New real life Back in Time for the Factory
Amateur seamstress Maryjane Sullivan on experiencing life in a 1960s clothes factory
Back in Time for the Factory thursday / bbc2 / 8Pm
Life in the 1960s was anything but swinging for female factory workers. They did a hard day’s work for unequal pay and went home to the cooking and cleaning.
In new BBC2 series Back in Time for the Factory, presenter Alex Jones turns back the clock so 20 women can experience life on the production line of a clothes factory in Wales in 1968 (future episodes are set in the 1970s and 1980s).
They sit at the same industrial machines used in the 1960s, wear the clothes of the era and adhere to the same factory targets and rules, such as ‘no foul language’.
Getting to grips with the oldfashioned machinery is one thing, but learning that a man is receiving a higher wage for a less-skilled job does not go down well with the 21st-century ladies. One of them, Maryjane Sullivan, 58, a retired coffee-shop owner and amateur seamstress, tells TV Times what it was like stepping back in time…
Why did you take part in the show? I love sewing and I wanted to find out how I would cope in a real factory. But I also wanted to know more about what it was like for the women in those factories at that time. Theirs is an untold story.
Was the work easier for you than for some of the other women because you’ve sewn before?
A lot of the ladies had never been on a sewing machine before, but I have a little domestic machine at home, so sitting on an industrial machine was new to me as well. But I just felt, once I was in there, that there was a job that had to be done.
What was the single worst thing about working in the factory? The old cast-iron seats – they were so uncomfortable! But it was also cold and dusty in the factory. There were no home comforts. People wouldn’t put up with it these days, but in those days they had to.
On payday, you are furious when a male employee doing a less skilled job gets almost twice as much money as you… That absolutely floored me, it really did, that a cutter could be paid more than a skilled machinist. Everybody should have been on equal pay but that wasn’t the case. I was furious about that, but it wasn’t a personal attack on him.
Off camera he said, ‘Was it really like this for women?’ And it was.
And one of the women – a skilled machinist – is sacked because she’s six months pregnant…
That struck me down with a feather, that did. I just couldn’t get over it. How could they get away with that? But, then again, there were no rights for women at the time.
What was the best bit of taking part in the show for you?
The other women. I just loved them. It sounds a little bit clichéd, but I just felt as if we were a big family and that everybody got on. It was hard doing the series, but I loved every single minute of it.