My Mam Shirley Read online

  Annie took the tin from her and opened it, then stared at the contents, eyes wide, a stunned look on her face. Joe and David, too, both of whom had been busy munching and chattering, stopped talking and turned to look their way.

  She could feel everyone’s eyes on her now, and felt another blush rising, and for a horrible moment though she had got it all wrong – that Keith was wrong; that his mam didn’t love her at all – that she thought she was being cheeky offering them charity. But then she saw movement out of the corner of her eye and when she turned to see what it was, she saw Keith’s dad rising slowly from his armchair.

  ‘Well, now,’ he said to Keith grandly, ‘this is your Shirley, is it? And what a vision she is.’

  Shirley blinked at him. So she hadn’t imagined his indifference the other day. He’d not even really registered that she’d been there. But he clearly had now. He smiled and cleared his throat. And as he did so, she also heard a snigger from behind her – Joe or David, perhaps – and she was aware of Keith, just beside her, trying to keep a straight face. But, undeterred, or oblivious, Reggie stepped to one side and gestured expansively to the sagging seat of his chair. ‘Welcome to our ’ome, Shirley lass,’ he continued, ‘and please, take my seat while I make you a nice jar of that lovely tea you’ve fetched and a slice of that posh cake, eh?’

  And so, Shirley went and sat, aware of the gaping jaws of the assembled company, but unaware – at least till Keith told her when he walked her home later – that for his dad to behave in such a way was unheard of. Now she did feel like the princess her mother had called her earlier, sitting in what was clearly a chair no one else ever sat in, while this man, who she’d previously thought was going to be grumpy and unapproachable, bustled his wife out of the way so that he could personally make her tea and serve her the first slice of cake.

  To have this attention lavished on her wasn’t new – her mam and dad had doted on her all her life – but to see it here was to remind her that what her dad thought was incorrect. The Hudsons might be poor but they weren’t different from the Reads. There were just a lot more of them, that was all.

  Chapter 7

  January 1959

  Shirley glanced over her sewing machine at Annie. ‘Is it nearly time for a ciggie break, d’you think?’ she called across to her, having to shout to be heard over the din. Doris Day had just come on the radio, the cue for a mass sing-along, which meant it would be a good time to slip away for a quick natter.

  She’d had reservations when Keith had first suggested Annie ask about a vacancy, but Shirley loved her new job at Sutcliffe’s. She’d enjoyed working at Marsilka, sewing up knickers and fancy underwear, but here they sewed skirts and dresses for Marks & Spencer, and it was piecework. Which was good news for Shirley because, being accurate and fast at sewing, she could make a good deal more money than in her last job. Plus it was fun, particularly the singing and general camaraderie, because at Sutcliffe’s they listened to the radio all day long – Mr Mitchell, the big boss, said it was good for morale – and she’d also made lots of new friends.

  Annie, in particular, had become a close friend herself now, which was how Shirley had landed the job there in the first place; Annie had gone out of her way to sweet talk Mr Mitchell and put in a good word for her. It never ceased to tickle Shirley that when she’d first met Keith’s sister she’d been so wary of her – even a little scared of her, looking back.

  Not that she didn’t still look up to her. Annie was the best fun, and she was a mine of information – information Shirley was keen to learn. It was Annie who’d convinced her, though she’d have never dreamed of doing so at Marsilka, that to help yourself from the scrap bins at the end of your shift wasn’t stealing, it was just one of the perks of what was still pretty poorly paid employment, and that the bosses knew and turned a blind eye.

  It had certainly seemed as if all the other girls did it. ‘How else are any of us going to have any going-out clothes?’ Annie had reasoned. And she’d had a point. Since she’d started there, Shirley had made herself all sorts of lovely things. Lovelier than most, in fact, because she had the rare luxury of her mam’s sewing machine to run them up on.

  ‘Go on, then,’ Annie said now, biting the end off her cotton and rising from her chair. ‘We need a break, in any case. Let the twats catch on we’re going so fast and they’ll lower our rate, just you watch.’ She grabbed her Woodbines and matches from the end of her bench and nodded across the room at Joyce, another friend Shirley had made and who she and Keith saw regularly, her boyfriend Jock being one of Keith’s mates.

  A minute or so later, all three were lighting up in the toilets, Annie with her foot holding the door open slightly so they could still hear the music from the factory floor and would know when Joe Henderson came on.

  Having the radio constantly on made the shifts go much more quickly, but the one they’d probably stay on to listen to even if they didn’t have to was Workers’ Playtime, hosted by ‘Mr Personality’, Wilfred Pickles. The show was an important part of factory life at Sutcliffe’s; all the women loved it and invariably sang along to all the songs. Far and away the best part of the week, however, was when the show hosted their weekly talent contest and the pianist Joe Henderson would visit factories up and down the country to seek out the local talent and host the day’s show from the factory itself.

  ‘It’s on!’ Annie said, opening the door a little wider so they could all sing along to the opening jingle, which had become as routine for the workers as the sewing itself.

  ‘Have a goooo Joe!’ Annie warbled, through a wreath of cigarette smoke. ‘Come and have a go! Here’s your chance to have some fun and make yourself some dough. So hurry up and join us, don’t be shy and don’t be slow. Have a gooooo, have a goooooo!’

  She then drew on her cig and immediately had a coughing fit, which had her doubled up in the toilet doorway, eyes streaming.

  ‘You’re mad, you are,’ Joyce said.

  ‘But, you know, you’re a really good singer, Annie,’ Shirley added, having had a sudden thought. ‘You know what you should do? You should ask Mr Mitchell if he’d let you write to the radio and see if you could get them to come here. Then we could have our own singing contest, and I bet you you’d win.’

  ‘I might just do that,’ Annie said, once she’d recovered her composure and wiped her eyes. ‘Though they never would, Shirl. Come up here? Not in a million years.’

  Annie had been wrong. Fired up by the idea of imminent fame and fortune using the fabled Hudson voice, she’d been as good as her word and had gone and spoken to Mr Mitchell, and the following Friday he had them all gather for an announcement; Workers’ Playtime – and the legend that was Joe ‘Mr Piano’ Henderson himself – would be coming to broadcast the show from Sutcliffe’s the following Monday.

  The silence that greeted the news – almost unheard of on the factory floor – was so complete it was almost palpable. And it was immediately replaced by a swell of excited chatter as the reality of the coming visit began to properly sink in.

  ‘Now then,’ hushed Mr Mitchell, ‘pipe down a bit, you lot. I haven’t finished yet.’ He cleared his throat and twanged his stripy braces against his beer belly. This always made Shirley laugh as her boss was only in his thirties and yet he always seemed to dress like an old man. ‘So,’ he continued, ‘best get your glad rags out of your wardrobes, ladies, because come Monday, Joe Henderson will be here standing in judgement at the first official Sutcliffe’s Beauty Contest!’

  ‘A beauty contest?’ Shirley whispered to Annie. ‘But I thought it was going to be one for singing?’

  ‘So did I!’ hissed Annie. ‘That’s bleeding typical, that is!’

  Mr Mitchell was still pontificating grandly from his pulpit, in reality a self-made platform he used to address the workers composed of a small pile of old pallets. And going on about it as if it had been his idea, rather than theirs, Shirley thought. ‘Good luck one and all,’ he was saying expansively, swee
ping both his gaze and his arms in a wide arc around the factory floor. ‘And make sure you all come in suitably glammed up for the occasion. Don’t be showing us up, now, because it will probably go in the paper as well, and I want us to make a decent splash.’

  ‘Hark at him! Glammed up, indeed,’ Annie muttered, giving her boss a dirty look. ‘I knew he’d do that. I should have realised – he almost said as much when I went in to ask him. Started going on about how it wouldn’t be fair as not everyone could sing …’

  ‘Like me, for instance,’ said Shirley, finding she was beginning to warm to the idea now. Not that she couldn’t sing. She just didn’t have Annie’s confidence about doing so in front of an audience. Like Keith, Annie would get up on stage at the drop of a hat, whereas Shirley knew she’d be quaking in her boots. But Annie didn’t seem to see it in quite the same way that Shirley was. ‘Like everyone’s beautiful enough to win a beauty pageant, are they?’ she wanted to know. ‘I told him that an’ all. Look around you – half the women here are right ugly bleeders, aren’t they? Can’t help it, grant you, but still …’

  ‘Oh, Annie, you didn’t actually say that to him, did you?’

  ‘Course I did? Why shouldn’t I? It’s true!’

  ‘Oh, Annie, you didn’t!’ Shirley said again, open-mouthed. ‘You can’t go round saying things like that!’ But even as she said so she knew it was probably true. Annie had a knack of saying the things other people thought but didn’t dare say, and though Shirley would never be quite so catty, she did admire Annie’s honesty. She’d never say anything behind your back that she wouldn’t say to your face.

  ‘Well, I’m quite pleased,’ she admitted. ‘Because at least it means I can have a go as well now. Not that I’d ever win or anything – not in a million years. But it’ll be nice to get dressed up and take part, at least. And watch you grab the prize anyway, just you watch.’

  ‘Me? Not a chance,’ Annie said, batting her lashes and feigning surprise at the very thought.

  Morning break saw the girls talking of little else. The canteen was buzzing with excitement. ‘I can’t quite believe it,’ said Joyce as she drew on her cigarette and blew out a stream of smoke. ‘The actual Joe “Mr Piano” Henderson, right here, in the flesh. Crikey, I don’t know how I’ll be able to keep my hands off him, I really don’t.’

  ‘He’s all right,’ Annie conceded, her own cigarette dangling between her lips while she adjusted her stockings. ‘All right if you like that sort of thing, I suppose. I prefer a bit of rough, myself.’ She stabbed a finger in the direction of one of the supervisors, who was helping herself to a cup of tea from the urn. ‘Look at her,’ she said, clearly keen to move onto more pressing matters. ‘She’s got no chance. Not a hope of one. Even though you can see she thinks she has. Too lanky, too many teeth and not enough tits,’ she finished, crossing the woman’s attributes off on her fingers as if running through a list of cardinal sins.

  ‘How many tits does a girl need to win a beauty show, then, Annie?’ Shirley ribbed her. ‘Aren’t two going to be enough, then? If so, that’s us all done for. Unless you’ve got a spare one up your sleeve.’

  ‘You know what I mean,’ Annie said. ‘I’m just sizing up the competition. Which in this case is none – flat as a pair of fried eggs, hers are. Speaking of which, I’m starving. Let’s go and get our cuppa and biscuits, shall we?’

  Shirley felt the usual frisson of anxiety as Annie said this, because getting their biscuits didn’t necessarily mean paying for them. Shirley fervently wished she did have some money in her purse to pay for a couple of biscuits, but she didn’t, because much as she loved Keith, he always seemed to be penniless these days, which was beginning to be something of a worry. And that was chiefly due to a penchant for bookies and horse-racing that he seemed to share with his parents and older brothers, which meant she was constantly having to bail him out. She ‘lent’ him money gladly, for his board and lodgings or so he could have a pint or two with his mates, but she also knew she was going to have to have a word with him about it – and she’d recently promised herself that she would.

  The one thing she wished she hadn’t done, however, was tell Annie she was hard up, because since then it had almost become obligatory, in the long run-up to payday, to pull the stroke Annie had been at great pains to teach her.

  It was another of Annie’s scams that apparently weren’t scams at all, really – rather, ‘perks’, to make up for the measly rate of pay offered by the fat cats who drove nice cars and dined out on steak but were too mean to stump up for a few packets of custard creams. In short, using Annie’s one-coin-in, four-out approach to putting biscuit money on the plate was something akin to a civic duty. As was making a bit of a mess of various garments through the remainder of that Friday afternoon, it seemed. Whether Mr Mitchell would come to know about it was another matter altogether, but the supervisors found themselves having to reject an unusually high number of pieces, resulting in a similarly high level of material ending up in the rag bin.

  ‘And you shouldn’t feel guilty about helping yourself from that, either,’ Annie had told Shirley more than once. ‘Because that’s just another little earner for the bosses, as well.’ She explained that the contents of the bin, which was kept by the door to the toilets, were taken regularly by the janitor to sell on for scrap; Sutcliffe’s got paid for it as stuffing for cushions and upholstery.

  ‘So it’s only fair,’ Annie reasoned, ‘that it ends up in our handbags. Much the better home for it, don’t you think?’

  Shirley took this as gospel – much as she took most of what Annie said as gospel – and at the end of the day found herself in the right place at the right time; she was able to skip out of the factory to meet Keith with a lovely length of black crimpolene stuffed up her jumper. No, she wouldn’t win the competition – however much Keith kept telling her she might on the way home, bless him – but she didn’t care. It was a bit of fun for a work day, getting all dolled up to go to the factory – and with Joe ‘Mr Piano’ Henderson coming to visit, for good measure. Though she took care not to dwell too much on that part.

  As Sutcliffe’s was such a big factory, with a large number of employees, news of the beauty contest and the thrill of having Workers’ Playtime come to visit soon became the talk of the whole area. Every hairdresser with a chair going spare had a queue of women begging for it, all eager to outdo each other with their hair. Shirley, who knew her mam would do a lovely job for her on that front, spent most of hers unpicking the material she’d purloined from the scrap bin and re-fashioning it into a pencil skirt and matching top.

  ‘Aw, you look lovely, pet,’ Mary said when she tried it on and did a twirl for her. ‘And I’ll do your hair for you first thing Monday morning if you like, so it lasts. Make you look like a proper film star. What d’you want? A Sophia Loren?’

  ‘That would be brilliant, Mam,’ Shirley said, grateful that one thing she did have was a decent head of hair.

  ‘And you’ll look the bee’s knees with it too, because you’ve got the bone structure. Bun up on top, couple of wispy tendrils, good spray of my lacquer. You know what? I think you might even win.’

  Shirley shrugged. ‘I’m really not bothered if I don’t, Mam. It’ll just make a nice change from going to work in my pinny.’

  Raymond, who had seen the fashion show but refrained from passing comment up to this point, now emitted a low grunt from his armchair and picked up his newspaper. Shirley winked at her mam. ‘You know, Dad,’ she said, ‘sometimes you really remind me of Reggie Hudson. He’s a lot like you, in many ways, is Keith’s dad.’

  ‘I don’t bloody think so, young lady,’ Raymond huffed from behind his paper. ‘And if you ask me, that bloody frock is far too old for you as well.’

  ‘Well, nobody did ask you, Raymond, did they?’ Mary snapped immediately. ‘So you can shut up and read your paper, you maungy old bugger. She looks bloody beautiful, and you should be proud of her!’

  ‘It’s
all right, Mam,’ Shirley soothed, not wishing to be the catalyst that set off one of their volcanic arguments. ‘He says that but it’s just talk. I can tell he likes it really.’

  The paper rustled again, but there was no brusque rejoinder. Good, Shirley thought. Time to quit while she was ahead and go and finish off her beauty-contest outfit.

  For the first time in as long as she could remember since she’d started going to work, Shirley was tickled to find that Monday couldn’t come soon enough. And though she’d chosen her lipstick and eye shadow carefully and borrowed her mam’s best pearl earrings, she was still under no illusions that she was going to be the belle of the ball. And that was fine. She was just as excited at the prospect of Annie winning it, and of having a whole proper radio show coming from their factory – one that would be heard by people the length and breadth of Britain.

  In fact, it felt more like the end of term at school than going to work. There wasn’t a woman in the factory who’d not dressed herself up to the nines – even the older ones who didn’t want to enter the contest, and who were now busy helping titivate the ones who had. And though Shirley had had the jitters when clocking in (what if she did win, and had to go up and collect her prize?) they were soon dispatched by the sheer sense of fun in the air. Not that it wasn’t competitive as well – far from it. Every time the clocking-in machine buzzed to herald the arrival of someone new, every head turned to see who it was and what they were wearing, and the air was full of appreciative ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’.

  Annie, predictably, was looking a million dollars and, as she hurried over, Shirley wondered if she’d manage to look as glamorous when she was 26 and had a couple of little ones in tow.