Beside the Seaside

The consensus of opinion was that the company wouldn't last the year out. They were being battered by the union, the sun was rising in the East and the shareholders, as shareholders did, expected a better return. Most of the management were present that day, seated around the boardroom table, and to a man they could see what was coming: the dark cloud looming. They had all lived through worse and understood the feeling of impending doom; the approaching storm and the hardships that would follow. Grimshaw still covered his mouth with a carefully placed hand when he spoke, in an effort to cover scars that resulted from his awful burns. The youngest there by far, he always wore garishly chequered suits with a bright handkerchief tucked in the jacket's top pocket; a deflection, everyone thought. And there was Allinson, a haggard looking and twitchy forty-something who always voiced approval with the words, 'I'll drink to that'. They were all in some way Allinsons and Grimshaws; live for the moment that's what they'd learnt, and they all bore the scars in one form or other. Allinson said the brass hats didn't understand what was going on at the front, and that was the problem. They'd have to dig in until support arrived or it all blew over. Grimshaw, speaking from behind a raised hand, told them that if better kit wasn't made available and the men didn't play the game, they would be lost for sure. It was as simple as that, he said. There were nods all round. They would need to stand firm, he said, and got up from his seat and walked to a small table in the corner of the room, one that was always laid out with numerous bottles. All around the room hung the portraits of those who had 'commanded' before; a dusty display of heredity, position and place. “I'll drink to that”, Allinson said, and slumped in his chair, stretching his legs out under the table.

The factory floor was always swept clean; the chassis were lined up in neat rows, in time honoured fashion; and the men moved among them, in and out, following channels worn into the floor by generations of workers before. In the canteen the talk was of new motorcycles from BSA and Triumph, the latest music and all the newfangled gadgets coming across the sea from America. On the walls, posters advertised saving schemes and premium bonds. Everyone knew the price that had been paid and the debt they were owed. The war was still very fresh in everyone's memory. They believed they had prevailed against great odds and were undefeated; the country was the best; produced the best; deserved the best. They thought, as victors, they were owed a better life, and because the country had been saved by everyone fighting together the old establishment should be washed away, like castles made of sand on the beach. Wage demands and the threat of strikes were always present, even when it became obvious overseas competition was a serious threat. Talk of closure had started to filter down from above. Rumour, that's what they thought; it was all just rumour. But soon things got serious and a wave of panic started; and, of course, the questions. Who was responsible, and why? In the end there was speculation about mergers, Government interventions and co-operatives; all materialised to some extent or other, but non worked.

At home the women carried on as normal; very little had changed for them. Their work was the same as it always had been. Making ends meet, raising a family, keeping things afloat, looking after the home. Such as they were in those days. Terraced houses with outside toilets and fires you had to make each morning; no microwaves or fridges, or any of the things we have these days that make life easier. Except for the occasional holiday by the sea, if you were lucky, life for the women had changed little since the end of war. Rationing had continued for ages and they still had the worry; it was just a different worry, that was all. And when, in the end, when the factory closed, it was the women that had to keep things together. Trouble seemed to come in waves; some days rougher than others. If anyone deserved a holiday, they did.

It was all right for me, though. I was only young then and a secretary at the factory. I had to take minutes at management meetings but at the same time I was from the same streets the workers came from, so I knew the boardroom as well as I did the shopfloor. I lived at home with my parents in a little two up, two down and had no real responsibilities to speak of. For all my knowledge of the company, I didn't really appreciate the extent of the concerns people had about the future, and, I suppose, I was too young and naive to understand. I was a child in the war, you see. I couldn't fully appreciate what the grown-ups had endured; everyone had a story to tell that involved some sort of loss, no matter how small. I was always thinking about holidays and coming here. To me at that time there seemed little else to look forward to; what else did we have but the seaside?

She was sitting on a bench on the seafront close to my truck and we had somehow just got talking. I was waiting for a machine that a construction company was using for some foundation work to be ready for loading and she seemed to be in no hurry to move on. She was old, probably in her mid to late seventies, and immaculate in every way, which made her look more like visiting gentry or a retired headteacher than a retired secretary. “More changes”? She said, looking at the works going on nearby. “Yes”, I said. “Everything changes, thankfully”. She looked at a loss for something to say. “More work for people like me”, I explained. She glanced at my truck and its low-loader trailer, and then screwed her lips into what I took to be a smile. But then someone caught her eye and she stood up. A smartly dressed man, probably a few years her senior, was approaching us. He was wearing a brightly coloured sports jacket and a pair of brogues that almost glowed burgundy. With a matching handkerchief flamboyantly draped from the jacket's top pocket, he looked a little over dressed among the more retiring of that seaside retirement stronghold. She said her goodbyes and took his arm as he nodded an acknowledgement to me, carefully holding, I noticed, a hand over his mouth.