Boots the Chemists

[Mr Meeseeks 51]

Boots Island Street, August 1964 My first employment after leaving school. The interview at Station Street consisted of "How many of your family or relatives work at Boots and for how long?" My Dad, Aunt and Uncle had clocked up about 60 odd years between them at the time.  OK, just need to sit a test to see what we can offer. Well done! we are offering a Chemical Plant Operators apprenticeship. Sounded OK.  All new recruits were assembled and assigned to various departments.

 

I was posted to E16 where they made an assortment of Chemical compounds.  As it turned out it was a good place to work or so I thought back then.   The assigned junior apprentice was the equivalent of the House Elf, Dobbie. Do as you are bid. First job. Transferring small bottles of mercury (The stuff science teacher put in the palm of your hand) into a bigger bottle. This was carried out in the Mercury shed, a small crumbling open front redbrick building ope to the elements well away from E16.  My very first task.  Dropped a bottle the shiny silver liquid ran along the floor down a crack in the floor disappeared for ever.  "No problem, don't worry about it, was going for waste" said the bloke looking after me .  No wonder the old site is still unoccupied.  Heath and Safety was not what it is today. Some names Joe Harrison, Frank Poyser, Bill Drain who used to have his comfey chair /table and tea pot in the cyanide store, and  George Stapleton, signed anyone who played football up for Thorneywood Athletic.

 

The inside of E16 had wooden floors and those outside the Formans Office were pristine (Foreman at the time was Mr Towlson and his assistant Bill Harvey(?}} Why were they pristine? the House Elf had to polish the floors, brass taps and copper. No one wanted to look after the new lad until they got to know you, so the only job was bulling up the fittings. The other side of the building was where the work was carried out and wasn't pristine.

 

The rest of Island Street Chemical works were gradually changing. Although there were the new Labs, canteen, changing rooms etc. The red brick E6 gradually closing down (there was an attractive Sister who worked in E6 Surgery at the time) E1 still working. E60. Boots chemical department was still their show piece of current chemical manufacture.  Then there was the "Tit Lab". The compound produced caused physical changes to the male operatives so it was Experienced personnel only allowed to do 2-3 week stints. Anymore and they would be well endowed with a pair of breasts.  Hence the department name.  

 

Some of the new lads who started with me went to work in the Insulin/Heparin building.  Insulin was/is produced from Cows intestine. The job of the apprentice was to walk down to the abattoir at the cattle market wait for the slaughter man to do is job, collect the fresh intestines in a bag, leg it back to Island Street and scrape out the contents of the intestines. That was the start of the process.  Bulling up floors wasn't so bad after all. E16 a good place to start never did get posted to Insulin dep't

 

 As part of the apprentice training Boots college was compulsory including night school. After 6 monthe  I was posted to D6 Powders.  Are there anymore Boots CPO apprentices out there?

[radfordred 6,284]

Lock up your Sons, Boots gals on the lash.

 

[LizzieM 9,524]

Brilliant old photo of Nottingham Victoria RR.  
 

[Mr Meeseeks 51]

To re-ignite this subject of Boots in days gone by. Rummaging around in the family junk store (The loft) today and in a box that hadn't been opened for years found a Tea strainer and a Coat hanger inscribed with "Boots Cafe".  Any ideas where Boots Cafe may have been?  

[The Panjandrum 0]

My first job after leaving school in 1968 was in the (new) insulin lab. I can only remember one name, Derek Wardle, who I bought my first motorbike from.

 

The insulin was extracted from the pancreas of cattle.  The pancreas was ground up in a very large mincer and dropped down into a vat which I think contained absolute alcohol to dissolve the insulin out.  There were a few stages of refinement.  The concentrate came into the lab to be further refined and filtered.

 

Pigs gut was processed, in another building that I only visited once, to extract heparin I think.  The guts were scraped out by hand afaik.

 

Edit. One of the other apprentices was Mark Oliver, he was on his third year I think.

[Mess 624]

On 1/12/2020 at 6:18 AM, Phil Jennings said:

I am researching on behalf of my niece whose grandmother Georgina Raynor worked at the Station Street Location.She is looking to locate somebody called Max whom Georgina was associated with.Would you remember anybody by the name of Max and what his Surname is.Georgina would have been approx 17 years old at the time and was carrying my Niece's father.Thanks

I was at the Beeston site from 1968-72. I worked with a bloke called Max Higgs. He was a chemical analyst in the D10 Quality Assurance laboratories. He was quite tall and had a West Country accent (could have been Bristol). He was a really nice bloke and helped me a lot. He joined Fisons in Loughborough about a year or two before I left to go to Uni in October 1972.

I saw his obituary about 15 years ago.

[DAVIDW 1,696]

My wifes late uncle , Arthur Bales , worked in the Boots insulin labs I believe in Island Street. 

[Mess 624]

I joined Boots in their D10 Quality Assurance Labs in April 1968. It was original called the Standards Laboratory and looked out over the car parks. It was my second job after leaving school in October 1966. My first job was as a school laboratory technician but the prospects were poor so on the advice of a friend at People College I applied to Boots.

I was interviewed by Mr Sykes at Pennyfoot Street and was offered a job. I still have the offer letter with its beautifully gold embossed header signed by Mr Shipside. I was 17 when I joined and 22 when I left to go to Uni.

I was sent on day release to Peoples College and then Nottingham Technical College.

Boots was the making of me. I was drifting along until I joined them. The labs were very well equipped and I received some excellent training in analytical chemistry which served me well in my later career. It didn't pay well compared to the money my college mates at Players, Raleigh, The Coal Board and Rolls Royce Derby were earning but the social life was outstanding. There were many guys and girls like me doing day release and there were many weekend parties and romances.
I've since been in touch with several people I met there and they've told me how the various takeovers impacted the place and how the laboratory service changed. Such a shame. Nothing stays the same for ever but what a place to learn to be a chemist.

[IAN FINN 818]

I can relate to that went to the PCFE for motor vehicle repair from 1962-1966 wrote my City and Guilds exam and never looked back.

[Cliff Ton 10,503]

Boots have apparently been around for 175 years.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-68936424