealing – or heat treatment – of the metal in ‘muffles’ before drenching them first in oil, followed by a bath of vitriol. Later the nibs were ‘barrelled’ – turned in large barrels with a grinding powder to smooth them. In yet another room some of them were coated with lacquer, bright silver or gold – and all to produce box upon box full of thousands of the fragile nibs in varying colours, which were then sold all over the world.
‘It’s astonishingly complicated for something so small,’ she said to Margaret, in wonder. ‘I can barely imagine how they even thought of it!’
Annie worked like a whirlwind, but still she was slow compared to the others.
‘Not done many today, ’ave yer?’ Doris would say to her smugly, when they did their daily weigh-in.
Doris always had a pronouncement to make about everything. Many of these outbursts were directed to the room in general, and some of them of the sort that made Annie wish she could block her ears. Since the room was so long, she only really became familiar with the women close to her – Lizzie, Doris and a few others. But Doris targeted most of her remarks at a girl called Hetty, not much older than Annie, a skinny wisp of a thing with a blotchy face. Hetty never said much, just sniggered a lot, showing off decayed teeth. She was the perfect audience for Doris.
At first Annie had wondered why Doris had not moved up to a more skilled job as she was well into her forties. But she soon saw that Doris was slow-witted – except when it came to being insulting. Hetty, though younger, seemed much the same. Annie even wondered for a time if Hetty was Doris’s daughter, but learned that she was not.
All day the two of them exchanged filthy jokes, especially about the men in their lives – or rather Doris joked about ‘the old man’ and Hetty sniggered.
Doris gave Annie snooty, hostile looks if she ever turned Doris’s way. Not that Annie was easily intimidated. She would look away, standing as tall as her petite height would permit, and go to her machine without looking to one side or the other.
I’ll show them, Annie thought, driven by the need to prove herself. I’ll show them I can be one of them and work hard. She didn’t want these women looking down on her as an outsider, especially a pair like Doris and Hetty. They might be God’s children, she thought, furiously, but they were still crude as tar.
During those first weeks, Annie did her best to keep quiet and take in what was going on around her. Some of the women entering the factory in the morning looked roughly dressed, only just managing to pass the regulation of being ‘neat’ for the work. They were a mixture of ages. One or two, in the blanking room, were hard-faced and intimidating, but they worked up at the other end from Annie.
Many of the girls were young and they talked to each other and to Lizzie, but never to her. One or two would give her a nod, but they were not welcoming or polite. They just ignored her, eyeing her from a distance as she went in to work. After a while she could see that they were not really hostile but just shy. They sensed that she was different and did not know what to say to her. The only one she had anything to do with was Lizzie, who would give her a hollow-eyed smile as they arrived at their presses and a ‘see yer tomorrow’ sometimes as they left.
But it knocked Annie’s confidence. For the first time in her life she felt inadequate. How was she supposed to preach the love of God among these rushing, harried women when she could barely even manage a conversation? Once I prove I can do the work, it will be different, Annie thought, turning the handle of her press with all her energy, trying to get the blanks stamped out faster and faster. Sometimes, with a great feeling of triumph, she knew she had done enough – more than enough – in the hour. The problem was trying to keep this up for every hour of the day. Often, as they stood in the long room, light falling through the windows, her back, feet and head all aching and longing for a drink of water, she wanted to walk out, for it all just to stop.
But she had to keep going, she told herself. Somehow, she had to do God’s work. That was what she had come here for, wasn’t it?
The blanks poured from the machines into piles like metal chaff. Her fingers were raw but she ignored the pain in them. Each week, she was getting faster. She worked on, like a little dynamo, in the certainty of being an instrument of God’s glory.
At the end of her third week, Miss Hinks approached her.
‘Well,’ she said stiffly. ‘You’ve come on a bit since you started, I’ll say that for yer. You’re a good worker and you’ve reached your quota. You can go on piecework from next week.’
Annie nodded, lowering her eyes. She did not show it, but she was thrilled. She had proved she could do the job like the others!
‘Thank you, Miss Hinks,’ she said carefully, getting up from her stool to leave.
‘Don’t forget you’ve got to come in tomorrow,’ Miss Hinks said, in her grim way. ‘You’ve got your machine to clean – remember?’
‘Yes, Miss Hinks,’ Annie said humbly.
But she was not feeling humble. She walked home that night elated. She had proved something – she was on a level with all the others! Walking the streets that workers were milling along, she laughed at herself inwardly. What a funny thing most people would consider me, she thought. Being pleased at working well in a factory. But she was full of burning conviction that the meaning of her life was, somehow, to be involved with people – God’s people. To do His work among them, wherever that might take her. It felt a bold and adventurous vocation, though she had no clear plan. She just assumed that once she was accepted in the factory, she would be able to teach the other women – perhaps preach to them in the break – and that she would go down in history as one of the great missionaries who had converted the slum dwellers and factory workers of Birmingham!
She stepped into number twenty-six Chain Street and was hanging her coat in the hall when she became aware of someone standing at the bottom of the stairs; she jumped, her hand going to her heart.
‘Sorry, er, miss . . . Didn’t mean to startle you . . .’
Heart thudding, she peered into the gloom, then turned away, uninterested. ‘Oh, it’s you.’ Jack Sidwell, the young man who had brought them from the railway station.
‘I er . . .’ He sounded flustered. ‘I wanted a word with you, Miss, er, Miss Annie.’
‘Did you?’ She was adjusting her sleeves, still wrapped in her passionate thoughts about the future. Surely he hadn’t been lurking about in the hall waiting for her to come home?
‘Yes, I, er . . . I was gunna ask if . . . Well, if you’d like to walk out with me, some . . .’ He did not seem to have thought this through. ‘Some . . . day. Soon.’
‘Oh, no,’ Annie dismissed him, walking towards the office. ‘No, thank you. Absolutely not.’
Aunt Hatt, Margaret, Susan and Bridget were all looking up at her when she walked into the office. The gas was already lit, casting a soft glow around the room. They heard the front door close with a sullen click.
‘Was that poor Jack?’ Aunt Hatt said. Annie could not tell whether her aunt was trying not to laugh.
‘Yes,’ she said breezily.
‘Well, that was telling him, poor feller,’ Bridget said. Annie thought she seemed offended on Jack’s behalf.
‘Poor Jack,’ Margaret said. ‘You’re such a heartless thing, Annie.’
‘Is there any tea in the pot, Auntie? I’m dropping,’ Annie said, secretly feeling sorry she had been so brusque. But walk out with Jack Sidwell? she thought scornfully as she went to pour her tea. Never in a month of Sundays – she had far more important things to do – she was on piecework!
The next week she worked with feverish speed. In her head she listened to the music of her favourite hymns, the more energetic the better! When wilt thou save the people, O God of mercy, when? boomed in her head and she was so absorbed that she did not notice the mutterings going on around her.
By the Wednesday, she was surprised, when the bell went for their dinner break, to find Lizzie standing next to her. Lizzie was looking round her anxiously, as if to check that no one else was listening.
‘I wanted to say something to yer,’ she whispered. ‘Come outside and I’ll tell yer.’
But as they made to leave the workroom, a number of the women, including Doris and Hetty, stood barring their way.
‘I dunno what you’re doing with ’er, Lizzie,’ a younger, gaunt-faced woman sneered. ‘You want to stick with yer own if you know what’s good for yer.’
Annie felt truly intimidated, but she wasn’t damn well going to show it. She drew herself up, straight-backed, and stared brazenly at them as if they were one of her Sunday-school classes. Who did these people think they were, coming and standing in her way? Annie Hanson was not used to anyone thwarting her!
‘You’re spoiling everything for the rest of us.’ Doris was in the middle, arms folded. She was enjoying her power and her voice was menacing. ‘Yer’d better cut it out – or else.’
‘I was going to tell her,’ Lizzie said. She seemed intimidated by Doris as well. Annie felt a lump come into her throat suddenly. For all her bravado, she knew she needed someone to stand up for her, because she was lost and had no idea what was going on. All the angry-looking eyes around her seemed to bore into her. And Lizzie, for all she looked a poor, worn-out little thing, seemed to have the other women’s respect.
‘Well, you’d better flaming tell her, or there’ll be nothing for any of us – and God knows, you need it more’n most, Lizzie.’
Annie felt she must say something. What was this crime she had committed?
‘Tell me what?’ she asked, keeping her voice soft and timid.
‘If you don’t know, yer need to find out, quick.’ A woman pushed forward. Annie knew her name was Hilda. She was handsome with black hair and a tough, forbidding expression, and Annie felt respect for her. She knew Hilda had six children and she was a hard worker.
‘Yer on piecework now, right? If you keep on the way yer going now, they’ll cut the rate and there’ll be less in everyone’s wages.’ Hilda leaned forward and pushed her face close towards Annie’s. Annie could smell her sweat. ‘And my family ain’t going ’ungry ’cause of you. Gorrit? You ease up – or else.’
Never had Annie felt so small and foolish and out of place. She was used to people deferring to her, as the minister’s daughter. But here no one cared who she was. And she was frightened of Hilda, of the crowd of others behind her. What might they do to her if she didn’t obey? She would surely lose her job one way or another. This first, humbling test faced her.
‘I honestly didn’t know,’ she said, looking down at her black shoes. Her face stung with blushes. ‘I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.’
‘You’d better not.’ Hilda backed off, hands placed self-righteously on hips. Annie managed to look up at her. ‘You never worked in a factory before, then? Don’t sound as if you come from round ’ere.’
Annie shook her head. ‘I’m from the country.’ She could see it would be a very bad idea to tell them anything else about herself. As for any ideas about preaching to them . . . She was starting to realize that she might be the one with a thing or two to learn.
‘Well,’ Hilda said, a sneer in her voice, ‘you ain’t in the country now with a load o’ cows and sheep.’ There were sniggers from some of the others. ‘So – got that straight?’
‘Yes,’ Annie said, looking down again to hide how close to tears she was.
Everyone faded away, in a hurry for their break.
‘I was going to tell you,’ Lizzie said as they walked out. ‘I knew they’d be on to yer for working so fast. But it don’t seem fair if no one’d told yer . . .’
‘Thanks,’ Annie said, swallowing hard. She felt very foolish. ‘That’s nice of you.’ She could see Lizzie meant to be kind and Annie wanted to change the subject. ‘How old are you, Lizzie?’ she asked as they passed along the corridor.
‘Fourteen,’ Lizzie said. Annie was surprised. Although small, the girl seemed older.
‘So why do they all know you?’
‘Oh, they don’t – not really,’ Lizzie said. ‘My mother worked here for a bit, that’s all. Some of them know her.’ She hesitated as they reached the doors and Annie could see she wanted to get away.
‘Thank you for helping me, Lizzie,’ she said.
Lizzie smiled faintly, but she already seemed to have other things on her mind as she hurried away.