Memories of the days when the rubber factory had only about 70 workers - not much more than a tenth of the present number, and when only six or seven women were there, are recalled this week, by Floormanager Harry Mulccock (left), whose wife Vera also works in the rubber factory and whose daughter, Janet, is in the export department.
During the past 20 years or more, both Harry and Vera left East Tilbury at different times , and came back, and their service has also been interrupted by illness, but they have both had a comprehensive experience of making rubber footwear. Both, too, are happy and contented in their jobs.

Harry told Bata Record that he started the first workshop in the present rubber factory. When he began his first period of service, as a lasting-boy, in February 1934, the factory was in Building 11, and it contained, he said, two conveyors and about 70 workers. He was 19, and came to East Tilbury because he wanted a better job than the work he was doing in the office at Tilbury Docks.
“In those days, the factory was much smaller than it is now,” he remarked, “but there was a grand spirit of determination to do the job properly. While working, I was learning to be a foreman, and was made one before I was 20, but that does not mean I had finished learning shoemaking - it is something, in fact, of which not even the cleverest craftsman has a complete knowledge. I learnt as I went along, as everyone did, and gradually built up a knowledge of the various operations necessary for the making of shoes.
“There was no sample room then, and I used to help instructors to prepare samples for customers. This coupled with actually operational work, sometimes kept us busy on Saturdays and Sundays and even as late as midnight on other days, but we were all happy.
“As I was learning, and doing my work as foreman, I saw the factory grow steadily. I started the fourth conveyor in Building 11, and remember the opening of Building 12. among the earliest styles of footwear with which I dealt were plimsolls with cuban heels, and wellingtons.
“In 1936 I went to Zlin, and received valuable instruction there. I worked mainly on built-up trampki shoes - the contemporary equivalent to Sportrites, and I arrived back on Christmas Eve.
“I saw the installation of the sponge-rubber presses, and other developments in the rubber factory, including the growth of the laboratory from a small unit to the present vital department, and I was privileged to start the first workshop in the present building; it made plimsolls. I was made a floormanager in charge of floor 320, 18 years ago.”
For six months, at the end of 1942 and beginning of 1943, Harry left East Tilbury to go into a munitions factory.
“When I came back,” he continued, “I was put in charge of a floor, and from that time, except for a break when at Maryport, I have been in charge, at various times, of either floor 320 or 330.
“I think I can say that I have had practical experience of all operations in rubber shoemaking - including manipulation, and have handled pretty well every style of footwear that the rubber factory has produced. But the job of a floormanager does not end at knowing these things. He is responsible for a large number of men and women workers, and, in that kind of company, human problems are bound to arise sometimes.”

Vera Mulcock’s (right) first period of service began in December, 1933 - three months before Harry’s, and she has worked on conveyors and sewing machines.
“There were only six or seven girls in the rubber factory when I started then,” she said, “and I believe I am the only one still working here of those original few. I started on sewing slippers, and the wheel has turned a full circle, because that happens to be what I am doing now.
“Harry was my foreman, and we met in the factory, fell in love, and married. This was after two years. When Janet was born a year later, I left. I had previously been transferred to a conveyor.”

Returning in April, 1943, Vera was absent for four months from December in that year, looking after her husband who became seriously ill and had an abdominal operation. On her return again, she repaired rubber footwear - this was during the war - and subsequently went with Harry, as forewoman, to Maryport.
“Back at East Tilbury,” she narrated, “ I learned to do pretty well all conveyor jobs, as well as sewing operations - cementing edges, fitting foxing, vamping socks, stitching backs - anything. For some time I was on six-eyelet boots, and I have been an instructress in the rubber factory school.

“I love working here, and have always got on well with everyone. The Company has always been very considerate, and the workers invariably friendly. I feel pleased and proud that my daughter has joined Harry and myself, and thereby completed the Mulcock trio at East Tilbury.”
Janet left) is an invoice typist in the wholesale section of the export department, and has been there for nine months. She started at East Tilbury four months earlier, in the calculation department, helping to prepare plan sheets for the leather stockroom. Her work in the wholesale section of the export department, is, says Edwin Outen, in charge, quietly competent.
Janet used to be in the accounts department of a London shipping firm, but now has a better job without the strain of a two-hour rail journey every day. She likes going to the cinema, and her main hobby is collecting foreign stamps.