Buffer Girls

Lyrics

1
When I got home from work,
I wanted to go to bed,
But I wasn’t allowed to go 
I had to work instead. 

Chorus
There’s so many things we’d love to learn,
But we don’t know how,
We’ve got to buff these knives and forks,
It’s got to be done now. 

2
When we go to work each day,
It’s so very hot,
Even when we have a break,
We never eat a lot.

3
We dream of big posh houses,
And marrying Dukes or Earls,
But we don’t get what we want,
We’re simple Buffer Girls. 

4
We wear brown paper aprons,
To keep our dresses clean,
But the dust gets up our nose,
And makes us want to scream. 

5
Our hands are always dirty,
Our faces often black,
I’d love to leave this awful job
I never would come back! 

This is a contemporary song about Yorkshire.

Provenance

Buffer Girls were part of the backbone of the Cutlery Industry in Sheffield and area, they were paid by results as piecework. The job entailed cleaning pewter or silverware on a swiftly rotating cloth wheel covered in buffing compound - a light abrasive. Buffing was always considered 'women's work' but it was still very hard and could be dangerous, small slivers of metal could be propelled toward the girl and cause cuts and possibly blindness, the wheel covered the girls in black compound and they usually wore brown paper aprons in a vain attempt to protect themselves. The song is an expression of the girls' wish to better themselves.

This song was produced as part of a schools-based industrial heritage project - for more information see industrial-heritage.epip.org.uk/