Susan Lewis was an Office Secretary at Westland and remembers it being a happy place to work

If one of the girls or anybody was getting married, they would always have or give them a good old send off, and dress them up and decorate their desk. Very nice, yes. And, of course, if you had a big birthday or something, they used to decorate your desk up and all that. But when I was 50 I had the day off, I didn’t want all that.

And Christmas of course, that was a special thing?

Christmas was nice because they closed down, then you had to take 3 days annual leave between Christmas and New Year. They closed down for a fortnight and came back after New Year’s Day, so it was quite a nice break.

So it was always a good social atmosphere?

Oh, it was lovely, yeah, but you get a big employer in a town, British Aerospace, or all different companies, its very nice.

And then you could always go down to the social club as well?

Yes, you can go out for lunch. I used to go there for lunch on Fridays with the girls or different places, but we used to go to the club. Then they had the Old Barn Club, which was opposite the site.

So there was a good social atmosphere, this was good for the working environment?

Good management, you know, very fair and social life, nice working conditions, yes, it was nice.