The Woolworths Girls (45 page)

‘Yes, please, Alan.’

Acknowledgements

There are so many people to thank who helped me make the writing of
The Woolworths Girls
more than just an idea. First, I would like to thank my agent, Caroline Sheldon, who, faced with a few notes jotted on a single sheet of paper, decided to take a chance on me. To then be accepted by Pan Macmillan and have my lovely editor, Natasha Harding, and her colleagues guide me through to publication day is a dream beyond belief. Thank you all.

The London Borough of Bexley, where Erith now resides, has a marvellous archive, and staff not only share local images and stories online but contribute to Erith Facebook groups as well. I’ve lost count of the number of times an image or story has fired my imagination or clarified a point about the town where I was born and grew up – and where the Caselton family resides in
The Woolworths Girls
. It is a joy to belong to these cyber groups, and the number of members shows how fond people still are for the area where Sarah and her family lived during the Second World War, even though time and town planning have all but removed the area that we fondly remember.

My work was made much easier by the discovery of the Woolworths Museum (www.woolworthsmuseum.co.uk) and the information found there. I cannot thank Mr Paul Seaton, curator of the online museum, enough for the detailed information he supplied me with about Erith Woolworths and the staff who worked there during the Second World War. He helped to bring the store alive and made it a place where I could place my girls safe in the knowledge they would become true Woolworths workers.

Support and feedback are important to all writers and I’m lucky to have so many supportive friends who also write and are there to help chew over a problem when it occurs. Students and friends at The Write Place in Dartford, Kent, where I run my writing classes, are a talented bunch and always ready to help when the going gets tough. We support each other. Special thanks to Natalie Kleinman for her proofreading skills and Nats Nits!

I’m sure that my path to this day would not have happened if it were not for the Romantic Novelists’ Association. Although already an established writer, I was able to join their New Writers’ Scheme as my writing had been in short fiction, features and non-fiction books. The knowledge shared so generously by so many well-known authors and the friendships gained since my membership are worth more than all the tea in China.

Author’s Note

If only I’d known that my first Saturday job would lead me to write this book, I’d have taken notes! Yes, I was a Woolworths girl, just like Sarah, Freda and Maisie. It was 1969, I was fifteen and three months, studying for my O-levels, and like most girls my age, I found that I was able to apply for my National Insurance card and a Saturday job.

I lived in Slade Green, Kent, at the time, which is a village between Erith and Dartford. If only I’d applied for my job in Erith, I’d have had my own ‘inside information’ on the Woolies branch featured in
The Woolworths Girls
, as the store where Sarah and her friends worked was still standing at that time (the original Woolworths was replaced by a more modern store in the early seventies after a fire). Instead, I followed my school chums to Dartford to a much larger store. There, I learnt what it meant to be employed by F. W. Woolworth. I learnt what each bell that resounded through the store at regular intervals meant. I yearned for the tea break and lunchtime bells, although the ‘shop closed’ bell was the sweetest sound of the day. I learnt we would be told off if we shortened our green overalls or wore too much lipstick. I found out that waist-length hair had to be rolled into a bun and hidden inside a net when working on the biscuit counter and not to volunteer for the vegetable counter in the dead of winter, as muddy potatoes contained worms and other creepy things.

I was moved to the electrical counter, where I had to measure out lengths of cable from rolls above my head, and to this day have a mental blank when it comes to wiring a plug. We also sold light bulbs. Each one had to be tested before being placed into a brown paper bag and handed to the customer. Testing meant inserting the bulb into a box and turning it so that it came alight. Some didn’t; some shattered. I dreaded a customer asking for a light bulb and would do anything not to be the staff member who served them.

Looking back, I know I was fortunate to have my first experience of work at Woolies. Where else would I have sharpened my skills with mental arithmetic? We had to add up every item on a notepad tied to the waistband of our overalls. I learnt how to count change back into a customer’s hand and help them pack the items they purchased into their shopping bags. It was all part of the service. I learnt that whatever my feelings, the customer was always right, and by pinning a smile to my face, quite often even the most annoying customer remained pleasant. I learnt that keeping busy meant that the day passed more quickly, so when not selling orange buckets and rubber plugs for the bath, I would take my feather duster and dust the rolls of toilet paper stacked on glass-fronted shelves. I learnt not to question my superiors, as they had more experience than I did and had chosen a career in Woolworths, whereas for me, it was the first step on my pathway to full-time employment elsewhere.

At the end of my working day, I would queue with fellow workers to sign for my brown paper pay packet and check the contents. One pound minus thruppence for my National Insurance stamp. I was rich!

Never, in the many years since, have I worked for a company that instilled such strict work ethics into its staff or inspired such happy memories for both employees and customers. So when writing my book about a group of friends and setting it in the memorable town of Erith, there was nowhere better than Woolworths for the girls to spend their working life, to fall in love and to experience the Second World War.

I grew up knowing Erith Woolies. It was where, as a child, I bought my mum and dad’s birthday and Christmas presents. It was where I purchased pens and notebooks for school, and my first stockings and then tights when I was a teenager. Mum even bought my first bra at Woolworths. So many happy memories of times long gone.

However, my memory doesn’t reach back to the Second World War. For information on this period, I went to the Woolworths Museum online. Contacting Mr Paul Seaton brought forth not only his own memories of the area but stories of the people working at Woolies during the war and what they did to help the war effort. Who knew that the staff at Erith helped out when the nearby Bexleyheath branch was devastated by enemy action, or that like the tragedy that occurred at Bethnal Green Underground Station, it was kept secret for the purposes of morale? The locals knew how to keep quiet back then. Careless talk could well have cost lives!

As the writing of this book continued, I was surprised how many friends and family told me they too had been Woolworths girls and had fond recollections of their time working in the UK version of the five-and-ten-cent store. We all share so many happy memories thanks to F. W. Woolworth.

Playlist for
The Woolworths Girls

I had such fun choosing the music for
The Woolworths Girls
. ‘Music for a book?’ I hear you ask. Yes. For me, my characters have to be able to hum a tune and enjoy a sing-song.

I grew up listening to my dad and his siblings singing at family events. Not just ‘My Way’ and ‘Delilah’ from the late 1960s, but old standards from both the World Wars and before. I’ve smiled and cried as I gave some of my memories to my Woolies girls. One memory I could not share in the book was seeing my uncle Nobby stand and sing ‘My Way’ at my uncle Cyril’s ninetieth birthday party several years ago. Uncle Cyril joined him on the stage, and sitting nearby, Aunty Doll, Aunty Joan and Aunty Maureen joined in. I had to look away and wipe my eyes, as my dad was no longer with us. In my mind’s eye, I could see him, singing along with other family members who had also passed away. Looking up, I spotted two of my cousins and we shared tearful grins. So many shared happy memories to be able to remember.

Time has moved on and we’ve now bid our goodbyes to more family members, but for me, I only have to catch a melody, hear a few lines of lyrics and the memories come flooding back. To quote Irving Berlin, ‘
The song is ended, but the melody lingers on . . .
’

Here are some of the songs I chose for
The Woolworths Girls
. I found many being performed by the original singers on YouTube, a great source of musical memories.

‘Over My Shoulder’

(
HARRY WOODS
)

Ruby sings this to the girls in the kitchen of number thirteen before they set off to see well-known actress and songstress Jessie Matthews in a film at Erith Odeon. The song comes from the film
Evergreen
(1934), and Jessie was known for her high kicks, which Ruby tries to copy, much to the amusement of Maisie and Freda.

‘By a Waterfall’

(
SAMMY FAIN
and
IRVING KAHAL
)

Betty Billington plays this tune on the piano at the 1938 Woolworths Christmas party for old soldiers and tells Sarah that she likes the tune. ‘By a Waterfall’ comes from the extravagantly choreographed Busby Berkeley film
Footlight Parade
(1933) and it pleased me to think that the rather straight-laced Betty had a slightly risqué side to her character. I like to think that Betty would have visited the cinema on her day off and enjoyed the Busby Berkeley films.

‘The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo’

(
FRED GILBERT
)

Alfie, the old soldier at the Christmas party in 1938, sings a rather long drawn-out version of this song. A popular music-hall number from 1892, it can be found on YouTube in both French and English.

I added this song to the book as I have my own memories of it as a child, in the early 1960s. I recall my granddad, in his armchair one Boxing Day, pint pot of brown ale in his hand and paper hat on his head, singing the full lyrics. Dad’s Christmas box from Mum was a reel-to-reel tape recorder and the microphone was set on the arm of the chair so Granddad’s words could be picked up clearly. I have to hang my head in shame and confess that I taped over this when I borrowed the machine and recorded over Granddad with Julie Andrews singing ‘Thoroughly Modern Millie’.

‘Hello, Hello, Who’s Your Lady Friend?’

(
HARRY FRAGSON
,
WORTON DAVID
and
BERT LEE
, 1914),

‘Take Me Back to Dear Old Blighty’

(
ARTHUR J. MILLS
,
FRED GODFREY
and
BENNETT SCOTT
, 1916),

‘Bless ’Em All!’

(
FRED GODFREY
, 1917)
and

‘Down at the Old Bull and Bush’

(
RUSSELL HUNTING
,
PERCY KRONE
,
ANDREW B. STIRLING
and
HENRY VON TILZER
, 1903)