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examined. The doctor listened to her chest, speaking only to say, ‘Breathe in’ or ‘Breathe out.’ He tested her sight and her reflexes. He examined her feet closely and then weighed and measured her.
    ‘You may get dressed,’ he said curtly as he sat down at his desk, picked up his pen and began to write. When she was ready he merely nodded and said, ‘You may go.’
    ‘Have I passed?’ Rose asked eagerly.
    ‘You’ll be informed,’ the doctor said stiffly. Rose left the room, raising her eyes skywards as she passed the woman now seated back at her desk. The woman smiled and gave the tiniest of nods to show that she understood and empathized. Rose went back to the room where eight other women who had also applied to become clippies were waiting for their turn to be examined.
    ‘He’s an old goat,’ Rose said, as she sat down beside a girl who didn’t look old enough to have left school, let alone become a tram conductress. She looked nervous and agitated, twisting her fingers together in her lap. Rose took pity on her. ‘Like me to come in with you? He seems to want another woman there when he’s examining someone.’
    Relief flooded the girl’s face. ‘Oh, would you? My husband would have come, but he’s away in the army.’
    Husband! Rose nearly fell off her chair and before she could stop herself, the words were out of her mouth. ‘You’re married?’ Nor could she stop the surprise in her tone. The girl must have been used to such comments, for she smiled shyly and said, ‘I’m older than I look. I’ll be twenty next month. We – we got married in April this year.’ Now she looked away, as if embarrassed, and avoided meeting Rose’s gaze. Instead, she murmured, ‘My name’s Alice. Alice Wagstaffe.’
    ‘And I’m Rose Sylvester. Pleased to meet you.’
    When Alice was called in to see the doctor, Rose got up too and followed her in. ‘I thought I’d save the secretary the trouble of coming in again.’
    The doctor glared at her for a moment, grunted something unintelligible and then got on with his examination of Alice, ignoring Rose completely.
    ‘Phew!’ Alice said, as they stepped out of the room a little while later. ‘Thank goodness that’s over. But now we’ve got the mental tests to get through.’
    ‘They’ll be dead easy,’ Rose said confidently as the nine women were taken to a large room, where the secretary was waiting for them. She smiled as the applicants filed in.
    ‘My name is Mrs Kerr. Please sit down.’ She waved towards the chairs set around a large table in the centre of the room. Then she handed out sheets of paper and pencils.
    ‘Write your name at the top, please.’ She sat down at the end of the table and began to read out sums, giving only a short space of time between each question.
    ‘156 tickets at 7 1 ⁄2 pence . . . 67 at a ha’penny . . . 942 at 2 1 ⁄2 pence . . .’ There were twenty such sums to do quickly. Rose was the first to finish and sat with her arms folded. She felt as if she was back at school and looked up expectantly for the teacher’s praise, but more sums were to come. Additions, subtractions and more multiplication. When all the candidates had done as many as they could manage, the woman collected the papers, smiled at them briefly and left the room, saying, ‘I’ll be taking each one of you individually for an interview. Please wait here until you are called.’
    ‘By ’eck,’ a middle-aged woman said as the door closed. ‘I didn’t reckon on all this. I couldn’t do them sums for toffee. What about you lot?’
    One or two others nodded agreement, but those who had found the arithmetic tests quite easy – Rose amongst them – said nothing. They didn’t want to sound boastful. One by one they were called out of the room and were away for about ten minutes. When Rose’s name was called, she followed Mrs Kerr into a smaller room. Behind the desk, set in the centre of the room, sat a man of about forty dressed in