Has anyone still got ink beneath their fingernails from working for Coates Brothers in London, more than half a century ago. If so Jennifer Solomon wants to know.

The former ‘tackometer’ operator, now 71 and living in suburban Sydney, is putting a scrapbook together after having already written her autobiography.

As Jennifer Fairhurst, she went from school to work at the ink factory in Easton Street between 1957-59. “I’d really enjoyed physics and chemistry and had thoughts of going into research, but my father made it quite clear that I was to leave school,” she says. “I could think of nothing more boring than commerce, but jobs were plentiful, and I soon had a job.”

The first female in the company’s laboratories, she joined a team of 15 young men – all but one of whom (Terry Scarlett) were single – and operated a machine that tested the stickiness of the ink. “My boss, Mr. Burton, had given them strict instructions that they were not to swear or tell off-colour jokes in my presence,” she says. “I was a bit unsure of myself around men and boys but they treated me like a younger sister.”

Having learned the job, she soon got to know everyone in the other labs as they came to have ink samples tested. “There was Derek Greenland from the Australia branch, and Fergus from New Zealand,” she says, “and Burford Cuppa (what kind of name is that?) a Londoner a little older that the rest. And a boy with glasses who had a motorbike and gave me a lift to the station one day: I declined further offers.”

Jennifer Solomon recalls enrolling in letterpress printing and inks and colour at evening school – “the tackometer was not enough to keep me occupied all day,” she says – and learning of colour matching, and the codes each colour had… like SM1108, a varnish in most inks, called ‘sm'llot’ for short.

When a second girl was employed to share the job and colour matching, Jennifer says she wasn’t sure about sharing ‘her boys’… but instead struck up a strong friendship.

“Friday afternoon was skiffle time and after lunch there was usually some test ink being made and put through the big rollers,” she says. “We would gather round and someone would have a homemade skiffle board and another would play an improvised drum and we all sang Lonnie Donegan skiffle songs and whatever else was popular at the time. “The bosses didn't mind at all, probably because there was such a good work atmosphere and usually we all worked hard and everyone was happy.”

Solomon says she met her first ‘real boyfriend’, Keith Reekie at the works – a relationship interrupted by national service – and later David Lucas, known as ‘Big Fred’, who was to become her first husband. The couple married in Lagos, Nigeria, and moved to South Africa and Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) before emigrating to Australia in 1970.

“I have not been involved in any way with inks since, but my time at Coates holds some very precious memories for me,” she says.

• If any of the above strikes a chord, and you would like to catch up with Jennifer Solomon again, drop an email to GXpress at mpcmedia@ozemail.com.au