Chris Bennett

WISEArchive
Working Lives of Older People

My Working Life 1960 – 2008 Anonymous

http://www.wisearchive.co.uk/story/my-working-life-1960-2008/

The outcome was that in August 1968 I resigned and started work for Imperial Paper Mills, Gravesend who were part of Reed International, my title had gone from Accounts Clerk to Clerk but my income had increased from £600 a year to £750. I now worked in a purpose built office, called “The White House” with Central Heating and Open Plan Offices. I started work helping to calculate and produce reports on the efficiency of the paper making machines. There were six machines producing some 3 to 4000 tonnes of paper a week and about 1200 employees. Each type of paper for each machine had a set of standards that the actual production was measured against. The main calculations were done by comptometer operators on mechanical calculators, these were made by a company called Diehl and were about the size of a typewriter, which made quite a noise as the cogs and wheels turned as the calculations were being done. Whilst the main calculations were done manually there were investigations done into why variances had occurred so I now moved into another field of expertise that I once again found out that I was quite good at. So much so that after I had been there for five weeks the Section Leader was moved to the Wages Department and I was given his job. This meant I now had to have weekly meetings with the Production Manager and Machine Superintendents to discuss the previous weeks inefficiencies. This was quite daunting as being relatively young, I was 24 by now and without any experience of dealing with management I was thrown in at the deep end.

I coped with this OK and earned the respect of those people that I dealt with and after a few years was again promoted, this time to Cost Clerk, I was now to be the assistant to the Cost Accountant. During this period Electronic calculators arrived, costing some £300 to £400 each and being about 20 cms wide, 30 cms long and 15 cms high, they were fantastic, instantaneous answers to the most complicated calculations. The equivalent today can be bought in a ˜Pound Shop” no bigger than 5 cms wide, 10cms long and less than 1cm high. We were now able to do all our own calculations but this meant that unfortunately the comptometer operators were redundant.

Several people had been in the position of Cost Clerk since I had been at the mill but none stayed for long so when I was offered the job in 1973 I had some doubt as to whether I should take it or not, especially as I had no experience, but with assurances from the management that I would be able to return to my old job if it didn’t work out I accepted after all promotion meant more money. I soon started to pick up the ˜Standard Costing System”, all costs had a standard against which they were measured and the Managers taken to task over any adverse variances.. The Cost Accounts were produced monthly to a deadline so a few late nights were now being experienced, no extra pay or time off in lieu but again more respect from the Chief Accountant for the effort I was putting in.

The mill had been in decline since about 1972 when the first round of redundancies were made and this had continued on various occasions until 1977 when much to my surprise the Cost Accountant was made redundant I was given his job but as I wasn’t qualified and Reed International didn’t allow any body without any qualifications to have Accountant as part of their job title I was to be the Cost Office Supervisor.

I had been in the job for about two years and we had a new Chief Accountant, from outside Reeds, who had seen what I was doing and unbeknown to me had fought for me to be given the title Cost Accountant, he won and I therefore became the only Accountant within Reed International to have Accountant in my job title, something that I was rightfully proud of.

Further redundancies followed until the mill was finally shut down in 1981, by this time I was earning £14,000 a year. The straw that finally broke the camels back and forced the shut down was Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Party policy of not subsidising British Industry. At this time there were imports from countries who were being subsidised by their governments and able to undercut UK manufacturers prices. Peru was one of these countries.

A skeleton staff was kept on to oversee the sale of machinery etc. which was myself, a storekeeper, two engineers, an electrician, the purchasing officer and two security staff. It soon became obvious that I didn’t have enough work to occupy my time so I started having tea breaks with the others, I had never previously had a tea break in my working life, always drinking it at my desk whilst working. From this I started doing jobs with them to pass the time, during the eighteen months that I was there after the shut down I learnt welding, fork lift truck driving, plumbing and some electrical work. Oh yes I almost forgot, how to mark white lines on a warehouse floor we let out to a publisher and they wanted bays marking out.

Author moved on to Empire Mill.

The http://www.sittingbournemill.com site is now dead.
The cached text of the history page:
Over 300 years of paper production

A paper mill was first established in Sittingbourne in 1708 with first records of a paper mill at the current site dating back to 1769, the period in which modern wove paper had been innovated. In 1863, the Mill was taken over by Edward Lloyd and family, owners of the Daily Chronicle newspaper and in 1876 construction of the Mill as it is known commenced.

Sittingbourne Mill
In 1889 Edward Lloyd introduced a horse-drawn tramway to carry materials from Milton Creek to the Mill. With paper production growing rapidly, between 1904 and 1906 the tramway was replaced by a steam railway on what is now known as the Sittingbourne & Kemsley Light Railway.

As the Mill expanded and silt began to build up on the banks of Milton Creek, it became necessary to extend the railway to Ridham Dock so that raw materials could be brought in by barges and ships. By 1914, sales of the Daily Chronicle exceeded the combined sales of The Times, The Daily Telegraph and the Evening Standard, making the Mill the world’s largest, with its 1,200 employees using 17 machines to make over 2000 tonnes of paper per week.

In 1924, Frank Lloyd built a new factory at Kemsley along with a new village to house employees. When he died in 1927, Edward Lloyd Ltd was taken over by the Berry Brothers until it was sold to Bowaters in 1937, forming the Bowater-Lloyd Group. In 1986, UK Paper completed a management buy out and the site was split in two with part of the operation sold to St Regis. The sites were later sold to Fletcher Challenge before being sold to Finnish paper maker M-Real in 1998. M-Real decided to close the Mill in 2007 paving the way for its redevelopment.

Content Last Updated: 1st February 2011

Essential Land copyright © | design by Red Letter Design

Photo of visit to West Mill Deinking operation 1979. Courtesy Peter Preston.

B&W 170 x 213 mm. In picture:

Peter Preston (West Mill Senior Process Chemist)

Ron De Gray (General Manager Aylesford Paper Mills)

John Martin (West Mill Stock Preparation)

Sir Alex Jarrett (Chairman Reed International)

Back shows photographer’s stamp, names and date.

Hi John
What an excellent collection of Carrongrove pictures – lots of equipment, buildings and people.
Many thanks.

There is a list of the archives of paper companies at:

Scottish Print Archive.org

Companies Listed:-

Alexander Cowan & Sons Ltd                   Alexander Pirie & Sons

Balerno Papermill Company,                    C Davidson & Company

C S & Co,                                                        Caldwell & Co Ltd,

Clyde Paper Company Ltd,                      Craigmarloch Paper Co Ltd,

Culter Paper Mill,                                          Culter Mills Paper Co Ltd,

Dawsholm Snuff & Paper Mills,                  Donside Paper Co Ltd,

Edward Collins and Sons Ltd,                    G.B. Papers Plc,

George Laing & Co,                                    Guard Bridge Paper Co,

Henry Bruce & Sons Ltd,                              Inveresk Paper Co Ltd,

J Lovell and Son Ltd,                                    James Brown & Co Ltd

James Dickson,                                             James Lovell & Son Ltd,

John Galloway & Company Ltd,             John Luke Jnr & Co,

John Tod & Sons Ltd                                     Kinleith Paper Mills

Pirie & Sons,                                                    R. Tullis & Co,

Smith & McLaurin Ltd                                   Smith Anderson & Co Ltd

Thomas Chalmers,                                        Tullis Russell & Company Ltd,

Vale Board Mills Ltd,                                     William Milne (Falkirk) Ltd,

William Sommerville & Son Ltd,

Assessed May 2017

K-C History Part 3

By 1957 expansion was steady, with many new lines added including, in 1961, Kleenex Dressing Towel consolidating presence in hte medical field.
The second machine from Bertrams was started in Oct 1959, same deckle as No.1 at 3.25 m but output up to 50 tn/day with speed up to 920 m/min (3000 ft/min).
No. 3 Machine was started 1964 ; 4.1 m 60 tn/day speed 1200 m/min (170″ @ 3000 ft/min) but the Board of Trade would not allow a fourth so it was chosen to put it in Workington.
In Larkfield a secondary Fibre plant was added in July 1965.
Production of some grades dropped during the 1960s – Toilet Tissue, market saturation and Sanitary Towels due to new production in previous export areas.
Personalities:
Derrick Croxon, Colonel Rodney Sheldon, Syd Emerson, Bob Carpenter, Rudy Moravek, Ernie Porter, Ben Boorman, Oxie Burr, R.C.M. Marston, William W. Cross, Denis Vidler, Sydney Thomas (Don) Ryder, Hector G. Paul, D.T. (Squire) Wilkins, Guy Minard, Roy Sutcliffe, John Allen

Kimberly-Clark Retirement Association has provided a useful history of the establishment of Kimberly Clark from first sales of imported sanitary products to the integrated unit in 1968.
The document has been split into four parts for the forum.

K-C History Part 1
In 1968 Syd Emerson was asked to write a history of the establishment of Kimberly-Clark in the UK from 1927 before he retired.
As stated in the foreword by Derrick Croxon, he had been with the UK company from almost the first day, and had seen the rise of tissue use in the UK and many changes to the company and the market.

Part one covers the establishment of the first UK company, Kotex Ltd selling female sanitary products through Chemist and Drapery outlets in association with Palmolive. Product innovation was important to the market, as was pricing, difficult when product was imported from US. and Canada. Kleenex Tissues were introduced in 1932.
The “Buy British” campaign during the depression discouraged imports, m especially from US so a Canadian company, Cellucotton Products Ltd. became the main producer.
In the late 1930s Sales Women were employed to overcome the embarrassment of men discussing the products with females in the Drapery outlets.

WW2 brought many challenges. As well as London bombing, space on conveys was at a premium and Import licenses were required requiring negotiation with The Board of Trade.

Shipping restrictions continued post-war due to space shortages.

Personalities:
Ernst Mahler, Ted Smith, Syd Emerson, Al Hamlin, Morton Hague, Stan Foster, Herbert Newman, Ernest V. Outlaw, Lewis Edward Phenner, Bertram George Jones, Hank Jost.

Photos of Mill notice board, showing Royal Appointment and redundant valley beaters in field behind mill.
Courtesy of Peter Preston