FORMER Telegraph & Argus employee Kath O’ Sullivan, who worked briefly at Hall Ings for a year until 1944, has published a novel called A Tisket A Tasket, set in the war years of 1939 to 1942.

It tells of a Yorkshire lass who falls in love with a German Jewish boy, a refugee from Hitler.

Of her time at the T&A she said: “I must have shown some ability at my interview, because a few days later I began work in the advertising department.

“Britain was desperately short of paper, which was imported from overseas. The T&A was rationed to two sheets daily, when folded these gave eight pages. Adverts were limited to four lines. I helped customers condense their ads to approximately 20 words. Obituary notices were six lines.

“We kept a book with verses suitable for the In Memoriam column. I found the people who placed these adverts the most difficult. They demanded more space and were often ill tempered.

“I counted words, worked out cost, collected the cash, and entered the transaction in a huge ledger, which sat on my desk. The completed form was inserted in a cylinder, then shoved into a monstrous noisy machine. A lever was pulled and the cylinder shot through the ceiling to the second floor where the advert was checked before being passed to the printers.

“At lunchtime some of us walked up Leeds Road to The British Restaurant in a church hall. British Restaurants sold hot meals at subsidised price and no food coupons were necessary. They were plain and wholesome, hot soup, sausage and mash, stew followed by pudding. A meal cost sixpence.

“We queued, ate at long trestle tables. I suffered frequent, sudden nosebleeds. One day, as I was bent over my bowl of soup, blood spouted. People laughed and asked, ‘How come your soup is red?’ I was embarrassed, but Fred lent me his big white handkerchief.

“In 1944 my wage increased to 29 shillings a week (approx £1.14p) which seemed a lot of money. Clothes were rationed. I think we each received 20 clothing coupons a year.

“My wardrobe consisted of a wool skirt, a couple of blouses, a raincoat and a pair of ‘Joyce’ lace-up shoes worn with ankle socks. Silk stockings were unobtainable unless you knew an American soldier, or a sailor who visited the USA.

“Women painted their legs with gravy browning to make it appear that they were wearing stockings. Some drew a seam up the back of their calves with an eyebrow pencil, because fully-fashioned stocking always had such a seam. There were tales of dogs licking the gravy browning off exposed legs, but I think they were jokes.”