Women of city factory honoured
THE iconic “cracker packers” of Carlisle are to be immortalised in bronze in the city they made famous.
Plans have been approved for a statue celebrating the women workers who hand-packed the city’s famous table water biscuits, which were sold across the globe.
Known locally as the “cracker packers”, the women helped put Carlisle on the map.
Broadcaster Melvyn Bragg’s mother Ethel was once a cracker packer.
The statue will sit outside the McVitie’s factory where the women worked and where the biscuits are still made.
The statue will show two women workers – one from past times and one from the modern day – dressed in their uniforms.