When I Was A Lad

When I was a lad. That conjures up many memories. A trip down Memory Lane? Yes indeed. The sudden surge of nostalgia came about last week during a conversation with a good pal of mine from Saltney. It wasn’t initially planned to be a nostalgic chat, but it sort of turned out that way. Initially my pal had rung me to see how I was as he’d heard I’d not been too well recently. That was well appreciated. Very soon however we were into reminisce mode. Recalling days of our youth in Saltney.

When I Was A Lad

I’m not going to go into the whole, “I said” then “he said” scenario. No, what this post is mainly about is to give a mention to some of the businesses I remember being in Saltney but no longer with us. And there were quite a few. Saltney businesses were good employers “back in the day” as they say.

In no particular order but a first mention to the Country Maid Bakeries. I’ll go on to mention other employers in later posts. Country Maid Bakeries was situated on the High Street, where a part of Morrisons is now and a new housing estate. A housing estate that I believe, but not 100% sure, stretches around towards Maydor Avenue. My old stomping ground.

Ah…..Country Maid Bakeries!! What memories. An exaggeration no doubt but, at the time, it seemed like everyone from my generation worked at “The Bakery” in some shape or form. Many worked there on a full-time basis, while there were many of us – myself included – who worked there during school and college holidays. Some great times……and some difficult times. Great memories however either way.

And what about some of the characters who worked there!! I could probably write a book about some of the real larger than life characters who were, in my opinion, such an important part of my growing up. I won’t go into any of the specific details but suffice it to say, today’s Woke Brigade would have had a field day if they existed back then. Fortunately they didn’t. Five years or so working at Country Maid was fantastic character building.

Hot Cross Buns Made Me Sick

One thing I will recall is my first full week working there when I was 16. It was during Easter holidays. I’d already worked a few part-time shifts and, like so many others, I had ‘served my apprenticeship’ as a van delivery lad on a Saturday morning. Did we all start off helping Cyril on run number 1? A great beginning and such valuable experience when I was a lad.

But my first full-time…ish stint. Two weeks of nights Easter time, working in the Confectionery – aka, “The Feccy.” Twelve hour shifts, from 6pm to 6am, six days per week, apart from a Sunday when we worked 10 hours.

The job entailed packing six hot cross buns into a folding out box. Easy enough. And wow, still warm hot cross buns. A result!! Six for the box and one for me. That was great at first but after almost a week of about a zillion hot cross buns, I couldn’t even smell one without heaving. I’d OD’d on hot cross buns!! And so it stayed that way for about 10 to 12 years after. The mere waft of one had me almost chundering like a good ‘un.

When I Was A Lad And Beyond

Yes, my first ‘proper’ shift work was an eye opener. And it taught me several lessons. Including the one that meant that all packets of hot cross buns should come with a Government health warning. I continued to work at The Bakery for about another three to four years on a part-time and holiday basis. In this time I worked in The Feccy; in the bake house; in bread despatch (including loading the vans) and on the bread slicers.

Hands up those of you who remember the really hot “Summer of 76?” That was a lively summer to say the least. Have a guess where I was working? Correct, Country Maid Bakeries. But, more specifically than that, I was working in the bake house. On the ovens.

I can still picture the scene. Standing in between two huge ovens about six to seven feet between them, waiting for steel trays of bread buns to come off the conveyor belt inside the oven. They came off in a line of about six or so. So, to make sure none fell to the floor after dropping out of the oven, it was best to reach inside the oven a bit and drag the first few out. Thereby making sure that when only tray numbers five or six needed to be loaded onto the 18 tray mobile steel rack, you still had plenty of time to grab them, slide them onto the space on the rack and wait for the next six. Rinse and repeat.

Oh Dear Oven Gloves Malfunction

No expense spared and with safety of paramount importance in mind, the department equipped us with top of the range, protective oven gloves. They were two square pieces of sackcloth with a hole cut out of each to slip your hand through. Before I started I did wonder, do I need to inform management if the oven gloves weren’t adequate while grabbing the red hot steel trays out from the oven?

No need. After my very first oven glove malfunction, where I caught the sackcloth on the bottom of the side of the tray, thereby folding the sackcloth (glove?) back away from my hand, everyone in the Bakery, no I correct myself, everyone in Saltney knew of my oven glove malfunction while carefully depositing a layer of skin onto the bottom of the red hot steel tray.

Probably about 40 odd years too late, but may I offer my apologies to the passing young ladies making their way to the canteen for a break, for the choice bad language I bellowed.

There Was Hot And There Was The Bake House Hot

Again, twelve hour shifts. But as it was so hot, we worked an hour on, then a half hour off. It was that hot that summer and even more so, in the red hot bake house, free cold drinks were provided in the canteen. The whole 30 minutes break was spent downing cold drink after cold drink. It didn’t help but directly above my workplace was a perspex skylight where the sun was belting down for about three months.

I shudder to think how much weight I lost each shift.

However, as I mentioned, there were stints of work carried out in other departments as well. Each department seemed to have plenty of characters and plenty that looked after young teenagers. What may have been missing in Health and Safety matters (proper oven gloves?), Wokey things and other box ticking, was more than compensated by being a part of such an environment.

Oh, and going off onto a bit of a tangent – what a cracking footie team we had, Sunblest. And an even bigger tangent. It was also a place to gain family members. As it happens, one of the fellas I worked with in bread despatch met my sister and they went on to get married.

Ah…….happy days!! A real good experience and a few lessons learned along the way.

Is this a bit waffly? Time to end, “When I Was A Lad – Part One.” Part Two to follow soon where I will give shout outs to other good Saltney employers I remember. I didn’t work at them all, or any others for that matter and I may have forgotten some, but I’m sure there will be some that will get you saying, “oh yes, I remember that.”

 

 

 

 

Chester Lifestyle Blog Posts

Thanks for reading my latest blog post – When I Was A Lad Part One. Memories of Saltney businesses really, starting with that fantastic employer, Country Maid Bakeries. When I Was A Lad indeed.   

To see all of my other blog posts on a variety of topics, then visit HERE.

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