lacework

[pashel 16]

When I was young my mum used to take in lacework from Birmingham. The house would be full of lace and loose threads, like my sister's I used to join in to earn some pocket money. I was ace at making lace dollies. Well aged about 7, I thought I was!

[Paulus 541]

My mum had a 'home job', all us kids had to do our bit!! one job was putting hairnets onto cardboard circles.................mind numbing, we did thousands, they were everywhere in the house for weeks

[FLY2 10,108]

Whilst at Plessey in the mid 70's , one of my more menial tasks was to help out assembling little connectors with either 8 or 16 little tags in. As I was on individual bonus, I used to bring loads home for my two daughters to assemble. They loved it helping dad, and my bonus significantly increased. Child labour..... Nah !

[Paulus 541]

One of my more boring jobs (excuse the pun) was punching the holes in crumpets......................

[FLY2 10,108]

Keep it clean Paulus...... Oh, sorry, you mean pyclets.

[Paulus 541]

Spot on FLY2, I live 'darn sarf' now, & they always say crumpets, they don't know what a pyclet is..................

[Ayupmeducks 1,730]

My Gran and Mum used to do lace work, they used to "pull" the threads holding the lace together to free each of the lace "ribbons" which would end up eventually on ladies undies.

Making armoured cables off and fitting "flit" plugs to them was boring and tedious, not counting bloody hard work with cables over three inches diameter and plug "shells" thirty or more pounds in weight!

[catfan 14,793]

Slave wages paid too.

[Ayupmeducks 1,730]

I think that's why my Mum gave it up Catfan, she used to do other home work too, machining, usually women's panties, again "slave labour" But at least she could work her own hours.

[banjo48 928]

My gran was always doing some kind of "outwork" mainly separating the lace strips as mentioned #7. I often used to do some on my Sat morning visits.

Mum was a seamstress and had two commercial machines in the back bedroom, where she did all of her outwork.

In later life when my wife was at home after the birth of our twin girls, she did some telephone cable/plug assemblies, where the little plug was fed onto the crimped cable ends. A total boring and mind destroying slave labour, but it gave her a little extra spending money until she could return to her normal day job, lady across the road used to drop these huge boxes of the things off and pick them up a few days later all complete.

I worked for Telecom at the time and often wondered if some of the phones I fitted had my wife's assembled cables inside.

[crankypig 457]

I used to sit with my granny in her front room helping with the lace work,there seemed to be a room full of the stuff.

Myself I used to do outdoor work machining all sorts of garments (when the kids were little)very poor pay but I needed the money and didn't want to leave the kids with anyone .Wonder if anyone still does this kind of work ?

[catfan 14,793]

Outworkers were well exploited, can't think of any industry that paid a decent/fair wage for the work done.

Women worked from home due to child commitments etc & were robbed blind by scrooge companies. Bearing in mind the heating & lighting costs were paid for by the women themselves.

My brother worked for a company that exploited women outworkers, the rates of pay they received bore no resemblance at all to the wages paid to women employed in their factory where the employer provided heating, lighting, NI contributions & holiday pay etc.

An absolute scandal in post war britain.