Penny Thorpe - The Quality Street Girls

‘Why would she be territorial over a linen cupboard?’

‘Because she was in charge of it, it was something that was hers to control. Sometimes when people feel like they haven’t got much control over their lives, they’ll try to exert it over their little territory at work. It might be the tool shed in the People’s Park if you’re the head gardener; or it might be the telegram machine in the Post Office if you’re the Post Mistress, or on your production line there might be a shift manager who prefers to have all the ideas and doesn’t like them coming from other people.’

‘But what if they don’t have any ideas?’ Reenie’s marmalade cat crouched by her side, indicating that it wanted to jump into her lap, so she pushed her chair backwards an inch to give it room. ‘Or what if I have an idea that’s really good, but it’s not the same as the idea they’ve had?’

‘Then you still have to try and keep it to yourself, love.’ Reenie’s mother was sad to say it, but she knew that her daughter’s happiness depended on keeping herself wise to her workplace. ‘If you want to stay you have to keep those ideas to yourself. There are a lot of people who won’t like to see a girl being outspoken; it’s just not how the world works.’

Reenie thought about the girl who had called herself their overlooker but had turned out to be leading them a merry dance. She realised that all the other girls who’d been walking alongside her must have thought that she was wrong to speak up. They would all have rather been made a fool of than challenge someone of equal standing, let alone a superior. It went against the grain for Reenie, and the golden toffee that her mother offered her in consolation didn’t shut out the thought.

It was not the Monday morning that Diana had hoped for. Diana had wanted to slip into her high chair on the strawberry cream production line and to wrap her sweets in perfect, dignified silence while the fresh smell of strawberries got into her clothes and made her feel serene. She’d worked nearly all of the lines in her ten years at Mac’s, and she could pick up any production line job in her sleep; whether it be hand-wrapping toffees, hand-piping chocolates, or decorating their tops with a dainty wire wand. Diana had a wealth of experience on the lines and it was one of the reasons why she had been chosen for the team of girls that would hand-wrap the sweets on temporary lines until the Engineers Office and the Time and Motion men could set up a permanent mechanised line and replace her with a machine.

Quality Street had only been launched in May, and no one had anticipated that it would be as popular as it had been. The Mackintosh’s old rivals over in York had launched their ‘affordable’ chocolate boxes in the shape of Black Magic and All Gold, but they were only affordable for the likes of the managers and the office workers. Mackintosh’s wanted to make a tin of chocolate toffees that was inexpensive for everyone; they wanted to make something to share, and to celebrate with, and to get excited about; something that exploded with colour and helped make treasured memories. They’d invented Quality Street in a hurry, and demand was now outstripping supply. Scratch lines were set up to hand make it in larger quantities while new machines were brought in and set up to start in the new year.

When Diana arrived at her post on the production line, her overlooker Frances Roth was waiting for her.

‘I’m sorry that I’m a little late, Mrs Roth;’ Diana said it without a hint of apology in her voice, ‘the Head of Women’s Employment wanted to offer me a job.’

‘And did you take it? Am I to be left to find someone else to fill your position at a time when I can barely keep the line running with the girls I have?’ Mrs Roth said it with bitterness, melodrama and accusation. Diana knew that Mrs Roth was exaggerating. Mrs Roth’s particular talent was that she could run two lines simultaneously. It wasn’t merely a case of watching two places at once, but also of managing the shift rota and paperwork that accompanied it. It wasn’t because she was unmarried, but her private life was run with a military precision around the Salvation Army. She relished time spent on departmental paperwork and delighted in petty bitterness.

‘I turned the position down, Mrs Roth. I didn’t feel worthy of it.’ The other factory girls watched in awe as Diana managed to tread the fine line between false sycophancy and out-and-out sarcastic rudeness with the overlooker that they all loved to despise.

Diana and Mrs Roth had an old antipathy to one another; everyone knew that. They were usually kept apart because Mrs Roth seemed to want to teach Diana a lesson and put her in her place, and Diana outsmarted her every time.

Mrs Roth seemed to have an unhealthy fixation with Diana and what time she wanted to leave the factory. If Diana left early to look after her sister there was always an insinuation that Diana was neglecting her work at the factory, and if she didn’t leave early, Mrs Roth would insinuate that she was neglecting her younger sister. With Frances Roth, Diana could never win, and this was one of the many reasons why it was so frustrating to the factory management that she wouldn’t accept her promotion

‘You’re wanted in the overlookers’ office, Number Four.’ Mrs Roth snapped, calling Diana by her position number on the line to emphasise her inferiority.

‘But I’m not an overlooker.’ Diana did not sound surprised; she was simply riling Mrs Roth.

‘Major Fergusson from Time and Motion wants to conduct a study on your line today, but the Union shop steward is unavailable to approve it. I said that you could represent the girls as you’re in the Union.’

This smelt fishy to Diana and she followed Mrs Roth into the overlookers room in suspicious silence.

Major Fergusson was waiting in the overlookers room hoping that his new protégé wasn’t about to see another classic display of Frances versus Diana. The Major had tried to mentor both young women over the years, but the experiment hadn’t worked, and Mrs Roth was now worse than ever.

‘Ah, Ladies, so pleased to see you both on the same line for a change.’ The Major beamed and was very plausible; no one would have thought putting them together was a disaster. ‘Diana, I hear that you will be acting as Union representative for the girls this morning?’

The Major had known Diana’s father in passing. He had been a Union man and had often been the only thing to keep Diana on the straight and narrow back in those days. Her father had got Diana her first job at the factory when she was sixteen. Diana had been a bit of a bully and a troublemaker those first few years, and the Major kept a close eye on her. She ruled the roost, but she had been a different person then. When her father had left the factory, Diana had become more troublesome than ever, and for a moment it had looked as though she would have to be dismissed. But then her father had died suddenly, and just as suddenly she changed beyond recognition. Diana had gone away for nearly a year claiming she needed to care for a sick relative in the country, but the Major suspected that she was caring for her halfsister who was born about that time. Her father hadn’t married her stepmother, but there had been a baby, little Grace. Diana’s father had died before he’d seen the child, but Diana and Ethel had stuck together all the same.

Diana had gone from living in a comfortable flat above a rented shop in a shabbily respectable part of town, to living in the attic room of a woman that she called her stepmother. The transformation had been as unexpected as it had been remarkable; Diana was still the ‘it girl’ of Mackintosh’s factory and she still commanded a following among the girls, but these days she used her influence sparingly to secure herself a quiet life. Six years before she had a nasty habit of using her power to torment and tease. The old Diana liked power and adulation; the new Diana was a woman wise to injustice.