I remember coming to Leeds after I lost my Mum and Dad and I got the job in Arthur Harrisons, in the mill as a mender. It was long hours and poor pay. Then you got two pound 16 shillings when I first started and you were on piecework. I was still working there when I got married at 19 and for the piecework I were earning about 10 pound a week.

I remember walking to work from Headingley in some shoes – I would stuff them with brown paper, making some lining out of brown paper because I simply couldn’t afford new shoes.

I enjoyed working in the mill. It were a friendly atmosphere you met plenty of friends, but it was hard work. When the fabric would come off the weaving machine then it gets brought into the mending room. The boys used to lift it onto the table and then you had big daylight at the top of you and you had to look for all the faults and put everything right what had gone wrong in the weaving shed and that was my job till I got married.