Recorded Memories

Ron Massey Interview. November 2000

‘They took the first letter of each of their names Ritchsteiger – R and Gildersgame – G and made it Argee Company.
That was way back in the 1920s…’

‘[Argee after 1985] became a satellite…purely manufacturing [Argee pre 1985] held their own stocks of fabric,
cut their own fabric [after 1985] the work was delivered as ‘cut work’…only machining going on’

Ron talked about a woman who had worked for the company for quite a number of years, she had originally applied for a job in the canteen but was deemed not suitable for this, she was an epileptic, and had never worked before coming to the Argee. A job was found for her winding lace. But any job that wanted doing she would do, for example a bundle of work would be examined...you needed somebody to chase the order otherwise the bundle would be stuck downstairs and wouldn’t get out to distribution and she would be the one one who did this. She worked for the firm for many years – this is an example of the very happy atmosphere in the factory, she was happy – ‘so willing, just given an opportunity’.

Pressures did grow with the changing times, for instance when Ron first started at the Argee the accounts were done annually, the accounting year ended on 31st December and it was difficult to get someone to value the stock in order to finalise the accounts and probably the accounts didn’t go out until June the following year. Latterly, Ron noted that final accounts were being done monthly. The business was run on much tighter lines. Everything had to be costed. This applied to all companies and an example given of costing in the boot and shoe industry – they made a pair of shoes – ‘what shall we charge?’, ‘They look like a 9/11 pair to me’. Not a clue of what they cost to make. As time went on, however, costing became very important – you knew exactly how much fabric you were using etc. And yes pressure built up – people wanted more and more information.

Marks and Spencer, a tragedy, an absolute tragedy because they had very simple rules of how to run a business – they knew everything that was going on, every week a director would visit a store, they also had teams visit stores and if there was anything wrong, then everything came back and that was quality control. Now (at time of interview) most of the garments are sourced from overseas and there isn’t the same control. Marks and Spencer noted for their quality. They would come to factory and watch the whole manufacturing process, they’d take garments from staff and measure and test them, there would also be ‘wearer trials’. Give a girl a garment to wear for a week – ‘how did you get on with it, any problems?’ It was all very interesting. A special light cabinet was used to examine colours – each component of a garment once dyed could turn out a different colour. Each component was tested separately, for eg, a trim lace for hem, different piece of lace for the top, there might be elastic – all had to be examined in this light cabinet to a ‘matching standard that Marks and Spencer had submitted to you’. Black is a very good example, you could have a red-black, a green black, a blue-black according to the amount of dyes put in. The Argee made ladies slips - full length slips and waist slips.

There were probably about 80 people working at the Argee after Ron left to work in Derby in 1985. The Earl Shilton factory became a satellite and was purely manufacturing – machining. Before Courtaulds had introduced the changes the Argee had held their own stocks of fabric and cut their own fabric. After Ron had left the cut work was supplied to the factory ready to be machined.

With the introduction of safety at work pattern cutters were given chain mail gloves to wear. The older hands refused to wear these gloves ‘you can’t handle it [fabric]’. In the old days patterns were made at the factory out of a stiff cartridge paper. Mrs Massey joined us for a short while commenting that Earl Shilton was quite a wealthy area and that all the women worked because there was always work in the hosiery and boot shoe.

In the early days all the elderly ladies worked in the finishing room examining – every garment had to be examined – threads cut off - it was a sitting down job. But examining had to change with the times and women used to stand and examine garments on boards, similar to ironing boards – it was amazing how they were able to see the flaws. The women working in the finishing room were on timework because time wasn’t ‘the crucial thing’, the crucial thing was to examine the garment properly. New girls were examined by the local doctor, Dr Cooke. Ron also remembers that at one time they would be fighting for labour, there was so much work about. It was vital to have a stable workforce. There was a problem that Ron does remember, a company came from Leicester and set up business in Barwell and they displayed big advertisements and some girls were tempted to leave. They were perhaps tempted by higher wages. But to lose 10 girls out of about 60-70 machinists could cause a problem with production. Some girls were very skilful and learnt quickly. Ron remembers Training Boards were set up but he felt this was more of a paper exercise – the best way to learn a job was ‘sitting next to Nellie’ by watching and sitting and learning to do the job. Some girls were more skilful than others ‘a joy to watch’. Everyone was valued by the contribution they made. Pierre Gildesgame had a London office where he worked two or three days a week. Ron spent the last 2½ years working in Derby and didn’t find the factory such a happy place as the Earl Shilton factory.

During his working life he never came across sexual harassment in the factory and he would have ‘stamped on it’. The only time he experienced anything was at the Derby factory at Christmas’ and it wasn’t the men, you had to lock yourself away, at Christmas, when the girls had had a drink because ‘debagging’ was going on all over the factory’. It was all good fun, Christmas time they all let their hair down, Ron commenting that ‘not enough laughing goes on’.

We finished the interview by looking at photos. Ron noting that in the early days the girls worked on long benches but that changed to individual machines that could be moved around.