Eileen’s story
This is Eileen’s story, one of five stories extracted from THE SWEETHEARTS.Whether in wartime or peace, tales of love, laughter and hardship from the girls in the Rowntrees factory in Yorkshire.“Eileen’s dad worked at the Rowntree’s factory loading cocoa beans into the grinding mills; it was hard physical work, but he was a tall and powerful figure and very fit. Eileen was only five when war broke out and her dad went away, and was just nine years old when he came back from war. ‘He looked simply horrendous. His wounded leg was still in plaster, his hair had grown long, there were scars all over his face and scalp, and to allow his wounds to continue to heal and to keep his eye sockets open until he could be fitted with glass eyes.’ He could have trained to run a corner shop, or done plenty of other things –but all he wanted to do was go back to Rowntree’s…”From the 1930s through to the 1980s, as Britain endured war, depression, hardship and strikes, the women at the Rowntree’s factory in York kept the chocolates coming. This is the true story of The Sweethearts, the women who roasted the cocoa beans, piped the icing and packed the boxes that became gifts for lovers, snacks for workers and treats for children across the country. More often than not, their working days provided welcome relief from bad husbands and bad housing, a community where they could find new confidence, friendship and when the supervisor wasn’t looking, the occasional chocolate.
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Some places announce themselves by a distinctive smell in the air, long before the town or city itself is reached: the hoppy aroma of brewing from Burton, the lingering smell of the old fish docks in Grimsby, the sulphurous fire and brimstone of the forges that used to announce Sheffield, or the acrid stink of the Billingham chemical works. York greets its visitors with an altogether sweeter and more enticing smell: the rich, mouth-watering aroma of chocolate drifting on the breeze from the Rowntree’s factory just to the north of the city centre. The company, by some distance the city’s largest employer, was taken over by Nestlé in 1988, but to the citizens of York it will always be known as ‘Rowntree’s’.
This is the story of some of the Rowntree’s Sweethearts – the women workers from the company’s Golden Age, which spanned the half-century from the 1930s to the 1980s. That era began at a time when a woman’s right to vote had at last been established, but her right to choose her career path, manage her own money, live her own life and follow her own destiny was far from certain. In the 1930s and the decades that followed, many of the women employed at Rowntree’s found a degree of financial independence, self-confidence and self-reliance through the money they earned at the factory, the skills they acquired and, of no lesser importance, the bonds they formed with other women workers. For some unhappy women, whose lives were blighted by poverty, illness, bad housing and even bad husbands, their working days at the factory also offered a much-needed refuge and respite from their domestic turmoil – a place where they could be happy, respected and valued by their workmates.
The women to whom we spoke in the course of our research were all unstintingly generous with their time and their memories, but it’s a sobering thought that, had this book not been published, their extraordinary, moving and inspirational stories might well have gone untold and unrecorded. They loved their time at Rowntree’s and still regard the factory and the company with great affection. It was, they said, ‘a great place to work and a real community’. They had the Yorkshire virtues: warmth, compassion, honesty, truthfulness, thrift and the capacity for hard graft. They did a fair day’s work in return for a fair day’s pay, shared laughter and tears, hardship and good times, and in the process they helped to make Rowntree’s – and York – what it is today.
Lynn Russell and Neil Hanson, April 2013
Rowntree’s confectioners hand-decorating Easter eggs, c.1930s. ©Société des Produits Nestlé S.A.
Hand-piping the decorations on the tops of chocolates (possibly Dairy Box), late 1940s. ©Société des Produits Nestlé S.A.
Ladies packing Smarties into ‘cinema cartons’, early 1950s. ©Société des Produits Nestlé S.A.
A new recruit undergoes psychological assessment in the Rowntree’s psychology department, c.1950s. ©Société des Produits Nestlé S.A.
Married women work in the seasonal section, wrapping Easter eggs in foil and tying them up with ribbons, 1954. ©Société des Produits Nestlé S.A.
Ladies of the Cake department pack six penny bars of Milk Motoring Chocolate into ‘outers’ ready to be sent out to retailers. ©Société des Produits Nestlé S.A.
Cyclists on Haxby Road, a quarter of a mile from the Rowntree’s factory, c.1920s. ©Stephen Barrett
Eileen was sixteen years old when she began work at Rowntree’s in 1951, going there straight from school, as so many York girls did. She was a very bright and well-educated girl and could have chosen a different career path but, feisty and headstrong, she walked out of school on her sixteenth birthday without even bothering to take her O levels. All potential employees had to take aptitude tests devised by industrial psychologists. Eileen’s intelligence and potential were spotted at once and she was earmarked for office work rather than the production line.
It was a landmark year. The long years of wartime austerity were finally coming to an end and the boom years of the 1950s were just around the corner. Rowntree’s had always been a pioneering employer, and though the Rowntree family’s involvement in the company was waning by this point, it still retained many of the old traditions initiated by Joseph Rowntree and upheld by his son Seebohm, based on their liberal and Quaker principles of social reform and philanthropy, including the provision of healthcare, excellent leisure facilities and many other benefits.
Though Eileen’s early years were scarred by a series of terrible family tragedies, she overcame them, showing the same strength of character that marked her father’s response to them. Eileen left York in search of broader horizons and built a new life and career elsewhere, but after suffering yet another personal blow, she eventually returned to the city and, now 78, she still lives there today, with a store of great memories and great stories.
