Recorded Memories

Eileen Robinson Interview. December 2000.
 

‘Midland Red bus, down A5 at five-minutes-past-seven straight to the café for a cup of tea, got to Hinckley about half-past-seven, didn’t start work till 8’

At the time of the interview Eileen was working at HJ Hall’s. We looked at various hosiery photos while Eileen chatted about her working life. Eileen was from Atherstone originally and worked in a few local factories before coming to Hinckley. She didn’t want to work in a factory, she would have liked to have been a nurse and had been a member of the St John’s Ambulance Brigade from being young. Her father, however, gave her no choicer, she finished school on the Friday and started work the following Monday at George Ward’s which had factories in Atherstone and Mancetter. Eileen didn’t like the old factory buildings commenting that she thought the Atkins building was ‘old and decrepit’ just horrible. Her first job in Hinckley was at Hinckley Knit learning the linking which she found very difficult, ‘Just one part I couldn’t do, couldn’t see to get the stitches on the needles’. From Hinckley Knit she went to Samuel Davies, where she worked on the steam press and stayed there for two months. She was still living in Atherstone at the time and would catch the Midland Red from Atherstone to Hinckley arriving in Hinckley at 7.30.

According to Eileen Hinckley factories were much stricter places than those found in Atherstone. She talked about the ‘Shrove Tuesday Ball’, an event that took place in Atherstone every Shrove Tuesday – all the shops boarded up and the whole town turns out - ‘a right mad crazy day’. Someone famous performing at a Coventry theatre was asked to start the ‘Ball’ - he/she would throw a football out of a pub window, the ball had ribbons tied to it and the idea was to get the ribbons off the ball. Two big Atherstone families always took part and one or the other of these families usually won. The carnivals in Atherstone were noisier than the one’s in Hinckley. Eileen also spoke about the Christmas parties they had at factories in Atherstone - the last day at work - work for an hour-or-two and then every machine was switched off and they had ‘booze and food and the bosses all joined in - came to Hinckley and that was me first one, Hinckley Knit, you don’t get drunk ‘cause you get locked out - the miserable lot!’ They do have a little party at Hall’s but nothing like it used to be – one bottle of wine between four.
Eileen remembers when still living in Atherstone and working at J L Vero’s slipper factory, they had an annual trip to London and always went to Battersea Fun Fair on ‘All Stars Day’ - film stars, pop stars - and the stars all wore badges saying who they were - ‘brilliant day out’. One of the women in the factory made Eileen a lovely dress and they took her to a pub and told her not to say anything because she was 16 and she remembers being chatted up by ‘a gorgeous fella’. Eileen did the first aid at various factories she worked at and at J L Vero’s the boss had an accident and lost his finger and she was able to save it. She also became an auxiliary nurse at Sunnyside hospital for a short time.

Still looking at photos she comments on one of the photos where all the girls are drinking beer out of bottles ‘All on the bottle - look’ and they are all wearing turbans. Eileen wore a turban but it would have been late 1950s early 1960s, ‘You had your rollers in, headscarf on, you did it in points [headscarf]…going to work with your rollers in, that’s disgusting!’ Another photo looking at a Tacatori machine at Flude’s, Eileen went for an interview as a Tacatori operative ‘Everything I do turns into a comedy act! The interview was at Lucas’s on Factory Road - she was too short and was given a duck-board to stand on and then she was told she was too high up - the tacatori is in constant motion and tights are fitted on to machine as it’s going round but Eileen kept stopping the machine ‘and knackering the machine up’. Over the years Eileen had numerous jobs at lots of different factories and looking at a photo of circular knitting machines – she worked at a very small factory on New Street, about half-a-dozen people worked there, where the knitting machines looked as if they came out of the ‘ark’ and while machining she would have to keep an eye on the knitting machines and shout to the boss to tell him that a yarn was running out.
We continue to look at photos and Eileen comments on the hairstyles - she used to have her hair ‘up in a French pleat’. She went for an interview at Manchester Hosiery but the money was no good, ‘It can’t be a bad place to work though because people stay there for years and years and years’.

Eileen at the time of the interview was on time rate and she did all the ‘get-up’, ‘You examine it [sock] as you are picking it up – you’ve got your socks in a pile, quite tidy, and you look at it and scan it and as you pick it up and put it down you are putting it the other way up so you are looking at it both sides. It’s quite a hard job to remember, it takes a long, long time before you remember everything’. Eileen thinks the rat race has got faster not slower. ‘You cannot slow down…you’re just shattered’.