The Sugar Girls of Love Lane cover art

The Sugar Girls of Love Lane

Tales of Love, Loss and Friendship from Tate & Lyle's Liverpool Refinery

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The Sugar Girls of Love Lane

By: Duncan Barrett, Nuala Calvi
Narrated by: Samantha Robinson
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In The Sugar Girls of Love Lane, Duncan Barrett and Nuala Calvi, the authors of the Sunday Times bestseller The Sugar Girls, tell the remarkable stories of those who worked at the famous Tate & Lyle factory in Liverpool.

For over a hundred years until it closed in 1981, Henry Tate’s flagship sugar refinery at Love Lane dominated the Liverpool skyline – and was the beating heart of the local community. More than 10,000 workers passed through the doors of the factory during its lifetime, with some families counting four or even five generations of service. Young women leaving school in the post-war years were drawn by the good wages and the unrivalled social life that Tate & Lyle offered.

When they arrived, they started at the very bottom, sweeping sugar off the floors, before graduating to packing and weighing by hand. The work was tough, with girls expected to stack heavy bags of sugar onto pallets five feet high, and by the end of the day their arms were aching and their stockings full of sugar dust. But, despite the hot, heavy work, they found their own ways of having fun, and the friendships they formed would last a lifetime. As well as the female friendships, many women met their future husbands at the factory, and expected their own children to follow in their footsteps.

Barrett and Calvi's social history of the post-war era casts a warm and nostalgic look back at one of the most iconic factories in the north, bringing back a vanished era of hard work, community spirit and simple pleasures.

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I really enjoyed this book. It spans three decades of Liverpool history through the stories of young women. The storytelling is great and by the time I got to the end i was as invested in the closure of the factories as the girls were. A really good listen

a lovely piece of history told through the personal stories of women

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Thoroughly enjoyed this and thought the reader was very good. It was really interesting to listen to this book and the history and the small individual stories from the perspective of the workers. This is the sort of book that would make a good little short series on the television as long as it stuck to the truth and didn't pad it out with all today's nonsense where they have to fill it up with rubbish that didn't happen or people that weren't there.

So not my type of book but enjoyed every minute

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Enjoyed the history of
a warm heart felt community
There was a real sense of pride and dedication from all who worked at the factory , the nostalgic feeling in each chapter bought a smile
And connection to each character whist reflecting on history.
Whist listening able to hear the hustle and bustle of the factory and get a real visual feeling of the place and the community and individuals who works there and the meaning this work place had on lives.
Also, the factory was prominent in a community and worked for the communities as well in the early days which for me bought nostalgia back to how life used to be growing up.

Really enjoyed this book

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Fantastic story telling, narrator really captured the era ,
Couldn’t stop listening to this audio book. So nostalgic.
Was sad when it finished.

Fantastic story telling

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