Mending the Ladder

A kitchen table in a terraced house in Altrincham on a winter evening, warm light from a pendant lamp with an opal glass shade, on a gingham oilcloth a small electric stocking repair machine, a squat bell-shaped cast base in blue-grey wrinkle lacquer on three brown rubber feet, its front plain and smooth, on top a large silver pulley wheel pierced with seven round holes around a bare hub, a vertical rod down into a ribbed chrome ring, a small motor with a belt at the back, a sheer skin-coloured nylon stocking stretched over the ring, a fine hooked needle at a run in the mesh, two woman's hands guiding it.