The Tate & Lyle factory dominated the skyline north of Liverpool city centre for 109 years.
And working there was very much a family affair with several generations employed at the Love Lane factory at the same time.
Tate & Lyle closed on April 22, 1981 - the workers having fought, in vain, to save it.
The brutal consequences of the closure were played out in Alan Bleasdale’s 1982 drama series Boys From The Blackstuff.
Its powerful and poignant final scenes were filmed in and around The Green Man pub on Vauxhall Road - the pub, itself, was demolished in March 2017 - against the backdrop of the bulldozing of the Tate & Lyle site.
Its demise marked the end of a strong Vauxhall community.
But a new community did spring up with the Eldonian Village being built on much of the land once occupied by the sprawling factory.
Now Tate & Lyle's 'Sugar Girls' - the women workers central to the factory's workforce but often overlooked in the history books - are being remembered in a new book due to be published next year by Simon & Schuster.
Authors Duncan Barrett and Nuala Calvi wrote about the company’s Plaistow Wharf refinery, in East London, in their 2012 book The Sugar Girls: Tales of Hardship, Love and Happiness in Tate & Lyle’s East End.
But Nuala said: “We’ve always felt the story of the Sugar Girls wouldn’t be complete until we could go back to the place where it all started – Liverpool, where Tate’s mother factory was.
"Women were central to Tate & Lyle’s workforce, but their contribution is often overlooked in the history books. We’d like to hear from any women who are willing to share their memories with us.”
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The books working title is The Sugar Girls of Love Lane.
Those interviewed so far have described the hard work involved in jobs such as sugar-packing, working on shifts from 6am to 2pm and 2pm to 10pm. But the friendships forged on the factory floor and the social life at Tate’s were unrivalled.
These are their stories.
'If I could, I’d go back tomorrow'
“The best thing about it was the people,” said Chrissy Brown, 92, who joined the company as a teenager and today lives in sheltered housing in the Eldonian Village, on the site of the old factory.
“They were all friendly. You knew all the girls, and they knew you. They were the happiest days of my life.”
Chrissy worked at the factory during the war and remembers having to rush into the company shelters when the sirens sounded.
She added: “They used to have brick shelters and we used to sleep in the shelters and go straight to work the next day.
“You were scared – it’s no good saying you weren’t. But we would have a laugh, have a singsong or play a game. They were happy days, even though the war was on.
“It was such a shame when it closed down. There’s no one I know that says they didn’t like working there. If I could, I’d go back tomorrow.”
Bonuses, trips to the seaside and a shandy in the Crystal Club
Marie Townsend, 70, from Norris Green, grew up on Vauxhall's Bond Street and worked in the factory’s canteen from 1968 until 1971.
She said: “You’d have whole families – the mum, the dad, the brothers, sisters, aunties and uncles working there.
“Everyone around Vauxhall worked for Tate’s at one time or another. They used to reckon if you got a job in Tate’s you’d got a decent job – they were decent employers.
"You used to get a bonus every three months, so you’d be made up. And they had a doctor and nurse on site."
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The company would organise trips to the seaside and give the workers spending money. It also had its own social club.
Marie added: “We always used to go to the Crystal Club. There were snooker tables and you used to go there and have a laugh. We didn’t even really drink – we would just have a shandy.”
Exploding sugar, strict foreladies and lots of chatter
Colette Shudall, 80, from West Derby, who worked packing sugar in the 1950s, said the foreladies were strict, but the girls would chat and sing above the noise of the machines.
She added: “We wore a blue uniform with a white collar. You couldn’t wear makeup or rings, and you had to have your hair tied back.
“There were security inspections and you never knew when they were happening. One girl had a bag of sugar hidden down her top, and to get rid of it she hit it and it exploded everywhere. She had to go to the toilet to clean herself up.”
Authors Nuala and Duncan are based in London, but are looking forward to making many more trips to Liverpool to carry out further interviews.
If you are a woman who worked at Tate & Lyle in Liverpool, or had relatives who did, you can call Nuala on 0151 528 9494 or email sugargirlsbook@hotmail.co.uk .
