Tales of the Gypsy Dressmaker. Thelma Madine

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СКАЧАТЬ I got it perfect.

      Soon the dresses were going down really well. Everyone wanted them, and after a while we were getting so many orders that we had to think about getting someone else in to help. Thank God we found Audrey. Now, Audrey was a little bit older but that was good because she was old school. She knew exactly what she was doing.

      In fact, Audrey was so by the book that, come five p.m. every day, she’d have her coat on and she’d be off. Out the door by one second past, was Audrey. She was strictly a nine-to-fiver, but I have to give it to her, when she was there she didn’t stop for a minute. But as more orders came in we needed to put more time in, which made me determined to improve as a seamstress. Audrey taught me a lot – far more than the college I had started attending did. The more I learned, the more I could finish the dresses myself. We also took on a younger girl, Christine, to do the cutting. So, business was picking up, we were all working from a room above the shop in Ormskirk and everything was good.

      Every time we put a new Communion dress in the shop, people would come in and admire it. ‘Oh, isn’t that lovely,’ they’d say. ‘I’m quite good at this,’ I thought, so I just focused on making my ideas for these Communion dresses come to life. I suppose, looking back, I’ve always been the kind of person who sets her mind to things, thinking, ‘Right, I’m just going to do it.’ I can’t do anything half-heartedly.

      After I came up with a few dress design ideas, I started really going for it. I always thought that the dresses could be bigger, because no one else was doing ones like that, so I looked through all my history books and wedding magazines for ideas – because, essentially, they were little wedding dresses. I’d have them with these big, Victorian-style leg-o’-mutton sleeves and then maybe add a little cape. And I always liked to put a large bow or flower on them to finish them off. That way they really made a statement.

      People loved them and, as more and more requests came in for them, we started having to limit each school to ten differently designed Communion dresses. The way it worked was this: every season I’d create ten different designs, and the first mum from each school to put a deposit down on the design she liked best was the only one who could have that dress, and so on. It meant that ten little girls in the same school might be wearing our dresses come Communion Day, but there would never be two wearing the same one.

      Even so, there was often pandemonium over who got these dresses, with real rivalry breaking out between the mums at each school. I remember that there were women literally fighting in the shop in County Road. Honest to God, they were actually punching each other.

      Another time I did this dress – I think I was into Elizabeth I at the time – with the ruff collar and the really tight, tiny waist with a V-shaped bodice all covered in pearls. I made the skirt in satin panels, which were differently decorated. Everyone who saw it was like, ‘Oh My God, it’s amazing. It’s fantastic. I don’t care how much it is. I’ve got to have that dress.’ There was a big hullabaloo over who was going to get that too.

      The thing is, it was all good for business and I was able to start building up a team. I took on another three girls, and then Pauline started working in the County Road shop. Pauline had been a customer originally, but as time went on she began to pop in every day to have a chat and see the new dresses that had come in. She became such a part of the furniture that one day, when I was run off my feet, I asked her to muck in and help me out there and then. I was well aware that Pauline knew that shop – and the stock it carried – inside out.

      It was one of the best moves I ever made. Pauline is the best saleswoman you could ever wish for. We have worked together on and off ever since. Pauline whipped our customers up into a right frenzy about the Communion dresses. ‘Oh, you should see the new designs coming in,’ she’d say. ‘They’re gorgeous. You’ll be amazed when you see them.’ All the women, desperate that their kid would look the best of the lot, would be like, ‘Oh, put my name down for one, put my name down.’ None of these dresses ever reached the shop – because before they could get there Pauline had sold every single one.

      So, it was really through the Communion dresses that I first got into dressmaking. And all these things that I liked, all these old, historical costumes that I was influenced by, were obviously touching a nerve with people, because the next thing I knew I had an agent in Belfast who started selling our dresses all over Ireland.

      The business was doing well and everything was OK on that front. But things with me and Kenny were getting worse. The more successful I became, the more strained things were between us. Kenny, you see, always liked to be in control, and as I became immersed in my own thing I was becoming more independent.

      Then I had another setback. The main shop in Liverpool kept getting broken into, and this put a massive strain on the business because it was becoming increasingly hard to get insurance. Eventually the only way I could keep things afloat was to close all of the shops except two. Looking back, it was probably too much having six of them and trying to make clothes and sell them at the same time.

      There had also been a dispute over outstanding rent at the Ormskirk shop that we had sub-let. The woman who took it on refused to pay the rent because of a repair that had not been done. She moved out and left us with the bill. So, in what would be the first of many court appearances over the coming years, I was made bankrupt. I was distraught. But when I got my head around it I realised that things weren’t as bad as I had at first thought.

      By this time Kenny had sold his business and he suggested that I put my business in his name, which of course meant that, effectively, I would be working for him. Businesswise it did seem to be the only way forward. We had a big house with loads of land, and a big garage too, so I was able to bring all the girls to work there, and that meant we could cut down on overheads.

      The only difference was that when I had to go and buy fabric in Manchester Kenny would have to sign blank cheques for me to take, as he was in charge of the business bank account. Eventually it became impossible for me to have all the cheques I needed every time I wanted to buy something, so I would just sign them in his name. I thought he was fine with that – it wasn’t a big deal. Not then, anyway.

      After the last robbery at the Liverpool shop, the police finally caught the thieves, so as part of the insurance claim I had to go to court to confirm that these people had no permission to be in my shop. As I was going up to the courtroom in the lift, two policemen and a young lad got in. I heard them talking and this lad – he must have been about 20 – looked at me and said: ‘Was it your shop we robbed?’

      ‘Yeah,’ I said, looking at him, surprised.

      ‘No offence, love, but you didn’t half pile it on there, did you?’ he said, trying to make out that our claim was higher than the shop stock was worth.

      ‘It’s all expensive designer stuff, you know,’ I said, affronted.

      ‘Ah well, nothing personal,’ he smirked.

      Then, as the lift stopped and the police started to usher him out, do you know what the cheeky little get did? He turned to me and asked: ‘Sure you don’t want any videos or owt?’ Some people just can’t help themselves, can they?

      But it was around this time that everything started to really go wrong. Since Kenny had sold his business he wasn’t working and so he was getting up at around midday and then going out and not coming back until early hours in the morning. I’d still be working in the garage, and he’d pop his head around the garage door and say, ‘You still working?’

      ‘Yes, I’m still working,’ I would think to myself, looking at him. ‘I’m the only one in this house working.’ In fact I was working all СКАЧАТЬ