Duncan Barrett

Nuala Calvi

Tales of Hardship, Love and Happiness in Tate and Lyle's East End

Sugar Girls

Tales of hardship, resilience, and youthful high spirits, woven together to provide a moving insight into a lost way of life, as well as a timeless testament to the experience of being young and female. In the post-war years, thousands of women left school at 15 to work in the bustling factories that lined London’s East End docks. Despite long hours and hard and often hazardous work, factory life afforded exciting opportunities for independence, friendship, and romance before the responsibilities of marriage and motherhood took over. Of all the factories, Tate & Lyle’s were the most sought-after, offering the highest wages and best social life. Many women, coming from tough backgrounds, look back on their time as factory girls as the happiest days of their lives. Here are the real-life stories of these women—from Joan, the feisty tea girl from the slums; to Pat, the fashion-conscious packet-maker with a gambler father; and Edna, the black sugar-packer who took on the male managers and won. Tales of hardship, resilience, and youthful high spirits are woven together to provide a moving insight into a lost way of life, as well as a timeless testament to the experience of being young and female.

Tales of Hardship, Love and Happiness in Tate & Lyle's East End

The Sugar Girls

During the Blitz, the Sugar Girls kept Britain sweet. The work was back-breakingly hard, but the Tate & Lyle factory was more than just a workplace - it was a community, a calling, a place of love and support and an uproarious, tribal part of East London. This is Ethel’s story, one of four stories from The Sugar Girls.

The Sugar Girls – Ethel’s Story: Tales of Hardship, Love and Happiness in Tate & Lyle’s East End

Tim Cooper

successful life is not built on your ability to add, but on your ability to remove.After spending years judging my success (and others') on the volume of shiny objects I had, I realised that attaching happiness to material things - or even to a specific outcome, in fact - is a recipe for disaster. Obsessively chasing that next promotion or collecting designer watches might seem like the mark of a winner, but if you need to have something in your life in order for you to be happy - if you are attaching your happiness to external factors - you will always be searching for that next hit of dopamine. It's like an addiction: you're always chasing that first-ever feeling of euphoria, and the satisfaction you derive becomes less and less every time. It wasn't until I lost what I thought was everything - until my career and my material possessions were stripped away - that I claimed back my true values and gained clarity, perspective and gratitude for all that I had. I was forced into a position that made me see the world through a different set of eyes and appreciate the small pleasures in life. As a result of my own experience, I now see that it's the simplicity and fundamentals of life that hold true beauty. You don't need more, you need less. I'm not just talking in terms of material possessions. In today's world most of us are searching for a new tool, a new skill, more information, more knowledge - but everything we need is already inside of us. Under all the layers of fear and self-doubt, our true potential is already there, waiting for us to uncover it. It's not until we remove what's not serving us that we can see clearly what truly matters.As I set out on my own journey, I soon came to realise that the best things in life aren't things at all. They are people. They are experiences. It's time to unlearn everything that is false and unhelpful and make way for the real you to shine

Tim Cooper's the Art of Unlearning

For readers enchanted by the bestsellers The Astronaut Wives Club, The Girls of Atomic City, and Summer at Tiffany’s, an absorbing tale of romance and resilience—the true story of four British women who crossed the Atlantic for love, coming to America at the end of World War II to make a new life with the American servicemen they married. The “friendly invasion” of Britain by over a million American G.I.s bewitched a generation of young women deprived of male company during the Second World War. With their exotic accents, smart uniforms, and aura of Hollywood glamour, the G.I.s easily conquered their hearts, leaving British boys fighting abroad green with envy. But for girls like Sylvia, Margaret, Gwendolyn, and even the skeptical Rae, American soldiers offered something even more tantalizing than chocolate, chewing gum, and nylon stockings: an escape route from Blitz-ravaged Britain, an opportunity for a new life in affluent, modern America. Through the stories of these four women, G.I. Brides illuminates the experiences of war brides who found themselves in a foreign culture thousands of miles away from family and friends, with men they hardly knew. Some struggled with the isolation of life in rural America, or found their soldier less than heroic in civilian life. But most persevered, determined to turn their wartime romance into a lifelong love affair, and prove to those back home that a Hollywood ending of their own was possible. G.I. Brides includes an eight-pages insert that features 45-black-and-white photos.

The Wartime Girls Who Crossed the Atlantic for Love

GI Brides

This is Lilian’s story, one of four stories from The Sugar Girls. During the Blitz and the years of rationing, the Sugar Girls kept Britain sweet. The work was back-breakingly hard, but the Tate & Lyle factory was more than just a workplace - it was a community, a calling, a place of love and support and an uproarious, tribal part of East London.

The Sugar Girls - Lilian’s Story: Tales of Hardship, Love and Happiness in Tate & Lyle’s East End

In the years leading up to and after the Second World War thousands of women left school at fourteen to work in the bustling factories of London¡s East End. Through the Blitz and on through the years of rationing the 'Sugar Girls' kept Britain sweet. The work was back-breakingly hard, but Tate & Lyle was more than just a factory: it was a community, a calling, a place of love and support and an uproarious, tribal part of the East End. From young Ethel to love-worn Lilian, irrepressible Gladys to Miss Smith who tries to keep a workforce of flirtatious young men and women on the straight and narrow, this is an evocative, moving story of hunger, hardship and happiness.

The personal accounts of three young women who joined up in 1940. In the summer of 1940, Britain stood alone against Germany. The British Army stood at just over one and a half million men, while the Germans had three times that many, and a population almost twice the size of ours from which to draw new waves of soldiers. Clearly, in the fight against Hitler, manpower alone wasn't going to be enough. Eighteen-year-old Jessie Ward defied her mother to join the ATS, Margery Pott signed up for the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, and nanny Kathleen Skin the WRNS.

Heroism, Heartache and Happiness in the Wartime Women's Forces

The Girls who Went to War

Ronnie Le Drew

Over the course of almost half a century, puppeteer Ronnie Le Drew has worked with the greats – from David Bowie in Labyrinth to Michael Caine in The Muppet Christmas Carol. But the role that defined his career was Rainbow’s Zippy, who he operated for more than twenty years. Zippy and Me is the first time a Rainbow insider has told the true story of what went on under the counter and inside the suits: the petty squabbles between performers, wrangling with TV executives, and scandals such as the 'love triangle' between musicians Rod, Jane and Freddy. Not to mention the now infamous X-rated episode shot for an ITV Christmas party, which subsequently found its way to the Sun. Interweaved with the dirt on what really went on behind the scenes is the story of Rainbow’s heyday in the 1970s and 80s, when its stars found themselves catapulted into an exciting showbiz world – scooping a BAFTA award and even performing for the queen – and the story of a young lad from a south London council estate who defied his parents' protests to became one of the most respected puppeteers of all time.

Nuala Calvi

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