On Tuesday 20 th February 2007 I spent 2 hours with Marion Clark (nee Jeffrey) in her home in Newtownards and could only marvel at her excellent memory. The following is a list of memories for the Berkshire website.
In 1947 about 10 employees of Short Bros and Harland were selected for employment with Ulster Knitting Mills which was located in the first floor of the Glen building on the Crawfordsburn Road, Newtownards. Most of the ladies had been employed on engineering domestic items eg wringers for rolling clothes after washing. Part of the development of the Company was the drawing of new labour from Newtownards, The Ards Peninsula, Bangor and surrounding area; and to apply to people of different ages and experiences.

Marion remembered that both in the first floor of the Glen factory and laterin the Berkshire Factory there was a great sense of newness, happiness and a very busy attitude to work. The Berkshire factory was new and well spoken of for its cleanliness in every department.
People. Females- Daisy Chambers, Maureen Montgomery, Marion Jeffrey, Kate Thompson, Bel Davidson, Charlotte Dickson, Maeve Keating, Una Keating, Mary Trainor, Dolly Eccles.
People Males - Alf Walker, Frank Hall, Stan Chambers, Horace Abraham, Albert Rudd, Len Ross. Ted McCoy Staff Howard Ward - General Manager Sherman Shaw – Secretary Ray Hall Russell Payne – Dyehiouse Manager
Juniors. Ken Hughes, Reggie Naylor Tommy Harkness
Maureen Dorman Electrician Maurice Agnew
2 Knitting machines The yarn was Lisle and later Silk before nylon was ‘discovered’. After about 1 year or eighteen months the company moved to the Donaghadee Road Marion was made a Supervisor. The Berkshire knitting room and all through were kept very clean and tidy Early Staff in Donaghadee Road.
Staff John Hemingway
Shirley Hynds, Bob Walke.r
Jimmy Bowers- Mechanics
Trevor Brownlie – head mechanic
Tony Ross – former paratrooper, Jimmy Angus, Davy Wallace, Willie Donnan, Willie Mahood, George McCaul, Bertie Ritchie, David Meredith, Harry Pyper, Charlie McManus, Norman Edwards, Ted Sloan John Pritchard, David Brown, Harold Taffy Lewis, Ruby Dunn, Ena Geddis,

Marion recalled how that workers in the Nylon were seen to be the elite of Newtownards factory life. One worker when he received a large white £5 note asked his boss if this was for two weeks wages only to be told, happily, that it was for just one week.. He had never seen that size of a pay before.

Jobs at that time included:- Knitting Oiling Labouring & Cleaning Yarn Store staff Needle Store staff Glass Flat iron Examining Steam setting(conditioning) Seaming Linking Examining and sorting Bagging Dyeing Post Boarding Pairing and Examining Transferring Packing Despatching

Other Russ Payne was keen to deepen Factory life and anted to form a Sports Club.A form was drawn up to ascertain the talents of the work force; however, the filling-in of the forms turned into a comedy. They all seemed to have claimed musical talents. Fluters, Drummers, Lambeg drummers, Accordian players, Spoons players, and several claimed to have been in films with MGM and Warner Brothers.

Christmas 1953 seemed to be special . Marion clearly remembered tha,t during a visit by Lord and Lady Wakehurst, there was the spontaneous singing of the Carol “Silent Night”.   Sandy Kirk, in the Finishing Room, raised the singing of the first line and the remainder of the workers throughout the other departments gradually joined in until it was almost choir-like and well applauded by Shirley Hynds the Manager. It made such an impression on the visitors that Lady Wakehurst personally complimented Sandy Kirk for his singing.

Singing of course figured largely as a ‘coded message-system’ by the workers at different times and to different people. Daisy Daisy was a greeting to Daisy Chambers the Seaming Supervisor, Softly Softly was sung when someone got ‘told off’.
Don’t fence me in was sung when overtime had to be worked. Rudolf the red-nose reindeer was aimed at another Manager.
Can anyone add any more to the"Shop floor Hits" list?.

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