大象传媒

I left school at 14 (1937) and had various jobs until I was 16 when I managed to get a job at ARISTOC at Langley Mill. That was the minimum age to work on shifts on the knitting machines. The hours were 6.am until 2.pm & 2pm until 10pm, and Saturdays 6.am until 12.pm alternate weeks, with half an hour break each shift. I was lucky, because after a short time I went on regular days, 7.15am until 5.15pm, with 1 hour break and Saturdays 7.15am until 12 mid-day. (49 3/4 hours). I say I was lucky because that is where I met my future wife. We were courting for 10 years, (including 5 years whilst I was in the army), then we got married and we had another 50 years together until, sadly, she died.

At christmas, pre-war, the company gave presents to all the employees. The men got a cockerel, the lads got 100 Players cigarettes, and the girls got a half pound box of chocolates. Obviously this stopped as the war went on.

My wage at 16 was 18 shillings (90 pence) and when I went in the army at 18 it had gone up to 21 shillings (拢1.05p), although we often got a tip from the man we worked for. I got 1 shilling & 6d but some only got 6d (2 1/2p), the knitters were earning between 拢10 and 拢14.

When we returned after the war we were still classed as lads, and were working as before but with a wage of 拢4 10s. This didn't suit some of the knitters, especially those who had not been in the forces, because they had 拢1 deducted from their wages to subsidise our wage.

Aristoc started a training scheme so that we could learn more of the intricacies of the machines and needle plying, a very important part of the job. We went to 'school' for one hour each week but some knitters didn't like that, in fact one man said that too many of us had come back.

Eventually, new machines arrived from America and the lads had the old machines. The company started giving christmas boxes again, this time a turkey for the men and 9 pairs of stockings for the girls. I can't remember what the lads got. This didn't last for long because of the way the turkeys were given out, one man with a family of 5 got a 7lb turkey and others (managers?) got 14lb turkeys, and obviously there were complaints. Then the christmas gifts changed to a bottle of Harveys Bristol Cream sherry for the men. Around this time we had some new seamfree machines, and some of us were transferred onto them. We were offered redundancy payments of 拢10 for every years service, I would have got 拢220, but as the pits were closing, there wasn't much chance of getting another job so I transferred. After about 18 months I had an accident and so was moved to the dispatch department.

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