Text 1: Before the town wakes, by Mari Ellis

An original contemporary magazine article.

At half past three each morning, while the high street is silent, Arun Patel unlocks the bakery and switches on its ovens. The room is chilly enough for him to keep his coat on at first, but that changes quickly. By five o’clock, heat presses against his face whenever he opens an oven door.

The work is constant. Arun tips flour into a mixer, divides dough, loads trays and carries racks across the tiled floor. Flour settles on his hair and eyelashes. The mixers make conversation impossible, so the bakers point, nod and use a collection of hand signals they all understand. A missed signal can leave a batch in the oven for too long.

At seven, the four bakers take a fifteen-minute break beside the open back door. Nobody sits down because there are no chairs. They drink tea, compare the shapes of their worst loaves and laugh at mistakes that did not seem funny an hour earlier.

The final rush begins when the shop opens. Empty shelves must be filled as quickly as customers clear them. Arun says his shoulders ache from lifting trays, but he likes seeing people carry away bread that was only flour when his shift began. “You go home tired,” he says, “but you can point to what you made.”

Text 2: Tuesday at Fenwick’s laundry, by Martha Hale

An original diary entry written in a nineteenth-century voice; a period simulation, not an archival document.

In this entry, written in 1884, a young woman records a day working in a commercial laundry.

The steam was so thick this morning that I could scarcely see Nell at the next tub. We opened the upper windows, although the yard was white with frost, and so our faces burned while our wet shoes froze upon our feet.

I spent the morning lifting sheets from the copper with a wooden pole. Wet linen has twice the weight one expects, and my wrists soon complained of it. Mrs Crowe stood by the clock and called out whenever our pile diminished too slowly. The rollers groaned without ceasing, and we had to shout even when standing side by side.

At noon we were allowed twenty minutes in the yard with our bread. Nell made us laugh by imitating Mrs Crowe’s voice, but the bell sounded before I had finished eating. In the afternoon we folded tablecloths while still standing, for Mrs Crowe says stools encourage idleness.

By closing time my apron was soaked and my hands were red and wrinkled. Yet the walk home was cheerful. Six of us went together, singing the song we had been forbidden to sing near the rollers.

Using information from both texts, explain briefly what the workers experienced during their working day.

You should make it clear which text you are referring to.