大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War website by Julia Shuvalova for GMR Actiondesk on behalf of Joyce Hilton and has been added with her permission. The author is fully aware of the terms and conditions of the site.

CHAPTER 4 - Back Home and the World of Work

We rode in the furniture van all the way back from Southport to the new house in Lord Nelson Street. Derek came for the ride and when we arrived he took one look at the house and in his usual polite way said "What a dump"! It was too, but it was good to be home. We had no bathroom, only an outside toilet in the yard. Few carpets, ghastly colours on the bedroom walls and curtains made from balloon material. The rent was 15/- (75p). While those with money could buy anything on the black market, we had very little. To keep clean we either had to have a bath in front of the fire or go to the public baths nearby, next to the wash house where Mum and Gran took the family washing. It was a common sight to see women pushing an old pram full of washing. I remember Mrs Dove's tiny shop, also the off licence "up entry" as Granny referred to it. The wall in the entry was always warm where Gran's kitchen range backed on to it.

We never complained or even felt deprived. It was just lovely to be near Granny and Granddad again. While I still had many friends, it took a while to be accepted again by some of the local children. The street games still went on, however, and we soon joined in again as we had before the war. I was enrolled again at Seedley Council School amongst my old school friends. Miss Ridley, our austere headmistress, was still there and welcomed me back. I had lost whatever Salford accent I had previously had and Miss Ridley even complimented me when I read out loud in class. I stayed there until I left school for good in October 1943. I loved school and wished I could have stayed on, but at Elementary Schools fourteen was the maximum age.

My old friend Joyce Foxcroft and I left school together and scoured the Manchester Evening News for office jobs. Fortunately we got the first jobs we applied for, both of us starting at wholesalers Hickson, Lloyd and King on Piccadilly, Manchester. Joyce and I soon started to learn shorthand and typing at the house of a retired secretary in Thurlow Street. She taught several would-be secretaries for 2/6d a night in her front room which was fitted out with desks and typewriters. I loved it, but when Joyce decided not to go anymore, I too had to stop because it was a lonely dark journey over a badly-lit railway bridge to Eccles New Road.

Sadly Joyce and I were put in separate offices. As office juniors we got all the worst jobs and I hated it. I was in the counting house, even though maths had been my worst subject. We had a horrible office supervisor, the frightening Mrs Taylor, and some of the girls were catty to me. My salvation was the little room at the end of the counting house where the switchboard was housed. I had never used a phone until I went there. Nobody I knew had one! There was a candlestick type of phone on the wall in the counting house and I remember answering it for the first time as though it would bite me. I had seen one pre-war in a house next to Aunty Edna's. Two spinsters ran a little sweet shop in their tiny front room. They had a candlestick phone on their wall and in emergencies the locals could use it. The little shop was a delight. Trays of toffee, like banana split and strawberry and chocolate, aniseed balls and bubble gum. The toffee was broken up with a tiny hammer. I was always fascinated with that shop, the scales with their numerous weights, and of course that phone.

As an office junior I was supposed to be learning to be a Burroughs Accounting Machine Operator. These were huge things that each operator sat at on a chair; more like large typewriters than calculators. Long lists of figures were keyed into them and a bar at the side was pressed causing the carriage to move. The other girls were like lightening operating them, watched over by Mrs Taylor. As office junior I was at everybody's beck and call, doing the post and running errands to other offices and to the warehouse. It was in the warehouse that I was once accosted on a dark stairway and had to run for my life (well my honour at least). We also had to go to the canteen for huge pots of tea and go for sandwiches at lunch times.

Lois was a very nice lady who worked the switchboard and I started having my teabreaks there. She was old fashioned in appearance wearing her hair in coiled braids over her ears like two Danish pastries. She was very lady-like and I got on well with her. She and Mr Smith who also worked in the counting house, were the only people I really liked (apart from Joyce of course). Mr Smith reminded me of my Dad and they both reminded me of the film star Ronald Coleman. His looks, however, didn't stop Mrs Taylor being frequently nasty to him.

During my breaks in the switchroom Lois let me answer calls. I loved it. This was what I wanted to do! One morning when I arrived, a young secretary I was friendly with said "Get in the switchroom quick, we are manning the board". Lois was ill and we were the only ones who knew anything about it. We struggled through with the little silver eyelids dropping down and clicking impatiently to be answered, wires all over the place. Heaven knows how many people we cut off that first day.

The girls in the office were very jealous and spiteful and Mrs Taylor was no better. One day, after I had traipsed up and down to the canteen carrying the heavy teapot, I drank my cup of tea only to find they had emptied all the cold slops into it. Hilarious they thought it was.

Another day it seems I had forgotten to wash the cups and saucers belonging to the Senior Clerks, who sat in a little office off ours. I was just having my tea and jam sandwich with Lois when in flounced Mrs Taylor ordering me to go and wash two cups and saucers. I rebelled and refused to go. Mrs Taylor sent me to see the Director who had first employed me. He was a kindly gentle man and he asked me what had happened. When he heard the story he sent me downstairs with a message to Mrs Taylor that in future they had to wash their own cups. Mrs Taylor's face was a picture!

Meanwhile, Mum was working mainly at night as an Insurance Collector. It involved a lot of walking but we didn't worry because she was fit and slim. One day, however, she fainted whilst out collecting. It turned out that she had been giving Norma and I most of her food ration and hadn't been eating properly; typically selfless of her. The doctor said she was very undernourished and had to rest. She had to give up her job and as I was bringing in hardly any money (my wage was only 15/- a week most of which went on bus fares and lunches), something had to be done.

Mum was aware that I wasn't happy at work and when she suggested that I stayed at home while she worked at the Ford aircraft factory near Urmston I jumped at it. Before I left Hickson, Lloyd and King, however, I had another skirmish with Mrs Taylor. Someone had come round selling raffle tickets, 6d each, proceeds to the Life Boats. I bought one and forgot about it. One day whilst I was with Lois, in walked Mrs Taylor. I had to report to the Director. She and the girls were obviously delighted thinking I was in trouble. Lois said nothing.

I was worried as I went in wondering what I had done. The Director was very nice to me and said I had won first prize in the raffle! Rather bizarrely I had to choose from two very striking velvet pigs, hand made by the Director's wife. There was a lady pig holding a baby pig, and a male pig, both beautifully made and dressed. I chose the lady pig. It had a pretty dress and pantaloons on. Mrs Taylor and the girls were gob-smacked. Lois was delighted and Mr Smith asked if I would sell it to him. I knew exactly where it was going - to my little sister Norma. The pig is still around and loved. Norma treasured it for many years and I re-dressed when the clothes wore out.

I told Lois I was leaving. I didn't even give my notice in but she understood. Her training stood me in good stead in future years and eventually I became a G.P.O. telephonist. So Mum became a full time worker with Ford and I kept house and met Norma from school. I bought the food and cooked it. Gran was near to help and I enjoyed it and learnt a lot. Overall we were much better off.

Dad was now stationed in Northern Ireland at Cluntoe in charge of German prisoners. He always brought us butter and eggs when he came home, both very hard to get. We preserved some eggs in isinglass in a big stone jar. He always managed to bring something. The young German prisoners liked him. He gave them cigarettes and in return they made gifts for us out of rubbish. They gave us two ash trays made of empty sardine tins hammered onto scooped-out wooden bases.

One had a tiny lamppost on it with a tiny Lily Marlene standing underneath it! Another one had Cluntoe N. Ireland carved on the front. They also made Norma a toy - a wooden bat with carved hens on the top; the sort that pecked as a weight underneath moved. They were very ingenious and wouldn't waste anything. Dad too made Norma a lovely set of doll's furniture that one of the British officers wanted to buy. Even the doll's standard lamp was lit by a tiny bulb, the shade being made from parachute silk. Of course such lovely toys were so rare that all the children in the street came to see them and eventually Norma gave them away to a little girl whose father had been killed in the war.

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