Tape 7 - Mick Wrightson

Tape 7 – Mick Wrightson

00.35 – apprenticeship in the bakery in May 1932

00.40 – bakery behind main building at that stage

00.59 – worked there for 46 years / finished in position of production manager

01.25 – brought premises of Aust Gen Elect / not really suitable for production of bread due to open staunchions / created crevices & cockroach issues / Flick laid bates twice weekly

02.30 – health dept forbid cats on site / believed this wasn’t a good idea / cats keep other vermin at bay  / sultana boxes full of sand for cat litter / cats very clean

04.15 – bakery moved to Clyde St in December 1938

04.25 – 3 single and 6 double decker ovens / 3 double decker ovens fired by coke / others by fuel oil / wood wouldn’t have been efficient

05.30 – diachromatic oven in Clyde St / first in Newcastle area

06.05 – straight through tunnel oven installed / capacity of 1800 loaves per hour / another with capacity of 800 loaves per hour / final one 650 loaves per hour / biggest bakery in the Southern Hemisphere under the one roof

07.00 – Xmas time / 1000 hams poultry, hams & pigs baked for the convenience of the community at 2 and 6 / eventually $1 / apprentices managed this / tested hind quarter of pigs to know when cooked / even baked turkeys / staff got to eat baked turkey necks

09.15 – 90 plus delivery carts operating daily plus relief carts / Tues & Thurs slacker days for bread delivery / concept of operations / change from 48 to 40 hour week saw increase in amount of carts on road / no of customers determined size of bread run rather than amount of bread ordered / meant some worked longer or shorter shifts

12.00 – habits of bread eating often determined by price of loaf (eg. People eat more when cheaper) / potatoes and bread staples

12.50 – automatic oven – measures, weighs, mixes, slices & bags / minimal human interaction / manual work disappearing to machines

14.40 – shifts / worked from 10pm Fri night till 2pm next arvo once / long hours

15.25 - wages during depression years

16.10 – incident of losing hand in machine

16.30 – bread zoning during war years / given sections and could only deliver to that section / society broke zoning at end of war / fierce battle & demonstrations against carters / had to combat this by allowing customers to collect bread from bakery themselves

18.05 – butter carts / 6 x 6 in size / delivered only butter in butter boxes and eggs / profitable / butter box about 2 foot square / made from wood / butter wrapped in greaseproof / people used butter boxes for various things (eg ice chest lined with cork) /

23.20 – 3 pastry wagons / block & sponge cakes / trucks did outer lying districts / horses local

24.25 – horse stories

25.15 – 4 or 5 fruit carts

25.30 – four wheel wagons with 4 horses for grocery deliveries due to heavy load of groceries

25.50 – milk runs / jeopardized by unions & governed starting hours

26.45 – 4 ice carters