We Met On the Bus… Part Three... My new job — Designer at last!

We Met On the Bus… Part Three
My new job — Designer at last!

It just so happened that the traveller for my new firm knew the bosses at my first one, they traded with some of the same firms in the wholesale trade. I did wonder if this guy had anything to do with my new appointment. I soon got on very well indeed with the traveller as he was the main stay of their business, both in wholesale and retail. He knew the right people. When sunray pleated skirts were all the rage, he knew where to get the pleating done as well as lovely embroidery by a firm close by. Leather belts too. I would get samples sent of embroidery suitable for dress bodices, which I could use with the sunray skirts. So it was more a matter of good pattern cutting and overall style than cleverness of design. Those dresses went straight to the retail within weeks of samples being done. I met the top man at the local C&A and a few days later he was shown the new design samples. His reaction was “Has that little girl done these?” He was quite impressed and a good order made.
New samples were done for the traveller to take around the country. Sales were good. Occasionally rolls of fabric would be bought at a knock-down price and I would have the job of designing something simple, cheap but attractive, to make a good profit. I recall a simple striped blouse made in black and white striped silky material. It had a black narrow velvet ribbon to finish off a fly-away-collared neckline. The rolls of material were used up and every blouse was sold. My quick response to the traveller’s requests meant I got on very well there.
I met reps who came selling buttons and accessories and, most of all, the buyers who bought our designs. This sometimes entailed me going to London with the traveller to meet these important people, so that I could answer their queries concerning required changes and generally use my knowledge and design ability. One firm that had its own label to put on the styles bought from us, had a really snooty buyer (a lady heavily made up to hide — unsuccessfully — wrinkling skin) who treated me with complete disdain. Our traveller hung our dresses along a rail for them to look at. The woman went along the rail, dropping to the floor most of the samples. Then she examined the rest. She picked out a two-piece that had velvet set into the collar and pocket flaps. I knew that the model was cut too tightly on the lay to allow for ‘give-away’ changes, so much so that even the shoulder pads had to be joined. But she asked how much cheaper the garment would be if we used self-fabric instead of velvet for the trimming.
Being honest, I said I thought it would make little or no difference, as more of the self-fabric would be required.
She sniffed deeply, looked down her nose and said, “It must make SOME difference, Ducky!”
The traveller intervened and said that something could be arranged if that is what they wanted to do.
Anyway, we got an order there and elsewhere — a very good multi-store clothing business, which treated me as the young person I was, but with the respect due to me as the seller’s designer. I was still only twenty but learning fast.
Since our marriage, my husband and I had been living at my parents’ house, using an upstairs bedroom as a bed-sit. We were to be there for three years. Not a very happy arrangement but places to rent were few in number and very expensive when any became available. Council property was reserved for those with children and on a points system. Since we did not want children until we had a house of our own, we were doomed to always be on the bottom of the very long housing list.
My hubby was still attending Evening Classes several times a week and studying at other times. I spent three nights per week ironing for the whole household, as my mother did our washing for us. No TV, of course, but we went to the cinema once a week and I read books or sewed. On Sundays we had a ride on the motor-bike (no springing in those days!) perhaps to his old home or maybe visit a relative. But we lived economically on my wages and saved as much as possible until we had enough cash for a deposit on a house. During this time, I travelled on the bus and my husband on the train.
As far as work was concerned, things were going very well indeed by the time Christmas came along. To top it all I found I had two weeks extra pay for a Christmas bonus, something that had never happened to me before then. Not only money but also a huge box of chocolates to go with the bonus! Such appreciation! Alas, I did not know what lay on the horizon!


The picture is just a rough idea of what the early sunray dresses with embroidered bodices looked like. (About 1953-4 onwards) These were made in black finely-knitted woollen fabric. The machine embroidery was of a thread that looked like beaded work when completed.

More to come…

We Met on the Bus...part two. (The ups and downs of a design career)

We Met On the Bus… Part Two
My new job is a turn for the worse!

While things were going smoothly, well smoothly in relative terms, with my new boyfriend (I’ll give him the name of John) whom I met on the bus, it was a different story with my new job. I recall a college lecturer saying, “They’ll exploit you, if they can,” and how true this turned out to be.
I had been taken on as an assistant designer but in actual fact they were short of cutters. That is where I was needed and that is where I stayed — cutting samples, plus garments for production. Eventually I was given a chance to do a couple of designs but I knew it was just a sop to keep me there. Their main production was in sloppy sweaters made in a type of brushed nylon popular at that time, and that is not enough work even for one designer. But the designer turned out her seasonal samples and I had the job of cutting a number of each them. Some were totally impractical for mass production — lines and checks having to match at every meeting point. The costing was way out and if I had been on piece rates I would have been looking sick by the end of the week! So said the manager who was not pleased with my output. I started looking for other jobs.
Just seeing John once a week to visit a local cinema did not exactly fill my evenings. My best friend, whom I had known since we were at junior school together, agreed for us to go to the Nottingham Palais for square dancing once a week. We had always been fond of music and dancing, visiting the Nottingham theatre when we could afford a seat in the gods. We also enjoyed plays at the Nottingham Playhouse. In our younger days we put on concerts in the attic of her big house. Keen on designing, I made the costumes when necessary. We both found square dancing fun.
It wasn’t long before a boy named David had me as his constant dancing partner, which was just as well because I really needed someone to prompt me during the sequences. After some weeks he asked me if I would help him out. He was a church youth-group leader and wanted to introduce dance into their programme. For this, he needed a partner for a course on leading country dancing. Most of my evenings being free, I accepted although it meant meeting him in town straight from work.
I met David the following Monday. He insisted on paying for my coffee and bun at a café before going on to a hall a bus ride away. Fair enough, after all I was there for his benefit and I would not get home until quite late
Unknown to me, it reached David’s ears, through a lad in his youth group, that I was seeing a boyfriend every Friday. My dancer was not happy and arranged a meeting with John that lunchtime to see what was going on. Not pleased, that evening David told me all about the meeting. I said that John had no serious intentions, we only went to the cinema together once a week. Since I was only David’s dance partner what was the problem?
Evidently David saw things differently. There may have been no cuddling, no kissing, no sweet talk but this guy had intentions of marriage! But I had never seen him in that light. What’s more John had told David that he intended to marry me! I can’t say that I was pleased that I had been the object of such a discussion. I had already been told by someone who knew John that he was not the marrying kind, and had already upset a hopeful lass back home.
From then on, David stopped paying for my tea. I guess it was a sign of a break-up of something that never was. The night he told me, John was waiting for me at the bus stop where I caught the bus home. He was not pleased. It came out that he was truly serious about our relationship. Before long he stopped going home every weekend so we could have more time together. After all, his evenings were taken up with night classes and study. So we sorted drifted into marriage — one year to the day that we first went out together.
I found a designing job but they only took me on for a two weeks trial. I first got their block patterns corrected and then turned out ten designs in the first week. I was told at the end of the week that they really wanted an overlooker, rather than a designer but they would give me an excellent reference for my abilities. I chose not to stay for the second week. The girl who sewed the samples told me they all knew I would not get the job. ‘Miss Smith will not allow someone much better than her to take over her job.’
Out of work. I took on a job as a cutter for a few months. Then a letter arrived quite unexpectedly. Four or five months earlier I had applied for a job as a designer but had not received a reply. Now I was being offered an interview. I got the job, worked hard and before long had a rise to a magnificent sum of £8 a week. This was in the days of poor pay for women and I was getting not much less than my husband received in his new job in Research and Development. Of course by this time I had given up dancing. My hubby has no sense of rhythm, apart from being born with two left feet! Ah, such is love!

The photographs: The electric iron I bought just before our marriage in 1953 and, with some new parts, still doing excellent service. Plus a photograph of a table cloth I bought and embroidered before and after our marriage. The cloth was bought with a £1 note, a reward for handing in a gold watch I had found by the factory I was working in at the time of the above events. In the party photograph I am with a workmate and her boyfriend. It was when I was working there that I met John on the bus. At the next party I was wearing my own designed dress and my hubby was my partner.














More to come…

New Edition of RED BOXES

Well, it has been asked for, even been ordered before being written, but now the first batch of the new book should be here this week, The New Edition of When Phones were Immobile and Lived in Red Boxes has four new chapters and extra illustrations. It follows my marriage at Beeston for three years and then our move to Loughborough. The birth of our three sons, my husband's redundancy and our move to the Furness region of what is now Cumbria.
This new edition costs £7.50 and postage is free within the UK. That is if ordered through Magpies Nest Publishing. It can also be bought at Ulverston's The Tinners Rabbit Bookshop, or ordered at any good bookshop. 978-0-9548885-8-9

It was fun to write and so much more could have been added — maybe for the next edition?