The group of women turned to look. Surprised by the sight of Gertrude, they became silent. I recognised just one: Joan Arkwright.

Gertrude took a deep breath and wished them good morning.

A few replied.

Joan spoke first. “Mrs. Brockman, we know it’s your mill but it’s our wages you’re snatching from us. Half time means half pay and no one can live on that.”

“What have you been told?” Gertrude asked.

“That we’re to be on short time until further notice, well we won’t have it.”

“We are in this business together,” Gertrude said. “You are all good workers. We make excellent cloth, the best.”

Joan’s short speech emboldened others.

“If we’re good workers, be a good boss. Pay us properly.”

“We can’t pay half rent, we can’t pay half the price of a loaf.”

Gertrude waited. “It’s not your fault and it’s not mine. The trouble is, fashions have changed. There isn’t the same call for our good cloth as there once was, and we have competition from overseas.”

“They don’t produce what we do.”

Gertrude ignored this. “You must have heard about the jobs lost in Bradford. We are trying to find another way. By the end of the month, we’ll have new machinery—suitable for artificial silk, crepe-de-chine and georgette. Bear with us. You are the best workforce. I know you will adapt.”

By now a man in a white smock had appeared, and two men in brown smocks. They came to stand beside Gertrude.

“Talk among yourselves,” she said. “Don’t be hasty. But I do hope you will go back to work.” She turned to the men. “Your foreman and over-lookers will be on reduced hours too. I’m sorry to say that short time is what may keep us afloat, until the new machinery comes. We’ll start to produce the material people want these days. But if we don’t fulfil the present order, we’ll have nothing.”

The women had already begun talking to each other.

Joan called, “What if the machines don’t come? What if there isn’t enough work for all?”

Gertrude turned to the man in the white coat. “Mr. Monty, please give our staff your best reassurances.”

“Right, Mrs. Brockman.”

“Good day, ladies and gentlemen.” With that, Gertrude and I left the yard.

“That was very good, Gertrude.”

“One tries.”

“Will there be new machinery?”

“Eliot is onto it now. He’s a shareholder, and so is old Mrs. Dell.”

That was not the answer Gertrude’s workers would have wanted to hear. “You said it to get them back to work?”

“They have no idea what we are up against. If you saw the balance sheet for this mill, you’d wonder how we keep going. And it truly is out of our hands. Some of the best mills in Bradford felt the pinch even before we did.”