Remploy

[Symptoms]

I've just read on the Beeb website news of the proposed closure of a large number of Remploy factories. I remember in the 60s that there used to be one on (or just off) the Stakeford Road going from Bedlington Station so I Googled for it but only found a Remploy factory on the Jubilee Estate, Ashington. Now I'm sure it 'aint the same place (unless my memory is playing tricks again) as I visited it when at school.

Did the factory at the Station close and move to Ashington or was there also always one there?

No suprises that the Nasty Party continues to expand it's plans for comprehensive final solution to the issue of the disabled ... first they make it difficult for the ill to gather welfare support (under the excuse/lie that there are vast hordes cheating the system) then they plan to terminate the jobs of those working in these factories. What next?

Yep, I'll wait to see what the legion of small businessmen and Nasty Party apologists who lurk here have to say ... something along the lines that the country can't afford to sustain 'loss-making' firms even when those places offer employment to the disabled. Oh, and they probably quote that disgrace who is Chief Executive of Disability Rights UK as cover.

[bediesathome]

there used to be a remploy factory on the same site as the wellwin factory in bedlington station

[Keith Scantlebury]

There may well have been a Remploy workshop within the Welwyn, but I cannot remember. My dad worked at Remploy on the Jubillee estate in ashington for two or three years. They also had a storage/despatch facility at the area workshops. When I worked for Ferguson we used to load wheelchairs there and deliver them around the country, terrible job, load and unload by hand .

[bediesathome]

you can rest assured there was a wellwyn at bedlington station howe i know is i lived about 200 yds from it .

[bediesathome]

sorry for the last post i wrote wellwyn instead of remploy being about 200 yards from where i lived . i shall take more attention after my blunder.

[Symptoms]

Well bedi, it's good to know that my brain (at least the memory bit) hasn't all gone to mush and that there was a Remploy factory at the Station ... just Google mapped Welwyn and it is the same location.

My old man knew the big cheese at the factory so I was able to get a school metalwork project stove enamelled in the factory paint shop ... trouble was there wasn't a choice of colours so had to take what they were painting everything else on the production line; actually it was a rather nice blue grey. They also let me have a pile of old wheelchair wheels, not those huge diameter ones but those about 12" dia pneumatic spoked ones. These we used to make our boggies* with ... fantastic wheels! I remember that there was a huge invalid carriage (those blue 3 wheelers) graveyard at the back of the factory; I suppose there must have been a repair facility for these things there but I can't remember it.

* boggies for our younger viewers were what others (usually soft southerners) called soapbox carts ... they were incredibly popular back in the 60s and earlier.

Edited March 8, 2012 by Symptoms