The Sugar Girls - Lilian’s Story: Tales of Hardship, Love and Happiness in Tate & Lyle’s East End. Duncan Barrett

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      1

      When Lilian Tull came to Tate & Lyle shortly after the end of the war, she was older than most new arrivals. A lanky, fair-haired woman of 23, she worked in the can-making department, where the Golden Syrup tins were assembled. Lilian had arrived on the job with a heavy heart, and her colleagues noticed a sad, far-away look in her eyes. At break times she could often be seen gazing at a small photograph that she kept in the pocket of her dungarees.

      Lilian’s job was to check that the bottoms of the syrup tins were properly sealed. She would pick up five at a time using a long fork and then suction test each one on a special disc. The ones that were faulty fell off and were sent for resealing, while the others continued on their way to the syrup-filling department.

      The can-making suited Lilian, because the machines were so noisy it was difficult to talk. Many of the girls had developed the ability to lip-read, but even so the forelady, Rosie Hale, kept an eye out for anyone who seemed to be neglecting their machines, patrolling the room on a balcony above the girls and shouting ‘No talking! Back to work!’ She never had need to scold Lilian, who lacked the high spirits of her chirpy colleagues.

      From her earliest years life had been a struggle for Lilian, and she knew the bitter taste of poverty well, having grown up in the dark days of the Great Depression. The Tull family had all slept in a single room on the ground floor of 19 Conway Street, Plaistow. The children shared a bed with their parents, which became increasingly crowded since their mother Edith seemed always to be pregnant or nursing a newborn. Nine babies came along altogether, and were kept quiet with dummies made from rags stuffed with bread and dipped in Tate & Lyle sugar.

      The children were clothed in handouts from the church, chopped down to child-size proportions and re-hemmed by their mother. Their father’s Sunday suit was a hand-me-down from the Pearces across the road – the only family in the street rich enough to afford a Christmas tree, and therefore considered ‘posh’. Whenever he wore the suit, Harry Tull was painfully aware that all the neighbours recognised it from its previous owner.

      Harry did shift work at the ICI sodaworks in Silvertown, coming home each night covered in cuts from the sharp pieces of soda he chopped up all day. Lilian’s mother Edith would tenderly dress his wounds with strips of cloth covered in Melrose ointment. Keeping a large family on his wages wasn’t easy, and life was lived constantly ‘on the book’, with this week’s money going to pay off last week’s shopping bill at Weaver’s, the shop on the corner. The children were sent down to the greengrocers each weekend to ask for a ha’pence of specks – bad apples – to supplement their diet, and happily gorged on the bits of fruit that were left over once the rotten parts had been cut out.

      Despite their poverty, Edith Tull was extremely house-proud. Every morning she could be seen on her hands and knees, scrubbing and whitening the doorstep until it glowed. Next, the shared toilet in the back yard was swilled down with hot water and new squares of newspaper were threaded onto the rusty nail that served as a loo-paper dispenser. Then the coconut matting came up and the place was swept and dusted vigorously until lunchtime. Monday was wash day, when Edith would rub the family’s dirty linen on her washboard until her arms were covered in angry red blisters. Friday was the day for baths, with water heated in the copper by burning old shoes and boots if there was no money for fuel.

      Before her husband returned from work each evening, Edith got a fresh piece of newspaper for a tablecloth and carefully laid out the mismatched cutlery and crockery she had got from the rag-and-bone man. Harry would come home and nod in approval. A strict, Victorian-style father, he regarded family teatime as sacred, and tapped his children with his knife if they weren’t sitting up straight. The children themselves were too scared to speak at the table for fear of their father’s disapproval, so mealtimes generally passed in silence. Secretly, they all looked forward to the weeks when he was on the late shift and their more soft-hearted mother allowed them to stay up past their bedtime.

      Death seemed to hover over the Tull household. Baby boys Bernard and George came into the world and departed it the same day. When Lilian was six, her grandfather passed away suddenly, and not long afterwards her three-year-old brother Charlie died from unknown causes.

      The latest death shook the normally restrained Harry Tull to the core. ‘There’s a curse on this family,’ he cried bitterly.

      Harry’s greatest shame was that, since there was no money for a private burial, Charlie would have to be laid to rest in a communal grave at West Ham Cemetery, without a headstone. ‘No son of mine’s going to be buried in an unmarked grave,’ he said, storming out to the back yard.

      Lilian went to follow him, but Edith put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Leave him be, love,’ she said. ‘Leave him be.’

      Several hours later, Harry was still outside. ‘What’s Daddy doing?’ Lilian asked her mother.

      ‘Don’t you worry about that,’ came the reply.

      Finally, Harry came back into the house, a look of silent suffering on his face. In his hand was a wooden cross he had made himself, the words ‘RIP CHARLIE’ lovingly carved into it.

      ‘It’s beautiful, Harry,’ Edith said. Lilian saw that her eyes were filling with tears, and felt her own well up, too.

      As was the custom, Charlie was laid out in his little coffin in the front room, for family and neighbours to pay their respects. Lilian watched the people come and go, wondering who they all were and why they wanted to stare at her brother.

      As night fell the visitors no longer came and Edith told the children it was time for bed. ‘What about Charlie?’ Lilian asked.

      There was nowhere else to put him, so the family bedded down in the same room as the coffin. ‘Don’t worry, love, he’ll be sleeping too,’ Lilian’s mother reassured her, gently stroking her blonde hair.

      Lilian lay awake all night, thinking about her dead brother lying just feet away from her and wondering if he was going to wake up in the morning.

      When Charlie was buried the whole family laid flowers on the grave and Harry hammered the little cross into the earth. Out in the open it looked smaller and more delicate than it had in the house, flimsy in comparison with the real headstones elsewhere in the cemetery.