A Brief Interlude

During the seventies I had a brief experience of working in a clothing factory.

 I was offered an interview for which I was grateful because there was little work to be had anywhere.

The weather on the north west coast of England seemed endlessly dark, grey and heavy with rain. My landladies favourite Monday meal was tripe and onions, a recipe that perfumed the entire treacle brown hallway for the week.

My flat had two windows that offered a view onto a brick wall opposite where Pigeons regularly assembled to play out their own soap opera in various cavities left by missing bricks. The living room was papered with a floral design that reminded me of a bacterial skin infection and its sole source of heating in winter was a two bar electric heater. I knew it wasn't, 'The Good Life', but it was independence and I'd bought an old valve record player that added the final touch of luxury.

Back to income generation, my interviewer was a well dressed middle aged woman who might have taken her fashion advice from Womens Own magazine, clean, tidy and won't rock the boat.

"Well, if you think you could do the job, we can give you a months trial, but looking at your application form you seem to be overqualified for this job ( I was barely qualified for life ), we'll see how it goes. Let me introduce you to the girls who'll be showing you how to use the sewing machines".

The girls looked about two years younger than me and eyed me up like a piece of fishing bait. They were sharp, polished and authoritarian and as it turned out later ,occasionally violent.

Both of the 'girls' were neatly dressed in jeans and blue nylon overalls and both had their hair tied back. One had a copper brown ponytail so tight it looked like it had been painted on. "Sit down, and don't touch anything, until we tell you to".

The thing in front of me, I'm told, was an industrial sewing machine. In fact, it was a monstrous metal finger chewing instrument of torture. 'The Girls' showed me the way it worked and speed was all. The moment your foot touched the pedal the 'teeth' gripped anything nearby and pulled it under the needle and the sound it made taking off only Lewis Hamilton would have recognised as comforting.

I survived to make a hash of a few 'garments' before being moved to the pattern cutting area, unlike a lovely woman who had taken a job to support her family.

Her husband had recently been made redundant, so she was the sole earner and the only one in the family to eventually find a job. Unfortunately she showed fear in the face of the 'The Girls' and they exercised their authority over her in the ladies toilets and I didn't see her after that.

There were two winners on the factory floor, the Indian ladies who arrived in clouds of multicolored silk saris, spoke their own language and pretty much kept to themselves and then there was the Clint Eastwood of the factory floor.

She (Clint), always arrived after a contract came in so that the preparatory work would be done and when she walked in the floor quietened, machines braked, chit chat died down, as she arrived at her machine, placed her bag to one side and sat silently without any acknowledgement to those around her. Everyone was on piece work and baskets full of cut fabric pieces in the shape of whatever garment you had to sew were placed to the side of every machinist. Collars, cuffs, ect. Once they had been completed and placed in a basket ,they were taken to quality control. If there were so much as the tiniest flaw in the sewing, in terms of the width of a seam for example, that piece would be sent back to the seamstress who would then have to unpick and re do it, thereby extending the time it took to complete her work, lost time, lost money.

No matter how big the contract, how many pieces, or baskets of pieces, Clint would complete her part of the contract in silence, only stopping for comfort breaks and on the Klaxon, home to sleep. In three days, she would have completed the work flawlessly, with no returns, then she would pick up her bag and silently leave.

 This woman walked anonymously amongst the community outside the factory and but for this short testament to her virtuosity, will pass unkown.

I think I earned £12.00 per week. The bus fare was £3.00 I had a packed lunch (jam sandwiches) and a flask of coffee. The canteen which was indistinguishable from a school canteen was in a giant tin warehous and was divided into two sections, Management and Workers. Management were men in suits and the Workers were women in nylon overalls...honestly.

The pattern cutting room was heaven. It was relatively peaceful

(There was always the ever present brain numbing Radio 1) the sound of the sewing machines was not so noticeable and, (I'll call her ) Janet was on top of her job and knew exactly what needed doing. There was a wall of patterns in rolls and these were placed upon sometimes many metres of fabric folded over and over again. If the patterns were not placed according to the warp, weft and pattern economically, the fabric would be wasted and it was so easy to do. Fortunately I was so terrified it didn't happen to me. Management however though it could improve the process and insure itself against the loss of skilled labour by buying a machine to do this. The machine never worked but cost Management hundred of thousands of pounds, which was a lot of money in those days. One of us was required by Mangement to stand next to the machine when the owner walked through and pretend to be using it. I put a couple of suggestions in the suggestion box because I knew Janet was emigrating to sunnier climes and I was moving to London, but I don't think they saw them.

For some reason I'm reminded of those times at the moment...