The arrival on the scene of Gladys, with a shock of red hair just like her father’s, prompted the final showdown between Rose and Amos, whose seafaring could no longer be tolerated now that there were six mouths to feed. 19 Crown Street trembled to the sounds of the almighty row, which ended in his service book being ripped up and thrown onto the fire. Amos accepted his fate, and a job in the docks – where he would wistfully sing the dirty sea ditties of his youth. But he never quite forgave his daughter for thwarting his ambition.
Fourteen years later, Gladys’s own ambition in life was to become a nurse. Playing doctors and nurses had been a favourite game ever since, aged three, she had fallen ill with diphtheria and had her life saved by the staff at Sampson Street fever hospital. She had also been told more than once that, compared to other girls, she was remarkably unsqueamish, a virtue she assumed was much needed in the medical profession. Having been brought up with four brothers, she was a natural tomboy who didn’t think twice about picking up spiders or other creepy-crawlies, to the horror of the girls at school – a habit which frequently landed her in the headmaster’s office. One day she had pierced her own ears out of curiosity, and she was soon piercing those of the local gypsy boys as well. She was used to the sight of blood, thanks to her dad’s hobby of breeding chickens and rabbits to sell at the pub, which he would slaughter and nail upside down in the back yard to drain.
With no qualifications to her name, save for a half-hearted reference from her long-suffering headmaster stating that she was a trustworthy sort, Gladys headed straight to the hospital on Sampson Street as soon as school was out, and collected an application form.
She returned excitedly to Eclipse Road, clutching the papers in her hand.
‘What’ve you got there, love?’ her mother asked.
‘It’s my papers from Sampson Street. I’m going to be a nurse!’
‘Oh yeah?’ said her father, raising his red eyebrows. ‘And do you know what you have to do when you work in a hospital?’
‘Well, look after people and all that,’ said Gladys.
A mischievous grin spread across Amos’s face. ‘You have to get old men’s willies out and hold them while they wee!’
‘I’m not doing that!’ shrieked Gladys, who had never seen a grown man’s willy in her life.
‘Well you’re not going to be a nurse then, are you?’ said her father, erupting into a loud belly laugh.
Gladys tore up the papers in disgust and threw them onto the fire, watching her own ambitions fly up the chimney. ‘What am I going to do then?’ she moaned.
Her dad grinned with satisfaction. ‘What do you think? Go down Tate & Lyle’s like everyone else.’
On Monday morning, Gladys found herself outside the Personnel Office at the Plaistow Wharf Refinery. A shiny new sign on the door read: MISS FLORENCE SMITH, LABOUR MANAGERESS.
Gladys knocked reluctantly and a deep voice issued from the other side of the door. ‘Come in.’
Inside the pokey little office, three women were seated behind a single long table. In the centre was Miss Smith, a huge, broad-shouldered boulder of a woman with a stern, matronly look. Her blonde hair was cut in a short, severe crop, and her grey suit and white blouse were buttoned up so tight over her enormous bosom that it was a wonder she could breathe. She was a recent appointment to the top woman’s job at the factory, although no one who met her would ever have guessed.
The other two women in the office were both called Betty. To Miss Smith’s left was the young Personnel secretary, Betty Harrington, and on her right sat her deputy, Betty Phillips, a thin woman with glasses.
Miss Smith nodded to a chair opposite the three of them. ‘Sit down,’ she ordered.
Gladys slumped into the seat. Miss Smith took in her boyish frame and messy ginger hair. ‘Have you left school yet?’ she asked suspiciously.
‘Yeah, of course,’ Gladys retorted.
‘Name? Address?’
‘Gladys Taylor, 38 Eclipse Road, Plaistow.’
Miss Smith scribbled on a white form.
‘Do you have a letter of recommendation?’
Gladys fished around in her pocket and handed over a crumpled piece of paper. Miss Smith read the headmaster’s carefully chosen words.
‘Well, that’s certainly concise,’ she said, handing it back.
What a cow, thought Gladys, stuffing the paper back into her pocket.
‘And why did you wish to work at Tate & Lyle in particular?’
‘I didn’t really,’ Gladys said, before she could stop herself. The two Betties shuffled nervously in their seats.
Miss Smith looked up from her form and glared at Gladys. ‘I have four rules in this factory,’ she said. ‘No make-up, no jewellery, no swearing – and no cheek. Is that understood?’
‘Yes, Miss,’ muttered Gladys, beginning to feel she had walked straight out of one headteacher’s office and into another.
‘Good. I think we’ll start you in the Blue Room and see how you fit in there.’ Gladys could have sworn she saw a glint in Miss Smith’s eye. ‘You’ll be on six-to-two one week and two-to-ten the next. Report to the gate at six a.m. sharp tomorrow and ask for Julie McTaggart. She’ll be your charge-hand.’
Six a.m.? Gladys was horrified. But before she could protest, Miss Smith had stamped the form and handed it to one of the Betties for filing.
Gladys’s first week at Tate & Lyle made her school record look flawless by comparison. On Tuesday morning she was woken by her mother at four-thirty a.m. ‘Your shift starts at six – you’d better be quick,’ Rose said, shaking the snoring bundle under the sheets.
‘Can’t,’ Gladys protested.
‘Well, you’ll be on two-to-ten next week – you can sleep then,’ said her mother, plonking a bowl of bread and hot milk down next to her.
Gladys dragged herself into a sitting position and slurped her breakfast down. She grabbed the nearest available clothes and put them on, before attempting to pull a comb through her unruly red hair.
‘Time to go or you’ll miss your bus!’ called her mother. Gladys gave up the battle with her hair and ran down the stairs, passing her father as she went. ‘Have fun!’ he chuckled, and she gave him a scowl.
From Eclipse Road it was only a couple of minutes’ dash to the bus stop, where Gladys hopped on the back of a 175 trolleybus along the Beckton Road. At Trinity Church she caught a second bus, the 669 to North Woolwich, which she knew would drop her at the gates of the factory.
The bus travelled down the Barking Road, passing Woolworths, the men’s outfitters Granditers and the women’s clothes shop Blooms. They went by the corner of Rathbone Street, home to the area’s thriving market, where anything and everything could be bought for the right price, from eels still wriggling in their buckets and freshly beheaded chickens to broken biscuits, soaps made from the pressed-together pieces collected from hotel bathrooms, and steaming cups of sarsaparilla.
At the end of the high street, the bus turned left onto Silvertown Way, passing the Liverpool Arms pub and the Imperial cinema as it began the gentle climb up to the familiar twin protractors of the Silvertown Viaduct, which crossed over the railway lines heading further east. It was here that Winston Churchill had stood during the early days of the Blitz to survey the horrors meted out on the dockside community, and from the same vantage point seven years later Gladys could see the extent of the devastation suffered in her former stomping ground of Tidal Basin.