Site content © Bernard Keogh (2006) et al where noted.

As a measure of the high esteem with which people relate with the Moss Bank works, we had a Centenary reunion in 2005 and met up with many people who worked there when I started in 1961 - they were happy to travel some long distances to meet up for a few hours with colleagues who they would not have seen in 30 or 40 years - it was a memorable night.

        Once I had settled into the routine of my working day I began to learn many things in the shadow of Graham Beesley and the other staff, particularly the women in the General Office and the Secretarial Department. The excitement of learning new things drove me on each day and the convivial atmosphere in the factory made going to work a pleasure each day. I learned many skills which I took pride in doing well and are still with me to this day - even though the technology has changed. I learned to "photocopy" on the wet copier where you took a negative "picture" and then developed it into a positive in developing solution and then hang it to dry - took ages to do one page.........the Gestetner copier was like working a printing press - and what a dirty job when it went wrong.

         As the mail boy my job was to collect the mail from the General Post Office every morning, deliver parcels to the Post office (or Tanhouse Lane Railway station) during the day, take the cheque's and cash to the National Provincial Bank in the afternoon, run errands down the main street for the office staff, sort out, pack and stamp all the outgoing mail each day and take it to the Post Office on my way home. The Post Office was at the bottom end of town whereas I lived at the top end and only five minutes (by bike) from Gorsey Lane. So my work involved a lot of travel using the "company bike" (bought new for me to carry out my duties) which was a butchers bike with a carrier on the front into which was placed a large wicker basket to carry my post bag, parcels, shopping etc...... .

         If I had too many parcels to carry on my bike I got taken in the company van (a green Morris 8 Van) by "old" Lou Smith, the mechanic and garage man ("young" Lou, his son, also worked at Bowman's in the Fitting Shop as a Maintenance Fitter - hence the "old"). This was a great job in the summer but not so good in the winter when having to cycle in the pouring rain (or snow), against the wind, uphill along Tanhouse Lane and over Lugsdale Bridge, with a carrier full of parcels which had to be kept dry or the paper wrapping disintegrated along with the label and stamps!! It needed some ingenuity to get round that so I kept in touch with old Lou on a daily basis on my "factory tour" and when the weather was bad he would many a time make some "excuse" that he had to go into Widnes in the van - so I would go along with him....

Moss Bank village.

         In 1961 there were still houses and families living in "Moss Bank village". They had a local shop (Hatrick's) which catered for many of the needs of the residents, a local pub (The Golden Bowl), a train service that ran through Tanhouse Lane Sation on the southern loop line to St Helens and a bus service that was frequent to serve the "non-car" commuters to the works and home again. There were still working farms in Gorsey Lane and one of my jobs on a regular basis was to walk up the road to Johnson Lane and collect the rents from the cottages I knew as Heaton and Bodens farm. Millington's and Johnson's farms were still in operation then and there were no other factories to the north of the Bowmans site.  

My Working Life - continued - Page 2

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