Images of work

My Mum And Dad Used To Work There When It Was Called BSC And Finally Burlington International. It Finally Closed In 1992.

Burlington and BSC before that. When I was a child living in Primrose Close it was Timpson shoe factory. I remember it from about 1950 onward. I lived about half a mile from the huge monolithic factory building which was I believe 4 storeys high. In the winter with early dark nights and late mornings, the light from the factory would illuminate the whole of North Park recreation ground which extended from Bath Road to where Dhalia and Weekley Glebe Road are now. The working morning began then at 7.30 and a siren would sound from the factory at 7.20. This was followed by another siren blast at a different pitch at 7.25. When I heard the last siren I knew my dad would call me to get up for school. From my bedroom window I could see lines of workers hurrying along the well trodden path in the North Park field to emerge into Bath Road for the factory gates. If a worker was more than 3 minutes late, they would have a quarter of an hour docked off their wages. They were still expected to work the other 12 minutes free.

For many years I considered the huge factory as a terrible place to work especially with all those windows in the summer months. However I worked there for 5 years when it was Burlington Int. and was surprised how comfortable it was to work in. Warm in the winter and cool in the summer. One of the better shoe factory conditions I had experienced. Of course the sirens had long since gone silent and the mornings began at 8am. Fond memories of my time at Burlingtons.