Recorded Memories

Mr & Mrs Bateman Interviews. October 1998.

A variety of jobs in the hosiery including full time union rep and other memories 1934-1980s:‘Most of the bosses were working me who saved enough money to buy a set of machines…’

‘From Simpkin, Son & Emery I went to Hood & Mason in the trim shop…as a legger…the pay rate so much better – 15s a week as opposed to 7s 9d at Simpkin, Son & Emery as a trainee warehouse boy’

‘Went to [union] meeting about full fashioned, I opened me mouth, I didn’t agree with what the union was doing.  When I got back to the factory the blokes decided I’d got to be their representative’

‘At one time there was a list got out by the union for all the different jobs and that list was stuck to but later on they introduced work study…’

‘We used to have parties in our teenage years, we’d go out to one another’s houses and play all sorts of games…never any trouble…it lasted till the war – we had the best years’