Waiting for the Mechanic

A. Then eventually I went on what they called a tabbing machine. Well you know men's socks they have a tab over the top, a paper tab, well in those days they used to use a machine to do those, tabs on, but nowadays they stick them on don't they, they stick them on now.  Well those blinking machines were going wrong all day and we had a mechanic, he was a Mr Willy, he was a Frenchman and he couldn't blinking well, he couldn't repair the machines properly.  He say he'd repaired and then when he'd gone they'd go wrong again.  It was agony when, because they put me on my own time then.

Q. Yeah, were you on piecework?

A. First of all you got paid a standard wage then when they put me on this machine I was on piecework.  Well if your machine went wrong you'd perhaps spend all morning waiting for the mechanic to come, but you didn't get paid for that waiting time, where I believe now they do.

Source: East Midlands Oral History Archive (Accession Number 001151)