Recorded Memories

Maureen Smart Interviews. 1997 & 1998.

'Forty-six years working at Flude Hosiery from the mid 1940s.

Continually adapting to change and working as a factory union rep:’

'They’ll never cut out fully fashioned seaming, there’ll always be fully fashioned stockings – foolish!’

‘Fully fashioned seamers were hard to get - good ones – a very very precise job, every detail had to be just right…I went from cotton, lisle, rayon, pure silk and gradually nylon…’

‘We’d thrash things out, I’ll never give in…it had to suit me…we’d come to some amicable agreement…with no animosity on both sides…’

‘There weren’t much else [hosiery], they were quite clever but to have gone on to grammar school or ought like that, you’d have to pay and they [parents] couldn’t afford it’

‘Second year I went [Jersey] I was 21 in the September – still on rationing then – I wanted a party…I parcelled my clothes up and sent them home…and brought back food in my case, my landlady got me some ham…’