Читать книгу Little Ann's Field of Buttercups - Ann Jacques - Страница 11

Hazel and I both left school at fifteen and started work at Corah’s Hosiery Factory. I really only took the job because I wanted to work with Hazel. For some reason she gave me confidence. But I did not really like the job. I hated the look of endless rows of different types of machines, fluff everywhere getting up my nose and making me constantly sneeze, and bundles of machined up garments in corners, ready for the next operation. But what I hated most of all was being on piecework. The other girls’ eyes were on me, making sure the good work was left for them. This was frightening and made me nervous as the bundles of work all looked the same to me. Which was the good work? I left to look for an office job.

I did end up in an office. I liked the job but I was sacked after a while because I froze when answering the phone. I started to suspect I was hard of hearing because I couldn’t hear the voices on the phone distinctly enough and kept having to ask the person on the other end to repeat what they said. This was very embarrassing and made me nervous to the point where I didn’t like answering the phone.

My second office job involved dealing with the phones again but this time the switchboard was in a small room. The other part of the job was doing the accounts. Jeff, who I was taking over from, was good at his job despite his blindness. He was leaving to further his career as a musician and played the piano very well. The young man in accounts was a drummer, and the wages clerk played the clarinet. At tea break, the three of them would come down to the tiny switchboard room and pretend to play music, tapping out the beat and singing. It was bedlam, and I had to answer the phone and connect people. But if I got into a panic Jeff was there to help me. This went on for a while until one day we overstepped the mark and all got the sack. At least I learned the switchboard operating, so it was not a waste of time. And I had enjoyed it.

For my next job, I knew my hearing was not up to speed so answering phones was out. Hearing problems weren’t known about in those days. No one was tested and people who were deaf from birth never had a talking voice, so they were classed as dumb. Most had no schooling. I decided to give factory work another go. I applied for a job at a medium-sized electrical engineering factory near home. I got the job doing coil winding. It paid well and I liked it. I finally felt relaxed for the first time in a job. The women and men I worked with were very friendly and easy to talk with. I was still living at home with my mum and family. I didn’t have much of a social life and stayed home in the evenings listening to the radio shows. I remember one in particular, The Goon Show. My mother used to laugh along with it, but I didn’t think it was very funny. I never understood it. I liked the Saturday night thriller, The Man in Black series, and In Town Tonight and any of the big bands musical shows. But as I got to know more people I worked with, my staying in with the radio soon diminished and I found better things to do with my time.

I started going out socially with my new work colleagues, to dances and work outings. At nearly sixteen, I was the youngest of the group. The others were all between the ages of nineteen and twenty-four. One of them had a car so on Sundays in the summer we all headed up to Foxton Locks, a quaint little village outside Leicester. We also enjoyed visiting the castles and abbeys, enjoying cream teas on the patio of the little cafe outside the grounds.

Before long, I befriended a young married woman from work, Evelyn. She sometimes invited me to her home where she made me brown sauce on toast—my favourite snack at the time. Evelyn and her husband Don were into bike riding and often rode to Bradgate Park. I had recently bought a bike for work to save on bus fare, so sometimes they invited me to join them.

My bike was a semi-racer and my pride and joy so I loved going along with them. But I was not seeing my other work friends as often as I liked. They frequently ventured to London for the weekend. Of course, they were older and earning more money than me. In those days no one received a full wage until the age of twenty-one. I simply couldn’t afford to go with them.

A couple of years earlier when I was fourteen Mum had married a Polish man, Stan. I hated my stepfather. He never liked to see me enjoying myself. On one occasion, the firm arranged a daytrip for the workers via bus to Battersea Fair London and I desperately wanted to go. Mum would have let me go, but my stepfather wouldn’t allow it. He wanted me home when his boring cronies came over for one of their booze-up parties. He hoped one of his friend’s sons would like me enough to want to marry me. But I didn’t like any of them. Everyone except me went on the trip. I was furious.

Over a period of time, my group of work friends slowly broke apart. One couple got married and others left the firm for new jobs. I also drifted into new friendships with other people at work. I started ballroom dancing, which I loved. I was a quick learner and seemed to intuitively pick up the steps. Before too long, dancing had become my life.

Fridays and Saturdays were my big nights out at the Leicester Palais de Dance. The first time I entered the ballroom I was overcome with its beauty. It was just how I imagined Buckingham Palace would be like. The stage was draped with pink satin curtains. Patterned pink carpet covered the floor, with pink satin brocade settees adorning the dance hall. The dance floor itself was a beautiful sprung polished wooden floor, with a brick fountain right in the centre. Coloured lights inside the fountain turned it into a cascading rainbow. Palm trees and soft lighting created a warm tropical ambience as we danced to the live band. The male vocalist, who many years on became world famous, sang the popular songs of that time adding to the dreamy atmosphere. A huge mirrored ball hung from the ceiling and twirled around as we danced.

The dance finished at midnight, then my friends and I walked home together, picking up fish and chips to eat on the way. As we walked to our respective homes we laughed, recalling the events of the evening. Then one by one we would disappear down our streets shouting out our ‘goodbyes’. Years later I came across couples who’d met at these dances and had gone on to ‘wedded bliss’. That dance hall holds a lot of happy memories.

My overprotective stepdad, Stan, always wanted me to catch the last bus at eleven o’clock. Mum wasn’t too bothered, but Stan always carried on and made a huge fuss over it, spoiling my night. I tried to explain that if I was to go home early I would miss out on reminiscing about the wonderful night with my friends. I also pointed out that I was safer with my friends than on a bus with the drunks. I didn’t care what Stan said, the walk home with my friends was always worth it, no matter how much trouble I was in the next day. I had no intention of doing anything different. He didn’t have a good enough reason for me not to come home with my friends. He seemed to simply enjoy controlling me. Perhaps it was jealousy. All I remember is that I seemed to irritate him somehow and he never liked me. The feeling was mutual.

Every Monday night was cinema night. There was always a huge queue because it was the premiere night for the upcoming film. Most times some people would miss half the film because it took so long to get inside. If there was a film I really wanted to see I waited until the end of the week to see it. I would go straight from work, catching the bus into town. On the way I ate the sandwiches I’d made the night before. They kept me going until I got home later that night. After the movie I hurried across to the other side of town where the last bus was waiting to go.

The films were always fantastic. The movies starring Doris Day, Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, and the beautiful Elizabeth Taylor were always very entertaining. I also enjoyed the many drama films starring Bette Davis and Barbara Stanwick, and of course the musicals.

The cinema’s decor was exquisite. All the seating was dark red crushed velvet. Floor length satin curtains on each side of the screen were lit up by floodlighting which changed the curtains’ colour. An organ rose up from a pit below stage level and the organist would entertain the audience while we waited for the movie to begin, often playing melodies that related in some way to the movie that was coming up. While the music played and the lights changed from one colour to another, people would still be entering the cinema. Everyone was shown to their seats by an usherette with a large torch to lead you down the steps. All the courting couples sat in the back row where they could have a kiss and cuddle. I was always more interested in the film. At last the curtains opened, the lights went down and the film started.

Wednesday evenings, I went dancing at the local Working Men’s Club with some of the girls from work. It was nearer to home and finished at eleven, and we could walk home in less than ten minutes. I enjoyed dancing but was restricted to how many times I went because of my controlling stepfather. I stopped going to the Palais because of the rows at home. I then started going to the Working Men’s Club on Saturdays with my mum and Stan, at their request. Older men stared at me after they’d had too much to drink. I felt degraded. Then one night a young man asked me to dance and we ended up dancing all night. He seemed okay compared to some of the other men in the club. He was twenty-one and I was only sixteen and a half.

Once my parents saw that this lad was interested in me, they stopped coming every week and I seemed to be stuck with him. He eventually asked me out on a date. My parents thought it was great, but all I thought about was the Palais de Dance and how much I was missing my friends. To keep my parents happy I kept going out with him and eventually he became my regular boyfriend. As time went on, I met his mum and the rest of his family. They lived in the same estate, not too far away from us. His name was Ben.