‘Six reels of this cotton, please, and book it to Atkinson’s.’ Jane handed the cotton bobbin over to the young lad in the warehouse of Dewhurst’s and waited. The large, five-storeyed mill was made out of local stone and stood down Broughton Road, on the edge of the Leeds-to-Liverpool canal. The towering red-brick chimney dominated the Skipton skyline. The mill kept more than two hundred people in work, and prior to that had been the place of employment of more than four hundred people – all of them families that relied on King Cotton and the cotton-weaving Belle Vue Mill. But now, along with its original name being almost forgotten, and Dewhurst’s making it into a mill spinning cotton silk known as Sylko, its weaving rooms were not as busy. But still the clatter of the spinning machines filled the air, along with the dust from the fibres.

‘Jane! Jane, I thought it was you. I was just making my way up to the top office.’ Nellie Taylor grinned at her comrade-in-arms, who also defied the non-believers in the Suffragette movement.

‘Hello, Nellie. I’m just collecting some Sylko for my mother. I wondered if you’d be about.’ Jane looked at her working-class friend. They made an odd partnership, and sometimes Jane was ashamed of the way Nellie dressed, in her work clogs, grey stockings and drab dresses. But when she listened to Nellie talking, she realized there was more to her than just an ordinary mill lass. Nellie was a firebrand for the Suffragette movement.

‘I can’t talk long, for old Dewhurst is on my back. He says he’s fed up of me whipping up the work lasses with my dangerous talk. It’s only dangerous if you are an ignorant man. But then again, he is.’ Nellie grinned, her face lit up with wickedness as she beamed from under her mob cap.

‘Yes, and my mother’s timing me, so I can’t be long, either.’ Jane shook her head.

‘The more money they have, the tighter the bastards get! No disrespect to your mother, Jane. But you know what I mean. Here, are you joining us on our march next Saturday? We aim to walk through Skipton, demanding our rights from the government. I think there’s about ten of us so far.’ Nellie looked at her posh friend and waited for an answer.

‘I don’t know. My mother wouldn’t want me to be involved. I don’t know if I could get away.’ Jane saw the warehouse boy coming back with her reels of cotton and was thankful for an excuse to leave. She supported the movement, but it would only give her mother more worry if she joined the protest.

‘Go on, lass, we won’t get into any trouble. The local bobbies know us all too well – you know what it’s like around here. You can’t fart unless somebody hears you.’ Nellie laughed out loud.