Photo-a-Day  (Thursday, 16th December, 2021)

This is just about all that remains of the factory . Gone the apple conveyor that stood to the right of the offices and the great stacks of crates jammed with Bramleys . Gone the steamy pulp room where Monday's pristine white overalls slowly got splattered with tomato paste as the week passed . Gone the spice room smelling like the Orient . Silent , the monsterous machine in the meat room which crunched oxtails into a white soup .
The can filling department where you needed earphones to avoid going deaf ; the clinking jars in bottled goods , quiet now .
And gone the lads , some of them , who played football at dinner time on the land behind the railings on Bradley Lane . Pallets for goal posts , white rags for socks and whellies for boots . Happy days .

Wasn't this place once the home of Carrington and Dewhurst.

I knew a lady who's nick name was Bradley Alice when I worked at the ROF at Chorley. I believe there was a Munition Factory at Standish - was it this Factory ? The question popped up in the recesses of my mind - just wondering....

Syd, Carrington and Dewhurst was the building on the left of the photo.
Veronica, the H J Heinz site to the right of their ex offices was originally the munitions factory.

That's a great recollection there Poet, you've just about summed HJH Standish up. Syd, the tall building to the left which is now a storage facility was once Carrington and Dewhurst's. Veronica, you are correct. Heinz was once the site of a munitions factory before it was converted to manufacture food. The newer building in the photo was indeed the front offices.

Syd, refer to P a D Monday 18th October this year for a pic of C and D Standish.

Veronica the ROF Standish was to the right of Rectory lane just past he Owls pub. I typed ROF Standish into Google and it showed a map of the area.

And a vision that was planted in my brain, still remains.. Within...

Thank you to all Standish Villagers for the information and Peter P.
I actually I knew quite a few people from Standish who worked at the ROF, I have many happy memories from those days.

The pic doesn't mean anything to me but it does to many of you & e's line from The Bachelors song says it all.

This brings back many wonderful memories for me I worked there in the late sixties and early seventies.First worked in West End Grill then Baby Food Filling lines made some wonderful friends and I loved every minute I just wish I could turn the clock back.

Jean I worked their as well

From early in 1970, and for the next 3 years, I was a HGV driver for Robert Baillie of Portsmouth, but based at their Wigan depot. The 4 of us Wigan
based drivers would load our trailers at the Heinz factories, one of us at
Standish, and the other three at Kitt Green. From memory, most of the
products from the Standish factory were bottled, brown Sauce, Tomato
ketchup, salad cream and mayonnaise. The loads were for delivery to
Heinz at Harlesden NW10 in London, and their Southampton branch.

Don't you mean Paul Simon's song Helen?

That  middle window, first floor, was my office from 1974 to 1977.

Management left hand offices, then production schedulers, work study, maintenance engineering.

Poet, your wonderful reflections evoke memories that I had long forgotten.  Yes, the apple conveyors churning out the baby food - the worst job was "pip extraction".

The monstrous machine that I recall was the enormous "Buffalo Chopper".

Veronica - my mother worked at the Standish munitions factory in the second World War. She had been training as a seamstress at Brown & Heyes in Wigan. In munitions aged eighteen she was earning more than her dad, a miner.
The manager at Standish was called Tranter and came from the Bryn/Ashton area. Well liked.

Yes Gary I heard it was a very well paid job during the war, they just couldn't find anything to spend the money on according to the old hands when I was there, as everything was scarce, it was all 'make do and mend '. It was very well paid when I was there as well. I loved working at Euxton. I believe they had a choice of working in Munitions or going into the Forces. Probably more dangerous at times.

I thought The Sound of Silence was The Bachelors Katie..I could be wrong.

It's by Simon and Garfunkel Helen. Listen to the latest version by Disturbed, brilliant, Google it.

If you made a video of Poet’s vision and added a background of “Sound of Silence” wouldn’t that be something special?