Custard Creams, by Pauline Rudge

An original novel extract set in the twentieth century.

Sandra started at Hartwell’s biscuit works the Monday after her fifteenth birthday in 1964, in an overall two sizes too big and a white cap that hid every bit of her hair. The forewoman, a tall woman called Vi with a pencil behind each ear, put her on the custard cream line and told her she had one job: to knock the broken biscuits into a bin before they reached the packing table. The belt never stopped. By ten o’clock Sandra’s wrists ached, and by dinnertime she was seeing biscuits whenever she closed her eyes. The other girls sang along to the wireless over the noise of the ovens, and one of them, a redhead called Maureen, taught her to tap her foot on the bin lid to keep time. The whole building smelled of warm sugar, and the smell came home with her on the bus, in her coat and her hair. When the hooter went at half past five, Vi handed her a paper bag of broken biscuits and told her she would do.

List five things you learn about Sandra’s first day at the biscuit works.