Moving to Mile End, London
"I think it was towards the end of 1950 that the Conway Stewart factory relocated to Mile End. Some of us had mixed emotions about that. I know I did at first. Quite a few of the girls came from the other side of the Thames, which would have made it a bit more difficult for them to get to work. Also, we would miss our lunch time walks down Leather Lane, and our frequent visits to the famous Gamages department store, where we used to look at all the lovely things we couldn’t afford to buy.
On the plus side, it was nearer to Leyton where I lived and I could travel by bus or train quite easily from my home. It was a much brighter and modern building with a canal running along the back of it. Writing about it now, it is difficult to understand why we had mixed emotions but I guess at the time it was a big change for us all. Having said that, I wouldn’t have gone anywhere else!
By the time we moved to Mile End, I had been doing various jobs in the old factory, and finished up by working a new machine which folded the instruction leaflets. This I thought was brilliant as I had very often folded them by hand, which was quite tedious.
A year or so after we moved, a new little park was laid out opposite the factory and was opened by Prince Philip. Quite a few of us went across to watch the ceremony - it was exciting and it made a big difference to the location.
For quite a time, I did testing and examining of pens, but mostly in the remaining years of my employment I worked on banding, bumping and polishing. Banding and bumping were done on fairly small machines. The machine would hold the cap secure whilst it was spun round and the operator would bring a small sharp implement forward onto the cap making shallow grooves ready to accept the gold bands. The bands were then manoeuvred into position over the grooves and bumped in (pressed) so that they laid perfectly flat and tight into the grooves at the cap edge. The pens either had one band, two bands or three bands - any loose or buckled bands were returned to be done again.
At the very back of the floor, the polishing was done. We had three or four buffing machines. There were large pipes attached to the back of the machines which drew away most of the dust, but we would still have a fair covering of dust on our overalls at the end of the day.
On the back row of the photograph - on the right side, one can just see two men. One was named Charlie (Foreman) who, together with the other man, looked after the machines at the back and changed the polishing buffers when required – which were quite large and heavy.
We had big bars of polish which we applied to the whirling buffers with some caution - because if you put too much polish on, it could make the pens look very smeared. You also had to have nimble fingers as one would twirl the pen around against the fast moving buffer. Not being nimble enough could result in a burn mark damaging the pen. I noted that each polisher had their own finger movements and as their expertise developed, it almost became a work of art.
We would sing along to the music on the radio listening to “Top of the Pops” (or the equivalent) each week. A group of us would put a shilling each on one of the top ten songs and which ever song reached No.1 that person would get the money. Ten shillings was a lot of money in those days. I was earning between £5 and £5.10s. per week in 1953.
We had a very caring, quiet but firm Forelady who sat at the front of the finishing department facing everybody, keeping a watchful eye on ‘her girls’. Her name was Miss Harrison. I understand she worked there for many years. I was very fond of her and I missed her when I left. It is amazing how many old colleagues I can still remember from my time at Conway Stewart. I really did make so many good friends and I kept in touch with some of them for many years but sadly, I have lost contact with all of them now".