Recorded Memories

Susan Judd Interview. September 1997.
 

Work, Fun and Friendship in the hosiery 1967 to 1981:

'Records played in an afternoon - Elvis, Gene Pitney...'

'...girls coming in their curlers, at 5-to-5 switch off their machines, take out their
curlers and backcomb their hair'

Susan has lived in Earl Shilton all her life and reads from a script and answers questions from a questionnaire about her working life in the local hosiery industry.
She went straight to the factory at the age of 15 in 1967 and worked in the hosiery industry until her first child was born in 1982.

During her working life Susan worked as an overlocker; also on a buttonhole machine and chats about the problems one woman in particular encountered while operating this temperamental machine; She also talks about the Rosso machine and problems encountered; she talks about the social aspects of factory life – dressing up the bride to be, playing records and how the girls went to work in their curlers and backcombed their hair into ‘bird’s nests’.

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