Secrets of the Jam Factory Girls Read online

  Secrets of the

  Jam Factory Girls

  Mary Wood

  Contents

  Chapter One: Elsie and Millie

  Chapter Two: Elsie and Millie

  Chapter Three: Elsie and Millie

  Chapter Four: Dot

  Chapter Five: Dot

  Chapter Six: Millie

  Chapter Seven: Elsie

  Chapter Eight: Elsie and Dot

  Chapter Nine: Elsie

  Chapter Ten: Elsie and Dot

  Chapter Eleven: Elsie

  Chapter Twelve: Elsie

  Chapter Thirteen: Millie

  Chapter Fourteen: Elsie and Millie

  Chapter Fifteen: Millie

  Chapter Sixteen: Elsie

  Chapter Seventeen: Elsie and Millie

  Chapter Eighteen: Elsie

  Chapter Nineteen: Elsie

  Chapter Twenty: Elsie

  Chapter Twenty-One: Millie

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Elsie

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Millie

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Elsie

  Chapter Twenty-Five: Elsie and Millie

  Chapter Twenty-Six: Elsie

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: Elsie and Millie

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: Elsie

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: Elsie

  Chapter Thirty: Millie

  Chapter Thirty-One: Elsie and Millie

  Chapter Thirty-Two: Elsie

  Chapter Thirty-Three: Millie

  Chapter Thirty-Four: Elsie

  Letter to Readers

  Acknowledgements

  For Bill Dwyer, my beloved late brother-in-law.

  A man of great compassion and insight who

  encouraged my journey and counselled me wisely

  when I flagged. Miss you forever.

  Chapter One

  Elsie and Millie

  MARCH 1912

  ‘’Ere, Elsie, mate, what does it feel like to be in charge of us and not one of us any more, then?’

  Elsie had known this would come one day and was glad Ada hadn’t sounded resentful or spiteful. The working conditions in Swift’s Jam Factory had never been better and, because of this, the women didn’t begrudge her sudden rise from being one of them on the factory floor to being one of the bosses. They seemed to forget that most of the changes had been hard fought for last year, when they had taken action and gone on strike. Instead they put a lot of their good fortune down to Elsie moving up in the world.

  It had been the National Federation of Women Workers that had encouraged all female factory workers in the Bermondsey area to walk out in protest against the long hours, poor pay and hazardous working practices that had prevailed at the time. Elsie had been one of the factory-floor workers then. And, in her heart, she still was.

  Deciding not to answer Ada’s question, she sighed heavily as she chastised the girl for the umpteenth time. ‘Ada, luv, I’ve told you many a time, you should sit down while you work. That’s why I bought that high stool for you. You can weigh the sugar batches just as easily while sitting as you can standing up.’

  ‘You tell her, Elsie, mate. And while you’re at it, tell Ada to spend less time on her back, then she wouldn’t have a bun in her oven every nine months or so.’

  All the women laughed at Peggy’s comment. Elsie grinned. This kind of banter was familiar to her and didn’t offend her, but she hoped Millie hadn’t heard it. She glanced up towards the office, a room that seemed suspended in the air of one corner of Swift’s Jam Factory, and was relieved that there was no sign of her.

  Millie was posh and was brought up in a much more refined way than Elsie, who, before all the revelations about her real father, had known nothing but poverty and had lived in one of the many tenement blocks and slum houses in and around Long Lane, as these women around her still did.

  For a moment Elsie was transported back to those days, only a few short months ago, although they seemed to be in another lifetime. She thought of Dot, her lifelong friend and, now, her newly discovered half-sister – a fact that seemed incredible whenever she tried to analyse it. Everything had changed with the horror that had happened to herself, Millie and Dot, after they’d discovered they were fathered by the same man. Now they were rebuilding their lives – well, she and Millie were. Dot was trying to, against the will of her bigoted mother, Beryl Grimes. Oh, Dot, luv, I wish you were here – I miss you.

  As if her thoughts had transmitted themselves to the women, Peggy said, ‘We’ve all been talking about Dot, Elsie. It must be six months since she left to look after her mum’s aunt. Ain’t the ole girl kicked the bucket yet?’

  Although this deepened her pain of missing Dot, Elsie decided to laugh it off. She had to keep Dot’s secret. ‘No, but I wish she would, then we could have Dot back. It’s like part of me is missing.’

  Another voice piped up, ‘And you’re missing your brovver Cecil, too, no doubt. Good that they’re together, though, eh?’

  ‘Yes . . .’ Elsie didn’t like where this was leading and was glad when Peggy intervened.

  ‘Leave it, girls – me asking about Dot weren’t meant to start an inquisition. We don’t want to go stirring up Elsie’s sorrow. I’m sorry, Elsie, luv, I should have thought before I opened me ugly mug. Insensitive, this lot are.’

  ‘It’s all right. None of it’s far from me mind, but I cope.’

  Cecil, whom she affectionately called Cess, was the eldest of her brothers and only a year younger than herself. She knew these women suspected the truth about Dot and Cecil’s relationship. They all knew how sweet they’d always been on each other, but she didn’t want to confirm it.

  ‘Now, let’s get on – we need to get this batch in stock and get ready for the early-season fruits coming in. This is the last of the marmalade.’

  The making of marmalade kept the factory in production during the early winter months of each year. The first shipment of oranges came in from Spain just after Christmas – a time that had, in the past, seen them all glad to get back to work after a forced two-month layoff, due to there being no local fruit available.

  Elsie was proud to think that, with her and Millie now working as partners, and with Jim Ellington, their new manager, introducing the manufacturing of pickled onions as a new venture, the usual closure of the jam factory during November and December hadn’t happened. For the first time in her memory, the women and their kids hadn’t gone hungry – something she knew they’d all dreaded each year, as she had herself when she was in their position. Since being a young girl of thirteen she’d worked here, and the starvation months had been difficult to get through as she’d tried to look after her brothers.

  Although the factory remaining open hadn’t been down to her, the women thought it was and this helped Elsie’s situation.

  Making her way up the stairs to the office, Elsie found the conversation she’d just had haunting her. She so longed to see Dot and Cecil. She knew she should feel happy and settled – grateful even that, after her life had been torn apart, she’d landed on her feet. But although everything had changed for the better and beyond all recognition, she still mourned the old days. And, more than that, she longed for everything associated with all that had happened last year to be over, and to find a niche in life and not always seem out of place. She hated the feeling that she was no longer part of the world she’d grown up in, and yet she didn’t feel she belonged to this new world that she’d suddenly been catapulted into.

  When two o’clock came Elsie was glad to leave the factory. She and Millie worked part-time at the moment, as they had so much stress to cope with. However, slipping into the back seat of Millie’s car and greeting the driver, then snuggling into the soft leather beside Mi
llie, only enhanced Elsie’s feelings of being a misfit.

  Millie sensed her mood. ‘Are you all right, Elsie? You’re very quiet.’

  ‘Oh, you know, the usual: missing Dot and Cess – not to mention worrying about the future.’

  Millie took her hand and squeezed it. ‘I miss Dot too, and I dread what we have to face. But we cope most of the time, helping each other through it. You can always talk to me, Elsie. No one understands better than I do.’

  ‘I know. It was the women’s banter that unsettled me. They’re naturally curious about Dot and Cess, and I can sense them making assumptions that aren’t far from the truth. If their gossip reaches Dot’s mum, she’ll go completely over the top and could cause such a lot of harm.’

  ‘I don’t think she will. She might even relent and let Cecil and Dot marry, then all the gossiping will be stalled. Anyway, worrying about what might happen doesn’t help us. We have to get through each event as it occurs. And we will, Elsie. Look how far we’ve come already.’

  Elsie had no time to answer as the car pulled up outside their home – well, Millie’s home really – and Barridge, Millie’s butler, opened the door for them.

  As they ran up the few steps and entered the hallway of the imposing three-storeyed house that backed onto Burgess Park, just off the Old Kent Road, Elsie wondered for the thousandth time if she’d ever get used to this grand lifestyle. But she had no time to dwell on this. As soon as they entered the grand hall, Millie picked up the letters from the silver salver that sat on the hall table and shuffled through them.

  ‘There’s two for you, Elsie. One looks official.’

  Millie’s expression told of her apprehension as she handed Elsie the envelopes and the mother-of-pearl paper knife. One of the letters matched the one that Millie had retained in her hand. The seal on both was that of Millie’s solicitor.

  Elsie’s hand shook as she slit her letter open. Her eyes scanned the first few words:

  I am pleased to inform you, that at this eleventh hour, the defendant has changed his plea to Guilty.

  Gasping in a deep breath unleashed the tears that had gone unshed all day and they rained with the relief Elsie felt, because so much lay in that one little word ‘Guilty’: the release of the suffocating fear and tension that had gripped her for months at the prospect of facing the despicable Horace Chambers, a former foreman at the jam factory, in the courtroom, and of his vile rape of her coming out into the open for all to hear. But, worse than that, having to listen to every detail of the murder of her lovely mum.

  With Chambers having at last admitted his crimes, she would never have to face her mother’s name being dragged through the mud for being a prostitute, a stigma that didn’t convey the reasons for it: how, as a young unmarried woman, her mum was made pregnant by her own boss – Millie’s dad – and then abandoned by him. Nor did such a reputation encompass the good heart Elsie’s lovely mum had harboured. Poor Mum, having once trodden the path of selling yourself to get food for yourself and your child, how difficult life made it for you to change direction, especially as more children came along.

  ‘Elsie? Is – is it bad news?’

  She looked up. Millie stood suspended, her own letter unopened. Her eyes held fear, but Elsie saw something else in her expression: the love and concern that her half-sister felt for her. ‘No. It’s good news, Millie. Open yours.’

  As she watched Millie’s shaking hands opening her letter, Elsie felt the pity of how her life, too, had been torn apart. Millie had been brought up and loved by her father, and had suffered a tremendous shock as the revelations about him unfolded – his terrible treatment of Elsie and Dot, his two illegitimate daughters, born to different mothers, and how he had ordered Chambers to kill Elsie’s mum.

  ‘Oh, Elsie!’ Millie’s tears spilled over. ‘Is it really over?’

  She held her arms open, and Elsie came into them. ‘Yes, Chambers is to be sentenced next week, and the solicitor says that the death penalty will be the most likely outcome.’ As she said this, Elsie knew that on the day the noose tightened, a new beginning would dawn for her. ‘We’re free of it all, Millie. Don’t cry, luv.’

  Millie lifted her head from Elsie’s shoulder. ‘These are tears of relief. Oh, Elsie, I can’t wait to let Mama know. She was thinking of coming down from Leeds to be at all the hearings, although I didn’t want her to. I didn’t want her to sit through hours of listening to my – our – father’s sordid and wicked life. Nor did I want you to have to go through it all again. It truly is over, Elsie.’

  Drying her tears, Millie took a deep breath and, as was her way, changed the subject to talk about more hopeful events – one being the coming wedding of her much-loved maid, Ruby. She rejoiced that she could at last concentrate on this. ‘I shall feel much happier, Elsie, now that I don’t have to pretend enthusiasm, as Ruby deserves more than that from me. And, oh, I cannot wait to tell Len that we can start to plan our own wedding too!’

  At the mention of Len, and his and Millie’s forthcoming marriage, a fresh agony assailed Elsie. From the moment she’d set eyes on Len, she’d loved him – a feeling that should be joyous, but was a jagged pain within her. And right now it was mixed with the heavy feeling she’d harboured all day. I so long to go back in time and have all my family around me. I love having me little Bert here, but if only Cess and Dot, Mum and Jimmy – poor Jimmy . . . A different pain assailed Elsie at the thought of her mum and of her late, much-loved little brother Jimmy.

  Millie broke into her thoughts. ‘I’m sorry, Elsie, I shouldn’t have jumped to more joyful events, but I find everything easier to cope with if I weigh the bad against the good. And we have so much to look forward to. Maybe your second letter will be the start of it? I can see, by the handwriting, that it’s from Cecil. Open it, Elsie. We might be aunties and not know it!’

  Elsie smiled and felt lifted by Millie’s attitude. Her heartache paled a little, and all the sordid mess concerning Chambers and his guilty plea didn’t seem to matter, as she ripped open Cess’s letter and scanned the page. ‘A girl! Millie . . . Oh, Millie! We’ve got a niece!’

  ‘What’s a niece, Else?’

  Bert had crept up on them without her noticing, bringing further joy to Elsie as she looked into his big blue eyes. Ruffling his once-blond hair, which was now darkening as the months went by, she made an attempt to be cross with him. ‘Bert! What are you doing down here? You should be upstairs with your tutor.’

  ‘It’s boring, Else. I know everything.’

  Elsie laughed. ‘Not everything: you don’t know what a niece is – not that there’s any reason you should. But you will now, mate. Because, buggerlugs, at five years old you have one!’

  ‘Me? How?’

  ‘Your big brother Cess has given her to us – well, Dot has. Dot gave birth to a little girl!’

  ‘But . . .?’

  Bert didn’t have time to finish whatever he was going to say because Millie clapped her hands together. ‘How wonderful. Come on, let’s all go into my sitting room. I can’t wait to know more – I have so many questions.’

  As they entered what was Elsie’s favourite room in the house, the weak spring sunshine shone through the French windows, giving a bright and airy feel and an enhanced view of the garden. Elsie loved the colours that adorned the room: soft greys, with warm ruby-reds giving richness to the velvet cushions and drapes, picked out by swirls of the same colour in the circular pattern in the centre of the huge, thick grey rug.

  As soon as they were settled – Bert snuggled into Elsie on the sofa, and Millie sat in the chair next to the fireplace – Millie fired off questions. ‘Is the baby all right? Is Dot doing well? Have they named the baby? Who does she look like?’

  How important that last question was, but although she was tense about the answer, Elsie laughed at Millie. ‘I reckon it’s best if I read the letter out, then we can all have the answers.

  ‘Dear Sis,

  I am happy to tell you that our baby
girl arrived on 2 March 1912. She is so beautiful, and my Dot is a smashing mum, though very tired, and naturally a little down at how everything is.

  Anyway, the best news of all is that our Kitty, as we call her – although we have formally registered her as Beryl Katherine Elsie – looks just like me, though her hair is the colour of yours and Mum’s: a beautiful copper-red . . .

  ‘Oh, Millie, they’ve given her mine and our mum’s name!’ Elsie felt joy rising within her as she said this. What did the past matter now? She had a new Kitty to love. She would never stop loving her mum, but she would let her rest now in a happy place, among the good memories she held of her.

  Bert sidled closer to Elsie; she could feel his heartache, which she knew had been triggered by hearing her talk about their mum. Ignoring this, as she wanted to hold the moment, she voiced her thoughts to him. ‘We have a new Kitty, Bert. A little girl who will bring us happiness and love. You’ll play with her and, as you grow up, you’ll become her protector, making sure she is safe. It’s going to be all right, buggerlugs – everything is going to be all right!’

  ‘But Cess isn’t here. I can’t look after Kitty while she lives in Leicester . . . I miss Cess, Else.’

  ‘I know you do, mate. But we’ll go and see them, I promise. Now this is no time for sadness. We have a new niece – Kitty is your niece, and you are uncle to her. Ha, such a young whippersnapper, but an uncle already!’ She stood then and pulled Bert gently to his feet. ‘Come on, I’m taking you back to your tutor. You’re to say sorry for leaving the schoolroom, and I will ask her to explain all about family relationships to you, so that you understand what a niece is.’

  ‘But we will go and see Cess, won’t we?’

  ‘We will.’

  When Elsie returned to the sitting room, happiness gripped her as Millie, who had moved to sit on the sofa, patted the seat next to her. ‘Oh, Elsie, I’m so happy that little Kitty is indisputably Cecil’s child. That cloud has hung thickly over their heads.’

  ‘So am I. No more skeletons in the cupboard. And maybe now Dot’s mum will accept the child and give permission for Cess and Dot to marry.’