The Sugar Girls - Joan’s Story: Tales of Hardship, Love and Happiness in Tate & Lyle’s East End. Duncan Barrett

day she left home with a spring in her step, eager to spend time with the other sugar girls. Her colleagues even seemed to appreciate her little rhyming poems, which she scribbled away in a notebook during her breaks. Once they realised what she was up to, they began to put in requests.

      ‘Can you write one about me, Joan?’ Peggy asked one morning, while a group of girls were gathered round smoking in the toilets.

      ‘All right then,’ Joan replied, happy for the challenge. She thought for a moment.

      ‘Peggy O’s a charming lass, her smile so full of grace / But if you pinch her on the ass, she’ll smack you round the face.’

      ‘You cheeky cow!’ Peggy squealed, between fits of giggles.

      Another girl on the floor was desperate for a ditty about the labour manageress, Miss Smith - or The Dragon, as she was known - who had just given her a particularly humiliating telling-off. Joan was happy to oblige.