Simon [00:00:00]: Simon Perry here in Ryde at Department, and this is part of the Flame Keepers Oral History Project, talking about the Ronsons factory in Newport, Isle of Wight. And today is the 21st May, 2026 And what’s your name?
Gillian [00:00:21]: I’m Gillian Cocker.
Simon [00:00:23]: And Gillian was that what were you, was that name you were born with, or did you change your name when you got married?
Gillian [00:00:32]: It’s the name I was born with. I’ve never been married, so I’ve kept the Cocker.
Simon [00:00:38]: And where were you born?
Gillian [00:00:39]: Rochdale, just outside Manchester, in 1955.
Simon [00:00:46]: Okay, and what did your mum and dad do?
Gillian [00:00:51]: My mum at the time, she worked in Crown Wallpaper in one of the shops, selling the paints and the paper, and my father were a plumber.
Simon [00:01:03]: And what was what was growing up like?
Gillian [00:01:05]: It was great. It was okay. In the end, my mum, after having the twins, I’ve got twin sisters, they decided to buy a little corner shop, and my mum had to look after the twins, get them up, get them ready for it’s like a nursery school, and they were very young when they went there, and my dad was still in plumbing, and they decided to buy the shop together, and my mum would work in the shop from 9 o’clock in the morning to about 6 o’clock in the evening, and then when my dad came home and have the dinner, he would then take over in the shop till about half ten, because it was not only just a sweet shop, but it were, had the pub hours, it were a licenced shop. My mum and dad wanted to go on holiday, and we came down here in, think it was 64 and they liked it down here so they came again the year after in 65 and in going back to Rochdale my parents decided that they’d like to live down here so what they did, they put the house up and the shop up for sale, and my dad had the county press sent to him, and within a month we were living on the Isle of Wight.
Simon [00:02:57]: Wow.
Gillian [00:02:57]: That’s how quick it were. We were going to live in Wroxall. Mum and Dad had spotted a house that they liked, and my dad then took an interview with the Water Authority, and at the end of the interview they said to me Dad, there’s a house with the job, but if you ever leave the job, you can stay where you are. We don’t throw you out. That house will be yours to rent. So me dad liked that idea. So that’s how we sold the shop quickly, and we came down, and we came down on 4th July 1966.
Simon [00:03:45]: Goodness.
Gillian [00:03:47]: I was a bit young to start the high school, but I were ready for it in the September, and the twins went to a little priory school when they came here on Clatterford Road. They’ve used that field as a football field, but it was known as a little nursery school, where they went there ’til they started at primary, and I went in the September straight to the secondary modern, which was Priory Girls School, and I were there for the four years.
Simon [00:04:28]: And what was, I mean, the shop sounds really hard work. Is that why they thought, well, move down to the Island? It might be…
Gillian [00:04:36]: Things were changing, supermarkets were coming in, and my dad used to make his own little delivery every Friday, pack the, he bought a little van, and he packed the van out on a Friday, and go off with his deliveries to people that took orders, and.. and yeah, and then all of a sudden supermarkets opened left, right, and centre, and it was time to go, you know. So, Mum and Dad said, “Right, we’re off.” So that’s when they decided what they’d do, and get my dad a job down here on the waterboard.
Simon [00:05:16]: And that’s obviously normal hours. You don’t have to be working to 10 o’clock at night.
Gillian [00:05:23]: No. Me mum, after a few months of settling in at home and getting it all ready, she then decided to go and have an interview for Ronson, so she started about ’67 I think, yeah, and then she worked her way up to being one of the supervisors.
Simon [00:05:46]: What was she doing when she first got there? Do you know?
Gillian [00:05:49]: Yes, she was on the water tank. Used to hear all stories about the water tank. It had a track running through the tank. You fed your lighters on a track, like what you get on a big bulldozer, like that, and you feed your lighters and put a little weight on them, which was like a little nut, put the little weight on them, and if they floated, they needed refilling with gas, which were there, on mass big tank and then they go right through the tank and if they were leaking you’d see little air bubbles coming up and then you put them to one side with a coloured band on it and that coloured band would you know if it was coming from the top valve, where your flame comes out, or the bottom valve, where you fill it, and they’d go in a separate area, and then when you get a batch, which is usually four trays with 25 lighters in each tray, then they’d go on to the next stage for somebody to repair them. And there’d be two people at the back of the tank, and they’d be drying them off with an air gun and putting them ready for the next stage, which is going to flame set.
Simon [00:07:16]: So you don’t have to remember the colours of the band that meant top and bottom?
Gillian [00:07:21]: Yeah, black was for the bottom, grey was for also the bottom, but I think it was meaning that it were a different something wrong with the bottom, you had green for the top burner valve, you had blue for the stem, and you had orange for the orifice round it, the little washer, and I learnt all that because they put me on rectification, which was you got batches and batches of all the lighters from all different parts of the factory, and they’d write on a little ticket if it were anything to do with a top valve, like FSO was a Faulty Shut Off that would be blue. Orange for the washer around the burn valve, and green a bit, a bit lower down, that would be leaking, and yeah, you get to know all the little alphabet things on it, yeah, it were good, it were good.
Simon [00:08:39]: So that you then, well, there’s the tank bit, maybe we’ll come back to talking about the tank, and let’s talk about the rectification then. You’re saying not only from the water tank, but from wherever it was in the production line, faults were found and tickets were written.
Gillian [00:08:56]: Yeah and they’d come back to rectification.
Simon [00:08:58]: So the people that worked in rectification had to know the whole process inside out to be able to dismantle what was faulty, and then rebuild it?
Gillian [00:09:08]: What was happening, it wasn’t anything mechanical, you know, like the flint, the wheel, the top that screwed onto the top. It was nothing like that. I was on rectification for the burner valve and the inlet valve, top or bottom. The other bit were, if they were rejected, then that would be a different direction. I didn’t work on the bigger lines that were flame setters or repairing bits, but I did work in valve to shell when I first went there, and that’s where I had the accident with the buffing wheel.
Simon [00:09:53]: Right, well, let’s talk about that as well. Yeah, so that the valve to shell was meant that we’re taking the…
Gillian [00:10:01]: The empty shell, that had come from the sand blaster, so they’re a bit shiny when they come in.
Simon [00:10:10]: Is it plastic or metal?
Gillian [00:10:12]: Plastic, and there’s nothing in them, but they get plugged top and bottom, so the sand doesn’t go through, and then they go in a sanding machine in ancillary. I don’t know quite how that works, but they get sandblasted, then they come out, and then they’re prepared, then to go on the line, and on the line you’ve got a feeder that puts the valve in the top and puts them on the spot on the line, and the two spots together about what, about a foot apart. Then they go on to the lady that would hand tighten that valve, because it’s only put in, so she would then hand tighten that and then turn it upside down and tuck the little wick that could be hanging out at the bottom, in the lighter, so she puts it back on the line and then somebody after her picks it up and puts the inlet valve in.
Simon [00:11:19]: That’s a sort of rubber thing, is it?
Gillian [00:11:21]: No, it’s metal. It’s got a washer on it, but it’s just metal with like a needle coming out.
Simon [00:11:28]: So the gas canister can fit onto it?
Gillian [00:11:30]: That’s it.
Simon [00:11:31]: Gotcha.
Gillian [00:11:32]: So then it goes back on the spot again, and then we move on to the filler, and it were an automatic filler, it were quite a biggish tank, because it’s got to take all that butane gas away, so you put it in the cradle and you bring down the handle of the gas filler, let go, and it will spring back up after about five seconds, which they reckon would fill it, be enough to fill it. It goes back on the line, and then this is where I came in on the, on the, I forgot what I called it. The cleaning?
Simon [00:12:18]: Oh, the buffer.
Gillian [00:12:20]: Yeah, and then you pick one lighter up, make sure you’ve got some silicon on your brush, put it on the wheel ..
Simon [00:12:32]: So that’s separate to any equipment, the brush?
Gillian [00:12:35]: Yeah, it’s just a wire brush, a narrow brush, bit like that on a wooden handle, and you just whack it on and let the silicon get in, put it in, and do that, put it back on the spot. Take your next one. So then it’s on the spot. We’re halfway down the line now, and now it goes to the flame setter, there’s four of them, two on each side, because with what they’ve got to do, the spot is too near to, they’d have a pile up if they were doing what they had to do to that lighter for flame setting, it would be too long, so they’ve got four on.
Simon [00:13:23]: To keep up with all of the stuff coming out?
Gillian [00:13:26]: Yeah, yeah, you’ve got to keep up with that line, you don’t switch it off for nothing. They’re even waiting for you coming back from the canteen when the bell has gone, come on, hurry up, you’re late, so anyway, yeah, so then they flame set it, they put the fork in, and that denotes how much gas is coming in. If it’s coming out like that …
Simon [00:13:51]: So if the flame is very tall?
Gillian [00:13:53]: Well, no, you haven’t lit it yet, you’ve got to put the fork in to test it, and if it is high, that’s gonna be. So you’ve got a little chimney, they’re only little tools, not bigger than them.
Simon [00:14:06]: What’s that, like a couple inches?
Gillian [00:14:08]: Yeah, right. And it’s circular, you’ve got your little handle, and you put it over the top of the burn valve, and you control it by turning down that pressure that you’ve got, and then when it’s gone, the pressure bit further down, you’ve got a bomb, which is a table lighter with the innards took out with just your bomb sat on your bench rather than the whole table lighter, yeah, and that’s got a current flow of a flame all day long, or until it runs out and you get it filled, so then you light your bomb, your lighter, and then you’ve got to get that flame down to about an inch, and you’ve got a metal ruler hanging from the top of your inner perspex like box, and it’s a metal ruler, and you get your flame down to about an inch, measure it on there, then you can then go to set it, I nearly said knife and fork, put your chimney in a certain position, and then you can turn it up a bit more, and then you’ve got to flick it 15 times.
Simon [00:15:17]: To effectively lock it in that position?
Gillian [00:15:37]: Well, yeah, so that you get in an inch to four inches, and you’re in between that, and you just got to flick it, and if anything’s going to happen, it will happen in that flicking. Now, I did read that somebody had a metal bucket with sand in, but that wasn’t the procedure, that was the in case we had a fire, not on us, but a general building fire, I presume. But what you had to do, you couldn’t chuck it, you had to drop it.
Simon [00:16:15]: This is if the lighter ….
Gillian [00:16:17]: Blows.
Simon [00:16:17]: Burst into flames?
Gillian [00:16:18]: Because what will happen, the little top nut will come off, and it will blow off with the pressure of the gas. You feel it going, so you just turn …
Simon [00:16:32]: In the tools, you feel it in your hands?
Gillian [00:16:34]: Yeah. So, you turn, and you just drop it on the floor, and you just hope to God that it don’t catch anybody, because I mean, you know, was sat pretty near, and once it’s on the floor, it will then blow, and it …
Simon [00:16:51]: Shoots off?
Gillian [00:16:53]: Yeah.
Simon [00:16:54]: With flames coming out?
Gillian [00:16:55]: Yeah, could be somebody walking behind you, and they’re jumping over it, sort of thing. So you’ve got like a blanket that you can throw over it, or you’ve got air guns to hand and just blow it with your air gun. But one day we had a labourer, and he were walking behind me, and we’re upstairs at the time, and they were walking behind me, and I felt this one blow, and he had a, like, a boiler suit on with a bib, braces and a top pocket, and it just hit here on his chest, because it took off, like, in mid-air. Oh God, and everybody fell about laughing. It weren’t funny, really, not for the man that were walking by. But anyway, he were all right, he were fine. He didn’t catch fire or anything, but that is how they are. And if you chuck it, God knows where it will go, so just drop it and …
Simon [00:18:00]: Then it made off in its own direction?
Gillian [00:18:02]: Yeah, yeah.
Simon [00:18:05]: So that was just became sort of matter of course. It wasn’t, oh my goodness, it’s blown. It was just like, oh, another one’s gone.
Gillian [00:18:12]: That’s right.
Simon [00:18:13]: It was so regular that no one got phased.
Gillian [00:18:16]: One of the women that sat behind me, one of the four women, ‘cos it’s a little line that we were on, quite a short line, because it left there to go and get all its innards, you know, the flint wheel, the top that turns like that, it gets made up then after that, but there were a woman sat behind me, and we had to wear white cotton gloves, only one, in case that hand caught fire that you had the lighter in that you were doing this with …
Simon [00:18:50]: Cotton is flammable, isn’t it?
Gillian [00:18:53]: Well, yeah, but nevertheless, and it were going off, and she dropped it, which was the right thing to do, but she went, “Oh”, and she had hair lacquer on her hair, and we were patting her head down. Oh God, I’ll never forget that. Yeah, “Oh Mary, your hair’s on fire!”
Simon [00:19:19]: So the glove got flames on it?
Gillian [00:19:21]: Yeah, you know, it can go on briefly, you know, like when you’re lighting a drink and it’s sort of bluish, it were looking a bit like that, and she just went, oh. Yeah, so that were that line. And I, what I did before I was a rectifier, I then became a float girl.
Simon [00:19:48]: Can I ask you a couple more questions about … when they were doing the pressure when it wasn’t lit? I can understand you can look at a flame and go, okay, that’s between one and four inches, but how do they set the pressure when they couldn’t see anything? It was just gas coming out. How do they set the?
Gillian [00:20:07]: You put your fork in, and that lifts the stem up, right. And you don’t light it when you see it coming out like a fountain,
Simon [00:20:21]: You can see the gas coming out?
Gillian [00:20:22]: Yeah, and then you ..
Simon [00:20:24]: How do you see the gas? Has it got a colour to it, or
Gillian [00:20:30]: No.
Simon [00:20:31]: It’s just white?
Gillian [00:20:33]: Yeah.
Simon [00:20:34]: It’s just that I guess, you know, sometimes you do a gas thing and it comes out, I don’t know if it’s frozen air or whatever is coming out of it, or …
Gillian [00:20:44]: It is frozen, it can freeze your finger. If you worked on that water tank and you were filling the lighters all day long because, you know they were floating, you’d have to have a cotton glove on and then a rubber glove on the top, one because your hands will go all horrible, being in water, or two, because of the gas, butane gas, it’s cold, frozen.
Simon [00:21:14]: Yeah, wow, and that was interesting, you’re saying about the bomb that was nicknamed the bomb, I guess, but and it was table lighter, just, but just the guts of it?
Gillian [00:21:24]: Yeah.
Simon [00:21:24]: None of the fancy bits around the edge. Okay, right.
Gillian [00:21:27]: And we all had them, you know, they were all different shapes and sizes, but you just had that constant flame burning all day while you were doing it.
Simon [00:21:37]: It was sort of as if it was the button was constantly pressed down on it?
Gillian [00:21:41]: Yeah. Well, it were all dismantled, that you could just have this coming out the stem.
Simon [00:21:48]: Okay. Sorry, I just wanted to get that detail about, so we talked about the tank there, and then the rectification side, so rectification that was always about was that about changing rubber parts?
Gillian [00:22:08]: You had an orifice, what you had, you had the burner valve, and you had the tip going either side of the burner valve at the bottom, so he had like a ball bearing in the bottom, right, and then the wick, and you turn your screw at the top of the burner valve, like you would adjust in the height, and that wick would control that pressure.
Simon [00:22:42]: And it was like a cloth wick?
Gillian [00:22:43]: Yeah, because of that ball bearing being in the bottom of that, yeah, and then you take your top off, put that there and then you’ve got like the stem, which had a little spring on it, stem were no bigger than that. So then you’ve got that there, and then you’ve got the orifice bush, which was flat on top, had a hole in it for the stem to go in and round the orifice, so it would fit in the burner valve, it had a little washer, and then you put it back together.
Simon [00:23:33]: So someone on the assembly line had put it together, but not quite right that time?
Gillian [00:23:39]: No they are bought in already together.
Simon [00:23:42]: Oh, right. I thought everything got made at the factory there.
Gillian [00:23:48]: Well, yeah, I am a bit wrong there. Things were being made, but I didn’t see, or know how they got put together.
Simon [00:23:59]: That was a different part, maybe?
Gillian [00:24:01]: Yeah, but when they came to valve to shell, that’s exactly what you’re doing, putting a valve in into the shell, so yeah, you’re right there.
Simon [00:24:12]: So, what was the bit about the sandblasting was to take the shine off the plastic?
Gillian [00:24:16]: Yeah, make it dull.
Simon [00:24:18]: What was the reason for that? Then give it a bit of a feel, a touch?
Gillian [00:24:22]: Well it’s a bit like when you get with your modern day cars, they have a lot of them like them dull, well, the lighter has to be made like that, sandblast it, then we can polish it up and it looked good when it’s all polished,
Simon [00:24:37]: I see that when it’s like it’s not properly finished, okay. And then you sort of sophisticated, not sophisticated. What was the right word for it, you know? So, well, polish it up.
Gillian [00:24:50]: It’d be looking better, yeah, when it’s all polished up.
Simon [00:24:53]: Okay. How long was that line that you’re talking about of all those bits happening?
Gillian [00:25:00]: You would have 12345678, There’d be nine of you on it.
Simon [00:25:08]: On each side?
Gillian [00:25:10]: On the whole line. Yeah, there were two of them, and they did exactly the same. So you had two lines, one here, one there, and they were running together.
Simon [00:25:23]: Okay, and you were saying your mum, she joined and started doing that, and then?
Gillian [00:25:30]: She was on the water tank.
Simon [00:25:32]: Okay, then what did she do after that?
Gillian [00:25:36]: Then she got made to a supervisor. There were a lot of charge hands …
Simon [00:25:45]: What’s a charge hand?
Gillian [00:25:46]: She’s under a supervisor. They’re like a leading hand. Any problems, the charge hand would see the supervisor, and then they’d tell them, do this or do that, whatever. And there were two supervisors, one for one side of the factory, which was Marge Jewel, and the other side of the factory was my mum.
Simon [00:26:15]: And so she would be what, problem solving? What’s the role of the supervisor?
Gillian [00:26:22]: Yeah, I mean, if she had to see management, because we had management there, we had a manager over one section and another manager over this section and somebody over that section, you know that they had to answer to.
Simon [00:26:37]: Right? Okay, so she would be in charge of making sure it runs smoothly and quickly.
Gillian [00:26:43]: Yeah.
Simon [00:26:44]: So sort of trying to make, get the most productive side out.
Gillian [00:26:46]: No, the girls were happy.
Simon [00:26:48]: Yeah, yeah.
Gillian [00:26:49]: No problems.
Simon [00:26:51]: Yeah, so what did your mum say about that role? What did she enjoy doing that?
Gillian [00:26:56]: Well she enjoyed it, yeah, yeah, very much. But it’s like most jobs, really. You know, sometimes you can hit a brick wall with management, which would sometimes happen, you know.
Simon [00:27:10]: Them being too demanding. Or what would the …?
Gillian [00:27:14]: I can’t really remember, but you know, I mean, sometimes she’d come home a bit exasperated, and other times she’d come home, and she’d had a great day. Yeah.
Simon [00:27:25]: That’s what is said by everyone, is just how wonderful it was to work there.
Gillian [00:27:30]: It were really great. What I found different was when I left Ronson, when they were closing down, I were lucky enough to get a job quite quickly, and they’d let me go, even though, say, I can’t remember what the month were, but if they said that we were closing in July, this might have been May, and if you got a job, take it, go, they’d let you, so I left before it actually finished. My mum left about six or eight months before it actually finished, but I, well, I’ve just left and went and join J. Arthur Dixon, but I found it so different. There were no piece work. Piece work was hard going. You could do it, but you had to be hard at it. As soon as you got in, really, in the morning, that’s when you had your most strength, you know. But by the afternoon you run in a bit ragged, and you think, “Oh God, I’m not going to make me number.”
Simon [00:28:47]: How do you explain what piece work is?
Gillian [00:28:49]: Well, piece work – each line had its own number to do.
Simon [00:28:56]: So you’ve got to produce this many?
Gillian [00:28:58]: Yeah, by the end of the day, and what they’d do at the end, I were never on the bigger lines, but we had three big lines, and they were the ones that put the mechanical bits in, and at the end of every week on a Friday, the figures would go up as to how many you actually did on that line. How many rejects you found, and stuff like that. Quite interesting watching it, but yeah, them lines, they had to go on dead on 8o’clock you know, the supervisor, the charge hands were there ready with a thumb on the button. “Come on, you’re late, hurry up.”
Simon [00:29:46]: Right.
Gillian [00:29:47]: Just to get it going. And you had 10 minutes tea break in the morning and 10 in the afternoon.
Simon [00:29:53]: And the flow stopped at that point. It was paused temporarily?
Gillian [00:29:57]: Yeah, they switched the lines off for 10 minutes. 10 minutes only, not 11. So, anyway, you go to the canteen, and you’d have a drink, something to eat. And then, at dinner time, you had half an hour. In the afternoon, they had a tea trolley that came round, and they had a little old lady pulling that tea trolley round all the departments, and when I worked upstairs, we had a lift to take our goods up and down stairs, not for us, and she’d bang on this metal thing, “tea break,” and then we’d all come clambering downstairs and get our teas and our coffees or cake, if we wanted it, so you had it by your bench in the afternoon tea break.
Simon [00:30:48]: While the line was still running?
Gillian [00:30:50]: No, it were stopped. No, no, there were none of that. No, they’d allow you your 20 minutes, 10 in the morning, 10 in the afternoon, and then you’re half an hour for dinner. Yeah.
Simon [00:31:00]: Right.
Gillian [00:31:01]: No, you weren’t allowed any of that.
Simon [00:31:04]: And so to hit the piece work. Someone, management, whoever it was, said, “You’ve got to,” I’m gonna pick a number now, “You’ve got to make 1000 in a day.”
Gillian [00:31:13]: That was Dougie Hurd, I think he were called, Dougie Haig, that were his name, and he were time and motion man. And he would look at all these figures and think hmm, see what they do, they don’t speed up the belt, they move the little dots on the line a bit nearer, they never go further apart, they’re going a little bit nearer.
Simon [00:31:42]: And you, oh, that’s what you were saying before, about you got to put it on the spot, right.
Gillian [00:31:48]: So the feeder puts the burner valve in, puts her two on that spot, and by time she’s ready, done the other two, it’s there, you put them on. And you can hurry that section up and give yourself a couple of seconds and think, oh, I’ll let them go down like that, all right, and that’s what you do. And likewise, when I was trying to catch up on the polishing the lighters, so I could hear what my friend was saying to me, who were facing me, and I kept going closer and closer.
Simon [00:32:29]: Right, right, this is the time when you’re saying, because you said earlier about the silicon, putting the silicon on, but then the accident that you had. What happened there?
Gillian [00:32:40]: Well, I had a habit of turning the speed up on me mop.
Simon [00:32:46]: That’s the spinning wheel, soft cloth?
Gillian [00:32:48]: So, if I turned it up quicker, it would go faster, and I didn’t have to put much pressure on that lighter to polish it.
Simon [00:32:57]: Okay, so your muscles are being less used in the day, gotcha.
Gillian [00:33:02]: So, and I knew I wanted to catch up and listen to what she was saying. She were a Geordie anyway, which made it a bit difficult, but however, I got it on fast, and if ever one flicked out of your hand, it would go in this metal box, and it would be flicking about and dancing all over the place, making a hell of a din. Then everybody would know what you’ve done. Yeah, and that is what happened to me when I was trying to catch up and listen to what she was saying, that I leant forward and I were wearing a plastic pinny, and it were plastic round the back of me neck, and as I leant forward, this polishing mop gathered me pinny, top of me pinny in and it just took me in, and me nose were about two inches off this box. And it took me in, and of course I couldn’t, I couldn’t turn the machine off, because what they hadn’t realised, my button was way behind me, that soon moved, and the woman that was sat behind me, she were called Pat, and she were a bit deaf, and she’s busy with her lighters during the flame set, and I’m trying to say, “Pat, Pat, switch me off, Pat,” and then somebody that were facing me because she had a back to me saw I were in a bit of bother and told Pat to switch my machine off, which was by her side, not by mine. So that’s what happened there.
Simon [00:34:55]: And you’re basically getting drawn ever closer?
Gillian [00:34:58]: Yeah, and it’s mangled in a big knot like this, it had to be thrown away, cut out, yeah. Anyway, they, Marge Jewel, the other supervisor for the other side of the factory, she come over and she said, “Go and get her mother quick!” Oh, anyway, yeah.
Simon [00:35:22]: What was your mum like about it?
Gillian [00:35:24]: Oh, she laughed. Everybody else was laughing, you know. Why not? Let’s have a free for all. So, yeah, we were all laughing, but I’d got red marks around my neck where this plastic had pulled me in. And they made me go down to the nurse’s room and have a cup of tea, I would rather have had a brandy, really, rather than a cup of tea.
Simon [00:35:53]: Yeah, tea fixes everything.
Gillian [00:35:54]: Well, yeah.
Simon [00:35:56]: So then, someone, a floater, had come in and sorted your stuff?
Gillian [00:36:03]: Well the line was stopped, because he had to send for the fitter to put me in new mop on. And well, they all discussed this switch, the on-off being down here. So, yeah, that would put right by the next day we went in, it were by me knee, so I could do it. And then I got made a float girl.
Simon [00:36:29]: Was it a frightening experience?
Gillian [00:36:31]: It were at the time, because I didn’t know what could happen to me and I had to fight it to keep pulling my neck back, you know, so it wouldn’t have me head.
Simon [00:36:40]: It almost sounds like something out of James Bond, doesn’t it? You know that lasers cutting him in half, or …
Gillian [00:36:47]: It were a a bit horrendous.
Simon [00:36:50]: Right. Wow and then, so they switch the line off for 10 minutes, and you have to get back to it.
Gillian [00:36:52]: Oh yeah, we were a bit down that day, all due to my fault. But hey.
Simon [00:37:04]: But there’s two bits, one the piece work, someone picks the numbers, Dougie, what’s it, you say?
Gillian [00:37:09]: Haig, yeah.
Simon [00:37:10]: He would say, right, we’re gonna try and hit, I don’t know, 1000 in a day, what was the, what was the number, do you remember roughly what you had to do in a day?
Gillian [00:37:17]: I can’t remember, I mean, I’m going back 50 year.
Simon [00:37:23]: Oh, not to worry, but he picks a number?
Gillian [00:37:26]: Him and his colleague, time and motion, they would be with that line all day, adjusting what the figures should be, or they can get it higher, we can get it like this, you can get it like that, and that’s when they put the coloured dots on, what you’ve got to work to, and then they watch it for a week, and then when they’re happy, they go away and concentrate on somebody else’s line.
Simon [00:37:56]: What was the feeling of the people working with the people who are doing the time and motion stuff then?
Gillian [00:38:02]: It weren’t very good, really, because you’ve got this fear of it all going higher and higher, you know, and that was just, they didn’t like, sorry, I’ve got hiccups, they didn’t like it, but it had to be that, you know, I mean, they want production, and the more you can get on production for them, the more they want. It’s happening everywhere, isn’t it?
Simon [00:38:26]: Never ending.
Gillian [00:38:35]: That’s right.
Simon [00:38:36]: Yeah, more pressure. So the feelings towards him was it wasn’t antagonistic, and people weren’t angry with him?
Gillian [00:38:45]: No.
Simon [00:38:45]: Realising he was doing a job?
Gillian [00:38:46]: They were doing their job. Yeah, and we were there to do ours. You know, I mean, you think, oh dear, how many have we got to do? What they hoping it by, you know, and you just get on and do it.
Simon [00:39:01]: That’s interesting. What you’re saying about the conveyor belt not speeding up, but the dots getting closer together.
Gillian [00:39:06]: That’s the trick.
Simon [00:39:09]: Yeah, what you’re doing is speeding up, but it looks the same.
Gillian [00:39:15]: Yeah, so every line was different, because everybody had different jobs to do, you know.
Simon [00:39:23]: How many different lines do you roughly remember?
Gillian [00:39:26]: I think there were five.
Simon [00:39:28]: Okay, so there were there was maybe the line that was doing the bits that you were then assembling the sparking bit, pressure valve, there was one before you, I guess, and then what came after it was putting all of the floats and stuff in?
Gillian [00:39:45]: The people that made the burner valve with all the little bits that have got to go in, they were made on machines. By a single operator.
Simon [00:40:02]: Okay.
Gillian [00:40:02]: And that were in the valve department, and they all had the little bits to do to make that burner valve.
Simon [00:40:11]: Right? So they’re not on a conveyor belt
Gillian [00:40:15]: No.
Simon [00:40:16]: Still, they’ve got to crank the stuff out. Wow, okay. And so then it went from your bit, where you’ve got the sort of the core of it is inside, then what’s the next one do?
Gillian [00:40:31]: Well, that would be over at Julie’s side, because she worked on that side. I were on a different side, so I don’t know what they started with at the top of the line, maybe a little flint wheel and something.
Simon [00:40:47]: Okay,
Gillian [00:40:48]: She might be able to help you with that.
Simon [00:40:50]: I’ll ask her about that then, and then after that, but it’s always trays of 25?
Gillian [00:40:57]: Yeah, there were red trays and there were 25 in them.
Simon [00:41:00]: Okay. And then what about people were talking about some of them were leather coated special ones.
Gillian [00:41:11]: I can’t really remember the leather. I remember some of them being leather, but I can’t say I actually saw them being done, but what would happen, we’d have a lighter that we used to call a castle, it were grey, no other colour, it would grey, and it would have one or two points on it that the assembler has to put on like the flint wheel and other screws and things, and then that would go in a metal case with a pattern on it, and they were all different sorts of patterns on them, but that was known as a castle. None of us really liked them, because if you were on a machine that you had to hold and you put a screw in the bottom of it, or the inlet valve, sometimes it would spin in your hand, and in that case, where it had big lines, you know, tops on it that used to have to put things on, that would be sharp in your hand, and that would hurt, so you had to be very, very careful when you put in an inlet valve in the bottom of a grey shell, a castle
Simon [00:42:40]: So that was a different design to the comet?
Gillian [00:42:44]: It was a comet. But because it didn’t have it just, yeah, and you had to put that in, and it was just all different fitting than what the comet actually were, but it was a comet, but it were a metal comet. People won’t have seen the grey castle shell thing, but yeah.
Simon [00:43:08]: Right, okay, but so was it always comets that were made there when you were there, yeah, because other people have spoken about, or someone was talking about on Saturday that Ronson’s Reunited, were talking about the diecast part, where they were doing gas blow torches.
Gillian [00:43:24]: Yeah, that was completely different. I didn’t go in there. I didn’t know anything about that, you know, like you had a tool room, you had the die cast, you had ancillary, which is where they sandblasted the lighter when it first come in, so yeah, yeah, and you had a pura filter.
Simon [00:43:46]: What’s that?
Gillian [00:43:47]: For, you know, the long cigarette holder.
Simon [00:43:51]: Okay.
Gillian [00:43:52]: Yeah, pura filters to go in there, and that was done by, you had a block that we made, and you stick 10 in, I think 10 little plastic tubes, get a little scoop and scoop out like crystals. You’ve got a top on this, a metal top on the 10 tubes, and you’d sprinkle it all in like that, and then you put it on a rattler that would shake it all down in the tube, and then there were on the metal on top, they’d come off there, and then you take the metal plate off, then you then got to sit 12, 10 red caps on the top of them, and then you had a press to pull down, and then …
Simon [00:43:53]: That did all 12 at once, seal them on, right.
Gillian [00:44:45]: Yeah, and then just tip it upside down and put it in your bucket.
Simon [00:44:53]: Right, and what were the crystals in there, just some chemicals, or?
Gillian [00:44:59]: Yeah. And to filter the cigarette smoke, when you’d finish with it, it’d be quite brown, but I never smoked, so it didn’t bother me, but yeah, they’d be quite brown, quite discolorful.
Simon [00:45:14]: Yeah, one of those things called the sort of extended cigarette holders?
Gillian [00:45:22]: There just a see cigarette holder.
Simon [00:45:23]: Okay, there’s no fancier name?
Gillian [00:45:25]: No, not that I know of.
Simon [00:45:26]: Yeah, how long did you work on that bit then?
Gillian [00:45:31]: I didn’t. I just used to see it when I’d walk by. You know, but yeah, we had a pop star that worked there.. The guy from Level 42, Mark King.
Simon [00:45:50]: Oh, yeah.
Gillian [00:45:52]: He were in between jobs and he needed a job, and he were hoping to get to London to get a music contract, so, and he made it, and I think he were with us for about two or three months. It weren’t that long.
Simon [00:46:15]: What was he like?
Gillian [00:46:15]: He were all right. I didn’t get to know him much, but he were in my mate’s brother’s group. He were the drummer.
Simon [00:46:18]: Okay.
Gillian [00:46:18]: And he were about nine.
Simon [00:46:20]: Right, started early …
Gillian [00:46:23]: Yeah, but I was gonna say something, then can’t remember what I was going to tell you about.
Simon [00:46:32]: So with a bit that you were working in, that was pretty much all women working there, was it?
Gillian [00:46:38]: Yeah, there were the odd men, yeah, I remember we had one.
Simon [00:46:43]: Working on the line?
Gillian [00:46:44]: Oh yeah, we had one chap that worked with us on Valve to Shell, a nice little chap, I forget his name, but he used to order some food from somebody, I’ll tell you what it is in a minute, and it come in on a Friday for him, and we’d all go home for weekend, and when we come back, oh God, it was stinking.
Simon [00:47:12]: He left the food there.
Gillian [00:47:13]: Yeah, he forgot it. It were fish.
Simon [00:47:17]: Oh, wow.
Gillian [00:47:18]: That somebody had caught, and they brought it in for him on the Friday, and it were left all weekend. Oh my god, didn’t that hum! And it would happen more than once. Yeah, yeah. Oh, terrible that.
Simon [00:47:35]: So, how did the men work with the women? How do they integrate in it? Just seemed normal and natural, and everyone just …
Gillian [00:47:45]: It was great.
Simon [00:47:45]: But were you saying when the wheel went, when he got caught up in it, that was someone called a fitter came along.
Gillian [00:47:52]: Yeah.
Simon [00:47:52]: So he was fitting bits to the equipment.
Gillian [00:47:55]: Anything that brought down, they used to wear white overalls, like a doctor and there’d be quite a few of them around the factory, but you had certain ones that would do a certain area that were their thing, yeah. So he’d come along and put a new wheel on for me.
Simon [00:48:17]: I’m just thinking about the poster we used for the Ronsons Reunited with a guy pointing, he had a white overall on/
Gillian [00:48:24]: Yeah, he I think was probably in the tool room.
Simon [00:48:28]: Okay.
Gillian [00:48:28]: But I can say that I’d never seen him before. Maybe he left before I got there in 1970 I went.
Simon [00:48:38]: The mystery of what happened in the tool room, was that all sort of mysterious?
Gillian [00:48:41]: They were making old tools for your drills and your fork and chimney and stuff like that.
Simon [00:48:49]: Okay, yeah, so they manufactured the tools that you then used to make the lighters. Wow, okay.
Gillian [00:48:57]: There’d be about eight to 10 men in there, I think they had their own supervisor.
Simon [00:49:04]: Yeah, it’s just that it’s this idea of everything happening in the one building. It just, I mean, it doesn’t happen these days.
Gillian [00:49:13]: There was a couple of buildings outside.
Simon [00:49:15]: Was there?
Gillian [00:49:16]: Which another few men were working in. I didn’t get to see what they were doing, so I wouldn’t know, but yeah, there were some more men outside in another building, but I didn’t know what they were doing.
Simon [00:49:32]: So, is there anything more about your mum being supervisor that we should know about, or was there. did she say anything about the role or anything that we haven’t covered so far?
Gillian [00:49:46]: No, I don’t think so.
Simon [00:49:47]: Okay. And so, you were saying that was great fun to work there. Did you socialise with people outside work?
Gillian [00:49:56]: Oh, yeah.
Simon [00:49:57]: Okay.
Gillian [00:49:58]: Yeah. I were gonna go on to that we did screen printing, that’s what I’ve got floating in my head at the minute. You remember, like airlines and they’d buy lighters with the plane on it, stuff like that, or the Scottish thistle for people visiting Scotland, and they could buy a lighter with a nice purple thistle on it. Well, I think it were Freddie Laker, I’m not sure. Do you remember him?
Simon [00:50:37]: I do. Cheap flights to America, wasn’t it?
Gillian [00:50:40]: Yeah, he’d ordered so many lighters it was untrue, but he collapsed. The business collapsed. And we had all these lighters with Freddie Laker written on them, and they all had to be taken off and we had a lot of turps and quite a few people with little sponges in their hands, dabbing the turps on a sponge and wiping them all off, and make sure then they’ve got to be sandblasted again once they’ve gone through that. Oh, it were hundreds!
Simon [00:51:20]: Wow.
Gillian [00:51:21]: And other things that had been ordered that got cancelled also had to be washed down, right in spirit. Yeah.
Simon [00:51:27]: So everyone was upset with Freddie Laker?
Gillian [00:51:35]: Yeah, creating this extra job, yeah, no, it was okay.
Simon [00:51:42]: So, there was all sorts of different brands having their, I guess it wouldn’t be called brands then, they are now these days, aren’t they? But, company logos going on lighters …
Gillian [00:51:52]: Yeah, you had all that.
Simon [00:51:55]: But that was all, it was all just a standard lighter up until the point that they then put that on, or how, where in the production line was putting the logo on?
Gillian [00:52:06]: There was three women sat in a little room, and it were like an out building attached to the main factory, and it were like a little office that you went in, and they did the screen printing where you’re on a thing about that big, two foot by a foot. I can’t remember exactly how they did it, but there were three or four that could screen print, and you bring the top of it across and slide it to put your first layer on, and then you bring it back again, and it’s done. Completed.
Simon [00:52:46]: For each colour, they’d then do a different one. Okay. Wow.
Gillian [00:52:50]: Amazing, isn’t it?
Simon [00:52:52]: But that was the completed lighter, then got that done. Or was that.. was?
Gillian [00:52:55]: No. I think they were only partially made up. If they were completed, it would have cost the firm a hell of a lot of money to rub them all out, once they, you know…
Simon [00:52:55]: Yeah.
Gillian [00:52:58]: So they were only half made, yeah.
Simon [00:53:07]: So, what about the socialising bit, socialising outside work?
Gillian [00:53:14]: Right. We had a darts session. I’m not good with darts, but I just took part, ‘cos it were gonna be a great evening, and we did two or three of these that I went to. They were held like at Thorness Bay, the holiday camp, and yeah, we’re a good evening. Can’t play for toffee, but I enjoyed it.
Simon [00:53:40]: And what about going to the clubs and that sort of stuff?
Gillian [00:53:43]: Then you know, I mean, there’d be a crowd of them that say, “Are we going out on Friday?” They’d say, yeah, all right, and there’d be three or four of them that would go out, and it might end up being six of them that end up going out, you know, but yeah, you did go out with them from time to time. Yeah.
Simon [00:54:04]: What about the Christmas do’s? What were they like? We heard that was …
Gillian [00:54:09]: Horrendous.
Simon [00:54:11]: Why?
Gillian [00:54:12]: Well, without a word of a lie, we’d get in there at 8 o’clock but just before eight you’d be setting up your stall with all your bottles of spirits on the, and all your tonics and other stuff that goes with like coke and stuff. And by 8 o’clock you were drinking. I have never ever seen anywhere. I’ve been in a few places at Christmas, I’ve never seen it like it were at Ronson, my God, you were drunk by half eight, and you’re going to one or two other departments, you know, with your glass. Oh, have a have a shot of this. Yeah, alright. You know, you’d be going to everybody’s department and having a top up in different places.
Simon [00:55:00]: Wow, there was no work happening. It was just drinking?
Gillian [00:55:05]: No, no, no I mean, where I’ve worked in the past, in other factories, you haven’t been allowed to drink at all, let alone take in what you drink in for day. Oh my god.
Simon [00:55:06]: Wow.
Gillian [00:55:06]: I saw some fella. He were really, really past it, and it were only about 9 o’clock and three of his mates were dragging him, and his toes were on the floor like that, and they were dragging him along.
Simon [00:55:38]: Wow.
Gillian [00:55:38]: Yeah. What a state to get in.
Simon [00:55:41]: By nine?
Gillian [00:55:43]: By nine, but yeah, they were good times, you know.
Simon [00:55:49]: Someone was saying that they sort of, there was a sort of a slight fear of people walking around, what’s that stuff called to have at Christmas?
Gillian [00:55:57]: Mistletoe. Yeah, everybody was dodging that.
Simon [00:55:59]: People were imposing themselves…
Gillian [00:56:03]: Yeah, yeah, that were going on all over the place, but I were in the carnival, I were on the carnival float.
Simon [00:56:13]: Yeah, great. Let’s talk about that.
Gillian [00:56:15]: What they did, they used to hold dances and things in our canteen, it were a biggish canteen, but you wouldn’t get that many, would go because their classed as “oh we’re in work,” you know, so anyway, they had these dances and they were great, so anyway they put up that they were looking for a carnival queen because Ronson were putting in a float, so if you’re interested, come to the dance, right? Yeah, so I thought, yeah, I’ll go, so I went. I went with a few, few of my mates, and some of them that worked at Ronson, and they got people in, like, I don’t know if you know Dabells?
Simon [00:57:10]: Oh yeah.
Gillian [00:57:12]: In Newport, you’d have the manager from there and a manager from somewhere else, there were four managers from different places and they all had to vote and write down a number beside your name, how many points to give you, and then they announced who the winner was, so they wanted three, so they named these three people, and everybody applauded. Yeah, it were great. Yeah, I went outside where the loos were in a different block in a different office, and there were people out there following me, and they said, “You should have been on that float. I said, “Oh, it’s all right. I’m not bothered. It’s okay.” And they said, no. And they kept coming to me all evening. “You should have been on that float.” Don’t matter. Anyway, by Monday morning, people had rang Ronson and told them that I should have been on that float. Anyway by the Wednesday after, I got sent for by the HR, and she said, “Gillian, there’s been a mistake.” She said, “We’ve added up all the figures, and yours were wrong,” so she said, “so we’re now going to have four people on that float. Are you prepared to go on it?” I said, “Yeah, if that’s right.” So they said, “Well, the figures were wrong, the adding up were wrong. It’s you, you’re on the float.” I said, “Well, what about the other person?” “She’ll be told, and what will happen with her will get her kitted out, like you know, all you three, and she can be on it when it comes into Newport, so she’ll be on the float”, because you have the week off when it comes to Newport, because you do things like go to the blind home and talk to people there, and what have you, have photographs taken, and be with the mayor of Newport, get crowned, but she understood that the figures were wrong. She’s still on the float, but only for Newport Week, and she were all right with that.
Simon [00:59:55]: Right.
Gillian [00:59:57]: So that’s what happened.
Simon [01:00:00]: And you then toured all of the towns?
Gillian [01:00:02]: All around the towns. Yeah, yeah, we got picked up by HR. She’d come and pick you up in the afternoon with all your gear on, and take you to Sandown or Shanklin or Cowes, or Ryde, and you’d be there, then. I mean, when it were Newport, you had to go to a Beetle Drive somewhere, and take part in that, and take part in anything that they were doing, and there was some sort of church thing going on. I can’t remember what it were called, but we went there, and we were there in all our gear.
Simon [01:00:28]: What was the get-up you had on? What clothes was it?
Gillian [01:00:46]: It was a white dress with a royal blue cloak that came halfway up your back, long sleeves, and we had to have white shoes, and we had new crowns that year. The Carnival people had got us new crowns, so we had a new crown. Yeah.
Simon [01:01:13]: So it’s more than one year Ronson had a float, was it?
Gillian [01:01:16]: No, it were only for the one year. It’s usually just in the summer, and…
Simon [01:01:22]: But they did a number of different years, did they, Ronson? I thought they only did the one?
Gillian [01:01:27]: No, we only did the one year, but that one year you go to every carnival on the Island. Which is probably about eight.
Simon [01:01:37]: Right.
Gillian [01:01:37]: I don’t know, and the lady that made our dresses, she lived in Wottoon, and we all got took to her house to get measured up for everything, so that were an afternoon off work.
Simon [01:01:56]: So there’s a big bonus to being on the carnival float?
Gillian [01:02:00]: I enjoyed it, and one of the girls that was on the float with me, she were at the do on Saturday, she was. Vivian, her name. Yeah, she made a beeline for me, and yeah, I’ve not seen her many times since then, so yeah, it were nice to see her.
Simon [01:02:25]: And so, what was your role on the float? You were there, waving, smiling.
Gillian [01:02:32]: Yeah, we had the Queen,
Simon [01:02:33]: Yeah.
Gillian [01:02:34]: She worked in Time and Motion. She was a secretary, Time and Motion. Edwina, she were called, can’t just remember her other name at the minute, but unfortunately she died a couple of year ago. But yeah, she were the queen, and Vivian and I were just one of the girls that were like her helper, and it was back in the day when people were just sort of chucked 2ps on their clothes and they gather it that way. And I had a young lad who were only about eight or nine and he were running behind the float with a rose, he threw it to me.
Simon [01:03:20]: It’s an interesting way of seeing the towns, isn’t it?
Gillian [01:03:23]: It were great.
Simon [01:03:24]: From up high, and you know, you’re seeing all the happy faces.
Gillian [01:03:27]: I enjoyed it. Yeah, I were about 19 at the time.
Simon [01:03:32]: I have seen a photo of the float.
Gillian [01:03:35]: Yeah?
Simon [01:03:36]: I can’t remember what the design of it was?
Gillian [01:03:38]: It was waves. Yeah, yeah, it was something on the sea, and they were waves. Jack Waterhouse, who was the manager of screen printing, he made that.
Simon [01:03:51]: Okay. So someone in management said, “Right, we’re gonna have a float this year.”
Gillian [01:03:57]: Yeah.
Simon [01:03:58]: That’s a way of sort of getting the Ronson name out there, maybe. Wow, I love that story as well. About, you know, we’ve got the numbers wrong, and you’re now going to be on there. And it sounded like basically people said she’s got to be on there, or it’s going to be trouble.
Gillian [01:04:13]: It sounds like it doesn’t. Well, anyway, I were, and I enjoyed it. I really did.
Simon [01:04:19]: Wow, wow, wow, wow. Have you got any other stories like that?
Gillian [01:04:25]: Not that I can think of me. No, but yeah, I really did. I enjoyed all that.
Simon [01:04:32]: Why was it your mum left six to eight months before Rronson closed?
Gillian [01:04:40]: Why? She felt at some point that what she was saying to management, I don’t know how it went, but something that she wanted doing, and they didn’t do it, and I think she could foresee, would be gone if nothing happens. So, my mum thought she’d go before she got pushed.
Simon [01:05:08]: Wow.
Gillian [01:05:09]: So she left.
Simon [01:05:12]: And turned out she was right.
Gillian [01:05:13]: Yeah.
Simon [01:05:14]: Did it ever really become clear why Ronson’s closed down?
Gillian [01:05:18]: I think it was the throw away lighter, that did it. I mean, they were now coming so popular, you know? I mean, I think our little Comet lighter at the time were about a fiver, and these things were 99p. You know, so it had to go. It didn’t go at first on the Mainland, because we had Leatherhead and Cramlington. I’d been past the Cramlington one, because I used to have a friend that lived, well her family came from Newcastle, and I’d gone by there, but the other one, Leatherhead, I actually went to Leatherhead, and I went with Jack Waterhouse.
Simon [01:05:48]: What was his role again?
Gillian [01:06:07]: He was in screen printing, the manager of screen printing. His wife worked there too, Jill. She were a charge hand, but I can’t remember what she were over. Anyway, there were the competition that they had, and it went in the monthly magazine, and it was about saving money for the factory, and if I think it were all about flame setting, if flame setters did this and did that, I can’t quite remember anyway.
Simon [01:06:49]: Yeah, understandable, after so long.
Gillian [01:06:54]: And if it saved the factory money, you would get 10% of it, I think it were.
Simon [01:07:03]: Wow.
Gillian [01:07:03]: And this was saving the company £7,500. So I got awarded the top prize for that year. It were £750 and a trip to Holland.
Simon [01:07:21]: Goodness.
Gillian [01:07:22]: So all paid for, and everything, and I couldn’t believe I was so delighted.
Simon [01:07:30]: I mean, that’s a lot of money those days.
Gillian [01:07:32]: Yeah, anyway, I got told I were going up to Leatherhead with Jack Waterhouse, and they were going to do a little champagne do for me up there, and it were lovely up there. They were right by a river, lovely grounds where you could all go and have your little picnic for your lunch, and it was super. Yeah, we were only there about two, three hours, couple of photographs for the paper, and that were that.
Simon [01:08:07]: What was the innovation you brought then to save money?
Gillian [01:08:10]: It was something to do on the flame setting side, and I just, I just can’t remember how it was saving them money by cutting that out, and cutting that out, straight to that, were it. I can’t remember.
Simon [01:08:29]: Yeah, how was Holland?
Gillian [01:08:31]: Great, lovely. Yeah, went to Keukenhof Gardens, where all the tulips are in a big, big park. Yeah, lovely. We’re only for about four days, yeah. But it were great.
Simon [01:08:47]: I mean, it’s a great way of incentivising people to..
Gillian [01:08:51]: It is, other people were normally winning it from the the other factories.
Simon [01:08:55]: Right.
Gillian [01:08:56]: Never the Island. Yeah, so that was great.
Simon [01:09:02]: What was it do you think that made it? In Parliament it was said by the Isle of Wight MP that the production at the Newport branch on the Island was over twice as much produced there than any other Ronson factory in Europe.
Gillian [01:09:23]: Really?
Simon [01:09:24]: So, there’s something really special happening at the Ronson one on the Island.
Gillian [01:09:28]: Oh, I didn’t hear any of that.
Simon [01:09:30]: Okay, I just.. I mean, it was.. it sounded like it was a good atmosphere. There was no animosity. People got on well.
Gillian [01:09:38]: They did. They did, I think.
Simon [01:09:42]: And the dots getting closer together … Maybe that was it?
Gillian [01:09:44]: Absolutely, I think we had a truck driver, two truck drivers, but they took it in turn as they were driving up north, Joe, and one was called John, and they’d be travelling all the time, going to Cramlington and Leatherhead, and I would think the ferry probably would kill it, as well as the chuck away lighter.
Simon [01:10:15]: Right. I spoke to somebody on Saturday at the Ronson’s Reunited, who was one of the lorry drivers, and he said they didn’t have forklifts. He had to all load it all manually, and just seems like enormously hard work, and he was saying that they were getting people robbing them as well.
Gillian [01:10:41]: Oh, really?
Simon [01:10:42]: Yeah, so when they stopped somewhere, people would try and take stuff off. So he used to go different routes the whole time. Yeah, yeah.
Gillian [01:10:54]: Oh dear.
Simon [01:10:55]: Yeah. So, what did your mum go and do then afterwards? What did she decide?
Gillian [01:11:01]: She went into party plan with the twins, both Julie and Valerie.
Simon [01:11:08]: For people having…?
Gillian [01:11:10]: It’d be a clothes party. She’d be selling clothes for a company, and it’s like a Tupperware party, if you can remember them in the day, you know, you take all your boxes to a house and everybody would be buying them, and you take all your dresses and tops. Yeah, she did that for, I don’t know, how long, might have been about 18 months. And then she got a job in dry cleaning at Bollam. She was the manager of dry cleaning. Yeah, she enjoyed that, and the twins were there.
Simon [01:11:35]: And you stayed on up to the point where they finished?
Gillian [01:11:49]: I left.
Simon [01:11:51]: Yes, you said you left in the, for example, the May, and they closed a couple of months later.
Gillian [01:11:55]: I went to J. Arthur Dixon, went through the same gates, so for 31 years I went through the same gates, and then I veered off to the left and went to J. Arthur Dixon doing Christmas cards, wedding invites, wrapping paper, yeah, anything.
Simon [01:12:17]: So they were a printing company, yeah, right. Okay.
Gillian [01:12:20]: Yeah. Not on piece work, it were great. Yeah, yeah, it were good. I enjoyed it there, I were there 20 years, and then that went.
Simon [01:12:33]: And you were saying that that felt quite different to the feeling in Ronsons?
Gillian [01:12:39]: Yeah, you still had that with the girls and the men, they had a few men there, you know, working on the guillotine and on the printing, where they had to go training for four or five years to be a printer, but yeah, you still had all that, and I just thought it were a really great place, I just liked it.
Simon [01:13:03]: But different in some way, but it’s different in some way to Ronson’s. I mean, apart from the product you’re making, there was a different feel to it.
Gillian [01:13:15]: Yeah, I suppose, because you’re not on piece work, you’re more relaxed, you know.
Simon [01:13:26]: Is that a good or a bad thing?
Gillian [01:13:28]: Yeah, it were good, you know. I mean, you didn’t take your time on purpose or anything. I mean, you still had enough to do, but it just weren’t being tracked, and you’re being paired by piece work, which was all right, you know. You’d be sat at a machine operating it, and as long as everybody could hear that machine was working, you’re just left to get on with it. Yeah, we were alright.
Simon [01:13:58]: One thing, actually, on the Dixons, someone was saying that they used to get the bus to work, and I think there was Ronsons and Dixons…
Gillian [01:14:09]: The coaches. They had coaches between them, them that were going to Shanklin, Sandown and Ventnor, and then them that were going to Ryde and Seaview, and they’d share with the Dixon people, and then you had the normal buses that were off to Freshwater or Cowes, Newport. Yeah, they were all there, all lined up.
Simon [01:14:35]: But everyone sort of kept in their own gangs. The Ronsons and the Dixons didn’t really mix?
Gillian [01:14:41]: Of course. You’d know their face, so you know, you probably said “morning” like that. But you wouldn’t perhaps speak to them. I don’t know, I always had me car, so I wouldn’t know. I never went by bus or coach, but yeah, it sounded like it were all alright.
Simon [01:14:56]: Well, she was saying she was Ronsons, and they’re like, oh. Those Dixon girls, and then when she, she then switched over to Dixons, and she was like, oh, okay, they’re just all completely normal. Yeah, so the last bit about, you’re saying about piece work, you’re given a target, but if you exceeded that production target set number, or whatever it was for that month, you then got bonuses as well, did you?
Gillian [01:15:32]: No you didn’t put it in, you’d sit on it, and if you weren’t so good the next day, if you’d had a night out and you weren’t very good the next day, you could utilise them numbers now. Yeah, you know what I mean.
Simon [01:15:47]: So it’s a bit of flexibility, yeah. You built it in.
Gillian [01:15:50]: Yeah. You just.. it’s like the girl that’s feeding that line, right? She’s feeding the line, and while it’s going down, she’s making up more, so she could make up about 100 but you wouldn’t send them down the line, because you haven’t got the dots for them. Just that she’s been clever at having them and holding them back in case she has a little headache the next day, then she can just feed them when she wants, take her time, yeah. But them that were working on their own on piece work, you had to get on with it, yeah. But they were very good, if you could see by 3 o’clock that your number is going to be down, they would help you.
Simon [01:16:45]: Right.
Gillian [01:16:46]: They’ve nearly completed, but they would help you, and they were good like that. 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.
Simon [01:17:02]: I mean, that’s probably quite unusual work wise, is it? Do you think you have that at Dixon’s as well? People helping out like that.
Gillian [01:17:11]: Well, it’s hard to say, really, because you didn’t have a set number to do. There were no panic.
Simon [01:17:20]: That was the driver, yeah. Okay.
Gillian [01:17:23]: Yeah. So, yeah, they did look after one another.
Simon [01:17:28]: Well, thank you very much for your time. What have we not spoken about that we should speak about do you think?
Gillian [01:17:37]: I don’t know? It’ll probably come to me when I’m in bed tonight. Oh, yeah, I don’t know, can’t think, but I’m sure Julie can fill in some gaps.
Simon [01:17:51]: Okay. Thank you very much for your time.
Gillian [01:17:53]: Thank you. Brilliant, I enjoyed it.
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