Biscuit Girls Read online

  ‘I don’t really worry about the future, or what will happen to me. I have never been a worrier. I always say what will be will be. Another thing I say is that I don’t have energy to waste worrying about what might be. I just deal with what comes along.

  ‘We have spent the last forty years building a home and providing the best we could for ourselves and our children, with the children almost always taking priority. We have now decided after great deliberation that in the future we should be the main priority. Our remaining time should be for us first, while always being there for the children and grandchildren. My main aims for the future are to make lifestyle changes that will enable David to retire at least a couple of years earlier than his state pension date, so that we can spend more time together doing the things that we enjoy, like more trips out at the weekend and longer holidays abroad, especially in the winter months. So, all going well, the future, however long that may be, looks to be as exciting, as fruitful and as rewarding as our life so far. So you see I don’t personally really want much – just a happy and comfortable future.

  ‘I think working women and career women generally have it easier today. We didn’t have maternity leave and assisted nursery places like they do now. We had to make our own arrangements, either pay for help or get someone in the family to look after the kids.

  ‘You see young lasses today dumping their kids at school early in the morning, long before it opens, shoving them into the Breakfast Club, then they are in the After School Club. They can hardly see them. A sign of the times we now live in, I suppose. Even though I worked so hard and for so long, I like to think my own children always had their breakfast at home, and their tea.

  ‘I always had a fear of ending up as a pensioner with no money, like some of the older generation.

  ‘So, I have to admit, Carr’s has served me well.’

  Chapter 21

  Ann

  Ann in 2013

  Ann continued to juggle work as a union convenor and the demands of being a single mother. For a time she was joined at Carr’s by Adrian, her son. He had gone into the local metal box factory when he left school, and then joined Carr’s for a short period, thus becoming the fourth generation of Ann’s family to work there.

  He was still the apple of his grandmother’s eye. She had looked after him after school during those years when Ann had been on the evening shift. Eventually, Adrian settled down with a partner, rented a council house and had children of his own. He still visited his gran a lot, and of course his mother Ann.

  In his early teens, Adrian did have some drug-related problems, and spent some time at a young offenders’ home. Ann hoped it was a passing phase, and blamed the drug culture of the times. It was particularly serious on the Raffles estate, the estate which had once been a model of social housing but by the 1990s had become drug infested, with dealers operating openly, houses boarded up, gardens left overgrown, old cars dumped in front hedges, and people scared to go out at night. For a time, Raffles featured as one of the most deprived estates in the whole of England.

  A report in the Independent on Sunday newspaper in April 1994 described the estate as a ‘no-go area with a high level of crime’ and quoted one resident as saying, ‘If you’ve got a problem in Raffles, get a shotgun.’

  One Thursday in 2001, Ann went with Adrian and his three young children to Chester Zoo for the day. They all had a great time. A photo of them taken that day shows them all smiley and happy. Adrian looks well, his hair brushed forward in a schoolboy fringe, like a latter-day Beatle. He appears healthy if a bit thin and incredibly young-looking to have three children.

  Two days later, on the Saturday, Ann was shopping at B & Q in Carlisle with her younger brother when his mobile rang. It was his wife, asking them to come to Ann’s mother’s house at once.

  ‘When I got there, the police had gone. My mam was distraught, so I feared the worse.’

  Adrian had been found dead after an overdose of heroin. He was twenty-seven.

  Ann arranged the funeral service at the crematorium. Many of his friends turned up. Ann wanted nothing to be hidden, the causes of Adrian’s death to be known, as a warning to all.

  ‘People thought druggies were all emaciated, down and outs, but they are not. I honestly saw no signs in Adrian at Chester Zoo on the Thursday that he was back on drugs. But it’s an addiction and hard to escape, especially if someone supplies you. Looking back now, I think if he had been born earlier or later it might not have happened. He was born at the wrong time, a time when drugs were rife in the community he was living in. I wanted his death to be warning to those in his group.’

  She found a retired vicar to give the address – which she wrote. Today she has it framed in an italic script, like a medieval manuscript.

  Adrian died because he took drugs

  I have lost my son because of drugs

  My parents have lost a grandson because of drugs

  His three children have lost their father because of drugs

  I have family and friends grieving for me because of drugs

  I am so angry that myself and all these people

  Have been put through this terrible time because of drugs

  I am not that naïve that saying this will

  Stop everybody from using drugs, but if it only

  Makes a few think about all the pain and sorrow

  It brings to themselves and their family

  Adrian’s death will not have been such a waste

  Adrian is free of it all now and so are his family

  But oh what a price we have had to pay

  He was all I had and drugs took him away from me

  I have peace of mind but I have no son

  GOD BLESS YOU, SON, SLEEP WELL

  At work, Ann threw herself into her activities as the union convenor, going to meetings, in the factory and elsewhere in the United Biscuits group, sorting out problems.

  The Carlisle flood drama of 2005 at the Carr’s factory was a traumatic time for Ann, in her union role, just as much as for the management, worried about getting production started again.

  ‘It broke my heart when I walked through the Bourbon department the day after. There was water everywhere, tons of muck, massive tins of biscuits just floating around. I thought they’ll never clear this up. We’ve had it now. Almost two hundred years of history down the drain.

  ‘At that time, the Ashby de la Zouch factory had recently been closed, so we were all worried we would be next.

  ‘But we all mucked in, came in and helped out. There were a few moans from some of the ones who were called in to work, to help clean everywhere up, while those at home were getting paid but doing nothing. But that was just a few. I have to say that everyone was kept on full pay during the three months the factory was closed. It was a miracle that it all opened again – and so quickly. Perhaps the closure of Ashby had helped us. Perhaps they didn’t want to close another factory so soon, so that’s why they rushed to get us open again.’

  In reality, the vital factor, according to the management, was the fact that they had excellent insurance cover, unlike many of Carlisle’s ordinary domestic householders. They were able to access the insurance money and start clearing up and rebuilding very quickly. Being part of United Biscuits, a large modern, well-run conglomerate, definitely paid off in this instance.

  So Ann and the other shop stewards, along with all the workers and management, were soon able to get back to normal, with production increasing, more lines coming on, and the firm doing well once again.

  In 2008, after ten years as the factory convenor, Ann went one day into a shop stewards’ regular meeting. During the meeting, one steward happened to ask her if she was in the management’s pocket. Ann thought, that’s it, I’ve had enough.

  ‘I resigned there and then. I hadn’t intended to. I hadn’t gone into the meeting with that in my mind. It was all in the heat of the moment, but I thought no, I really have had enough.’

  Ann rema
ined a Carr’s worker, despite resigning from her union position, as she was still employed by them. In some cases, convenors have often gone on to management or personnel positions. Ann found herself being offered a job as learning coordinator for the factory.

  This was a scheme that had come in under the Labour government: one of those idealistic schemes that for a while the country could afford. The idea was that in each factory there should be a learning place, a room set aside with computers, materials, tools and instruments, where ordinary workers could learn new skills, if they wanted to. Not in company time, but after work. All funded by the government.

  ‘The scheme was union-led, paid for by the government, but we got the backing of the company, which was vital. They really helped and encouraged it, seeing it as a training tool.

  ‘One of the things we did was to help people read and write. The government at the time was worried people were masking that they couldn’t read, not letting on, so we helped them to come forward, keeping it confidential. So we did a lot of good. You could also learn computer skills. We also helped people to write their CVs. At one time we had a lot of Polish workers, brought over when we had staff shortages. They were very keen on learning to read and write English.

  ‘Anyway, the scheme came to an end – and the company lost interest. That’s what companies do. They like things when they are free, paid for by the government, but afterwards they lose interest. When they have to pay, they suddenly don’t want to know.’

  The scheme finished in December 2012, when the funding ran out. Ann then finally and officially retired, aged sixty-three. The last of her family, after four generations, to have been a Carr’s worker. Perhaps the last ever to work there.

  Since her retirement, Ann has still been involved with Carr’s, organising the pensioners’ club and their Christmas party on a voluntary basis.

  She would like to see an annual works outing making a return, the sort of thing which Carr’s did so splendidly up until the war, when the whole factory went on fete to Silloth or Blackpool, had a beanfeast, enjoyed activities and entertainment, all paid for by the company.

  She discovered, in her days as a convenor and visiting other factories in the group, that some of them have resurrected the idea and introduced fun days – an annual event, usually in the factory, with partners and children invited, rather than an outing to the seaside. She hopes they will return to the Carr’s factory. The present management does seem keen on implementing a modern version.

  Ann lives alone, in her own nicely converted and extended ex-council house. She never married or found another serious partner.

  She enjoys cooking, and, unlike some of the others, has moved with the times. ‘Today I love pasta, rice, love cooking Indian and Chinese. But I suppose really that my favourite is still Sunday roast. Oh, and I do like a glass of wine – or two.

  ‘My parents always voted Labour. I have always made the effort to vote, but I don’t think a lot of any of the politicians today. One party always blames the other’s policies.

  ‘Looking back, I did have lots of happy times when I was young with family and friends. And I loved being a hairdresser. As a teenager I was quite shy and a bit of a worrier. The biggest change in my life came with working at Carr’s, going on to do the union job. I gained a lot of confidence.

  ‘Today, I do love being a nana to my three grandchildren, Adrian’s children. They are now eighteen, seventeen and fifteen. I babysat them when they were younger. As they got older, they stayed at weekends and I took them on holidays.

  ‘The lowest points in my life have been losing my son, and also my parents. I do worry about what age will bring, especially the thought of anyone having to live with someone with vascular dementia. My father had it. It’s like a stroke of the brain. It’s terrible watching loved ones slipping away from you. He didn’t get it till he was eighty-six and then he died at eighty-nine. So he just had it for three years. My mother died at ninety, so I suppose I have good genes. But I don’t want any of my family to have to go through what I did with my father, when my time comes.’

  Chapter 22

  Ivy

  Ivy in 2013

  Ivy, the oldest of our biscuit girls, has now been retired for twenty years, since that day she travelled down to the London headquarters in 1993 to get her long-service award for forty-five years.

  ‘Earlier on I had had a presentation in Carlisle, at the factory, when I got to fifteen years and then thirty years’ service. The thirty years one was held in the canteen and about fifty people were there. I wore a dress. The factory director, Mr Crowther, shouted out the names and all the long-service people went up, one by one. My friend Gladys Wright thought she was going to be the last to be called, as her name begins with a W, but it was done in reverse order and she was first.

  ‘Mr Crowther shook my hand and thanked me for all my years of service. I was very happy. You felt part of a happy family. I got given a gold watch, so that was nice. For my fifteenth I got a voucher, which I stupidly spent on a costume. I should have saved the money.’

  For her final retirement event, after forty-five years, she travelled to London and got a cheque for £1,000 from the chairman.

  ‘I also got two presents from my friends at Carr’s. One was a white fish, china of course, not real. This was because they had all heard my joke about one of the fish in the factory fishpond – which is still there – the one I had said had been named after me.

  ‘The other was a kitchen stool. I thought I’d not let on about that, as I had been told to keep the man’s name secret, but obviously over the years folks had heard about that stupid mistake I had made, all those years ago.’

  She moved, some twenty years ago, from the council house in Dalton Avenue, Raffles, where she had lived with her mother, to a two-bedroom council house at Belah, on the other side of the town, considered a nicer area than Raffles.

  However, in the last few years, Raffles has at last begun to come up. Since 2004 around £10 million has been spent on redevelopment, knocking down many of the drug-ridden, crime-infested old 1930s council houses and building bright new attractive more spacious houses on tree-lined streets. Could Raffles become a desirable place to live once more, as it was back in the 1930s when Ivy was born and her parents were so excited to have secured such an up-to-date new house?

  Ivy lives alone, except for Winky, her blue budgerigar. ‘I love him to bits. I did think of getting a parrot, but decided against it. A parrot wouldn’t get a word in. I talk all the time, even just to myself.’

  The house and the garden is immaculate, the lawns and hedges neatly clipped, all done by Ivy herself, even at the age of eighty. Unlike most of her other colleagues, all those years of hard labour have clearly not affected her health and strength. She has to take some blood pressure pills, but that is about all. She always appears cheerful, ready to laugh, make jokes.

  Ivy had to learn to cook having done none as a girl or young woman. ‘When I was working, my mother still made all my meals for me, but when she fell ill, I had to take over and learn what do to, making a meal for us all when I came home from work. I just made what she had made – meat and two veg. Oxo pie was one I liked making.

  ‘I still cook for myself – and cook the same old things I ate when I was young. I never buy ready meals, apart from fish and chips. I couldn’t be doing with things like pasta or oil. I shop at Morrisons and when I go up town I go into Routledges for bread and rolls and Cranstons for meat and pies. I don’t drink wine, never have done. Don’t like it. If I am out somewhere, and I have to have a drink, I might have a port and lemon. I quite like it.’

  Three out of our six biscuit girls have suffered some sort of ill health, before or during their retirement. Fairly normal on the whole for their age. But it is noticeable that the three most outwardly healthy and fit are Ivy, Dorothy and Ann, none of whom got married, though Ann did have a son.

  Ivy had just had her thick white hair cut short, almost a crew cut, flat on t
op, rather modern.

  ‘I dyed it once when I was young, just with shampoo, and it was a disaster. If it was a special occasion, I would go to the Co-Op and have it permed. But mostly I have always kept it short and tidy. That’s how I prefer it.’

  She has never been much of a follower of fashion. Most fads passed her by. ‘I did wear nylons when they came in. I remember the New Look, just after the war, and everyone talking about it, but all it seemed to be was that coats were longer than normal. I did buy one and I got used to it.’

  She loved Elvis, and still does, but also liked going to concerts by the Carlisle Music Society and trips to Blackpool to see the big variety shows.

  In her childhood, they got several newspapers at home, but today she doesn’t read any daily or Sunday newspapers, except the local one, the evening paper, the Evening News. ‘I buy it two or three times a week when I am up the town. I used to buy the Cumberland News on a Friday but it’s too heavy for me to carry.

  ‘I’m not really a reader. I never joined a library, even as a child. I once went along to the library in town, Tullie House, with a friend after school but the lady was so nasty it put me off libraries for life.’

  Ivy has no interest in politics and never votes. ‘My parents did vote. I remember them going to Newtown School to cast their votes on election day. They always voted Labour. I think politicians today don’t know what they’re doing. They are always arguing. They should be fair with people but they just seem to be in it for themselves, only interested in themselves. No, none of them have done anything for me.’

  Apart from her TV, which she has on much of the time, she doesn’t have much truck with modern technology. She doesn’t have a computer or use a mobile, and she has long given up her little car now she is on a fixed income.

  Some neighbours assume that after all those years at Carr’s she must have a good pension – but she never contributed to a pension scheme till her final years. Her state pension comes to around £100 a week, while her Carr’s pension is slightly less. Her total income each week is £200 – but she reckons it costs her £300 a week to live. Her council rent is £90, then there is council tax, plus heating, lighting, food and other expenses.