Mill Apprentices Learning Journey
You are seven years old and snuggled up to your mother. She is holding you tight against her, stroking your hair, and you love the warmth and the faint smell of lavender from the tiny sprig she has pinned to her grey dress. You never want to let her go but you know that in half an hour the man in the dark coat will come for you and take you on a long journey far away from your mother and you have no idea when you will see her again.
See also Mill Apprentices at Quarry Bank Mill
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Mill Apprentices Learning Journey Step 4: New home
It wasn't like home at all, Bessie thought as she swung her feet over the side of the truckle bed she shared with Marie, but it was better than the workhouse. The girls slept in pairs in the little wooden sided beds with the straw mattresses. About fifty girls were crowded in to the dormitory. There were far fewer boys, and they each had their own beds in another room, but that was because Mr Higginbotham, the mill owner, said boys were far more troublesome than girls and always fighting. The stone flag floor was cold under Bessie's feet but she'd got used to it. She didn't wear shoes anyway when she worked in the mill because the floors were covered in oil and very slippery, though Mr Higginbotham had given them each a pair of clogs. They only wore those for church on Sundays. Marie and Bessie rushed downstairs into the big kitchen. Mr and Mrs Postlethwaite, who ran what was called the Apprentice House, were cutting thick slices of the solid porridge which they ate for breakfast and at dinnertime. Sometimes it was flavoured with little bits of onion. The girls wanted enough time to eat their porridge sitting in the yard instead of having to run down the cobbled path to the mill still clutching it in their hands. Mr Postlethwaite was rather a stern man but his wife was more kindly. She had comforted Bessie and Marie, who were two of the youngest apprentices, when they cried for their mothers. Both of them longed to be able to see their mothers again. |
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