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The 'Bombs to Butterflies' Interviews
Interviewee: Peter Bedford, with assistance from Evelyn Bedford
Interviewees: Margaret Lawson and Ken Smith
Date of Interview: 19/12/01
So you weren’t born in Ruddington?
I was born in Loughborough and moved to Ruddington when I was about four, to live in Balmore Cottage on Loughborough Road (which was across the road from the MOD Depot.)
At that time there were no buildings on the opposite side of the road? It was open farmland?
Yes, that’s right. There were just the normal open fields.
And did you ever go in there, to play with friends or to go for walks with your parents?
No, not with our parents but we used to go as children over the fields and also along the footpath which is still there. It goes through to the houses on Barleylands and that area.
What can you remember of the hedges – they are still there aren’t they. What were they like?
Well, at that time they were very thick and full of birds nests.
Did you go bird-nesting?
Only looking, not collecting.
Good. You and your friends played on the Elms Park playing fields did you?
Yes, that’s right, it was always one of the things we did.
Was it a mixed group, girls and boys?
Yes, most of the time
When you left school at the age of fourteen, when then?
Well I went to Horspool’s Bakery and started work there. I stayed there until I was nineteen when I went to do National Service.
About this time in your mind – and later teens must be when you joined the Avenue Club?
Yes, we went as a mixed group and were able to join, and played table tennis, snooker, darts. There was also a television room which was a novelty in those days.
It must have been. I am going to bring Evelyn in now. Evelyn, you never lived or worked on the Depot. How come you were there?
I think we were friends with some of the boys whose parents worked there and they invited us as a group, so quite a few of the girls and boys used to go up there by invitation. I don’t know whether it was a matter of joining or not. I can’t remember if you had to pay anything to join but it was a lovely club.
What sort of activities did you take part in? Peter’s told us of some. Did you play table tennis?
Yes, we played table tennis. We even had a team which used to go out by bus to Beeston, the Meadows. I think we played at Boots and Ericssons, whether it was Ericssons then I don’t know. But it was always by bus because no one had a car then. (Laughter)
Did you go on outings at all?
No, we didn’t go on any outings. We had parties at Christmas time, but no outings.
The Bar- Evelyn, you wouldn’t have been old enough to drink in the bar would you?
No, but apparently if you were into the table tennis room you were allowed to take drinks in there, but you weren’t allowed to drink in the bar, other than soft drinks which was usually Vimto. (Laughter). I remember there was a young man called Alan Davis who played the piano by ear. I don’t think he read music, but we used to have some wonderful evenings round the piano.
We’ll go back to Peter. Peter, when you came home from the Army what happened then, what did you do?
I went back to Horspool’s and whilst I was in the Army they were baking bread on the site. So when I returned I was able to go to and work on the site and made bread there for several years.
What did the Bakery look like?
A flat roofed brick building with a loading bay for the delivery of flour and for when we took the bread away for delivery to the shops in Gotham, Bunny and Bradmore.
What was it like inside the Bakery?
In the summertime it was very hot, having a concrete roof and only being single storey. There was not much ventilation so it really got hot in summer. In the wintertime it was very cold. The ovens seemed to have no impact on the temperature so in those winter months it was extremely cold.
Were the ovens in the main body of the Bakery?
They did jut out into the bakery but the stoking up bit was in a corridor in the outside building.
I see. How were they heated?
They were coke fired. They were banked down overnight to keep in the heat and stoked up properly in the morning.
I would like you to tell me exactly what you did and exactly how you made the bread.
Well we normally made a preparation that was necessary to start bread every morning, and then we added this mixture to further flour, water and yeast and all the ingredients for bread. We had mechanical mixers, obviously. They would take 140lbs flour at a time. It would take about 20 minutes to mix a batch of dough up for the first lot of bread and we would probably make somewhere in the region of 6 or 7 lots like that for 2lb loaves, cottage loaves, little tin loaves also sandwich loaves for the canteen on the site.
Ah, were they specially made for the canteen?
Yes, they were longer loaves, probably about 6lb loaves on long tins, square shaped so that when they were sliced the slices were all the same size.
At what time did you start in the morning?
At about 5 o’clock and finished at about 12 o’clock, dinner time. We would leave the bakery then and go into the village to make the confectionery.
So you made bread on the MOD site and confectionery in the village?
Yes, that’s right.
How many people worked with you?
It would be about 4 people most of the day but the van drivers would help until there was sufficient bread to be taken out. Then they would go out with their vans and deliver it door to door.
What were the wages like?
Funnily enough I can’t remember. Mostly bakery wages have never been very high, but if you work in the food industry you hopefully have a job for life, albeit not a very well paid one.
Everybody’s got to eat haven’t they?
Yes, you’re secure as it were, and guaranteed employment.
Now, how many loaves a day did you bake more or less?
Well you would get about 100 loaves, plus, from one mix so you were probably taking about 500 loaves of different shapes and sizes per day, with more obviously for the weekend.
Tell me about this. You would make extra on Friday would you?
Yes. We would work on Friday from 5.00am until midday and then we would return on Friday night at about 10.00 or 11.00pm and work through to the early hours of the morning because it was the only way we could get enough bread made for the Saturday and Sunday demands.
I see, but eventually in the late 1950’s the bakery closed down.
Yes, we then had to move everything back to the Ruddington bakery. We just had to make the bread and confectionery in the one place.
I see. Is there anything else you would like to tell me? Have I missed anything out, do you think? When you were describing the building and the lack of ventilation, you didn’t tell me about the windows?
The windows were high up on the wall just underneath the roof. There was very little ventilation, only by opening the doors, basically, although in the wintertime you didn’t want any drafts. (Laughter). But in the summertime it was not possible to get much fresh air in there at all.
Interviews > Interview with Peter Bedford