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…’

‘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’

Ray continues to talk about the Unions and feels that the Union did well by their workers. The only thing he didn’t agree with was when they came out of Northern Ireland.

The staff  had paid holidays and before WWII everyone had the first week of August off.  Usually two or three days for Christmas, two days at Easter and a day at Whitsun.  Hosiery workers, he remarked have very good holidays 32 or 33 days a year – he remembers having 28 days holiday and rather than having more holidays he would have advocated  a pension scheme.  Generally speaking staff wages were quite a bit lower than pieceworkers, they were more regular, however.  He also felt that Staff had benefit of a better education.  Trimmers he felt had the hardest job, not physically but they had to deal with high temperatures - speed and application being a requisite of the job.  The job relied on piece rate.  As a legger he worked for one man and the trimmers could be quite abusive.  The trimmers had their own union.  The reason why Ray went to work as a legger was the money that could be earned – ‘it was the money that attracted his mother’.  He should have gone to grammar school but the family couldn’t afford the uniform, this was similar to a lot of other young people.  He did, however, go to evening classes at Hinckley Tech paying 7/6 a year but never got his City and Guilds because he did shift work.

Mr and Mrs Bateman met 61 years ago (at the time of the interview) they were both involved in athletics.  Mr Bateman had been a member of Nuneaton Harriers but he and three others started meeting at the Tech.  He also worked as a PT instructor, the Tech Junior Club which he ran won the Midlands Club championship (this was after the war).  Mr and Mrs Bateman loved dancing and met with friends at the Catholic Church and at Chesterfield House.  They had fancy dress parties, mainly at Christmas.  As a child Mrs Bateman remembers taking a bottle of water, jam sandwiches and ½d down to Burbage Common where they’d spend the day.  It was all innocent fun – ‘go out with a girl – a bit of snogging’.  Lots of parties and fancy dress which lasted until the war. They also went off on Ray’s motorbike.

Mrs Bateman remembers her mum playing the piano for the ‘6d Hop’ at Barwell Institute and this is where she learned to dance.  Going back to the ‘Monkey Run’ – there was no particular name they ‘paraded – ‘eying up the talent’ and Regent Street was the main street they walked along.  Ray remembers the A1 Candy Store where you could buy ¼oz of sweets for 6d, he particularly remembers the buttered Brazils.  After the parade they would go to the Regent pictures which cost 7d in the pit, 9d in the first part and 1s 3d upstairs.  They always had the front row (upstairs) on the left.  They did lots of walking.