Ulverston Dickensian Festival — WOW!

As usual, Ulverstonians pulled out all the stops to get the ’show on the road’!
With so many visitors coming along to join in the fun, the delightful costumes tended to get missed in the crush. But the procession brought most of them together and we could see the trouble people had gone to to make this a very special event. Good to see stall-holders dressed up and even Booth’s assistants made it a special occasion by dressing up in neat costumes and putting on welcoming smiles.
With so much to entertain, it is hardly any wonder that people turn up from miles away.
Food, food, food, and plenty of it at stalls and in cafes, made sure no one went hungry or thirsty. Mulled wine, roasted chestnuts, candy floss, old time sweetmeats, and burgers blended into a provocative aroma of all the fun of the fair! (Or should I say ‘fare’?) Dancers, carol singers, brass bands and pipers, small groups and comedians, horse carriages and drays, donkeys and all the fun of the fair, etc etc etc…
I wonder how many other people now have a coconut hanging out for the birds? Many people were not ’shy’ at having a go at knocking them down. And when you think it is all over — off go the fireworks!

Dress Design sketches 1950’s (Desire/Awakening Love era)

When I was sorting out stuff in the attic, I came across a large pack of designs I did when I was a Freelance Dress Designer in the 1950’s to early sixties. I first designed for manufacturers of dresses, suits and separates. Then I was also taken on by a lingerie manufacturer, followed by a housecoat and nightwear manufacturer to sold directly to a well-known High Street store. Later, when I decided on education as a career (to suit home obligations with a growing family) I just kept to lingerie free-lancing, and exercised my design abilities in other directions — clothes, including wedding outfits etc for family and friends. Plus, of course, artistic stuff for school work,and later on, for my work in churches. But I kept the sketches and, looking at them, thought that today, over 50 years since they were drawn, they would still look good enough to attract customers! Well, let’s face it, folk can wear anything these days, whether suitable or not. In fact, ‘baby doll’ nightwear I designed all those years ago can be seen today as outerwear! But I’ll post those outfits later.

As Time Goes By

Recently, I was invited to take part in a radio programme, shortly to be broadcast, concerned with everyday life. In fact, a week’s diary of events.
I do keep a diary of sorts. Just things quickly jotted down to help me remember what we have done and when, plus unusual happenings and important events — that sort of thing. This ‘diary’ is similar but also includes my thoughts and feelings — putting flesh to otherwise boring details?
The word count was quite restricting but good as it cut down on waffle and made me concentrate my mind on the essentials. A good exercise all round.
At the end of the week, I had before me a brief look at my life as I live it now. One of the things that will be evident to some people is that I am greatly blessed. Although others may think I have a rather boring life because I am not, and never have been, part of a ‘jet set’. I enjoy the simple things of life. One of those things is having my hubby read to me each day. A pleasure that unites us by sharing together in ‘other worlds’ where mystery and intrigue prevail. Normally we sit within a bay window, close to the garden, so we can have the benefit of the beauty around us. Even the early morning sky, with its mixture of blues, greys and brilliant early morning golden sun, has a wonderful magic — enough sometimes to produce a tear of sheer joy. Such simple things…
But if that was all I had to write about it would seem a dull account. I was also completing my new book, but more than that, we had a medical emergency that interrupted our lives for five days. When we might have been watching Casualty on the TV on the Saturday night, we were sitting in Furness General’s A&E.

For those interested in my new edition of When Phones Were Immobile and Lived in Red Boxes – four more chapters and five more pictures — taking the reader to 1980, it is at the printers and will be on sale in two weeks time. The new edition includes our move up to the Furness area — a step backwards in time?

Always Look for the Rainbow

We have been away for a short autumn break. It is a long time since we have been out in so much rain. But, at least, it gave me the opportunity to chase a few rainbows!
As usual when we go to Derbyshire, we visited the Chatsworth House estate. This beautiful place, home of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, is set in magnificent grounds and there are many miles of footpaths to explore. There is a charge for the house, wonderful gardens and Farmyard (with children’s play area), but well worth a visit. The rest of the estate, with its sheep, deer and wildlife are open to all. Christmas at Chatsworth is a particularly magical time, but, being early November, we were a bit early for that, although things were under way.
So wet weather maybe but plenty of rainbows to be found! (Even if we had to drive to Cromford Hill to catch one!)

Red Boxes — new edition started

What a lark! Yesterday I (that is Magpies Nest Publishing) received an order from Bertrams (many bookshops buy their books through them) for When Phones Were Immobile and Lived in Red Boxes – New Edition. I think I must have mentioned it somewhere that I was thinking of publishing a new edition because it has been out of print for a while and some people wanted to read ‘what happened next’.
I have been busy rewriting Checkmate and I finished it today. (It will need a proof reading but that can wait) So the order came as a timely reminder to get on with what people WANT to read!
So I am back down Memory Lane and truly enjoying the experience. Moving to the Furness area – especially Barrow- was like moving back in time! You still had to go through the operator to make your phone call, and press button A to get your few penniesworth, or B to get your money back. Shops closed at lunchtime – even a cafe closed at one until two pm!

All will be revealed!
See http://hobsonsbooks.blogspot.com/ and Magpies Nest Publishing for info on When Phones were Immobile and Lived In red Boxes

Let There Be Light! — Sunset at Barrow, Lantern Procession at Ulverston

We had a later-than-usual meal at Morrisons last week. I’m glad we did. When we left the building we were completely awestruck. The sky was ablaze with gold and reds. We took this snapshot looking across the car park towards the high-level bridge. You can just see a little gold beyond. From the top of the bridge the gold reflected in the water, along with the rest of the brilliant colours, but we were in the car and best not to stop on the bridge to admire the view. Although the sun was setting, the brilliant colours were with us all the way home, along with silhouettes of the changing landscape. My soul was uplifted with the joy of it. AWESOME!
Awesome too, but in a different way, was the Lantern procession through Ulverston last Saturday evening. Magnificent work done by adults and children in the creation of huge paper lanterns following the theme of Alice in Wonderland. A table complete with Alice and friends, the queen, hare, cat, and many other characters, plus hats galore and playing cards. Amazing what can be done with cane and paper with candle inside. The whole parade swept along by bands and drums. Literally, hundreds of walkers (including some on stilts) holding lanterns and forming a stream of bobbing light through the streets of the town. Amazing!
The beauty of it all was the family atmosphere — adults and children, babes in arms and in prams — a wonderful community spirit! Well done, all concerned.
A great firework display completed the evening, but even that could not outdo the wonder of what can be done through personal creativity.
VIEW the lantern procession video made by Northwest Evening Mail — fantastic!

Clearing the attic — goodbye to the past

Wolfscotedale, Derbyshire

When I entered the exam for entrance to the Nottingham Secondary Art School at the age of thirteen, I was asked what job I wanted to do. I wrote down DRESS DESIGNER. I was told by several people that it was almost impossible to get into designing. So I crossed it out and wrote BOOK ILLUSTRATOR. I was told that I would never be able to get into that sort of business. Better to opt for dress designing. So I crossed out my illustrator option and wrote designer again. Whoever read the form likely decided I was good at dithering. How true! I dislike having to make choices — too bad, life is full of them.
I have written elsewhere how I got into designing and eventually, to suit family life and cut down travelling, decided to go freelance. I could never have done this at the start as I was unknown and untried. But I was able to carry on at the same firm, plus design and pattern cut for a lingerie firm, then take on the design and pattern cutting of nightwear and housecoats. Now I could see my designs on display in a large range of stores.
Three years after my third child was born I saw a notice asking for married women with experience of children to train as teachers. By this time I was quite interested in education and thought this would be an ideal occupation as it would fit in better with my family. We lived at a distance from the manufacturing cities and so I still had to travel when designing. But was I cut out to be a teacher? Did I have the qualifications to enter the local training college?
The story of how I accomplished this, plus the training and enormous problems when my husband became redundant and we had no choice but to move 220 miles to a totally different environment, will be the subject of another post. Enough to say here that I still continued to do a few designs and cut patterns for one firm for quite a few years. Such was my value to that firm — reliability is essential — that the manager would travel many miles from his factory in Nottingham to ensure he would get his perfect patterns. I recall on a few occasions, working in my workshop (a purpose-built shed in our garden) at five in the morning so as to get the patterns completed. It also enabled me to work while the children were still in bed. On another occasion, the manager relaxed in a deck chair in the sunshine, with cigarettes and cool drink, while I was sweating away in my workshop — I was heavily pregnant at the time. Such was my reliability.
Changes in garment manufacture, especially with the growth of imports, and a severe credit squeeze, forced many manufactures to give up and buildings to be sold. Nottingham’s mills, indeed mills all over the country, seem to have been turned into apartments. Britain has largely lost its manufacturing base. I can buy clothes cheaper today than the cost of material. Once I made most of my own clothes, all of my mother’s clothes, the children’s clothes until they went to school and needed a uniform, and clothes for relatives and friends. I made wedding dresses and bridesmaids outfits, I even made the carry cot for our first child. With industrial machines (lockstitch and overlock) and a Viking to do embroidery, there was little I could not attempt. Pram covers to fancy patches on our sons’ jeans!
Now with my diseased eyes, I only do essential mending. But I still had all my basic patterns in our attic. Pattern blocks are the tools of a designer-cutter. They were shaped and perfected over years of use. There was no pattern I could not cut using those blocks. A pile of them, all cut in Swedish Craft paper: basic blocks for all garments — knicker, cami-knickers, nightdress, slips, housecoat, coat, dress blocks of different sizes – my personal block and those of family members etc etc. A stack of them hanging up and in a large flat box. Once worth a lot but now completely redundant.
Yesterday, I took them all out, made a huge parcel of them, and took them with other rubbish to the recycling bins. I am still left with collections of designs I did years ago. Those were the days when dresses had to fit the figure. Soft drapes or neat collar, shapely bustline and waist, pencil skirt or mid-calf flowing skirts — all so feminine. I smile at some of today’s clothing — I had patterns for baby-doll nightware that would do nicely for what women buy today!
So my pattern blocks are gone — the end of an identity I once had.
Lots more to clear out of the attic yet — materials for teaching, especially art and reading. Amazing what I have hung on to. I have cleared out boxes of fabric — useful for many purposes. And old Nativity costumes etc. etc.
Still to go — and this brings tears to my eyes— my cassocks, surplices and cloaks, used when I was conducting funerals, services and when preaching or assisting with baptisms or with Communion.
Then what? I have already sold off books I used for studying with the OU and other courses. I once thought of writing novels associated with my fields of study, especially the Victorian age and maybe a Roman romance. Or a school yarn? It will not happen. So I have thrown out many essays and so on, although I have kept two long dissertations — well, I did get a distinction for one and just a few marks off a distinction for the other. Pride!
Now, about my writing…. Time to be realistic?

I looked through the photo album to find a photograph that seemed the most relevant at this stage of my life. I decided on this one. Looking forward. I am standing alone, and that is the way it has been in most of what I have done and achieved — academically and in the workplace. But I am not alone in my life. Does our work define who we are? To me that is a side issue. I am a wife, mother, grandmother, aunt, a homemaker, friend and neighbour. If we cling to what was, what might have been, to faded hopes and dreams, the ’stuff in the attic of our lives’ then we miss the scene around us and the joys that may well lie ahead.

Factory Life 1952

Factory Life 1952/3

One of the jobs I took on after losing the design post at the dark ‘Dickensian’ factory, with its low beamed ceiling and shortage of windows, was as a cutter at a single-storied modern factory stuck out in the middle of nowhere. I was supposed to be there as an assistant designer but agreed to helping on the cutting benches while they had a shortage of cutters. I did not want the job but neither did I want to be out of work drawing ‘dole’ money. Most of the cutting was for the sample ranges and specials. But before long I was using the rotary cutting machine for bulk production. (One of the girls would show off when we had visitors in the factory. She would leave the cutter’s safety bar high up and keep her fingers close to the blade. Dangerous, because sometimes the fabric would catch on the blade and pull it. Me? I kept the bar down as far as possible!)

Once again I was in a difficult position: offically staff, but really no different to the workgirls. I was shown where the staff ate their lunch — in a corner of the workers’ canteen, screened of from the lesser mortals. I felt like a fish out of water. I found a spare seat at a table with managers as my eating companions. One hardly spoke the other talked management issues. One day he mentioned that one of his workers had caught his thumb in the machinery. The machinery had to be taken apart to release the thumb. The man was taken to hospital. That did not help my food go down. I was asked if we had a garden. (I was living at home then.) I said yes and that I had got it into shape over the years. Then I was told that the (quiet) companion sitting at our table had one and a half acres. The man smiled but said little. Was he shy of girls? Maybe but I did not stay in the staff dining area for long to find out. Being a shy person I felt my lowly position keenly. After all, I might be paid monthly but to them I could be no more than a cutter on the benches. What’s more, after eating their lunch they went their separate ways and I was left to drift at will. Hardly surprising that I joined the girls I worked with — in the workers area of the canteen. There we chatted and eventually I took embroidery to get on with.
Fifty seven years later I still have the cloth I busily stitched. The cloth was paid for with a pound note given to me as a reward for finding a gold watch and seeking its owner in the local pub near the factory. It was a Saturday, snow was on the ground, and I had been working overtime. I happened to see the watch on snow near the factory.
Snow was not the only weather to contend with. Although a bus could skid, fog could be worse. Sometimes I thought I would have to have to walk home. But I don’t recall the weather being an excuse for not attempting to get to work.

Cutting samples was easy enough, whether according to pattern or grading up a size or two. Far more difficult was dealing with the fabric, especially a check pattern. All the squares and lines had to be matched. Cutting one at a time was not too difficult if the fabric was perfectly finished. Trouble came when I was expected to cut several garments at once. Laying the knitted fabric for checks to match in both directions in unison with each layer was impossible. So I had to carefully cut one at a time, making sure any adjustment for extra sizes was done in a manner that would keep the checks and lines matching. Not easy with pockets and design details involved. I informed our overseer that the checks were not even-spaced due to fabric stretch, but nothing could be done. The production manager was furious because when he read my work card he saw how little work I had done. He bellowed at our overseer — a gentle soul — rather than at me. Did he think I would walk out? Too right, I would. We had all done our best. It should have been forseen that such fabric is not suitable for mass production.
Some of the knitted fabric arrived with a bad crease down the middle, which in places came up like the shape of a certain female sex organ. Not knowing how to cope with it we called the overseer to look at it. He stood looking at it and then pressing a finger on the ‘organ’ to see if it would flatten. It just bobbed up again. He kept doing it. The girls could hardly contain their amusement. He looked up at grinning face and then at the shapely blobs in the fabric, turned scarlet and walked quickly back to the office. We burst out laughing. The fabric was returned.

I was given a chance to do a few designs but doubt they would have got anywhere. The only garments they sold at that time were plush-fabric sweaters. It was really an extention of their underwear business. The designer had a rail of dresses but I do not recall cutting anything other than samples. But then, I was not there for long. The sample dresses were sold to the workgirls and I got a couple that did me nicely for my honeymoon.
The designer was able to get me fabric for my wedding dress, and bridesmaids dresses, at greatly reduced prices. I had a pale yellow taffeta and white lace overlay, with yellow underskirts. Brighter yellow for the bridesmaids. My dress cost me £2.50 and our reception was done by my mother with help from friends. Yes, it was an inexpensive wedding, but the churchwarden was heard to declare that it was the best wedding they had that busy Saturday! We had a weekend at Buxton and then back to work. It was impossible to get a flat or house. The council waiting list was incredibly long — being childless kept us near the bottom. But we had no intention of having a baby to get a place of our own. We lived at my home in a bedsit for three years. Then we bought a house for £1900 and we had to get an insurance to cover the loan. Only one income was allowed for calculating how big a loan could be had. And that was restricted to two and a half times the annual salary. Good thing really as it kept the price of houses at an affordable level.
More to come… other factories…

Dress Designing 1950 — continued

I was given a chance to do a few designs. The head designer vetted the first one. She said it was too simple for their customers and suggested an added embroidered pocket on the bodice. Machine embroidery in shiny silks, often with applique work, plus Cornelly and quilting were often used on garments. As was pin-tucking. Quite a few styles would be two-toned. The knitted fabric gave scope for both draping and figure-hugging. The various means of decorating provided an unlimited means of supplying fashion needs.
Most of the fabric was woollen and circular-knitted in a department of the same building. Sometimes patterns were knitted into the fabric but mostly it was plain. The fabric would be sent away for dyeing and finishing. Occasionally, the fabric was still warm when it arrived on the cutting benches.
The customers were mainly wholesale merchants supplying ‘Madam’ shops all over the UK. The largest customers insisted on exclusive designs. Sometimes the customer made them exclusive by adding their own touches. If not, the firm would make alterations to the original and sell them again. The management made sure the dress rails were always full of attractive garments that suited their regular customers.
Imagine the thrill that ran through me when my designs were added to the rail. Imagine the ecstasy when some were chosen. Plus the joy of seeing someone walking towards me in the street wearing one of my designs! How did I know it was mine? It was unique — applique flowers tumbling out of pockets. Exactly like the sample sold at the factory. Seeing my designs in shop windows became ‘normal’ when, later on, I worked in a factory that sold direct to retail.
During those early years I worked in a few more places, gaining experience of different ways of manufacture, working with different fabrics and trimmings. At twenty-one I was the sole designer in a small firm selling to wholesalers but mainly to big retailers. My earnings had increased to a ‘man’s’ wage — remarkable as far as I was concerned! (£8 a week. Four years earlier I had started work as a trainee designer at Thirty-five shillings — £1.75 in today’s money.) Unfortunately, the business was sold out to a lingerie manufacturer (who had the top floor) when one of the partner’s gave up because of ill health. He died soon after. (I did freelance work for that lingerie firm after I turned freelance.)
So where did I go when my great new job ceased to be? Back to the factory where I started with an increase in salary! A number of the workgirls also went there, including my sample-hand.
Well, It had been a difficult time in between the years. Certainly not as straight forward as it sounds. It turned out one firm only really wanted a pattern-cutter — more later. Another only really wanted a cutter — that too is another story.
One really wanted an overlooker/designer and that job lasted a week! (I was told by the sample-hand that is was just a ruse to get rid of me because I was too good — the leaving designer did not want ’showing up’. Her pattern cutting was dreadful and her designs all copies) But what a place! One dark room in a dark Dickensian building. One toilet off the stairs where tea cups were washed in the single washbasin.

More to come.

DESIRE by Gladys Hobson

DESIRE published by AG Press can now be ordered through Amazon and AG Press for $16.95 (353 pages).
This handcrafted book is of a good quality and has a ‘good feel’ that separates it from the ‘run of the mill’ publications.
The story is a US version of Awakening Love, and the first of a trilogy. Realistic post-war Britain settings from an author who started her career as a young designer in that era. (Just as the heroine of the story.)
The original book has already gained two awards (see posts on Awakening Love). With this creative cover by Charles Davis, it should prove a winner, and with the crafted binding eventually a ‘collectors’ prize possession?

Review
Few are able to write romantic fiction with the skill, ardor and sensitivity of Gladys Hobson. Gladys lays out her characters in such vivid color and her plots with such perfect timing that one can’t help but be swept up and carried along in her delightful tales. This is the third book I have read by this author, and she never disappoints. — Andrew F O’Hara (prize-winning author and editor of The Jimston Journal).