It was suggested to me that the website would be a good place to put emails of people wishing to contact work colleagues and friends from the past.
I have started this page and hope that those who make contact will work together to record their memories which, hopefully, can be passed on to the Centre.
SIMON WOOD
I would be pleased to hear from anyone involved in the building dept (was it 772 0r 775 or something like); so many names, Bobby Pike, Claude Gardiner, Laurie Whitfield, George Ellis, Ted Kapp, Jimmy Peacher, Ernie Sherborne, Wally Ryan, Peter Workman, Stan Jackson, Eddie Baker, Fred Keene….and anyone else who remembers me as an apprentice carpenter from 1969-74.
E-mail: sipwood@hotmail.co.uk
E-mail: CliveRichardson2@aol.com
Graeme can be contacted via his son, Andy, at jandy@talktalk.net
Gordon Buckland in 1963
My Brother [ Stephen Cogger ] also worked at the factory as an apprentice engineer , before leaving and going to sea , after completing his 5 years.
My father the late William [ Bill ] Cogger started his career with Bata in the very early stages and spending a year ? training in Zlin with other young men, subsequently moving to Southern Rhodesia in the early 1950’s , and retiring to Devon in the 1970’s
Irena Clarke. maiden name Kossakowski.
I am one of triplets [identical] and we were often photographed wearing Bata shoes in the Bata Record..I have a photo of us…’3 smart girls’. 1966 in the paper
My dad worked there til he retired. I have a small bronze plaque in red case showing Thomas Bata and the dates 1832 1962. His name is Vaclaw Kossakowski but he was given the name Walter [Wally] as no one could say his name. He is Polish and started work in 1958 as a dyer apprentice. Please could you put my address irenauk@hotmail.com for anyone to contact me if they remember him or myself. [There cant have been many identical triplets living on Bata estate.
rthomas7@btconnect.com
ROGER HOWELL
My late father, G C Howell, was Estates and Properties Manager from January 1955 until July 1967, when he left to take a similar position with the Scottish Co-operative Wholesale Society in Glasgow.
The plastic tag pictured on the website was a plastic lapel badge, and would have originally been coloured bright orange. The colouring of this one has faded over time. These were made on site, I think in one of the single storey buildings within the factory compound, and were given out free during the Annual Saturday Morning Open Days, prior to the enjoyable events of the Afternoon Gala. (Remember George Print’s Funfair)
My email address is ra_howell@hotmail.com and I would love to hear from anybody who remembers me.
I remember Linda Fassbender, Yvonne Elmore, Carol Ford, Jennifer Osborne, Rosemary Godley, Jennifer Kuran, Linda and Janet Haxell, Lynne Stanley, Janet Dow, Lesley Hollington,Janina Faye, Justine Crisp, Lynne, Sharon and Irina Kossakovski, Mary Cordis, Linda Golightly, Penny Burton, Michelle Greenwood, Elizabeth Andrews, Brenda Andrews, Nicola Mestyanic, the Henderson sisters and Susan Noble. I can also remember a red headed girl called Irene, but with the passing of almost 50 years her surname escapes me.
Of the boys I remember Kenneth Matthews, Martin Cave, Graham Veness, Sean Sutton, Richard Smith (cool guy who once had a Triumph Palm Beach Bicycle), Derek Frost, David Sanderson, Alan Reeves, Steve Bassett, Eddie and John Sach, Ian and Colin Zak, Brian Ford, Alan and Gerald Lidmiller, Mark Marshall, Michael Avery, John Evenden, Robert East, John Wade, Roger Osborne, John Mana, Edward Gottwald, Andrew Burton, my surviving elder brother Sydney and my late younger brother Charles, Sean Ward and Denzil Stallard.
Needless to say, my sincere apologies to those whose names I have misspelt.
