Free All the Days of Our Lives by Annie Murray Page A

away in the army. And with her mother’s curfew on her, which she was sitting out, hoping that she would soon change her mind, Katie only managed to see Ann or Pat on a Saturday.
    The nice friendly typist she met when she went to the firm for the first time must have left by the time she got there, as she never saw her again. One or two of the other girls in the pool were nice enough, but the other shorthand typists at Collinge’s were older than her, and though none were as old and fearsome-looking as Miss Hurley, they were more like mothers to her than friends. There was an especially kind one called Maureen, who sometimes stopped by and asked how she was getting on.
    At first she found the work daunting. There was the walk into the factory, being eyed up by the young men with their loud, saucy banter and admiring remarks thrown in her direction. She tried to ignore it, but she dreaded ever being sent down into the works and having to walk past lines of the gawping, greasy-handed young men. And there was her boss, Mr Graham, a crusty, heavy-featured man in his forties, who came to work in a shiny, badly fitting suit. He smoked almost constantly and sent her out in the dinner break to buy him Capstan Navy Cut tobacco to feed his hungry pipe. She came home with her clothes stinking of it at the end of each day. He was pleasant enough, but was under pressure and curt with her, especially at first when she made mistakes and misunderstood things about the work schedules that she was hammering out on her big Remington typewriter.
    ‘Good God, woman!’ he exploded sometimes. ‘Are you trying to thwart the war effort single-handedly? Type this again – it’s a shambles. The place’ll be chaos!’
    But most of the time he did acknowledge that she was really quite good at her job, for a beginner. And that he was prone to exaggeration. One morning, soon after she arrived, he stopped in the middle of dictating a letter that she was hurriedly recording in her fast Pitman shorthand and stared at her from under his bushy eyebrows as if seeing her for the first time.
    ‘Miss O’Neill – may I ask how old you are?’
    ‘Nineteen, Mr Graham.’ Katie looked up, to her annoyance feeling a blush spread through her cheeks.
    He stared a bit longer and then said, ‘Good heavens. Nineteen. Is that all ? They’ll be sending us tots in napkins soon . . . Now – where was I?’
    They soon came to an understanding. The firm was at full stretch producing carburettors and other parts for military vehicles, for which firms like Standards in Coventry had converted their manufacturing for the duration of the war. There was a job to be done and everyone was expected to get on and do it. The works beneath them was going at full tilt, the place humming with activity.
    The air raids had petered out completely for the moment, it seemed. Nothing had happened since July, and one day Mr Graham remarked, ‘At least we can get on with our job these days, instead of having to dive down into the flaming cellar all the time. To tell you the truth, Miss O’Neill, we often didn’t go down into the shelter. I used to say to my typist then, “Come on, let’s stick it out and get on with it, or we’ll never get through it.” ’
    ‘And did she?’ Katie asked, since he seemed to expect a response.
    ‘Course she flaming did! And none of the Hun have hit this building, I’m glad to say. But if they tried it again, I’d expect you to do the same!’
    Occasionally she caught glimpses of the Old Man, as everyone called him, Mr Arthur Collinge, who was not so very old – in fact probably younger than his secretary Miss Hurley, and not nearly as intimidating. Sometimes she would pass him in the corridor, often holding an armful of papers, a grey-haired man with a sagging but kindly looking face, and he would half smile and murmur ‘Good morning’ whether or not it was the afternoon.
    Katie joined everyone in the works canteen for her breaks, and