It were a Friday in the October, 1984. They told us in the canteen. A man in a suit from head office, I'd never seen him before, and he read it off a sheet. He never looked up. Seventeen year I'd been there and a man read it off a sheet.
And then the last shift, a fortnight after, we switched it off. The mill. You never switch a mill off. It had been running since before the war, me dad said. And somebody pressed the button, and it went quiet. I've never heard quiet like it. Forty men stood there and nobody said owt.
Went to the pub. Course we did. Then I went home and I sat in the car. Outside the house, in the car, a couple of hours. I don't know why the car. And Brenda came out wi' a cup of tea and sat in the passenger seat and never said owt for a long time. Then she said, well, you're good at driving. She said, you're good at driving and you're patient.
I sat wi' her in the car before, in the test centre car park, and I said, Maureen, pretend he's me. Pretend it's me in that seat. And she looked at me and she said, Graham, if he were you I'd tell him to shut up. And she laughed, and she couldn't stop laughing, and he got in and she were still laughing, and she drove out of there and she passed. Eighth time.
You can't teach nerves out of folk. I learnt that off Maureen. You can only sit wi' them.