Beccles Sexton, Son and Everard shoe factory reunion held

For 14 years, the workers at Sexton, Son and Everard's Beccles factories rolled out all manner of footwear. 

The firm left the town in 1972 after it was sold to an overseas developer.

That controversial sale famously sparked a protest at its Fakenham factory. 

And now more than 50 years after the closure, a group of former Beccles employees have gathered to reminisce about their time cobbling together shoes galore.   

They were reunited at their former workplace which is now the Waveney Centre in New Market.

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Reunion of some of the former employees of Sexton & Son shoe factory, Beccles. (Image: Lucy Taylor) READ MORE: Beccles cottage deemed dangerous could be demolished

The idea was formed by the late Caroline Balls, whose auntie Madge Arnold organised the day.

Ms Arnold said: “This event is in Caroline’s name and memory.

“She said ‘If you want to do something, do it.’”

Jean Taylor and Mary Notley both started working for the company at the age of 15.

Ms Taylor said: “I enjoyed it all those years.

“It’s nice to be back and meet all these lovely people again.”

Mary Notley and Jean Taylor at the reunion (Image: Lucy Taylor) Madge Arnold organised the reunion (Image: Lucy Taylor) READ MORE: Hopes raised for Bungay Falcon Meadow bathing status

Ms Notley recounted memories of going for fish and chips on a Wednesday and described the factory as “a nice place to be".

Ms Arnold also started working in the factory at the age of 15. 

She said: "I left school one week and mum brought me here the next week.

"We were just so happy - it was a lovely place to work."

The factory employed 50 women and young girls, who could often earn more than their fathers and husbands.

The women who worked at the former shoe factory (Image: Lucy Taylor) READ MORE: Emmaus Norfolk and Waveney to open women's support house

Jean Reddy, the shop steward for the women's side, said: “They were the best payers in Beccles."

“The unions were good and the management was good.”

The manager was Claude Johnston, who Ms Reddy described as a "fair and good man". 

She said: “We never had any trouble. It was a family."

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The women would do piece work and would often take shoes home to work on after their shifts ended. (Image: Lucy Taylor)

Sexton, Son and Everard was a shoe manufacturer that had begun to operate out of Norfolk in the late 1800s and was founded by Henry Sexton.

With factories in Norwich, Fakenham, and Beccles, the business employed more than 500 people.

But the company was sold to an overseas developer in February 1972, which sacked most of the workforce.

By the end of 1972, all three factories had closed.

Former employees at the shoe factory in Beccles (Image: Lucy Taylor)

THE HISTORY OF THE BECCLES FACTORY

The Beccles factory opened in 1958 in a hut which had been used in the First World War at an army encampment in Worlingham.

It was dismantled and erected at the site where the Waveney Centre now sits, functioning as a venue for the Red Triangle Club of the YMCA.

It was also used as a skating rink before it became a shoe factory.

In 1968, the factory moved to a new premises on Common Lane in Beccles. 

Out of the three factories, it then became the last to close in 1972 after the company was bought.

The shoe factory was first based at a First World War hut, now in the site of the Waveney Centre (Image: Barry Darch)

The closing room at Sexton Son & Everard shoe factory in Norwich 1959 (Image: Archant)

THE 'FORGOTTEN' PROTEST IN THE FAKENHAM FACTORY

The Sexton, Son & Everard shoe factory in Fakenham employed 45 people who were all made redundant after the firm was taken over by a property developer.

It was the first of the three factories to close.  

The Fakenham workers felt they had been ignored by the trade unions and nine women occupied the factory for 18 weeks in protest. 

Their plight attracted national attention and as a result, the women ended up buying the factory after a donation from the Scott Bader Commonwealth charity.

They traded successfully under Fakenham Enterprises until 1977. 

The women who worked at the Fakenham factory held a reunion more than 10 years ago to help Jonathan Moss who was researching the history of working women and the labour movement during the 1970s.