The Plywood Row

An assembly hall of a car factory near Oxford on a winter night, timber roof beams, hanging electric lamps, in front a row of four new respirator cabinets, each a long plywood box painted cream-white, one metre ninety long, tapering toward the head end, along the flank three round hinged aluminium lids on chains, a clamp latch, on top two round windows and a grey tubular bow with a small round gauge, plain with a bare pointer, below a cream tubular frame with crossed struts on castors, a worker in a brown cotton coat seen from directly behind, face turned fully away, fitting a lid, unpainted car bodies on trestles behind.