machine women

The Clatter of Time - Part II (by Luan Blake)

I had learnt about how clog dancing started in the Mills and Factories. Women wore clogs as it was the best footwear for the damp and hazardous floors. But clogging was not simply a way to relieve the monotony, it was actually a way to keep in time and keep up with the endless clobber of the machines. Through keeping in time with the rhythm, the women were more at one with the machine, in fact they were part of it. The workers were self-propelled automatons working in union with the pounding systems. Clog dancing steps often have names associated to the various parts of the machines or the working actions of the mill workers.

With such an interconnection between woman and machine, and within such noise, it is difficult to see how the workers could communicate with each other, but interaction was a vital way to cope with the conditions. ‘MEE MAW’ was a way that women communicated in the Mills and Factories of the North, each area having their own specific dialect. MEE- MAW was a form of sign language and exaggerated articulation of the mouth and face so that you could lip read someone on the other side of the room. This form of communication would relieve the sense of isolation and bring some humanity back into the workplace.

When the engines started up on that day that we visited, I looked at Mimi with a smile and a jolt, adrenaline rushing through me. When the overhead belt system kicked in, the noise permeated my core!

Within the inexhaustible clackety clack of the looms, I heard 400 cloggers clogging, a vast percussion of drummers drumming and an eternal inner metronome that whispered, “Keep going until the horn blows”.