I was never resident on the estate but in my training as an apprentice carpenter got to work all over the factory site, the estate including the farm and orchard and for a glorious week shuttering the outfall by the river via a farm track at the top end of the estate. We also had shop fitting duties in the London Regent Street? shop where everything upstairs was painted black, no doubt to allow the models and the shoes they wore to stand out for the camera. Unlike today no jobs were contracted out, we had a full compliment of carpenter/joiners, bricklayers, plumbers, electricians, painter/decorators, a french-polisher, an upholsterer and labourers.
My memory of working on the final pair of houses on Princess Margaret Road (1969/70) were of the bitterly cold winter and pushing heavily laden hand carts from the timber yard at the far end of the factory site to the building site by the station, one cart had flat tyres, so a good work-out, and the other was easier to push on its metal rimmed wheels but really noisy, getting the right balance of timber over the axle was a skill I soon learned.
There was also a great sense of pride in the residents, on how the gardens looked as well as the houses. I’ve seen just a few of the houses on PMRd still have the original oak glazed doors we periodically took off for our french- polisher Bill Potter to sand and refresh while I wedged a blank in the front door frame for a few days to keep the weather out as much as anything else, security wasn’t a thing then. I also recall having to wear slipover shoes in the humming science-fiction like EDP department when working there; also the display boards we put up in the ballroom annex for the many promo’ exhibitions. To my embarrassment I also remember being slightly smitten with a young lady in Building 13 and with my mind elsewhere managed to fix a sign on the wall upside down. Happy days!
It was a time of my life that I shall always remember with fondness, but also one that will never be repeated in todays environment, different sets of rules applied.
