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(31) by Ron Smith
My
Cadby Days I left
school in 1952 aged fifteen, my
brother-in-law George Gillard had arranged
for me to start work as a messenger in the
Kitchens Office. George worked in Time
Study and was to be seen about the factory
with his stopwatch and clipboard, in later
years his son-in-law Rob Walker worked in
the same office. George's brother Ken also
worked for Lyons and their father, 'Joe'
Gillard was a foreman in the
bakeries.
The
Kitchens Office was tucked away in the
furthest corner on the fifth floor WX
block, supervised by Mr McCann. Next door
was Miss Bevan's Office, who with her
assistant Pauline did the time sheets etc.
I would collect the kitchens clock cards
every morning, take them to her office and
return them to the racks later in the day.
I collected mail from the Postal Room,
first floor WX, delivered it to the
various kitchens, collected their post
along the way and delivered that, so I got
to know the place pretty well. With a
knowledge of basement departments and
further investigation of intriguing
passageways, I discovered how to get from
one side of Cadby to the other hardly
seeing daylight. Every morning there would
be a queue of 'jobbers' waiting outside
the Blythe Road entrance to WX hoping for
a days work, many of them servicemen on
leave.
In the
afternoons at 3pm, I would fetch the
secretary's teas from the Managers Mess,
which meant walking through the Medical
carrying a tray of pots and rattling cups,
embarrassing. One of the girls was
secretary to Percy Evans, the other to Mr
Ellis, there were also two juniors in the
office. I upset them when I won the office
Grand National draw and they had to hand
me the £3.10.0. a handsome sum, more
than a weeks wages of £2.17.6d. The
best part being, an anonymous benefactor
had drawn and paid for my ticket,
I knew nothing of this until I went
into their office on the Monday morning,
they were none to happy, but a nice
surprise for me.
The
Bakeries Office was to the other side of
ours, a lad named Marshal was a messenger
in there, convenient him in the Bakeries
and me in the Kitchens when it came to
getting lunch, always on the look out for
Mr Cook the security man in the Trilby.
Some days we would acquire still warm
Individual Fruit Pies, and then en route
to the Ice House roof retrieve a block of
ice cream which we would put on the pies
and scoff with great relish. I remember
the sunbathers, some of the girls were a
bit daring but no objections from
us.
One
afternoon at 4pm, whilst waiting on the
first floor Elms House for the premium
bonus wallets to be finished, there was a
heavy thud from the flat roof just outside
the windows, a window cleaner working
higher up the building had unclipped his
safety rope before climbing in and toppled
backwards. Nurses from the Medical came
over to administer first aid, he was
brought through the office on a stretcher
but sadly died before reaching
hospital.
In June
1953 I was accepted as a student in the
Cadby Hall Bakery School which was on the
first floor A1 Block. Also on that floor
were the Jam Tarts and later the French
Jam Sandwich. Our instructor was Mr
Simmons, a retired army Captain, a kind,
understanding man under that military
exterior. When he 'spoke' to you, he
did it firmly but always followed it with
encouragement which seemed to get us back
on track, his philosophy being 'esprit de
corps' it appeared to work. The Manager
was J.J Brandon. There were also students
from the Provincial Bakeries in the
School.
Mr Simmons
was an excellent tutor, he guided us from
hand crimped jam tarts, the first thing
every student made, many, many times when
they joined the school, through morning
goods, cakes, pastries and fancy goods,
sugar confectionary, chocolate
confectionary, we made our own decorated
Easter eggs every year as well as for some
of the Directors, to ornamental cake
decorating. (see photo below). Produce
from the school was sold through all the
Cadby canteens and cafeterias, including
Spike House, St. Mary's College and
Olympia. We were responsible for much of
the day to day running of the school, we
were assigned daily duties involving
produce disposal, stocking the stores,
cleaning tables, floor, utensils and so
on. We copied our recipes from a master
file and had a book for lecture notes.
Saturday mornings were given over to
lectures by Mr Simmons in the Induction
Room on the ground floor of Addison
Mansions, the theory side was a bit
knotty, it took me quite some time to get
my head round catalyst's, enzymes and
diastase but I got there. We were given a
good broad schooling, both practical and
theory.
On several
occasions I was sent out with others
to scour London, buying as many brands of
ready-roll puff pastry, short crust and
cake ready-mixes as we could find. The
next day we would make these up and
compare each product by the various makes,
we then had to develop and test our own
recipes for the same.
One
afternoon a week in winter we played
football at the Sudbury sports ground and
in summer it was swimming at Ladbroke
Grove baths. The School also had rowing
facilities at Linden House and I believe
they took part in The Head of the River
Race. During our time in the School we
were sent to Outward Bound for a month for
'character building'.
At
different times of the year we
were all sent to work in other
Bakeries to help with seasonal production,
English for hot cross buns, French for the
fresh fruit season, strawberry then cherry
tarts and as senior boys also helped with
gateaux for the Royal Garden Parties. The
gateaux were made using only the finest
ingredients and put together on the top
floor of the French Dept. where we
assisted.
In 1953 we
worked alongside girls from the Ice House
making the Lyons Christmas Cake when
disaster struck, the recipe for the royal
icing was faulty, all the first few of
week's production was returned with icing
like granite, we had to hack it off saving
as much of the cake as possible and
re-cover them.
Every day
during an exhibition at Olympia,
Monty and I had to bake acres of sponge
base, make gallons of apple sauce, then
collecting a churn of egg white we would
deliver it all to Olympia where Lyons Ice
Cream had a stand demonstrating how to
make Baked Alaska. We never did get to
sample it.
One
afternoon a compressor exploded in the Ice
House basement, we ran to the back of the
building and looking across the yard saw
ammonia gas pouring from the block thick
like smoke, it certainly made our eyes
sting and noses run. A section of pavement
was blown up outside on the Hammersmith
Road and a paving slab thrown in the air
came down through the roof of a passing
bus, I don't know if there were any
casualties.
Returning
to Cadby after National Service I was
assigned as a Trainee to the Kup-Kake, the
Superintendent one of the Guest brothers.
Lyons had what was seen by many as a
dogmatic attitude, extra tuition
undertaken by students was discouraged and
any City and Guilds obtained would not be
recognised. Later as trainees, there were
further issues which the Company never
wanted to address, so the drop out rate of
exBakery Schoolboys returning after
National Service was significant.
I
transferred to The Bakery Sales Office,
second floor WX block, same floor as the
Typing Pool and Leo1. The Office Manager
was Len Collins, Manager Cyril Short.
There we dealt with Teashops, Corner
Houses, Hotels and Royalty, I worked on
all sections with the exception of
Provincial Teashops. Every weekday
afternoon the London Teashops would phone
revisions to their orders for the
following day and clerks would punch
Hollerith cards with their amendments,
these would then go into Leo1 for
processing, later we would cut the
printouts in strips and collate them ready
for 219 despatch and other departments.
Supervisors would check the reject codes
as Leo had a habit of adding or dropping
the odd zero, or two. Thanks to Leo we
made some extra money, 6pm was the
deadline for the last sheet off the
printers and if it was any later we were
paid to 9.30pm, though I never worked past
7pm at the very latest. The summers when
it was nice and hot were most profitable,
there would be ice blocks with fans
blowing over to keep the electronic
processors cool, Leo certainly didn't like
it hot. One day as the last sheet was
coming off the printer a Leo operator
phoned TIM, the speaking clock and it was
"5.59 and 50 seconds", so they saved the
pay out by ten seconds, a few weeks later
when a similar thing happened our
Supervisor phoned TIM and heard the
message, "at the third stroke it will be
6pm and 10 seconds" The Leo people didn't
like it and argued against paying, but
they had made the rules and eventually we
were paid. Wimbledon and the Chelsea
Flower Show were also good earners.
I left the
Company in 1959, not a long working
history but one full of experiences and
memories. If anyone had told me then that
in my lifetime I would see the demise of
Joe Lyons as such and the demolition of
Cadby Hall, I would have called them a
raving idiot, but they're history now. I
have to say it was with some sadness and
sense of loss that I learned of their
fate.
What
happened to the old boys of The Bakery
School? Not only those of my time but the
many others before and after, it would be
nice to know. What tales can they tell?
Now in some sort of retirement, with my
second wife we run our own horse riding
school in the heart of Norfolk. A far cry
from the trade but I'm still able to turn
out a fair sponge and a loaf of good home
made bread, (no new fangled bread machine)
gives a deal of satisfaction.
©
Ron Smith 2005
©
Ron Smith
2005
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