Laura

Monologue Laura I have had a terrible week so far, one of my good friends I work with at the mill got scalped, so she has lost all her hair. I almost broke a leg from falling down a large hill of bobbins as I was trying to fix one of the threads near the top. By the way my name is Victoria Potter and I live in Newport in the Isle of Whight, England.

My life is horrid, I have to work for Sir William, he is a bossy old man. He makes children work for twelve hours a day. My parents don’t love me they just wanted a child to yell at.

When I arrived at the factory. I was ten minutes late. I hope sir William wouldn’t catch me. I walked into my section of the mill and watched the bobbins go round. Even though my friend got scalped she still had to come to the mill. She stood in front of her bobbins and stared at the one that took her hair off. I was worried and scared. I didn’t want to end up like her. My hands trembled and were sweaty. My back and legs were sore from standing up all day. Sir William pushed the door open and stormed into the room. He yelled at me to come up to his office. I hurried up the stairs to his office. He told me that I would be moved away from my family and I would have to work in another textile mill.

Here I am now sitting in my bed, in my new home with six other girls.

I slowly walked to my new factory. When I opened the door, I looked at everyone and all of them at least had one injury. They stared back at me and were shocked that I didn’t have any scratches or bruises. My new boss came out of his office and came down to meet me. His name was Sir Joseph. He was old but not as grumpy as Sir William.

He showed me my new section of the mill where I had to work. I had to do a bit more work than in the old mill. I still had to fix threads and look at bobbins. There were a lot more bobbins in the new mill. I met a girl that seemed to be very nice, her name was Margaret. Now each day my legs get weaker and weaker. When I get older I probably won’t even be able to stand let alone walk. I will not be rich because I only get less than 0.02 of a pound a week. I usually get punished for nothing so my wage gets lowered. I wish to become president someday and stop child labour once and for all. He has just called me I better go, hope it isn’t a bad thing.