In most British Bata families, the sexes are mixed - brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, and/or sons and daughters but, this week, there are four smart girls who deserve to receive recognition in this series - three sisters and their niece. The sisters gave up farmwork to come to British Bata.
Two of the sisters, Violet Pixby and Maud Bullock, are twins, and both are in the boxmaking department. So is the niece Pamela Nicholls. The third sister, Elsie Holland, is in the rubber factory.
The three sisters left the land because they wanted better jobs, better money, better working conditions and more interesting work.

Elsie (left) is one of the most reliable workers in Dept 325, one of the two part-time workshops in the rubber factory. She collects and cuts long, thin pieces of rubber for wellingtons, and is in a section of the department in which three operations are done to prepare the material for the conveyor. When she has finished her job, she passes it to the next worker to be folded and pasted, and when that is completed, it goes on to be pressed.
“I do the first job on this section,” she explained, “ and I must look lively all day. The rubber cannot get to the bootmaking stage unless I deal with it properly and promptly. If I am late, everyone else is late. This is important at any time, but especially when quality competitions are held.

“It is responsible and interesting work, and I like it. In fact, I like everything - my job, my fellow workers, more foreman and the Company.”
Elsie started with British Bata nearly four years ago. For a little while, she fitted insoles on lace-up boots. But, she was a clicker for most of the time, spending two and a half years in Dept 325.
“I started on a farm doing potato picking and other work,” she said, “but wanted a more interesting and better paid job. So I replied to a British Bata advertisement for part-time workers, and was engaged. I think you will find that most part-timers here are happy and contented at their jobs. The hours are suitable, and the Company is always most considerate.”
Foreman Eddie Ralph told Bata Record that Elsie was a steady, reliable worker, who invariably helped to maintain the service necessary to feel the conveyor without any letting-up. “And the girls on that section have to work hard to do it,” he pointed out.
Elsie’s son, Terence, now on national service, used to work in the leather factory.
Maud and Violet are popular workers in the boxmaking department, where they are know as Darkie and Fairy, and, like Elsie, have a steady , cheerful outlook on life, and a readiness to appreciate a joke.

Maud (right) came a little while before Elsie, and, for the first two weeks, helped to make men’s welted shoes in Dept 471. Then she was transferred to the boxmaking department, she was a stitcher, shaping and closing boxes from flat shapes of cardboard, hundreds passing through her hands every day.
Then she became on of the six women on the folding counter, where 30 fast and nimble fingers fashion yellow-patterned slipper boxes at a speed which has to be seen to be realised. They also put labels on the more squat white shoe boxes and generally play an important part in maintaining the non-stop service of boxes needed for the packing of British Bata footwear.

“I started on the farm, with my sisters,” Maud told Bata Record, “and after that, I became a postwoman. I was based on Grays Post Office, and began work at 5.30 every morning, doing two deliveries a day, and walking scores of miles - at least, that is what it felt like - every time. I did not mind the work itself, but I did not like the early rising it entailed, so, after two years, I looked round for something which, while giving me plenty of work, did not entail my getting up in the middle of the night..
“I applied personally at the British Bata Factory, on the recommendation of friends, and started work five days later. I have been happy ever since - we are all a happy family in the boxmaking department.”

When Bata Record interviewed Violet, she was operating a machine which she called “a flying bedstead,” at which only hands and feet are used. By means of this contrivance, shapes of cardboard, flat and rigid, are shaped and stuck together to form boxes.
For most of the two years she has been in the boxmaking department, Violet (left) was stitching boxes, and, like her fellow-workers, she deals with an almost astronomical number of boxes in the making. Like Maud, she is a part-time worker, but her twin sister starts at 7.30 whereas Violet begins two hours later. Both girls finish work at 3.30.
Always cheerful, and with a ready sense of humour, Violet says she does not have much time to indulge in hobbies, but confesses to doing “a bit of knitting”.

When questioned further on this, she admitted that she had for years knitted jumpers, pullovers, jerseys, and other garments, for her husband and child - a daughter now aged sever - but she refuted the suggestion that she was an expert. Maud however, says otherwise, and alleges that Violet can “do anything” with a pair of knitting needles.
“Do I like it here,”? repeated Violet, continuing her story. “Of course. We all do. Elsie says the rubber factory is best, but I know better. For real comradeship while working, and general happiness of atmosphere, you cannot beat the boxmaking department.”

Youngest member of this all feminine family is 15 years old Pamela Nicholls, niece to Elise Maud and Violet. Pam also works in the boxmaking department, and shares her aunts’ enthusiasm for it. She has been at East Tilbury for four months, coming straight from school, and works on the machine on which the plan number, name, and other items of identification are printed. She, like her aunts - on whose recommendation she decided to try for a job with British Bata - handle an amazing number of boxes every day. In fact, practically ten boxes pass through her hands every minute.

In all jobs in the boxmaking department, high-degree dexterity is essential in order to maintain the uninterrupted flow of hundreds and hundreds of boxes which British Bata footwear seems to eat up. Pam possesses this necessary qualification, and is one of the keenest of the department’s younger workers.
When she wants to relax, she goes dancing, or to the pictures.
“Darkie, Fairy and Pam, are all capable and reliable workers,” says Floormanager W Osborne.