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Back Sisters of Gold
Chapters (64)
  1. Cover
  2. Title page
  3. Dedication page
  4. A Week’s Work in Birmingham
  5. I
  6. One
  7. Two
  8. Three
  9. Four
  10. Five
  11. Six
  12. Seven
  13. Eight
  14. Nine
  15. Ten
  16. Eleven
  17. Twelve
  18. Thirteen
  19. Fourteen
  20. Fifteen
  21. Sixteen
  22. Seventeen
  23. Eighteen
  24. Nineteen
  25. Twenty
  26. Twenty-One
  27. Twenty-Two
  28. Twenty-Three
  29. Twenty-Four
  30. II
  31. Twenty-Five
  32. Twenty-Six
  33. Twenty-Seven
  34. Twenty-Eight
  35. Twenty-Nine
  36. Thirty
  37. Thirty-One
  38. Thirty-Two
  39. Thirty-Three
  40. Thirty-Four
  41. Thirty-Five
  42. Thirty-Six
  43. Thirty-Seven
  44. Thirty-Eight
  45. Thirty-Nine
  46. III
  47. Forty
  48. Forty-One
  49. Forty-Two
  50. Forty-Three
  51. Forty-Four
  52. Forty-Five
  53. Forty-Six
  54. Forty-Seven
  55. Forty-Eight
  56. Forty-Nine
  57. Fifty
  58. Fifty-One
  59. Fifty-Two
  60. Fifty-Three
  61. Acknowledgements
  62. Further Reading
  63. About the Author
  64. By the Same Author

I have to find a way of meeting people and being able to talk to them, she thought. If the Lord is to use me in his work, I need to know their lives – what it is that blights them, how they are wrong and sinful in their ideas, how they might be saved . . .

As they headed back the way they had come, Annie looked around her more carefully, full of a passionate zeal. She stopped suddenly, her attention caught by a sign on the wall next to the entrance of an imposing and decoratively built factory. Along its frontage, of variegated colours of brick, curlicue lettering announced ‘Masters, Hogg & Co., Steel Pen Works’. The hand-painted sign read ‘Stampers and piercers wanted’.

This was it. She stood for several seconds. Surely this was the Lord speaking to her, calling her to follow . . .

‘I’m going to see,’ she announced to Margaret, and before Margaret could grab hold of her, Annie, looking as bold as she dared, an elf in her neat black boots, was already tip-tapping up the steps.

‘Annie – don’t be ridiculous!’ Margaret was aghast. Now what was the wretched girl doing!

But Annie was already disappearing inside. In the dark entrance hall, she felt suddenly small and girded herself with thoughts of Daniel walking into the den with a lion. Of David and Goliath.

‘Yes?’ A man’s head appeared at a hatch in the wall.

‘I’ve come about a job,’ she said, as boldly as she dared. She was suddenly aware that her well-spoken voice, slightly tinged with West Country, must sound out of place, but he did not react. He was picking at his teeth with a little stick and his pouchy eyes regarded her in silence, seeming wholly unimpressed by this announcement. At last, after a period of cogitation, he removed the toothpick from his mouth and said, ‘Done it before?’

‘No – but I’m sure I could learn. I’ve only just come to Birmingham.’ Annie felt foolish now, but was damned if she was going to show it. Haughtily, she added, ‘Is there someone else I should apply to?’

Again, he stood looking at her for such a long time that she wondered if he had been suddenly struck dumb. Eventually he straightened up.

‘Come in tomorrow. If ye’re unskilled, Miss Hinks’ll start yer on stamping. Eight sharp.’