Kate Loxton
draft interview transcript
ate started working at the jam factory in August 1987. She’d heard the jam factory was looking for new people. Word just spread around the town. She came down, got the application form, and filled it in. Then she didn’t hear anything for a few weeks but was contacted and invited for an interview.
Phil Nelson and Poppy Minchin, who was in charge of fruit process then interviewed her. “Phil went into great detail about glass breakages and clean downs, which was all over my head then because I didn’t have a clue about how things worked,” Kate recalled.
She started on A section retail where they did M&S conserves along with a couple of other cheaper brands like Star Value and Spar. There were a lot more people working at the jam factory at the time and it was more labour intensive. One of Kate’s first jobs was on the old juice bottle line. Her first week she had to put special offer paper cones on the juice bottle like as they went by.
“When the line stopped you kept going. Back then there was no machine to do it. I worked 8:30 until 5:00 Monday to Thursday and Friday 8:30 until 3:00,” Kate said. “We had a morning break an afternoon break and a lunch break of half an hour. There was an office up in the factory called the labour room where there was a board.
Dave Sturge was the manager then and he put your name next to where you would work.”
The production line didn’t run all the time so Kate was farmed out to other production. Sometimes she went to fruit process to sort, sometimes to the juice to stack, sometimes she had to cover holidays and sometimes the miniatures (one and a half ounce jars), or cans, or the MOD line.
“They used to advertise internally if there were jobs,” Kate remembered. “I used to see the NPD ladies walking around the factory and thought that I would fancy a job like that where you got to walk around. I used to watch for adverts coming up. At first the NPD asked for someone with qualifications. I couldn’t be bothered with that. Then they advertised again and I had an interview and they really wanted someone who could work shifts. I wasn’t in a position to do that then because my children were smaller. Then one girl who was working in the lab handed her notice in and they were a bit desperate for somebody and I applied and I got the job. The first five or six month I worked on the Dorset Line. These were bespoke products like Damsen with Gin, Plum with Port, Strawberry with Champagne, pickles and mustards. I used to do the QC checks and weigh up the ingredients for the boilers as well and decant the alcohol. A bit of hand labelling and doilying went on. Sometimes you had to work late at night to get it on the docks to Japan. You sometimes had to work until you met the order. We also used to do a range for the Duchess of Devonshire and her shop at Chatsworth.
