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Back Sisters of Gold Save as PDF
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

Lizzie, who had deft little fingers, seemed to fare better. As Annie struggled to get going, she could feel her cheeks burning with humiliation. She was used to being the one telling other people what to do and being the fastest and cleverest at everything!

‘Rules’re on the door. Work starts at eight, and two after dinner. That’s when they shut the doors. If you’re late it’s a penny stopped from your wages.’

Annie wished Miss Hinks had chosen to tell her all this before she tried to operate the press at the same time. She half listened, struggling to take in the information.

‘Dinner at one. Lavs are down in the yard. Only for in the break. I’ll show you how to weigh your work in later – that’s if you have any,’ she said acidly. ‘You can read the rest for yourself. On you go then.’

Lizzie already seemed to be pressing out the blanks as if she had been doing it all her life. Annie set to, at first trembling with the effort to hurry, inserting the metal strip and cutting blanks from each end of it until the metal ran out. Her little box of nib blanks seemed to be filling terribly slowly. She was concentrating so hard that she was barely aware of what any of the women were saying around her, which she soon realized was just as well. Any thought of finding energy to preach the word while she was working had been pushed right out of her head. At this moment she had far more basic things to worry about!

She eyed Lizzie, who was definitely working faster. The girl must have felt her look and she glanced back, a faint smile lifting the anxious set of her face. This warmed Annie, who was already wondering what she had done by coming here. She felt as if she had been fed into a huge, devouring production machine with which she would never be able to keep up. And the fragments of talk which reached her were of a character far riper than she was used to. Five hours stretched ahead of her until Margaret was to come to the gates with her dinner. It felt like an eternity.