Gillian Cocker was born in Rochdale in 1955. After two holidays on the Island, her parents sold their corner shop and moved the family, including her twin sisters, to Newport in July 1966. Gillian went to Priory Girls School.

Her mother joined Ronson’s around 1967, starting on the leak-testing water tank but spoon rising to supervisor. Gillian followed her to Ronson’s in 1970.

On the valve-to-shell line Gillian polished lighters on a spinning buffing mop. She became a float girl, then a rectifier, learning the coloured bands and codes for every fault in a lighter’s valves.

Piece work and the time-and-motion men kept the pressure on.

“They don’t speed up the belt, they move the little dots on the line a bit nearer.”

Her colleagues on rectification would club together to help anyone having an off day.

“There were about four of us on rectification, and if ever you were on an off day, they’d all club together and help you.”

At around 19-years-old, Gillian rode the Ronson’s carnival float around the Island’s carnivals. She also won the company’s top money-saving award, worth £750 and a trip to Holland, for an idea about flame setting.

She left just before closure and spent 20 years at J. Arthur Dixon next door.

“For 31 years I went through the same gates.”