Recorded Memories

Neville Evans Interview. February 1998.

‘At one time in the hosiery we must have been the best paid pieceworkers in the Midlands…we got terrific holiday pay’

'A hosiery factory up about every entry - 100s of them -
that's why there were so many girls worked from Nuneaton'

One reason for earning such good money, Neville could do 98% of his own repairs on his knitting machines stressing, however, he had always been a hard worker.

In the early days he did two-12 hour shifts, alternating between day and night shifts and in latter years worked on a 3-shift system.

Neville speaks with great enthusiasm about his working life adding snippets of local history and family history. He talks about the messing about and also how girls would be thrown into skips and tied to lamp posts in pre-marriage rituals.

Bennett Brothers Hosiery Manufacturers and Dyers, he felt was a good firm to work for, one of the best. It had its own reservoir, filled with carp by one of the directors, the water being used in the dying process.