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Oral Histories

This archive contains a number of interviews recorded with people who worked in the knitting industry.

Listen to their stories and accounts of life in the industry and hear events from the last hundred years come to life. The full interviews from which the extracts below have been obtained are available from the source listed.

Leicester Technical College

Duration 1 minute 45 seconds

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Overseas Competition

Duration 1 minute 05 seconds

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Closure of Kemptons

Duration 55 seconds

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Pay and Pay Rises

Duration 1 minute 06 seconds

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Kemptons Selling to Marks & Spencer

Duration 1 minute 55 seconds

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Dubied Machines

Duration 1 minute 33 seconds

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Mending the Faults

Duration 2 minutes 08 seconds

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Wartime Working

Duration 1 minute 34 seconds

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Waiting for the Mechanic

Duration 55 seconds

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Engines and Flywheels

Duration 2 minutes 5 seconds

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What is a 'Bag Man'?

Duration 1 minute 57 seconds

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Piece Rates

Duration 1 minute 16 seconds

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Many Processes

Duration 2 minutes 8 seconds

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Boom and Bust

Duration 2 minutes 36 seconds

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Union Support

Duration 2 minutes

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A Full Day

Duration 2 minutes 45 seconds

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Homeworking

Duration 1 minute 32 seconds

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Learning the Frames

Duration 1 minute 40 seconds

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Sock Making and Griswold Machines

Duration 2 minutes 26 seconds

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Finding the Wale

Duration 2 minutes 34 seconds

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Working the Frames

Duration 3 minutes 26 seconds

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