Ghosts in the Machine by Jan Dale
1 January 2021 { Historical Fiction }
Bert was particularly proud of his catalogue index. The long-legged set of pale wooden drawers held pristine white cards meticulously annotated in his neat script, with each detail accurately cross-referenced, and all divided by alphabetical tabs. It was a work of art, the more sensitive of his colleagues had to admit, and it was as if Bert’s life was defined by it. He was a pleasant chap, not prone to ambition of any kind, but content to spend the hours in his middling job until the time came to return home to Jean, his wife, where they discussed their days over tea.
He remembered when Mr Baines had called the staff together on that fateful Wednesday afternoon. The announcement of the forthcoming introduction of the computerised system at first left him unfazed. He hadn’t really thought then what it might mean for him. However, when the team of overalled technicians started to move in and connect the terminals, the penny started to drop. Once he had mastered the new database, he was told, his index cards could be shredded and their cabinet sold to an office surplus merchant (unknown to him, to appear years later as part of the retro décor of a nearby pub, converted to ‘gastro’ status). In any case, they said, the cabinet was taking up too much space.
Jean sympathised. It had been hard enough getting used to the electric typewriter, let alone the computer. But she had had to adapt. It was that or the job.
The database training was a disaster. Whether it was just plain bloody-mindedness over the devastating change to his job, or a simple blockage somewhere in his brain, Bert just couldn’t get used to the order in which he was supposed to press the keys. As he struggled, the indexing system got completely out of hand and it was beginning to affect everybody’s work. Mr Baines was not best pleased as it meant the department was not fulfilling its required quota. His colleagues called him a Luddite and it was in vain that he tried to explain he just didn’t seem cut out for this new regime. In time of course, Bert began to suffer from increasing levels of stress and began to take more and more time off work, until, inevitably, Mr Baines more or less forced him to take early retirement and he was replaced with a fresh-faced youngster straight out of school. Jean found it tough. Her husband was no longer the loving and cheerful soul she had married and he became increasingly morose during their evening talks, especially as the monotony of his visits to the job centre began to really get him down.
***
My life is tough; I work almost constantly. But I am a marvel of invention, a combination of the water frame and the spinning jenny, what they call a spinning mule. I am proud that Samuel Oldknow chose me and my friends to work in his mill here in Marple, the biggest cotton-spinning mill in the whole of Europe, I believe. I have improved the lot of the workers in this country, for before I was born the people had to create individual spindles wound with cotton, and now it takes only one man or woman to operate my many hundreds of spindles. The thread I spin is finer and of better quality, and can be produced at a much higher volume, which gives my employer bigger profits, so not only has it freed the handloom weaver from the drudgery of toil, but allowed my employer to use these profits for the self-improvement and better quality of life of his workers. I am so proud when people visit from all over the world to admire me, my pulleys and shafts, my well-oiled mechanism. Mr Crompton, my creator, truly transformed the world of labour. Technology, I believe they later called it.
But I shall never forget a particularly life-changing afternoon. A heated exchange had begun between two of the workers, hardly audible above the thousands of shuttles rhythmically crashing back and forth.
‘I can’t do what you’re asking, Joseph. I’ve got a good steady job here and the master takes care of us. I can’t afford to throw over the traces just because you and a bunch of your mates have got all these new-fangled ideas into your heads.’
‘But Will, surely you can see it our way. These machines are depriving us of our livelihoods, they’re taking the bread from the mouths of our children! All right, you have your job. But there’s hundreds of others who haven’t. The machines are a symbol of this selfish greed that’s taking over the country, and so we have to destroy them!’
‘Destroy these beautiful machines, that are the envy of the whole world? Luddites! Pah! You’ve all gone mad.’
‘And so’s the whole country, Will. Surely you can see that! The master might provide the school and all, but he’s doubled his profits in this year alone. We still have to buy with his tokens, in his shop, at his prices. We still have to work every hour God sends, he’s refused to let more air in, and what about what happened only last week?’
Will shuddered, remembering John’s failure to get out of the machine while cleaning it. His head had been crushed and Will had not been able to avert his eyes quickly enough. Fleetingly, he also remembered the woman who lay in a nearby cottage with what they said was a wasting lung disease.
As he was obviously unable to persuade him, Joseph let out a sigh of frustration and left hurriedly. He had seen the overseer approaching.
Over the next few days I thought over what I had heard. I had not realised that, despite my beauty, I was so efficient that I had threatened the livelihoods of hundreds of families who had worked in cottage industries. Many people’s incomes had been lost, and they had been left destitute and hungry. The time spent learning their craft had gone to waste and all they could do was wait for an early death and a release from their poverty. And the extra profits were not, as promised, being used to help them improve themselves and learn, but were being taken by the master to fund his love for exotic plants and suchlike. But Mr Crompton had spent so much time creating me. And the craftsmen who had built me had done so lovingly and with utmost skill. They had transformed his brainchild into wood and metal, perfectly calibrated, made to last for hundreds of years. But I now felt guilty for my foolish pride, my vanity. I couldn’t help being built, but I had caused terrible problems for the honest working people of this country. What else could I do but offer myself as a sacrifice to a better world?
***
At the meeting, Joseph seemed inspired. Almost without exception, the workers cheered and raised their fists as he drew to a close. They felt he was right, and tried not to fear what might happen if they did what he proposed – after all, the act of breaking machines could lead to the ultimate penalty, death on the gallows. His solid rhetoric, couched in terms they could understand, carried them away and showed them a vision of what might be achieved.
***
We were all at rest and silent, and darkness had fallen. In disciplined fashion, and without undue noise, the workers were spreading throughout every floor of the mill. From goodness knows where, they had acquired mallets, staves, billhooks and even blacksmiths’ hammers. I tried to be strong, as I knew what they were about. I knew they too regretted the destruction, and, as a symbol of the encroaching danger, we were the only target they had at their disposal. We had to play our part in preventing this terrible greed – or what was to become known as capitalism – by sacrificing ourselves to the workers’ cause.
We braced ourselves as the hammers fell, as the billhooks tore into our carefully calibrated spindle mechanisms, as the mallets smashed our very structure. We had to die, to sacrifice ourselves – it was the only thing left to us if we were to have solidarity with the people. How glorious we felt, despite our pain, our sadness!
***
No one speaks of the bravery of our sacrifice. They admire us as one of the steps towards ‘progress’, and in fact some of the machines survived and are still operating, even in the twenty-first century. But we are merely museum pieces now, weaving for show. If only those who come to admire us knew that we tried to stop them becoming slaves to technology. Machines far more sophisticated than us have been invented, are continually being improved upon, and are worshipped like gods. They call it new technology, but it’s the same old story.
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