Start gifting
Libro.fm for Business
Start a membership, get two free audiobooks
Almost ready!
In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.
Log in Create account
Limited-time offer
Get two free audiobooks when you make the switch!
Now’s a great time to shop indie. When you start a new membership supporting local bookstores with promo code SWITCH, we’ll give you two bonus audiobook credits at sign-up.
Make the switch
Gift audiobook credit bundles
You pick the number of credits, your recipient picks the audiobooks, and your local bookstore is supported by your purchase.
Start giftingThe Biscuit Girls
This audiobook uses AI narration.
We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.
Learn moreIvy, Dulcie, Barbara, Ann, Dorothy and Jean all had different reasons for applying to work at Carr’s biscuits, but once they had put on their overalls and walked through the factory gates they discovered a community full of life, laughter and friendship.
To those who didn’t know, the biscuit factory that towered over Carlisle might look like just another slice of the industrial North, a noisy and chaotic place with workers trooping in and out at all hours. For the biscuit girls it was a place where they worked hard, but also where they gossiped, got into scrapes and made lifelong friends. Outside the factory walls there might be difficult husbands or demanding kids, and sometimes even heartbreak and tragedy, but they knew there would always be an escape from their troubles at Carr's.
Some, like Barbara, only applied because she needed the extra cash, until things got a bit easier at home. Her supervisor cross examined her about who would be looking after the kids while she was at work, but let her have the job. Like many of the women who joined up ‘temporary’ Barbara went on to stay at Carrs for 32 years.
Beginning in the 1940s, these heartwarming and vividly-remembered stories have all been told by the women themselves to Hunter Davies.
HUNTER DAVIES is the author of the only ever authorised biography of The Beatles, still in print in almost every country in the world. In 2012 he edited The Lennon Letters, published in 20 different foreign countries, and in 2014 The Beatles Lyrics. He wrote the first book about the Quarrymen. Plus forty other non-Beatly books, including novels, biographies, travel and children’s books. As a journalist, he has a column in the Sunday Times about money and in the New Statesman about football.
SPENCER LEIGH is the author of 25 books, most of them connected with The Beatles or popular music. He writes music obituaries for the Independent and for 25 years has had his own music programme on BBC Radio Merseyside.
KEITH BADMAN is an author, journalist and film and video archives researcher. He has written or contributed to ten books about popular music, including four on The Beatles, and been a columnist for Record Collector magazine for 20 years. He assisted with the archive film and video research on The Beatles Anthology series.
DAVID BEDFORD is the author of two books about the beginnings and history of The Beatles in Liverpool. He is currently Chairman of the Governors at Dovedale Juniors, the Liverpool school attended by John Lennon and George Harrison.