Reply To: Aylesford Paper Mills – Early view of East Mill

Hello Michael Presneill.

You ask about 1 & 2 after 1971.

I had summer vac jobs from 1973 onwards until joining full time in 1975. The first summer I worked in Key Terrain offices but often met my father (in APM west) at dinnertime for a walk around the mill. 1 & 2 were both shut at that time, still with the supercalender and reeler in the machine house. 3 was already running fluting, with its reeler out in the old salle.

74 and 75 I worked in the centre dept, and 2 was being rebuilt I think in 75. In summer 76 I worked variously on no 3 and no 6 reeler and did a stint with another student helping on the starch plant (Staper was down and we were using bagged starch), during that time the conveyor belts to take reels from 3 and 2 reelers was being installed and no 2 reeler commissioned as we went over from no3 to do a trial run once. Summer 77 I was in the tech dept mainly west mill but occasionally went to east mill – travelling by train, if it was wet I’d go in 6 loading dock through the salle and up through either 2 or 3 m/c house through the beater floor (it was often flooded under no 6 wet end), over the pipe bridge and through west mill to get into the tech dept roof entrance, 2 was making fluting then. Later, 6 and 8 closed, 2 became the liner machine (125, 150 and 200 gsm single ply) and 3 stayed on fluting.

I have in front of me the commemorative mug: ‘Aylesford Paper Mills Record Output 2600 Tons w/e 17th Oct 1983 East Mill’ . We all got one in east mill (I was in EM tech dept then after the mill was split into 2 cost centres), that 2600 Tons was off 2 & 3 machines only. One reason we got the output up was by substituting bagged cationic starch in 2’s wet end allowing the sizepress to be bypassed and so increased the dryer capacity, we could get 2 up to 10 tph on the right grade (150gsm was the best balance of drainage and dryer limitations I recall), as long as the Island could keep up!

Happy Days! (Well in retrospect mainly).