Up the workers! My first holiday job, at the Sunlight laundry

It’s 1969, I’m sixteen, and my mum has contacted the Sunlight Laundry in South Wimbledon to get me my first holiday job. “South” Wimbledon had nothing to do with its almost indecently privileged namesake north of Worple Road.

I have no idea what it’s like today - probably all frightfully up-market -  but back then it was a mixture of the shabby genteel and the frankly scuzzy: I seem to remember narrow streets of small terraced houses (not unlike the one I live in today – where did it all go wrong?) and “floatings of industrial froth” – including the laundry. 

Until then, I’d never really spent a lot of time with working class people.  When I was younger I’d occasionally stay with relatives in Glasgow who lived in an outlying area littered with post-war prefab council housing, but, as far as the other natives were concerned I was an exotic and quite possibly retarded foreigner who wasn’t worth the effort of duffing up, especially as I wasn’t a Catholic. (I still do a mean Glasgow accent, and provide simultaneous translation whenever a a genuine Glaswegian appears on TV.)

Apart from regular outings to the Popular Book Centre in Tooting to buy American comics and the occasional trip to nearby fleapit cinemas and the local pub (big for my age), opportunities for fraternisation with the lower orders had been limited – to such an extent that I distinctly remember arguing with a friend, after we’d been told to “Vack orf!” somewhere in the vicinity of Collier’s Wood, whether this represented an alternative pronunciation of the Anglo-Saxon version of “Please go away, there’s a good chap”, or whether, in fact, it was of Norse origin, and meant something quite different – possibly “Stay well ‘till me meet again, my friend”. 

Anyhow, when I turned up for work on a miserable, drizzling day (it was probably August, but it always seemed to be raining in South Wimbledon) I had no idea what to expect, except what I’d gleaned from black and white kitchen-sink films and the occasional hard-hitting TV documentary about the vicious exploitation of the British working class, and how much better they did it in Sweden.

First thing that struck me was how big it all was – I seem to remember two barn-like early Edwardian red-brick structures. Secondly, it was noisy, what with masses of machinery thunking and hissing and swirling away, and with the enforced quiet of school replaced by the ear-shattering parrot squawks of old-fashioned cockneys communicating above the industrial racket (is that why city accents tend to be so harsh?).

Third was the riotous mixture of races – the workforce probably contained more West Indians, Africans and Indians than I’d previously seen in the whole of my life. And as far as I could tell, they all got along just fine (this was before the Race Relations Industry put a stop to all that.) There was a curvy blonde tartlet working in the building across the courtyard whose muscular West Indian boyfriend also worked at the laundry. The fact that I kept casting longing glances at her as I smoked Players No. 6 in our section’s doorway was eventually noticed by one of the boyfriend’s pals (also black) and he whispered something to his mate. I stiffened. The boyfriend looked round at me, laughed, and gave a friendly wave. I waved back. (These days, I’d probably have wound up in hospital with a severed artery.)

Fourth was everyone’s acceptance of the mentally challenged. One wizened little old lady was pointed out to me on my only visit to the works canteen (I preferred vinegar-drowned chips and crusty white rolls at the local chippie). She was eating custard and lettuce for lunch. On the same plate. Every day, apparently. An enormous African filling and emptying the vast washing machines right next to the hydros I was working on – a cheery religious maniac with a booming voice – was notorious for regularly going tonto. Schizophrenic, I suppose. (“Don’t worry, mate. He just goes a bit Alan Ladd. No ‘arm in him.”)  After one day of glowering and muttering to himself, he disappeared for the rest of my stint. 

There were other vaguely demented people there, but no one seemed to make fun of them – even the fat teenage bully I was working with. (We had one physical altercation early on with each of us at either end of a trolley loaded with wet cotton gloves, and I won. From then on he called me “Big Boy” and I was accepted, especially as I was willing to listen to his tales of sexual conquest or physical bravado on The Common  - variants of “Cor, she didn’t half love it – free times, mate. No lie!” or “He run at me. I grabs a branch and bang! he’s out cold.”)

Talking of the mentally challenged, Sid, the chap who was nominally in charge of myself and Fat Boy (as he was known behind his back, but never to his face), was several sandwiches and a pork pie short of a full picnic. Any number above ten would cause his brain to short circuit. For Sid, each page of the Daily Mirror was like a page of Wittgenstein to anyone else. When I wasn’t up to my elbows in wet sheets and shirts, or mooning after little Miss Sexy across the way, or listening to Fat Boy’s fantasies of sexual or pugilistic triumph, I’d sit atop a thrumming hydro and read Alastair Maclean thrillers. “Blimey!” Sid would exclaim, shaking his head. “You read a whole book in two days. You must be a f*cking genius, Big Boy!” When he’d got himself in a muddle over numbers (at least once a day) he’d sigh, scratch his head like Stan Laurel, and say, “Christ, I’m fick!” 

Sid, who looked about 45, told me he was actually 32 (although numbers that high might have confused him). He was short, but very strong - he put me and Fat Boy to shame. He was missing half his teeth, the rest were brown from roll-ups, and he was no oil painting. But he had a lovely smile, and he was just a lovely man – an innocent without a trace of malice in him, who had found a niche in life.

After I’d done a second stint at the laundry with the same cast of characters, including the African schizophrenic (still booming out psalms), I met Sid on top of a bus. His face lit up. “’Allo, stranger!” he almost shouted, then repeated it a few more times. “Whatchoo doin’ ‘ere, Big Boy?”. I explained I was off to a distant library. “Still readin’, eh?”. He sounded amazed. I asked him what he was doing there. A look of absolute delight appeared on his face and he shouted, “Off on the piss wiv my bird!”

I didn’t know he had a bird, and I was really pleased for him. I hope she was kind, and that they got married, and that they’re still together. Sid deserved that. 

Sunlight still exists as a laundry company. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that Fat Boy’s running it!