Rosie Jones, Voices from the Factory Floor

Rosie was born on 29th October, 1940 at her grandmother’s farm on Anglesey. She was an only child. Her father worked on the roads and her mother was in domestic service. She went to the grammar school in Llangefni but left when she was sixteen after doing her ‘O’ levels. She had intended staying on in school but a job opportunity came up at the milk factory. She got the job but 4 it was on the condition that she would completed the examinations she had prepared for. She had been doing the job for three months when she had time off to take her examinations. She studied typing in college under a similar arrangement.

 

She had heard about the job in the milk factory one day in assembly in school. She remembers that the interview was with a man she knew. She wasn’t living on the farm at that time but the family kept a few sheep. She was living in Gaerwen and the factory was in Llangefni so she had to travel to work by bus.

 

She had also heard that there was a job going in the bank but preferred to go and work in the factory because she wanted to do something connected to agriculture. The factory was owned by the Milk Marketing Board. After hearing that she’d got the job she felt nervous about going to work among a crowd of workers. She knew Mair (VN033) who was already working there. She suffered an appendicitis shortly after starting there but they kept the post open for her and the staff sent her a box of Black Magic chocolates.

 

She remembers her first day, wearing the new overalls and wellingtons that she’d bought in Llangefni. A man played a trick on her a few days after she started by putting her to sit on a shelf and painting faces on her wellingtons, which she viewed as just a bit of fun. There were about fifty people working there including the women, men and drivers that transported the bottles of milk.

 

Rosie’s work was to test the samples of milk that came in from the farms. The farmers’ fee depended on the standard of the milk. The process of testing involved taking a number of samples, heating them to 104F/40C, cooling them to 68F/20C, sucking them up into pipettes, putting them into butyrometers, putting acid on them and then putting them in a centrifuge.. Everything was sterile. Rows of samples would be standing in hot water for a while and the fat would come to the surface. The women would read the results and work out the ratio of solids to fat.

 

Rosie was trained in the process of testing during her three month probationary period. There were six girls working in the lab altogether, although later on men started working there. The younger girls did the jobs in the lab that the older women didn’t want to do, and everybody got on well together.

 

15.30 There was also an office and a mess room where the workers went for a cuppa and a sandwich. There was no canteen when Rosie first started there. In the early days the manager would come to the lab to eat his lunch, and the cleaner would come in and heat food for him and the workers. On Saturdays and Sundays when the manager was not there the workers would have a fry up in the lab with food heated in a saucepan. They weren’t permitted to eat there and were supposed to eat in the mess. There was one manager and a few foremen. Later on they produced cheese and powdered milk there, with many tankers transporting the produce away. Cadbury’s took the factory over during the time that Rosie was there to make chocolate. The Cadbury’s brothers were Quakers so at Christmas time they didn’t have a party in a hotel. They would go on the train from Llangefni to Llandudno to some cafe, and then go and see a show paid for by the Cadbury family. The workers were allowed to buy a box of chocolates on offer, or buy seconds for a good price. The company organised trips to Cadbury’s in Birmingham and the family treated the farmers fairly.

 

22.00 They didn’t get paid overtime in the factory under Cadbury’s but got time in lieu. Rosie’s wage was two pounds a week. The factory reverted back to the Milk Marketing Board and overtime payments were made during this time. Working there was completely different under the two. When Cadbury ran the factory everything was chocolate coloured including the tankers. The workers didn’t get free milk but could get milk straight from the lorries that had collected it and would then pay for it on pay day.

 

Rosie began work at eight thirty and finish at five o’clock. They would clock in and clock out including clocking out for lunch. Some women knitted during their lunch breaks because they had an hour’s break. She worked five days a week but the factory was open seven days of the week, as the cows would be milked every day. If she had to work Saturday or Sunday she would get Monday and Tuesday off. The managers would bring them the order and tell them which days they were working.

 

The factory was very noisy when the cans were rolled in from the lorry and went through the machines. The smell of the milk in the cans was awful. The cans were large and the work had to be dealt with quickly. Each item of equipment was stainless steel, and everything was sterilised in the oven. The women’s overalls, and sometimes their skin, would get burnt by spots of sulphuric acid. This was quite common but nobody complained. They just put their hands in water. They were supposed to wear goggles due to the acid but would often forget. The company were good at following health and safety rules.

 

The women testing the milk had to have a colour blindness test with the doctor because they used litmus paper as part of the testing process. If the milk was bad it went back to the farmer the following day with a red label on it and he would lose his payment. Some of the good milk would go by tanker to other places but some of it was bottled there and sent around Anglesey. The milk was bottled into large bottles, and small bottles for the schools by the men using a machine. 35.00 The work of the women was in the lab, and the men collected the milk from the farmers, took the cans off the lorries, brought them into the factory, filled the bottles, and took them away. The men earned more than the women but the women didn’t think anything of it at the time. Rosie was living at home. She used to go to Bangor on a Saturday on the bus. “If you had a ten shilling note you had plenty of money.” This ten shillings would pay for the bus, a bag of chips and a ticket for the cinema. She would pay for the bus to go to work and she doesn’t remember giving her mother any money for her keep. She was an only child. Her wage increased during the time she was there although she doesn’t remember by how much. There was a union there and the men were members but the women weren’t. The men went on strike there once over wages. The men were angry that the women carried on working. Rosie met her husband in the factory. They got married in 1972 but she had left the creamery by then and was working for the council. She was in the milk factory for ten years between 1957 and 1967. She was interviewed by the council for a job in the licensing department. The building was very near the milk factory.

 

She left the milk factory because the job in the council offered higher pay and more opportunities for career advancement. She enjoyed the work in the creamery but the wages were low. She had learnt to type and thought her skills were being wasted there. It was warm in the lab, but the women had to go outside to test the milk on the deck in all kinds of weather and would have to wear their coats. They would roll the cans sometimes and they were very heavy. She once rolled a can full of water in the Young Farmers competition in Valley. On one occasion she had to go to Caernarfon to test milk and was given a lift in one of the tankers at six o’clock in the morning.

 

Rosie’s job was testing during her first stint in the factory. She left the council to have children and went back to work at the creamery on a casual basis – working in the lab, canteen and office whenever she received a call asking for help. She wasn’t there on a permanent basis but did this for years in between looking after the children, her parents and the animals. Her husband was there for forty two years driving tankers.

 

Looking back over the ten years of work she remembers good friendships. When farmers had milk returned they occasionally came in to complain and dispute it with the women who tested the milk.

 

They didn’t report the accidents with the acid because they were supposed to wear rubber gloves and the accidents would happen when they had failed to do. The women stood on their feet to test the milk and sat down to work out the results. There was an office to one side of the lab for this purpose and the reports went to the farmers. The women had to weigh the milk too, and if it was under they had to write to the farmer and his payment at the end of the month would be docked.

 

Duration: 55 minutes