Reference
X962/R17
Title
Interview with Susan Ann Willis, born 11 February 1950, Hitchin, Hertfordshire. Laboratory assistant for Garside Sands, Leighton Buzzard. Interviewed by Carmela Semeraro.
Date free text
Interview date 22 October 2008
Production date
From: 2008 To: 2008
Scope and Content
(00 mins)
Born in Hitchin – grew up in Stopsley, Bedfordshire, next to a farm. Unmarried mother – lived with uncle (Mum’s brother) who worked on the farm. Had an orchard and wild cats which grandfather used to feed. Susan used to tell lies to schoolmates at school – pretending she had a father. Wanted to work on the farm when she left school – took commercial course – could only get jobs working with poultry – attended Plumpton Agricultural College, Sussex – became trainee manager with Farmers Meat Company (FMC) – working with chicken hatchery and broiler hens – slipped disc condition caused her to leave. Got job with Rothamsted Experimental Station doing agricultural surveys – researching weeds and seeds and use of fertilisers – early user of punch card computer analysis. Got married and could not drive a car so had to leave – lived in Stewkley, Buckinghamshire. Regretted having to leave - such an interesting job.
(05 mins)
Collating the data – surveyed 300 farms a year – ranging from 5 acres to 3000 acres – recording field use and crop yields over many years, to early 1900s – different counties and size of farms. Department of 10 staff within a much larger organisation – probably more women than men employed – first name terms. Fertiliser survey coded different amounts of nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus produced by different companies in varying amounts. Susan worked there from 1969 to 1972 - with a lady who had worked there for 40 years.
(10 mins)
Lived in Stewkley – 5 miles from Leighton Buzzard – from 1972 until she got divorced – now in Fenny Stratford, Bletchley. Misses former village people.
After having a child – returned to work in 1986 – at Old People’s Home in Winslow – hated it. Saw laboratory technician job with Garside Sands, at the White House in Leighton Buzzard and got it – later moved into sales office in 1999.
(15 mins)
Work entailed collecting samples of sand from quarries around the area – damp material (raw feeds) – white, yellow or brown – dried them – did sample moisture test – graded each sample. Dry samples fed across banks of screens and graded - either the yellow, white or brown. Each sand has a specification – some the firm’s own, some meeting British Standards specifications – and is inspected before delivering to customers – fine adjustments made to screening to suit customer needs according to use of sand. 6 or 7 sieves used to select appropriate sand. Colour of sand is natural – ranging from pale to golden yellow, for example. White sand is 99.3% silica – important to some industries
(20 mins)
Underlying those fine sands are ironstone and sandstone – brown sands – fine grain sands – use in horse ménages or cement. Coarser grains of sand for sports pitches such as top dressing for rugby and football pitches or mixing with soil as a root zone for golf courses. Each quarry produces a unique sand.
Some sand is later coloured with an organic pigment, for example, terracotta for clay courts, green to look like grass, even blue for race courses. After doing basic testing, Susan took on increasingly technical work and enquiries – also producing reports based on the statistics – 11 years in the laboratory.
(25 mins)
Customers sometimes stipulated specific sand size, silica content, moisture content or density – this requires the specific calibration of equipment – the ph of the sand silt contents are other factors. Outside contractors sometimes used to do the physical property tests or chemical analysis – Ceran(?) Ltd, Stoke on Trent or University of Exeter. Garside Sands – were part of ECC Quarries – when Susan joined – in 1992 ECC Quarries de-merged and Garside became Camas, then Bardon took them over, which became part of Aggregate Industries. Everybody asked for Garside Sands, so the company reverted to its old name, while still being part of Aggregate Industries. Majority of its fine sands now go to the sports market for artificial pitches and companies producing artificial lawns. The other main market is that of water filtration and sewage treatment both here and abroad, including Turkey.
(30 mins)
Water filtration filtering can involve up to several layers of gravel and 2 or 3 different types of sand and will need refurbishment after so many years. The third type of market is the brick industry – mainly for brick facing. Selected sand added to the brick at the appropriate stage then fired at 1500? when the sand changes colour and gives the unique appearance to the brick. Leighton Buzzard sand has iron oxide as its main trace element and is not, therefore, suitable for glass production. It can be used for glass fibre production and is used in resins and grouting and textured paints and sand blasting.
Susan moved into sales for Garside Sands when she fancied a change but she still got given the technical queries.
(35 mins)
Customer services – giving prices to people, taking orders, helping with enquiries. Head office at Bardon Hill, Leicestershire dealt with all accounting. Now part of a Swiss Company called Holcim, with a presence in 72 countries.
Larger group deals with sand, asphalt, concrete, aggregates of all sorts, building materials. Leighton Buzzard sand is quite specialised and there are only similar sources in Canada and Australia. Garside Sands provide high quality silica sand as far afield as Pakistan, Hong Kong and even Japan. Another market is transport – grit boxes to keep rolling stock going on railways in icy and other weather conditions. Staff social activities locally – up to 30 employees.
(40 mins)
3 sales representatives – friendly atmosphere. Susan’s leisure pastimes – walking and rock climbing – scout leader for many years – still scout instructor for Single Pitch Award (SPA) training – waiting list for her Stewkley troup. Her climbing group meets twice a week. May have to work until aged 65 in order to pay off mortgage.
End of interview
Summarised by Stuart Antrobus (5 May 2009)
Format
Wave Sound file
Reference
Level of description
item