Memories of the Randelstown bleach factory

his hometown Randalstown so much that he decided to commit some of his memories to paper. The result is a collection of stories – ‘The Way It Was’. Northern Notes shared in some of David’s favourite memories about his first day at work.

The Old Bleach Linen or carpet factories would have been the usual place to work when schooling was finished, especially if you lived in Randalstown or the surrounding countryside. Almost everyone at that time (1963) had a family relation, who either worked or had worked at the old Bleach. I was no exception, as my grandfather had worked all his life in the factory, as had my mother in her single days, an aunt and uncle who were skilled hand painters and many more of my family connections.

So it was no great surprise when, a week or two past my fifteenth birthday, I found myself caught up in a throng of cyclists and pedestrians at about 7.30am on a cold November morning. Most of the people were working in the Linen Factory, so I had to keep going, past the factory chimney, which looked really huge close up, onwards and upwards to the carpet factory.

My job seemed relatively simple: I was to serve my time as a cropper operator, the cropper being a great noisy machine with lots of rollers and giant cylindrical cutting blades. Its purpose was to trim the different carpet piles, levelling any discrepancy or darning repairs. As one long roll was drawn through the machine, my job, with a huge bent needle and strong cord, was to sew another carpet on, thus feeding the cropper with and endless supply of carpet.

When I think back to those first days it is with a sense of exuberance –particularly as I headed downhill towards the linen factory. I think there were about forty of us on our bikes, so it quickly became a race and, with the pressure off and finding myself in familiar company, I was flying. As we approached the bottom factory at speed, some of the older workers were just pushing their bikes out of the many cycle sheds and leisurely mounting up.

I clearly remember founding a corner in front of the main office block and finding the road almost blocked. It was at that point I lost control and scythed into the unsuspecting mill workers, with me

When, eventually, my bike and I came to a standstill, I was aware of maybe forty pairs of eyes staring at with great disdain and anger. About a dozen people, mostly quite old ladies, had either been tumbled or knocked from their bicycles. I got no solace from my fellow racers, who had somehow missed the melee and were nowhere to be seen.

Some of the men helped the ladies to their feet and checked their cycles, some handbags had been spilled and their contents scattered over the road. I was still being looked at with great scorns, as I stood bewildered and shocked, with my knuckles bleeding and elbows ripped off my new jumper, which my mother had just finished knitting for me. Fortunately, no one was badly hurt.

After the race, I checked my own bike and proceeded slowly, painfully and sheepishly towards the mill walk and town bridge for my first lunch break.

Some of the workers didn’t know me by name, and from that first afternoon until I left the carpet factory some two years later, they called me The Speeder!