‘Do you remember the man in the novel who used to take the trolleys and the women scragged him?’ Jo asked me. ‘Well, my mam told me about this man, Tommy Trindle, who took the full bobbin trolleys away and brought the empty trolleys back, and he was always pinching their bottoms and making snide little comments, so they did scrag him one day. They got his trousers off and shoved him down the ramp in the trolley!’
George Leatherhead was a ‘trundler’ who took a pride in his work…Unfortunately for poor George, some of the young flighty girls, always ready for a bit of fun at the end of a working day, had overheard his brazen remarks. He didn’t get very far before they were on him, their pent-up exuberance now released in fits of screaming laughter.
‘Right, you sexy beast, George Leatherhead! You’ve asked for it now!’ ‘Don’t get worriting, George…we’re not going to ‘arm you…we just want to see what all the fuss is about.’ ‘Come on, George! Get them bloody trousers off!’ They came at him from all directions…
Stories like this leave little doubt about the camaraderie that relieved the twelve-hour work shifts until the factory hooter blew for shutdown and the spinning machines were wound down. Bit by bit the blanket of noise broke up and dissipated, as one by one the individual sources of it were extinguished. Normally a swell of laughter and chatter would replace the machine noise, but on one occasion, Jo tells me, there was only hushed silence. ‘That terrible scene in Angels Cry Sometimes is based on something that one of the ladies who worked with Mam told me when she took me to the toilet…She was telling me about this girl…and then, “Don’t you go near the machines, lass,” she said…’:
‘Come on, Marcia! Get your apron emptied!’ But even as Marcia was lifting her hand to throw the switch which would close down her machine, there came an almighty noise from some way up in front – a great screeching, jarring noise, which was unlike anything she’d heard before. Then, of a sudden, it was like all hell let loose! Folks ran in all directions and even Tom Atkinson, who judging by the heightened colour of his face and the wild look in his eyes, could go down any minute with a heart-attack, pelted past Marcia’s machine.
By now most of the machines had ground to a halt. But, when Marcia emerged from changing her slippers for shoes, she saw little groups of mill-hands standing about and conversing in whispers. From a distance, she could see Daisy crying, with old Bertha comforting her. Some of the other women were stark-eyed, with their hands flattened over their mouths as though to stifle any sound that might come out.
Going to where old Bertha had young Daisy enclosed in her arms, Marcia asked in a soft voice, subdued by the sight of wretched faces all about her, ‘What is it, Bertha? Whatever’s going on?’
But Bertha could give no answer, except to shake her head and gently to lead away the trembling girl in her arms. As she passed Marcia she whispered, ‘Come away, lass. Come away!’ As Marcia made to follow her…there came a flurry of activity from both behind and in front of her.
Tom Atkinson walked about, going from one little group to another, gently moving them on and telling them, ‘Tek yersel’s off home. There’s nowt to be done ‘ere!’ His face looked totally drained of colour and his shoulders stooped as though pressed down with a great weight.
When the two dark-suited fellows came hurrying by her carrying a rolled-up stretcher and looking grim, Marcia’s eyes followed them and, almost involuntarily, she took a few paces forward. What she saw came as one of the worst shocks she had ever experienced. It was Maggie Clegg’s machine around which all activity was taking place – bright, chirpy Maggie Clegg’s machine, splattered from top to bottom in great splashes of blood standing out scarlet and horrifying against the white cotton bobbins and the great iron struts, which Maggie knew like the back of her hand. From the huge cogs and rollers which ran this monstrosity, there hung ragged hanks of hair – Maggie’s hair that was once long and jet-black, and which now was crimson and split asunder.
Jo’s world is sometimes harsh, and when it is, the benefits of belonging to a community come into play. The character of her people is the environment from which the stories flow, so that, for example, Queenie’s house draws from her mother’s strong, loving character, and offers the little girl security:
There was a degree of warmth and splendid reliability in the stalwart green distemper, which reflected the half-light from the gas-lamp beneath the window. The big square wardrobe stood to attention in its disciplined uprightness, as it towered protectively over a short wooden-knobbed chest of drawers. A small ripple of pleasure bathed the knot of fear in Queenie’s stomach as her gaze rested on the kidney-shaped dresser…There in the half-light were all the familiar things.
‘It was a little house we had in Derwent Street,’ Jo reminisces, ‘they were all little houses, but it was a real community. You could go out and leave your door unlocked, then come back and find six people sitting in your kitchen drinking tea. The women all looked after each other’s children. Nobody had much, but we shared what we had.’
‘Belonging to a place, to a street, to a people, to a family is important to you,’ I suggest.
‘It is the most important thing,’ Jo agrees. ‘It is you, it is who you are, it is where you came from. I think every day of my life…I am very aware of how it used to be. Inside I haven’t changed a bit. I am still that snotty-nosed kid from the backstreets. I have been more fortunate than a lot of people, but my feet are firmly on the ground. From Derwent Street come the really early memories, when I was four, five years old and I would sit on the step and watch everything as it was going on in the street.
‘We were very poor and constantly moved house, but of all the places we lived I remember Derwent Street in particular. We had a chap who used to live at the top end, who dressed up in high heels and short skirts! All the children would follow him up and down the street as if he were the Pied Piper. And then he was arrested one day. The policemen were taking him off and we were all running after him! We all loved him! He was so kind, a lovely man.’
In Her Father’s Sins, the cross-dresser appears in the guise of Fountain Crossland, ‘who had fists the size of sledge-hammers and a head like a stud-bull, a burly pit worker’, but who would rather be wearing Auntie Biddy’s pinny and dandling Queenie on his knee.
It was a pleasing picture that greeted Fountain Crossland when George Kenney’s daughter opened the door to his tapping. ‘A sight for sore eyes, that’s what you are, young Queenie,’ he said quietly. Then without waiting to be asked he stepped inside and proceeded down the passageway towards the parlour. Queenie closed the door and followed. ‘He’s still in bed,’ she said, leaving the parlour door open as she came in from the passage. ‘No need fer that,’ Fountain Crossland told her, his face crooked into a half-smile.
Queenie had already turned away with the intention of rousing George Kenney but now the big man came to block her exit. Putting his finger across his lips he leaned towards her, at the same time reaching out behind her to push the door to. ‘Ssh…we don’t want to fetch ‘im from ‘is bed, do we? I’ve seen what ‘e’s like on wakkeningl’ He stretched his face into an ugly grimace, and it was such an accurate mimicry of George Kenney in a foul temper that Queenie found herself laughing out loud in spite