The Quality Street Girls

Diana moved out of the stream of other workers and found a quiet recess in a soot-blackened brick wall where she could stand apart and read the message. The note was evidently from someone who knew which gate she always used, or they’d left a note at every gate; either way she felt a slight discomfort about it. Diana was well known, but she didn’t like to be that well known.

Mackintosh’s Women’s Employment Department

October 10th,1936

Dear Diana,

Please present yourself at the office of Mrs Wilke’s on your arrival today.

Yours sincerely,

Miss Watson

Secretary to the Women’s Employment Manager

Diana realised that Mrs Wilkes of the Women’s Employment Department was waiting for her. This was unusual, but it didn’t worry her; she knew that her job was not at risk. Diana knew that the factory couldn’t run half the lines without her. This wasn’t arrogance on her part; arrogance would mean that she enjoyed her position. In reality, Diana simply didn’t care anymore. There had been a time, years ago when she had relished ruling the roost, but now the daily pettiness was exhausting, and keeping the younger girls in line was just one more battle for her.

Diana assumed that she was going to be asked to use her influence, unofficially, with some wayward girl or other; perhaps put down a group of troublemakers before they could put their own jobs at risk. It happened often enough. The senior management of the Mackintosh’s business had realised long ago that it was more efficient to allow the girls to manage themselves, and Diana would occasionally be invited to the grand old directors’ floor of the Art Deco office block to be unofficially asked to ‘Have a word.’ She never met the directors themselves; they were all down in Norwich at the newly acquired Caley factory. Rumour had it that they thought Norwich was more refined and they were moving there en masse to run the business remotely. It didn’t make any difference to Diana, they sometimes came down to the factory floor to talk to one another while pointing out different machines, but they didn’t speak to her or any of the other girls.

She folded the note and slipped it into the inside pocket of her old coat and began weaving her way in and out of the workers, wagons, and factory outhouses to the opulent main office building, and her interview with Mrs Wilkes.

Diana knew her way to Mrs Wilkes’ office; she’d had to go there nearly six years previously when a different Women’s Employment Manager had been in place. Diana had gone there to make her case for an extended leave of absence to care for a sick relative in the country, and whether the manager at that time had believed her or not, she’d argued persuasively and they’d let her go. Diana went in through the deco door decorated with M’s, and up the six flights of winding white stairs with crisscrossed iron bannisters like giant strings of cat’s cradle. The upper landing opened onto a hexagonal hallway, lined with the doors to the director’s offices. She didn’t want to linger long, her objective was to get in and out and back to work as quickly as possible.

In the centre of the hallway was a large antique hexagonal table, decorated with an intricate pattern of walnut veneer. High above, there was a sparkling, domed ceiling in every colour of glass, as though the hallway were a tin of cellophane-wrapped toffees bursting into the Halifax sky. Diana marvelled at the extravagance of it.

Following the narrow corridor at the other end of the hexagon, Diana found the door of Mrs Wilke’s office. It looked like it would be less out of place in a stately home, oak-panels were decorated alternately with an acorn, oak leaf or the letter ‘M’. The Mackintosh family were proud of the acorn from which their great oak of a business had grown.

Diana knocked three sharp raps and then waited.

‘Come!’

Diana realised that although she knew Mrs Wilkes name well enough, she didn’t think she had ever seen her and was surprised by what waited for her on the other side of the door. A straight-backed woman in a cream silk blouse looked up from paperwork on her grand desk, but she was not an ogre like her overlooker Frances Roth; she had the potential to be far less easy to manipulate. Diana made immediate assumptions about this Mrs Wilkes: grammar school girl, father a doctor, comfortable upbringing but not so comfortable that she didn’t have to work hard at school, turned down an offer or two of marriage from an earnest young man because they didn’t have enough money. Probably thinks all the factory girls are no more than beasts of burden, or wayward children.

Mrs Wilkes was undoubtedly a woman who had always possessed good looks; she was perhaps ten or fifteen years older than Diana. She still had a trim figure, and her neat, glossy hair framed her face in a way that enhanced its symmetry.

Diana thought that she could respect Mrs Wilkes, but she didn’t know if she could really trust her. Mrs Wilkes didn’t mix with the factory floor workforce; she was strictly an office manager and rarely ventured out of the smart Art Deco tower. Diana was more accustomed to life in the old mill buildings where her co-workers made the chocolate and toffee. Diana didn’t know Mrs Wilkes’ first name; she knew that the woman wasn’t married because married women weren’t permitted to keep their jobs at Mackintosh’s Toffee Factory. But then again, married women weren’t allowed to keep their jobs anywhere after they married, unless there was another war.

‘Mrs’ was a courtesy title afforded to women of an overlooker’s grade or above, although Diana sometimes had girls on her own line try to call her ‘Mrs’ as a show of respect for her unofficial position of authority. Each time she refused the title and instead was known by the number of her position on the line: Number Four.

Mrs Wilkes unnerved Diana, as she politely gestured to the seat in front of her desk, ‘Miss Moore?’

Diana nodded; waiting for more as she lowered herself into the fancy wooden chair. To be called ‘Miss’ by a superior rather than by her Christian name unsettled her; it was unexpectedly respectful.

‘I’ll come straight to the point as I’m sure we both have plenty of other people’s work to be getting on with: we would like to offer you the position of overlooker on the new Toffee Penny line.’

Diana gave a wry smile; so this was what they wanted her for. Although it was a surprise to be called all the way up to the Employment Manager’s office, it wasn’t a surprise to be offered the promotion. She asked, with seeming politeness, ‘Is it that time of year again?’

‘Excuse me?’ Mrs Wilkes shifted the balance of her delicately rimmed glasses, as though the very slight bite of sarcasm she’d detected had been a trick of her eyesight and not her hearing.

Diana regretted being flippant; it lost her her dignity. She explained, with a slightly apologetic tone this time, ‘I’m offered an overlooker’s job about once a year. You’ll have read my employment file, I’m sure.’

‘Yes; that’s why I asked to see you personally this time. I hoped that we could help you to overcome any obstacles that might be preventing you from taking the position.’ She paused. Diana suddenly had a horrible feeling that this woman knew her secret and that this was a trap, but she gave nothing away. ‘The line that you presently work on is making, wrapping, and packing the new Quality Street sweets by hand, but you know as well as I do that hand-making is only ever intended to be temporary in a factory; by Christmas the Engineers and the Time and Motion Department will have the new, mechanised line ready and you’ll be able to do your job with the help of a machine, but it will be a very different job. There will be other hand-making positions that we can move you to, but those will be temporary too. Wouldn’t this be an ideal time to think about your future? Wouldn’t you like to take a step up?’

‘As you’ll have seen from my records, I always turn down any offer of promotion.’

‘I understand in the past you’ve had family circumstances that have made you unable to accept the position, but it has not gone unnoticed that you have been performing several of the duties of overlooker without formal recognition and if your family circumstances have now changed—’

‘My family circumstances have not changed.’ Diana took in a deep breath and tried to disguise her weariness as she repeated the same words she’d recited for the last six years, ‘Although I’m grateful for the compliment you’re paying me by offering me promotion I must on this occasion decline. I have a young halfsister who I care for in the evenings, and if I took an overlooker’s job I’d have to spend my evenings in Union meetings, or employment department reviews, or typing up reports and shift patterns.’

Mrs Wilkes removed her fashionable, tortoiseshell-framed spectacles as though to indicate that she were now talking to Diana woman-to-woman, and not in a professional capacity, ‘But Diana, you have to think of your own advancement and your own prospects. Think of the extra money you’d be earning if you became an overlooker. You’d more than be able to pay for someone to care for your halfsister in the evenings.’

‘I prefer to care for her myself, thank you.’

‘Then think of the things that you could buy for her with the extra money, wouldn’t you like to earn more to help your family?’

Diana thought about the money that her stepbrother had thrown onto the floor that morning as though it were nothing to him and that she had picked up so she could pay the landlord’s man. Money was a problem, but it wasn’t her biggest problem. ‘I’m very fast, and when I’m working with girls who are as fast as me, I can make good piece rates, and that’s enough for my family.’

‘You said ‘when’. Is there a problem?’

It was Diana’s turn to be confused. ‘I don’t understand you.’

‘You said that when you’re working with girls who are fast, you can make good rates.’ Mrs Wilkes was determined not to let Diana get on with her job; she was determined to dig in. ‘Are you saying that the girls that you are with now are too slow? Can changes be made on the line—’

Diana suddenly wondered what she was getting at. Perhaps she’s seen something in me that she can use to build her own status? ‘No, they are very good, but we’re on a temporary hand making line which not everyone can do fast. When we move to our next line, we’ll be faster.’

There was a silence, and Diana wanted to leave, but she could sense that Mrs Wilkes wasn’t finished with her.

Mrs Wilkes tried a different tack, ‘There are several very senior managers at the firm who think that you could become a manager yourself one day and that taking the position as overlooker would be the first step. Major Fergusson has watched your progress through all the years since you joined us and he feels that you are more than ready for advancement.’

‘I have a great deal of respect for the Major; he’s a kind man and he tries to make time for the Halifax factory floor workers. But you know as well as I do that everyone calls him Major Misfits, and if he takes anyone under his wing, it’s because they’re a strange bird. I don’t like the idea that the managers here think I’m a misfit.’

‘No one thinks you’re a misfit, Miss Moore.’ The Employment Manager said, ‘You’re an educated young woman, I can tell that—’

Diana snapped, ‘No. No, I’m not.’ She pulled up her chin imperiously; the Employment Manager had touched a nerve. ‘I left school as fast as I could. And for the record, telling girls that they’re clever and that they’re not living up to their cleverness doesn’t help them, it just tells them that there’s one more thing they’ve got to feel rotten about. I’m exhausted, and the last thing I need is some woman in shiny brogues telling me that on top of everything else I’ve got to do I’ve got to live up to my cleverness as well. All the girls on my line are clever; it’s just that people with posh accents think talking Yorkshire means you’re daft.’ Diana got up to leave, and as she pushed the chair back into its original position, Mrs Wilkes said quietly:

‘I heard you discussing European politics with one of the other girls.’

This took Diana by surprise. She couldn’t imagine this woman deigning to come down to the factory floor long enough to overhear anything, but Diana had an answer for her. ‘My father was a Union man. You’ll find a lot of the girls around here are very learned thanks to the Union. They have free public lectures and a library. Will that be all?’

Mrs Wilkes rose from her desk to calmly show Diana out of her office. ‘And what would your father say if he knew that you were turning down the opportunity for advancement; to better yourself?’

‘He would understand.’ Diana said, biting her tongue. ‘And he would tell me that the job doesn’t better me; I better the job.’ With that Diana left, stalking down the corridor in a foul mood and with her head held high, not stopping to think why one of the Mackintosh’s brass nobs should be taking such an interest in her and her conversations with the other girls.

Reenie had taken her mother’s words to heart, and while the other new girls were concentrating on what their supervisor was telling them, Reenie was watching the woman’s hands and learning far more about how to work fast. It was a school day like no other; Reenie and her new factory classmates were in a room as vast as a cathedral, noisy as a day at the races, and as exciting as anywhere that Reenie had ever been. A conveyor belt ran down the centre of the room, flanked on either side by girls who were older than her and who, Reenie felt, were so much more sophisticated. They scooped up sweets with uncanny speed and somehow, beneath their hands they magically covered them in sparkling foil and then red and green cellophane and then dropped them into a box ready to move on. Hovering on nimble, rubber plimsolled feet by the wrapping girls’ sides were white-aproned girls of Reenie’s age who were waiting to take the filled boxes and place them onto the next part of the production line.

‘Your job, girls,’ their supervisor called over the din of the workroom. ‘is to keep the wrapping girls supplied with everything they need to wrap the chocolates, and move the chocolates on when their tubs are full; and you have to be as fast as you can be.’ As if to emphasise the point the supervisor stressed the next words one at a time. ‘If you are too slow you will slow down the production line and people won’t get their sweets when they go to the shops. Do you understand?’

A chorus of ‘Yes, Miss’ rose up into the chocolate and strawberry scented air, and Reenie scanned the room for the fastest workers. There, at the back of the room, was her new role model. A girl a year or two older than her and a foot taller was supplying two wrappers at the same time by picking up multiple boxes with her fingers. Reenie had seen the landlady at The Old Cock and Oak do the same thing with empty pint glasses, and Reenie made a mental note to practice with flowerpots as soon as she got home. If she could build up the strength in her fingers, she could do the same thing. But as Reenie was watching, the taller girl caught her eye and shook her head. A second girl, like a prettified miniature copy of the first, appeared from the door at the far corner of the workroom and scurried to her place beside her older sister; she picked up where the other had left off, but not half as quickly, and they both looked round furtively to check if their switchover had been seen. The taller girl was no longer carrying multiple boxes at once, but she was looking daggers at Reenie.