“There was something disturbing about his expressionless face. The fair, straight hair, the shrill eyes, the droop of the mouth. He picked up a pen and began doodling. A circle. Then another and another. And suddenly the eyes, withdrawn, opened wide. The dead mask of the face was swept away. The smile was sudden and electric”

The Dyehouse is the first of only three novels ever written by Australian author, Mena (Philomena) Calthorpe. It was first published in 1961, and this Text Classics edition (which is their 100th Text Classics book) sports a gorgeous colourful cover by the talented W H Chong, and an introduction by Fiona McFarlane.

It is set in post-war Sydney, a supposedly fictitious suburb called Macdonaldtown, the site of many factories including the dyehouse of the Southern Textiles Dye Works. It takes intimate dips into the lives of the employees: the office ladies, the manager, the pressers, the Company Secretary, the head dyer, the General Manager, the engineer, the Chairman of Directors, the setters.

Competition and changes wrought by the introduction of nylon and the difficulty it presents to dyers underlie the dramas in the lives of the dyehouse employees: a late-in life pregnancy, a seduction, unrequited love, poverty, the threat of unemployment. Calthorpe highlights the management’s “us and them” mindset.

Poor working conditions, compete and callous disregard by management of employee loyalty, experience and expertise, management’s lack of compassion, sexual harassment, all fuel the imminent industrial action that is hinted at but does not yet happen. Calthorpe’s personal experience working in a textile factory is apparent on every page.

Calthorpe describes a time when ladies always wore hats and gloves and stockings, when all records were written by hand, when a telephone call was almost an event, when few owned cars and most walked or took public transport, when calculations were done by adding machine. This will undoubtedly resonate with readers of a certain vintage

Her descriptive prose is economical and evocative: “To the south of the sandy waste a row of dilapidated houses with broken windows looked out to the sea. In these shambles human beings lived. They went to work. They were known in factory and mill. They helped create beauty and colour that found no echo in their own lives” This is an impressive debut that was unquestionably topical when it was first published fifty-five years ago.