Play to the End by Robert Goddard Page A

breaking over Brighton on a chill March morning circa 1930, as he approaches his destination. He is familiar with his surroundings. There is the railway line behind him, emerging from a cutting. A train may be chugging east along the track, belching steam as it accelerates away from London Road Station. To his left is the ivy-clad brick wall enclosing the Jewish cemetery. Ahead, on lower ground, is the slaughterhouse, where at that moment doomed creatures are very possibly being unloaded from a line of trucks shunted onto the siding that also serves Colbonite. Behind the slaughterhouse, smoke is rising from the chimney of the corporation's so-called dust destructor, where the collected refuse of Brighton is daily reduced to ashes. It is not a pleasing vista, though no doubt any vista is pleasing to a man such as my grandfather, who survived four years on the Western Front during the First World War the Great War, as he always called it. (He remained grateful to old Mr. Colborn for keeping his job open for him during the hostilities.)

    He looks to his right as he rounds the bend in the lane and sees Colbonite's brick-built workshops, roofed in corrugated iron. He turns in past the company sign colbonite Ltd, plastics manufacturer, est.
    1883. He nods to the gate man and proceeds across the yard towards the shed where his clogs and leggings are stored. He has arrived.

    The first chapter of this history will attempt to recreate in detail the kind of experience an average working day for an average employee of Colbonite such as my grandfather would have been at this time. Later chapters will consider the company's efforts to keep pace with changes in the plastics industry worldwide and how these affected the workforce. The closing chapters will analyse the circumstances leading to the closure of the company in 1989 and the fate of those who found themselves out of work as a result.

    Mmm. An 'average working day' for an 'average employee' of a defunct plastics company more than seventy years ago. I'm not sure I want to know about that. I'm not sure anyone does. I'm even less sure that Moira will be willing to try and sell it. Sorry, Derek. I don't think we're onto a winner here.

    I'm suddenly weary. Wearier than I would have been if I'd done my stuff at the theatre this evening. It's been a long day. And a strange one. It's time to call it a night.

TUESDAY
    Tired as I may have been last night, I woke early this morning, roused as much as anything by queasy anticipation of the recriminations that were bound to flow from my no-show. A strategy of sorts evolved as I showered and shaved. It amounted to pre-emptive grovelling.

    First, I wanted The Plastic Men off my conscience, though. I scrawled an explanatory note to Moira (that was naturally less than comprehensive in its coverage of recent events) and reached the St.
    James's Street post office just after it had opened. I bought a large jiffy bag, stuffed the note and the manuscript inside and despatched the lot to my esteemed agent by recorded delivery. She'll receive it by noon tomorrow.

    The morning was dry but drearily overcast. Brighton needs sunshine to look even close to its best. In its continued absence, I plodded down to the sea front and struck west towards the Belgrave Hotel, where I knew Brian Sallis to be staying. (Along, theoretically, with Mandy Pringle, although in practice she was almost certainly tucked up with Donohue at the Metropole.) My plan was to catch Brian early, perhaps over breakfast, before he'd properly remembered how angry he was with me.

    But his day turned out to be further advanced than I'd expected. As I neared the Belgrave, I spotted him ahead of me on the promenade, dressed in jogging kit and using the railings above the beach for a hamstring-stretching routine prior to reeling off a brisk few miles along the front. I hailed him.

    His first reaction was surprise. Then came puzzlement. Followed shortly by exasperation. "Good morning,