Megan had sent word back
"Work's here in London Town"
Doris Morgan sick and starving
Forced herself t' come on down
 
Joined army of Welsh women
Walked a hundred seventy mile
Fortnight pain, her worn out boots
 Fixed    her face with a hopeful smile
 
Empty seam of coal mined valley
The only place Doris had ever known
Kith kin family school friends husband
Fourteen years old never to return home
 
Exhausted arrived in South Acton
"Soapsud Alley"  named  the street
White acre cloth  drying  in sunshine
Wind billowing  away   th' cost of heat
 
Knee high foam greywall buildings
Laundry of names we'd know at once
Smarts, Sunlight, Initial, Spring Grove,
Sketchley, White Knight  and  Advance
 
Several lesser known washhouses
Crowded with them  onto the estate
Foam spilled Roslin   to Stirling Road
A hive of industry laundry profits great
 
The clothes they all washed was
Nappies - not those of the hoi polloi
But those of the rich lauded landed
The wealthiest    little bundles of Joy
 
The privileged could afford it
To send their dirties to the van
That called upon them  each week
Driven by the   smiling    laundryman
 

Doris had someone literate

Read the largest laundry case

On her next monthly afternoon off
Thumbed her  way  to Artillery Place
 

Grandeur gated house before her

Breath taken by tree  filled   street

Governesses their arms  full  of babies
Toddlers as ducklings all around their feet
 
Doris couldn't get the picture of
The rich trappings out of her mind
Just the one baby would make  her
Happy if life could  ever be that kind
 
 The napkins kept the wives in work
 on those Southernmost Acton streets
Doris was one of a thousand labourers
Ankle deep in brown  smells     at her feet

 
 
 
 
 
 
Laundry owners didn't work there
 For they were far too rich and grand
They just employed the cruel harsh men
Told them     "Drive the profits to my hand"
 
Health and safety wasn't a factor
 For as Doris found out to her cost
Even from an economic  viewpoint
Many many woman   hours were lost
 
Laundry management competed tireless
 Implementing machinery and automation
Many machines were tried - Amongst these
Came Doris's Welshmade coffin  "The Irrigation"
 
 
 
 
The Irrigation - twenty feet high
 Tunnel conveyor belted machine
A giraffe of  hooks,  and    tunnels
Galvanized welded panels a-gleam
 
The Irrigation part-stitched the nappies
And then they went by it's gaping maw
Disappearing up into it's dark innards
From there -  they were seen no more
 
This perfect trail of soiledness
  bathed thrice in different strengths
 And came out separated one by one
Ev'ry nappy  back to it's perfect length
 
They calculated the Irrigation device
 Could save between 30 and 40 per cent
It'd give them the edge over neighbours
 In nine short weeks repay their investment
 
They hadn't calculated on the risk
 To life n limb -  the despair it'd create
When they sent young Doris to her death
Because the deliveries were running late
 
The Irrigation had hit a problem
 The nappies    in    there were stuck
Instead of a strip they'd formed a ball
Became clear the extractor wouldn't suck
 
They helped Doris volunteer to sort it
 Although she was happy in the road
Thinking of how she might dress up offal
Lights for tea how she'd serve them cold
 
No one had tested the temperature
 Or the lack of air when they inserted her
 They made her bind her crown of red hair
So that she didn't get it stuck in the roller
 
She made it almost to the end
 And had freed the final obstruction
And it was in climbing out she caught
And set the machine switch into action
 
And processed the young Welsh girl
 Under five feet tall only small and light
Washed rinsed packed her to the sound
 Of piercing screams out      into the night
 
Doris was never to knew that the baby
 She yearned for was nestled in her womb
Boy child seeded    by dear Welsh husband
Died before her, both trapped inside the tomb
 
The Soapsuds ran red in Soapsud Alley
 Everyone from all around came to see
And they all marvelled at   automation
And whispered  about   carnage and grief
 

They would have to close the laundry

 So they'd telephoned the owner at first

But the owner said he wouldn't hear of it
And insisted that the decision was reversed
 
So when they opened next day
 the Irrigation stood in it's usual place
But no girl would go anywhere near it
Let alone that she'd look hard into its' face
 
Until the rich owners accountants
 told him that productivity was down
He needed to know why for himself
So he made his way  to Acton Town
 
Mill Hil Park station he walked down
 Bollo Lane his ankles deep in suds,
Puzzled no idea what they were for
Or the girl army with washing boards
 
He had difficulty finding his way -
He knew his way round London the Tate
But this could have been another continent
The    Great   South     Acton Industrial Estate
 
Not a place where the gentry went
And of course he could have no idea
Why an army of girl workers pressed him
Waved banners and kept wailing in his ear
 
They'd figured him for the owner
 For him they had many demands
Bodies rough pressed against him
All the whilst shouting out their plans
 
He was rescued, brought inside
 And given Sherry by the cruel men
Who explained about the Disaster
Repeated over he still couldn't take it in
 
Things like this didn't happen at Ascot
 Nor at Lords, Marlborough or Badminton,
He couldn't understand that the girls death
Could      have    anything       to do with him
 
But profits were all, and profits were down
 and "that's it men" "the long and the short"
He showed them finance journal extracts
From the ledger pages    that he'd brought
 
We can't restart the Irrigation
 we'll have a mutiny in the street
- "If you don't    you'll have no bonus"-
Said the owner      as he got to his feet
 
 
So they re-started the machine
 and advertised hard for honest men
The cruel men worked it up to then
Closed their eyes ‘n' ears to the resentment
 
The girls at other laundries learned
 And they formed a bodily barricade
In the road around the stricken laundry
Called for sister pickets" join the blockade"
 
All work on the estate ceased
Laundry vans were blocked  to load
Times headlines "THE LAUNDRIES STOPPED"
Letters page -"we can't get down the bloody road"
 
 
 The Times was known as "The Thunderer"
 and it thundered on and on
About ungrateful shop girls

And the war that we'd just won

 
By Thursday next West London
 Then down to Western Super Mare-
All of Kent itself had joined the strike
There were a lot of fruit pickers there
 
 
But no-one up to Birmingham
Or the West was showing up for work 
The whole country festered stank mildew
As the whole of England had shunned their work
 
 
They say the death of a Welsh girl
Compromised a profit crazed industry
And that workers rightful anger endured

To bring this uncaring nation to its knees

 

The strike at Soapsud Alley

 Had brought the country to its knees

Turned out to be greater than a hurricane 
And even more  wide spread than  disease