'End of era' marked at JCB site

By Andrew Dawkins
BBC News, Uttoxeter

Delia Bond remembered a "great atmosphere" around the factory

As the curtain came down on nearly 140 years of manufacturing history on a frosty December day, Delia Bond had more reason than most to feel it was "the end of an era."

The 61-year-old along with her husband, father and grandfather all worked at one Staffordshire site now owned by JCB.

Now the final machine has just rolled off the production line there - and this quiet street near the centre of the small market town of Uttoxeter will never be the same again.

Mrs Bond remembered: "We used to have a little old lady come around with her tea trolley and biscuits. I can remember that jolly little old lady.

"In those days obviously it was very, very strict. You shook in your shoes when one of them (the directors) came through. It was all 'yes sir, no sir'."

'Long days'

Recalling a "brilliant social club" and a "great atmosphere", she first walked through the factory doors in 1963 to continue the family tradition.

Her machinist father, Bernard, who died in 1980, worked there for half a century, as did her grandfather, William, who started at the historic Pinfold Street site back in the late 1800s.

In his era people had worked "stripped to the waist because of the heat" and "every winter the place would flood" in some decades gone by, Mrs Bond remembered.

Her husband, Colin, who joined in 1967 from a farming background, said: "It was very dark in here in those days - long hours, long days. It was packed."

The paint shop of the Bamfords Ltd factory was pictured in the 1920s

According to local history expert Peter Nixon, the story started back in the 1840s.

The Bamfords started off in the corner of the Market Place in the town as an ironmongers, he said.

The Pinfold Street site has been linked to manufacturing since 1871, when agricultural machinery makers Bamfords Ltd opened for business.

Mr Nixon, from the Uttoxeter Heritage Centre just two streets away, said: "They operated as one of the few factories in Britain that was manufacturing a big range of farming equipment during World War II when a lot of production was centralized.

"Also they manufactured items for aircraft dashboards and for radar.

Economic climate

"Sadly as industry throughout the UK turned downwards in the 1970s, by the early 1980s it was forced into bankruptcy."

In 1989 JCB bought the site in Pinfold Street and began production of its machines.

Now work will be moved to a new £40m JCB Heavy Products factory on the outskirts of Uttoxeter.

About 200 workers will soon go to that plant from the old site in the final stage of a phased move, joining about 300 already there.

Workers gathered at the historic factory around the final machine

Managing director of JCB Heavy Products Ltd, John Gill, said he compared the old factory "a little bit to Doctor Who's Tardis".

He said: "We've increased production in here on excavators, which come up to 46 tonnes in size and we've increased from 1,000 machines a year up to last year which was 4,500 machines.

"So we've changed the layout probably as many times as we possibly could internally."

Now the company hopes to sell the site to a developer who would convert it into a mixture of homes, offices and shops.

And that was welcomed by local man Bill Craigie, 64, who worked at JCB for 39 years.

He said: "Rather than having an empty space like behind the town hall, this development is good for the town's prosperity."

JCB, which makes excavators, loaders, and tractors, said the firm was still in consultation with staff over 398 proposed job losses.

As for the end of a piece of local history near the centre of the town, Mrs Bond said: "I think there'll be a lot of sad faces in Uttoxeter today."