OVER several decades, thousands of workers have passed along the production line at the Philips-Mullard electronics factory in Blackburn.

When we asked for any of your memories, Margaret Womack, a young teenager from school when she got a job there in the 50s, recalled her happy days.

Better known today as Margo Grimshaw, she said: “My day started by running across the Boulevard to jump on one of the green double-decker corporation buses which were queued up waiting to take us to work.

“After passing security and making way to my building, it was time to clock in and go to work at the end of the long corridor, in AZ, the packing department.

“I soon found out the way to get about the factory was to wear a white coat, which was a sign of authority, and grasp a clipboard — and that was my passport to the wire drawing room, where my then new electrician admirer was repairing machines.

“We had lunch in the canteen, paying for meals with tickets which had to be slid over the counter to the girl serving, When later doing a stint in the canteen I found that many tickets were not only slid across, but craftily taken back the same way!

“The meals came out ready plated and stacked with the plates held apart by silver metal rings which would be thrown on to a pole.

“At one end of the canteen was a stage and workers were often entertained. My husband John was a member of Philips Players and played Idle Jack in the panto Dick Whittington at The Grand, with Elsie Crabtree, the leading lady.

“He also played piano at the Philips club in Victoria Street, or was it Station Road?

“I remember one manager whose name was Balderstone, but was most put out when I called him Calderstone, while my department manager, a Mr Brown, went on to be the landlord of a pub in Whalley.

“Then there was an electrician called Raymond Ditchfield, who now lives in America.

“That factory was a big part of my and, I suspect, other people’s lives and I’m very glad I worked there. They were happy days, with not much money, but plenty of laughs and companionship.”