During its research into the number of families and relatives who work for British Bata, this page has found several large groups of relatives who work happily under the Company’s banner. For some time though it has been trying to stave off the inevitable - writing about the Rogers family.
Floormanager Pat Rogers (left) has his wife and six relatives working at the factory and soon, he says, that number will be increased so there was nothing for it but to tell the story of the Rogers “clan” before it grows too big for inclusion in these columns. As it is the story will have to be spread over two weeks.

Not long after the end of the war, a young foreman went on holiday in Yorkshire, his wife’s home county. He said he was happy with British Bata, and invited members of her family to share his happiness. They all came south and became British Bata workers.
The foreman was Pat Rogers, now floormanager of 320 floor of the rubber factory, in which his wife, Winifred, is a key worker. A small army of sisters, brothers-in-law, and nephews soon settled down cheerfully at East Tilbury, and, although three of them left, eight, including Pat and Winifred, are still here.
They are found in the rubber factory, leather factory, food store and garage, and all say they are glad they came. When they are not working, their pursuits vary from house decorating to weight lifting, and from model making to radiogram listening and televiewing.
Still three years the right side of 40, Pat is one of the youngest floormanagers in the factory, and one of the most active and enthusiastic of the many long service workers in the rubber factory. To get Pat to stand or sit still is a work of art - it seems as if he has quicksilver in his veins.
On January 2nd next, he will have been with British Bata for 21 years, during which time he has studied conscientiously the manufacture of rubber footwear, making himself familiar with all the conveyor stages and handling pretty well every style produced in the factory.
“I started when I was fifteen-and-a-half,” Pat told the Bata Record, “ and my first job was toe lasting. My first idea on leaving school was to become an apprentice motor mechanic, and I worked in a garage for about six months, bur I thought there would be better prospects at British Bata - and I was right.
“At 18, I took over my first conveyor, being the youngest foreman in the factory. Plimsolls were made there, and it was the first conveyor in the factory to produce 2,000 pair a day. I was naturally proud of this, and the Company showed it appreciation by giving me a premium and sending me to Zlin. This was part holiday, and part instruction, and I had some valuable lessons in rubber factory methods and procedure.
“On returning, I took over my old conveyor, and was in charge of it until I joined the army in 1940.”
Pat was in the Army for six years, seeing extensive service, mainly as a driver-mechanic, in the Royal Army Service Corps and the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, in Iraq, Persia, Palestine, Egypt, and other places in the Middle East.
For a few weeks after his return, when the rubber factory was getting back into production, in 1946, he said, he and Mary Marshall (now Barber) were the only workers in the department which was then producing plimsolls, he made the shoes and she stitched them.
“But within two months I had a full conveyor, which was producing 1,800 pairs a day,” he said.
“Coming to later times, I became a foreman of Dept 321, which was then making buskins, of Dept 322, to replace Vic Law, who went in charge of the rubber factory school and is now chief examiner at Maryport, and then of Dept 324 - the first all-part time conveyor in the factory. In August 1953, I took over the floor.”
Most of the factory’s part-time workers are on the floor of which he is manager, and he speaks very favourably of them, and says “they are especially enthusiastic about the Christmas Quality Competitions.”
Pat is a thoroughgoing Bataman, and says that anyone who is prepared to roll up his or her sleeves is sure of a happy career at East Tilbury. “Loyalty is the first essential,” he said, “and the Company also attaches great importance to determination to get on and not to be discouraged by any little setbacks that might come one’s way. I know of no other firm which gives such a square deal to its employees.”
When Pat relaxes, he is usually to b e seen “tinkering about” - to use his own words - with a motor car. “ I started with cars, so I know a little about them,” he amplified. “ My first one cost £30, and I enjoyed myself thoroughly with it.”

Winifred Rogers (right), whose long residence in the south has modified but not eliminated her Yorkshire accent, has been with British Bata for nearly three years, for 18 months of which she has been a key worker, attached to the rubber factory school, but going to any department where an expert binder is required.
“I have been binding almost throughout my association with East Tilbury,” she said, “and have dealt with many styles of footwear. I like the folk here, and get on very well with them.
“I first met Pat in Yorkshire - in Manmingham Park, Bradford, 13 years ago. He was stationed there, and we became friendly. That was a lucky meeting, because we have been happy ever since.
“Pat knows how to mash tea but is not really handy about the house.

Like most north countrywomen, I am, and I enjoy painting, papering and generally doing the decorating. Pat does not always approve my doing this work - but agrees that it looks champion when finished. And they say women are illogical!”
Cheerful, friendly, know to be a capable and reliable worker, said she was glad to come to East Tilbury, and thereby follow her husband’s advice.
“And my family like it too,” she supplemented. “They liked it ever since that day when Pat persuaded all of them to come to British Bata. For Yorkshire folk to come south, and stay there, after being born and bred in the north is, in itself, a tribute - you can’t fool anyone north of the Trent!”

Two other relatives of Winifred Rogers work in the rubber factory - Sybil Ambler, her elder sister, and Jimmy Innes, Sybil’s son-in-law.
Sybil (left) rubs down bootees in Dept 324 sewing section, and is in her second period of service, she ended the first through ill-health. At that time she did various sewing jobs in the factory, including working on the preparing table. She has been on the top floor since her return two-and-a-half years ago.
Like Pat and Winifred, she lives on the Bata Estate. She says carefully that the atmosphere there and in the factory, is “different” from that in Yorkshire, but the people are no less friendly. “I would recommend British Bata to anyone who wanted a job,” she adds."

All our family came here, and like it. I have five grandchildren - and I suppose they will be Bata workers before long!”
Asked if she had any hobbies, Sybil remarked that not much time was left for them after a long day at shoemaking and housework.

Jimmy Innes is on the presses in Dept 332, where Sportrites are produced. He is one of the few people who lived and worked in South Wales and who played Soccer instead of rugby and contrived to remain inside the pale. Before coming to East Tilbury seven years ago, he worked in a mine and in a munitions factory.
“For the first two years at East Tilbury”, said Jimmy, I worked on the vulcanising boilers. I like the presses better.”
Jimmy is a familiar face on the touchline at all Bata Sports Senior Football matches, and, to East Tilbury, since he came, has been a keen supported of both home and away games where his knowledge of soccer enables him to gain maximum enjoyment.

But football is not the only recreation of this alert young man. He watches television, listens to the radiogram, and reads, on an average four books a week.
So, in his own words, he finds plenty to do.
His wife, June, daughter of Sybil Ambler and Harry Ambler, who is another Bata worker in this family - liked the rubber factory, where she used to work, so much that she want to come back.