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00:02this is the story of one of the world's best-selling products and the town it
00:08helped to create the arrival of a factory transformed a sleepy village by
00:14the Clyde into an industrial powerhouse I don't think you realized the enormity
00:20I was probably a bit a mile to a mile and a half from one end to another the
00:25village grew into a town called Clyde Bank with a strong community in it there's
00:31something about just being a banky I'm a woman I'm a this I'm a that and I'm a
00:35banky a picture houses dance halls it was a whole new landscape the factory made a
00:45product that the world couldn't get enough of
00:50the singer sewing machine and that changed the world as we knew it one in five households in
00:59the world had got a singer sewing machine you would say oh I'd like to buy a new singer and
01:05the singer man would go well wouldn't we all madam wouldn't we all even today the sewing
01:12machines made in Clyde Bank work hard around the world keeping the singer name alive having this
01:20learning machine is going to change my life big time it has associations with my grandmother my
01:26mother I always call it my old boy and I love my machine I really do literally me some of
01:32them have
02:01lasted a hundred years
02:09I'm from not far away from here I am from me I'm from Clive Bank quite back it's quite my
02:14fame
02:14if you don't know anything but Clive Bank rights that was bombed by the Germans in World War two
02:18yeah walking the streets of Clive Bank today would be forgiven for thinking the Second World War took
02:22place sometime in the last fortnight
02:33comedian Mark Jennings has lived in Clyde Bank all his life what it means to be a bankie is there
02:41is a sense of belonging in a sense that well we've got this proud history of surviving the the blitz
02:47in
02:47the Second World War and then you know this proud history of building these ships that you know went
02:53all around the world and having the singer sewing factory that built these you know sewing
02:57machines that again went all around the world and it's a real sense of pride and important place for
03:03the whole world basically
03:10so this is where like the singer factory used to be and this is the Clive Bank business part now
03:14so
03:15it's like call centers and stuff like that and this is where it's looked like basically the whole time I've
03:20been alive
03:23apparently the factory had like a big clock and so when the factory took away my gran was telling me
03:29she's like oh you know son we didn't really have the watches and the phones and all that you've got
03:33these days so we didn't know what time it was I was like the idea of these people in Clive
03:37Bank once
03:38they took away the the clock just walking about like yeah do you have any idea of the time now
03:43is it
03:43quarter past three is it ten past two I don't know oh the clock was massive the clock was my
03:57you could
03:57see it from miles away he set you off and your day and ended your day for you it was
04:03never ever out of
04:04time the singer clock was a huge but it was 26 feet in diameter there was a massive great big
04:11square
04:11tower and it had an enormous face for four faces actually all the way down and had to sing a
04:17name
04:17on each side and it was lit up at night and and great big long hands the man was 13
04:26foot six long
04:28and I think this smaller hand was about eight food or long well when you were going in in the
04:34morning you were watching that clock like a hawk to see if you were getting the right time for
04:38your bus and forever you were going if you were going to be in time for the movie in the
04:41cinema it
04:42was something special that was singers and you just thought it was going to be there forever
04:53singer's sewing machine company was the brainchild of an eccentric American inventor Isaac Singer
05:03Isaac Merritt Singer was the son of a German immigrant he grew up in America grew up in New York
05:11he invented
05:13the first what we know is the first practical sewing machine and they called it a sewing engine
05:21and in 1851 he patented his first model and that changed the world as we knew it
05:31Isaac Merritt Singer was a brilliant showman he was very good at selling the sewing machine he
05:37opened up fantastic big plus showrooms in major cities in America he would take it to fairs circuses
05:43and he was very much aware he had to persuade not just manufacturers to drop the sewing machine
05:48but the buying public that machine sewing goods were as good as if not better than hand sewing goods
05:56forever people had hand stitched every single item of cloth together so along comes this machine
06:03which supposedly joins it for you and nobody really believed it so they used to put on public shows
06:10and you could pay in New York on Broadway 10 cents to go and see this show and people would
06:16be
06:16oh this is amazing and that's how it all started
06:22he wasn't the only inventor in fact there were about eight or nine really important inventions
06:29and so in the very early days of the industry Isaac Singer along with the other owners they set up
06:34their
06:35own businesses and the Singer story began to change in the 1870s in the 1870s several of these leading
06:42American companies began to realize that they could sell their sewing machines overseas and the most obvious
06:48market to go and experiment in was the United Kingdom
07:03Singer is an American firm and they decide to come and locate in Scotland the manager who was based in
07:10America who made that decision was actually Scottish and he'd migrated there in the first place so he
07:15they first set up shop then Glasgow and a location near Queen Street station right in the city centre and
07:23they chose Glasgow because at that period you've got lots of migrant workers in the city so a kind of
07:28cheap labour force
07:30at first the Glasgow factory assembled the machines with parts imported from the United States though they made over a
07:39thousand sewing machines a week the factory couldn't keep up with the growing demand it was clear they needed to
07:47move to a bigger place
07:54and they came across this lovely little place in Kilboi that had everything it had the woods it had the
08:05steel it had the rails had the great river Clyde it had everything they needed at that one spot
08:16construction of the factory started in 1882 and was completed in two years
08:24when it opened the new singer sewing machine factory was a state-of-the-art facility largest of its kind
08:32in the world and in pride of place was that iconic clock tower that could be seen for miles
08:40there's there's a brilliant map of 1861 and all that's in there is a chain line a canal and the
08:46edge of the Clyde and then if you look at the map in about 1891 all you can see this
08:50warren of streets and this enormous factory right in the middle of it it literally changed the geography of the
08:57whole place
09:00with John Brown's shipyards already employing a huge number of people in the area the new singer factory attracted thousands
09:09more
09:11the deluge of industry had inadvertently created a brand new town that came to be known as Clyde Bank
09:22by 1906 I believe there was 26,000 people in Clyde Bank so singer's factory was the catalyst for the
09:30community they they kind of created almost that local economy
09:41Clyde Bank's got a fish and chip shop that's actually a boat and on this boat it's got a sign
09:46it says fish and chip shop of the year
09:49and then in much tiny reading below it says running up 1997
10:01you kind of need to be funny being from somewhere here you know you either need to be funny or
10:06be able to
10:06fight or be good at football so you know I wasn't any of the other two so you know I
10:11was always trying to
10:12just make jokes and stuff to get by and where you're from is a big part of comedy and Clyde
10:17Bank's definitely
10:18something that influenced me and where I go
10:22Bank is quite distinct from the Glaswegian despite the nearness of one another
10:30you go your holidays you know yourself people say you come from Scotland eh Glasgow
10:36you say no Clyde Bank yeah you're only about six mile away from Glasgow but you always name the place
10:40you're born
10:42well I was born in Clyde Bank in 1929 and the rest of my life I've been a Banky
10:50I would consider myself definitely a Banky as if it's part of you you know I'm a I'm a woman
10:56I'm a
10:57this I'm a that and I'm a Banky
11:02the Banky character has been molded by this product I'm rather proud of it
11:12so this is right next to Singer's train station which is really the only kind of remnants of
11:16the Singer factory even being here just the fact that the train station is called Singer like
11:20and if you're not from Clyde Bank you probably don't even know why it's called Singer like you'd just be
11:24like oh is this where Marty Pello used to live or whatever but and yeah that's like the only real
11:29thing that's left to to show you know the history of the factory
11:35one of the things about the Singer station was even that the station platform was chock-a-block
11:45when you actually got on the train in the morning the carriages were actually stuffed with people
11:51it was quite an experience because there were hundreds thrown into the factory
11:56Singer employed thousands John Brown's employed thousands the streets were just dark with people
12:02it was like football match coming out or in nowadays you know it was a whole new landscape because
12:09you were meeting every day there were such a lot of different people
12:18it was 20 minutes to 8 the horn went off that's when you started work so you had to be
12:24there about half seven because you'd all these stairs to come down from Komp Bowie Road
12:30if you were a minute late they were taking 15 minutes off your wages
12:37the Singer factory was from one end to the other it was probably about
12:41a mile to a mile and a half from one end to another
12:44it is enormous one of the big surprises of the plant at Singer was just how widely spread it was
12:54every department had to make different things for the sewing machine
13:03they didn't just supply the sewing machines they supplied everything that went with it from the
13:08threads to the attachments needle bars bobbins pan fields treadles cabinets
13:16there's 56 departments at the time each department was numbered one was the foundry four department was
13:24the hardening five department was the dry milling i think it was and there was other departments where
13:32it was so dusty all the dust was clogging you it was like being in a smog you know you
13:38blew your nose
13:42six department where i was was the wet milling department seven department was the shuttle
13:49very very dirty jobs 55 department we just made tiny wee parts for inside the machines
13:57and your hands at the end it would be all scalfs and all mucky and that was one of the
14:02bad jobs
14:08to give the machine its signature look it was covered in a tough black gloss
14:14and then baked in a process called japanning
14:19the machine was then hand finished with exquisite designs in gold leaf
14:27it was an important part no matter of what you were doing and you were proud to be making a
14:33small
14:34part and to know that it was going to be a singer sewing machine and it was going to give
14:40somebody so
14:41much pleasure and it was going to be sent all over the world although it was widely revered as a
14:49technological marvel the sewing machine didn't make it to people's homes straight away the sewing machine
14:56is you know synonymous with women and garment manufacturer but the initial sewing machine
15:01that singer brought out in 1851 with they were not interested domestic sales they were interested in
15:05manufacturers isa looked at the factories because if you could make say a hat or an overcoat in two
15:14days instead of two weeks now that's a product you could sell to that factory and they would
15:19buy it so factories were the first people who bought sewing machines and they bought them 10
15:25machines 20 machines a hundred machines a thousand machines their usefulness went beyond just garment
15:34manufacturing they could change the shell of the machine the size of the machine the bed of the
15:40machine so they could actually adapt the machine to make all sorts of unusual shaped objects and for
15:46making shoes things like that gloves and they were working this out along with the manufacturers
15:56at a book binding company in glasgow the industrial singer sewing machines continue to uphold a
16:03centuries-old tradition sewing book binding hasn't changed since the book started these different types of
16:12books require different methods so we have a singer sewing machine which side sewes a book we have one that
16:24sews down the center of the book and we have one that sews pages together to form a section book
16:32too small stitch and the pages become perforated too big a stitch and the pages become loose
16:39so the singer is the ideal sewing machine for a book the machines haven't developed much obviously the new
16:49machines now are more computerized but basically they're all hand operated semi-automatic machines
16:59as well as restoring manuscripts and literary editions for museums and universities the book binders work
17:07extensively with the houses of parliament and the british library it's a testament to the people who
17:14produced the singer sewing machines in clive bank to build and produce such a robust machine that can still
17:21keep going the singer sewing machines produced in the early 20th century were finely crafted constructed
17:38with cast iron and a combination of alloys the machines were built to last the sewing machine that
17:45singer designed it was a i mean a really great piece of engineering it's in a cast iron shell which
17:50is
17:51pretty much indestructible so it has got this long life that that was what they were building in the 19th
17:57century they weren't the idea of building in inbuilt obsolescence wasn't really something that they would
18:02have considered literally i mean some of them have lasted 100 years there was however one snag the machines
18:11were tremendously expensive so machines would have cost a typical worker at least half a year's salary to be
18:20able to pay for so they developed an idea that was completely novel in the mid-1870s i've got a
18:30great
18:30idea why don't we give the customer machine and let them pay us back over five years 10 years 15
18:38years 25
18:39years that's what enabled people to actually invest in the sewing machine because they could just pay the
18:44small amount a week and the first year the sales went from 5000 machines to 25 000 machines and every
18:52year after that they were doubling and that was a complete game changer so higher purchase was invented
19:00by the singer company and it changed the singer company beyond all recognition by 1918 at the end of the
19:08first world war the singer sewing machines were so popular that one in five households in the world
19:15had got a singer sewing machine singer's innovative higher purchase scheme and clever marketing made its
19:23sewing machine affordable and accessible to people all over the world but they didn't just stop there
19:30they took the sewing machine right to people's homes
19:33in the uk that would go almost to every single house in the entire country and knock on the door
19:41and ask people if they would like to buy a sewing machine
19:47they used beautiful women to advertise their products they put them in the high street sewing
19:53in shop windows and this attracted the crowds so they were very very good at marketing
20:00this concentrated effort created an appetite for the singer brand and put it ahead of its competitors
20:07for decades to come beginning singer's long reign at the top they established factories all over the world
20:15but singer's clyde bank factory remained its largest in europe
20:22you were never bored and singers never you were always on the go it was just heads down and into
20:29your work
20:30well it was a place it was very strict you weren't allowed to away and have a smoker in like
20:36that but
20:36though they did in the fly the toilet was called the tinny and because it had a corrugated iron roof
20:44and that's where some of the folk went to hide from the gaffer and put in the rollers for the
20:51dancing
20:53and have and some of them had a wee fly puff
20:57well my first job was actually as an office boy and the first day you were just sort of finding
21:02your
21:03way about and some of the places that you visited where my sister worked for instance it was all
21:09females and all these girls were shouting extremely rude remarks and then this voice rang out that's
21:17my wee brother leave him alone he's a virgin and he's going to stay that way which caused a great
21:24deal
21:25of hilarity but some of these women honest to goodness if he shook hands with him they could crush you
21:31to a pulp
21:35one of the things i really liked about working in singer was as the friendships we made i'd gone
21:41for an interview and i'd met see this girl waiting for an interview as well her name was maureen it
21:47was
21:47the day of the interview when i met my friend anna it turned out that we got sent up to
21:52the same
21:52department and that was us we were inseparable on my first day we were quite excited and i had to
22:00go
22:00to the toilet and the told us was it well you had to go down through the men department where
22:06they
22:06assembled all the machines and the when maureen came back from the toilet oh my goodness you should
22:13have seen the state of her absolutely mortified shaking like a leaf so it was my turn to go and
22:19then
22:20i realized why she was in the state she was in and of course as soon as a female walked
22:26down
22:28the passageway towards the toilet they all hammered on their benches with hammers spanners you name it
22:35anything they could get hold of you've got both sides well you can imagine 17 years old you could have
22:46my face was like a bright red tomato but there was no way out because you had to come back
22:52that way as
22:52well one of the things that sort of peeved me even back in those days was there was boys and
23:01and the men
23:02as well they were all being paid very much better than i was even then i felt there was a
23:06lot of
23:07unfairness and they you know we were always treated as if we were just sort of you know second class
23:12citizens in a way and to make it worse of course i was a married woman and there were a
23:16lot of
23:17people and i include ladies in this as well who thought i had no business to be holding on to
23:21a
23:22job you know that you know someone else might be able to get this job who had a husband to
23:25keep her
23:26and i thought well i didn't get married to be kept the men they always get paid more always always
23:32you know and the girls really happy about that they're still arguing about that 63 years later
23:44it was an issue that caused one of the biggest controversies at singer's factory in clyde bank
23:51back in 1911 pushed to the brink by low wages and the threat of redundancies women workers from the
23:59polishing department took a bold step against the management they went on strike the singer strike
24:06of 1911 is important because it was the women workers that sort of stood up against um changes
24:13that were made redundancies were being made and the women obviously took objection to this because
24:19you're asking a group of women to do the job of 10 rather than seven people you know saying no
24:25no this
24:26isn't on and it was the women that walked out and the following day the whole factory came out in
24:31support and you know obviously the the management were not happy about this the women's strike of
24:38singer set off a chain of events that eventually culminated in the most significant labor movement
24:44in scotland known as red clyde side red clyde side is often associated with male activism
24:53around the clyde and trade union activism and the rent strikes of 1915 in govan and but actually it
25:00started in clade bank in 1911 threatened with the prospect of losing their jobs the workers were
25:09forced to end the strike after a few weeks and the management made sure none of the women who had
25:14started the strike came back to the factory
25:19the strike however went on to have a lasting legacy and became a beacon for labor activism in scotland
25:27it has become pretty symbolic in scottish labor history as an incident of
25:31workers just sort of standing up for their rights and saying no and we're not going to take the cost
25:37cutting measures
25:40the women's strike of 1911 was also instrumental in creating better working conditions
25:46at the clyde bank factory that's when singer bring in provision of social clubs sports clubs the hockey
25:54club the football club all of those sorts of facilities that are provided which i guess
25:59are quite paternalistic basically to placate the workers to keep them happy so there'll be no more
26:04strike action if you feel like you're being looked after
26:10there was everything that they had football teams tennis bush runs you name it and they had it and
26:18of course they had the annual gala
26:25the singer gala day was the highlight of the factory's social calendar
26:31one year many years ago dorothy lamour who was a famous film star came and she came and opened the
26:37sports in the gala for us and singer which was quite a turnout in the town because at that point
26:44in
26:44time she was very famous in films with bob hope and ben crosby
26:50they had a lovely big playing field and there were races of all sorts it was it was like a
26:55sports
26:56day and gala
27:03high jumping and athletics
27:07and they used to have a queen
27:11and she always had
27:13sort of almost like bridesmaids you know like an attendance and then she had an entourage as well
27:18and all these girls had beautiful dresses made
27:21it was long dresses three quarter length gloves very glamorous and lovely flowers it's like a rainbow
27:30and then it was time for the the queen to be crowned which was a great big thing in
27:35clive bank i think the holy clive bank were there
27:38the singer queen was selected by her beauty and then all the other ones that didn't get
27:46chosen as queen they were her attendants
27:51i was fortunate enough to be picked and i was a maid of honor and i absolutely
27:58chuffed the bits with myself and i know all my relatives from glass cover all through
28:04years i thought i was the queen but they were all so proud you know
28:09it was just a very very happy day you know
28:16it was just a very happy day
28:28clyde bank had endured catastrophic destruction during the blitz
28:34and was slowly getting back on its feet
28:39at singer's factory machine manufacturing had been mothballed during the war to make munitions
28:46so when the production lines started back up it could barely sustain the backlog of orders
28:53you would say oh i'd like to buy a new singer and the singer man would go well wouldn't we
28:58all madam
28:58wouldn't we all
29:01singers machines went worldwide everywhere in fact you used to go down if you went into the shipping shed
29:07down there you would see the boxes with the names on it karachi india turkey africa
29:18the singer's universal appeal was because of its reputation as a reliable quality sewing machine
29:25the machines they were making certainly in the early 20th century beautifully engineered machines
29:30you could get all the parts you could service it and manufacturers like using singing machine
29:35especially if they do very high quality products because singer make a really nice stitch and they
29:40still like that quality of stitch
29:46singer's distinctive stitch earned it a devoted following among distinguished heritage tailors
29:52in london's saddle row that loyalty has been passed down to a new generation
29:58every single individual on this street has learned their craft to the perfection i mean we've learned
30:07from people that have done it for you know decades
30:13the reason why we use the machine is because it's kind of a strong straight stitch they're quick they're efficient
30:20they're clean and they're strong
30:23my singer sewing machine was originally my tutor stefano's he was doing it for 50 years
30:30years which means really he was passing on 50 years of skill to me
30:37i was always fascinated by clothes at a young age my dad was quite stylish he had a few bespoke
30:43suits
30:46i didn't really feel i could really say i was a tailor until i did five years so that was
30:52a certain point in my career i thought oh yeah i like the way my coat looks now
30:57not perfect but i liked it
31:04i love my machine i really do i know it sounds really silly but i hate using other machines um
31:12he's really
31:13really slow and you know there's so much control with him some machines whiz off like a little puppy or
31:22something but mine's like an old man like my i always call him my old boy and i do actually
31:27talk to him
31:28sometimes as well if he's not doing what i want so that's my old boy
31:36i love how he looks i love how he works and i think i just always want singers around my
31:41life
31:52clyde bank was a thriving industrial powerhouse in the 1950s
31:57it had come a long way from its origins as a small village by the clyde
32:04singer manufacturing company and the world-renowned john brown's shipyard collectively employed
32:11tens of thousands of people the town flourished on the coattails of their success
32:17you tell me any other town in scotland where you will find two golf courses seven municipal bowling
32:23greens
32:25three public libraries all that kind of thing you find it in clyde bank and nowhere else in scotland
32:31i assure you clyde bank was buzzing buzzing oh well it was great there was always a wee dance on
32:39a
32:39saturday night and sometimes my father would take me to the pictures the mascara picture houses dance
32:48halls anything you wanted you had that in clyde bank it was a fab place to stay
32:56and the pubs i think the pubs did a roaring trade
33:03singer's success was largely built on the loyalty of its female customers the company had invested
33:10heavily over the years to nurture this relationship from the moment it was first introduced singer knew
33:17that to get sewing machines into people's homes it had to appeal to the lady of the house when they
33:24started to focus on domestic sales they used to use women to demonstrate the sewing machine because
33:29that was their thinking it's so easy a woman can use it because the idea of a woman using machine
33:33or taking a machine into the house was just unheard of singer deployed various tactics initially
33:42marketing the sewing machine as a time-saving device that would enable the woman to earn money
33:48making it attractive to thousands of working-class families we know from diaries that were kept by
33:55housewives in the united states in the 1860s and 1870s they would be spending the equivalent of two
34:01days a week on clothes manufacturing and clothes repair hand stitching and other associated tasks
34:07that's a lot of time the sewing machine saved about 90 percent of that stitching time
34:15for the first time you not only could sew for yourself but you could make your next door
34:21neighbor's dress and charge her so all of a sudden the woman in the household could be earning her
34:26own money and that uh was instrumental really in changing society hello ladies and gentlemen this
34:34is walter o'keefe turning the microphone over to the cat take it away kitty
34:41oh john i'm so discouraged how can i ask anybody to this house the way the furniture looks
34:47well it is pretty awful but i don't suppose we could buy much with our money not unless the miracle
34:52happens ah there's the miracle hurry hurry hurry hurry answer that doorbell but it's the singer man
35:00for the women who didn't know how to sew singer offered them the opportunity to learn at one of its
35:06many sewing centers it is estimated that by 1951 over 400 000 women were taught sewing at these centers
35:16just a few simple lessons on the sewing machine and her house will look so attractive they'll probably
35:21sell it at a profit here he is in person it's the singer man over the years singer fashioned itself
35:30as the neighborhood friendly brand that was there to help the woman every step of the way
35:37everybody knew there was a singer shop on high street and people would go and buy it for their 21st
35:41or
35:41wedding present the granny that used them she's still alive to say this is the machine i made your
35:48christening gown on never ever underestimate nostalgia it's a powerful thing
35:59keeping that nostalgia alive is textile artist helen parember who uses her traditional singer sewing
36:06machines for more contemporary work i started sewing probably as a very young child with my grandmother
36:14on her old treadle sewing machine and um had my own hand cranked singer when i was eight i think
36:21it was
36:23the sense of nostalgia of the singer sewing machine is because it's what i learned it has associations
36:30with my grandmother my my mother helen creates botanical designs using a technique called free motion embroidery
36:42i always like to work from the plant initially because i'm looking for shapes that i can then
36:48transfer to fabric to actually cut out i find the the pattern of the the way plants grow really lend
36:56themselves to creating patterns in textile once the drawing is complete helen uses the pattern to cut the
37:06shapes from the shapes from the fabric i build a piece up in layers i don't have a place for
37:12one before
37:13before the other ones are completed so i never know before it's done really what it's going to look like
37:23i have i think currently 11 machines from 1881 through to 1960s
37:31all the ones i have were made in clibank so the one i use all the time is the 201k
37:38it has a very
37:39fast stitch which means when i'm using it to draw with it's almost like the speed of using a pencil
37:45or
37:45a pen on paper and it's very smooth it can just keep going forever and ever without without a hitch
37:51i like the process of actually moving the fabric it's suppose it's like drawing where you hold a pencil
37:58still and somebody you know you you would move the paper it can adapt itself in all sorts of different
38:04ways as an artist's tool the singer's slogan was to have a sewing machine in every home and he just
38:15about did that and i think everybody has that same kind of memory of oh yes you know my granny
38:19had one or
38:20whatever there's one in the cupboard still it will just keep going forever
38:44for decades singer's relentless marketing and huge high street presence had kept competitors at bay
38:53but as the japanese and german industries recovered after the war
38:57it became apparent their dominance was under threat
39:02singer were the only people making sewing machines and they had
39:06a monopoly on the market so they didn't really have to worry about improving things
39:13however once the japanese and the italians and the other companies that were
39:19disabled during the war got themselves started up again they started up with modern equipment they
39:24modern methods they were
39:27cheaper and and the singer then suddenly found themselves in a marketplace under extreme pressure
39:36i don't think genuinely in the marketplace there is a real loyalty i think when a new product
39:43comes onto the market that is as good or better and is cheaper then people will automatically go for it
39:57competition started slowly at first the japanese didn't really get the sewing machines right to
40:03begin with but when they started to get them right they started to make them better and better and
40:08they could produce exactly the same machine for approximately half the price
40:15when you bought a singer you were buying the best when you buy a bentley you're buying something special
40:20if it's not special anymore then why would you pay the money
40:26clyde bank was one of singer's oldest manufacturing facilities
40:30and was in desperate need of investment what surprised me as a new graduate out of college
40:38was just how old-fashioned singer was the methods that they were using were the same that they'd been
40:44using in the times of the industrial revolution almost machinery was old-fashioned i mean it was
40:50old-fashioned even for its time and there were great big belts that sort of ran that turned the wheels
40:56that turned the things that turned to that and turned this to make the machines work it was very dickensian
41:00in a lot of ways but singers refused to put any money in to get modern eyes
41:12as their profits started to decline singers were forced to come up with a plan
41:19singers were dropping like a stone and so what they first tried to do was economize and what they did
41:25is
41:25they competed with each other they competed factory to factory so they would get a factory
41:31say in south america to price up a sewing machine and they would get kill bowie to price up a
41:36sewing machine
41:37or elizabeth or one of the other factories around the world and they would get them to compete
41:42with themselves which of course is a disaster they should have been competing with the competition
41:48the only way that we could make a profit at clibank was to make it cheaper
41:54so that was one of my jobs trying to make the things cheaper and if you walk through the factory
42:03the eyes were on you all the time in case you were coming to cut their wages
42:12to complicate matters further the 60s brought new affordable fashion stores to the british high street
42:20the 60s in particular had the boutique fashion just underwent a huge revolution it was a sort of
42:25meeting of youth culture and subculture that no one could have predicted and it made this very exciting
42:32affordable fashion so people were less likely to want to actually go home and make their own clothes
42:37so they weren't selling as many sewing machines but they were still maintaining this huge sort of retail
42:43presence in the high street and the combination of the two just it could not be supported for any any
42:49length of time
42:52so now you had a massive behemoth you had a giant incredibly expensive to run
42:59every day the odds was getting less and less and less and the writing's really on the wall
43:07desperate to keep the clydebank factory afloat the company closed entire departments and laid off
43:13hundreds of workers by the 1970s you get a dramatic decrease in the number of jobs that singer are providing
43:21so from a high in 1911 of something like 13 000 workers by 1973 it's only a few thousand people
43:30talk
43:31workers are no daft contrary to what management think and they see the signs it was only a matter of
43:39time
43:41in june 1980 after years of unrest and workers strikes
43:47in clydebank's singers and clydebank closed its doors for the final time
43:53closed singer's sewing machine factory was based on the company's falling share in the world's markets
43:59and industries need to make a profit to exist and the closing of clydebank was simply the corporate
44:05amputation of the largest loss-making limb in the organization it's a bitter blow to clydebank
44:111800 jobs have been lost in the town this year already and unemployment has increased by 45 percent
44:17since 1974. i found out by reading the paper i think everybody was devastated in clydebank
44:27you know that such a big big company was actually leaving for good nobody ever thought that
44:35so you would close because it had been so much a part of our lives there was no any big
44:42going away
44:43parties or anything like that as they have nowadays you know that was it and i just i went down
44:48the
44:49stairs as normal and and out and away and way back up the road you know
45:01it had been a devastating decade for clydebank john brown's shipyards built the last ship on the site
45:08in 1972. well clydebank i mean i had a double whammy because they lost two industries they lost shipbuilding
45:16and sewing machines it was just devastation it became a different place there's there's nothing
45:25that could take the place of these big engineering places yeah it was like a ghost town as if somebody
45:32had hit clydebank with a hammer and all the other things that you did in singers you know with all
45:40your
45:41friends like dancing and that was a blow so this is the titan crane which is the kind of last
45:55symbol of
45:55the john brown shipyards which used to be here now the crane itself is pretty much the only lasting
46:03remnant of the shipyards it feels kind of sad that there was so much history and so many people worked
46:10here and there was there's such a pride there still is such a pride in the shipyards and clyde built
46:15and being from clyde bank and all that and it was a bit sad that you know we didn't get
46:20to see clyde
46:21bank at its most bustling and and it's most proud you know
46:34former workers of singer's clydebank factory meet regularly to share their memories
46:40i had gone away for a while and then came back into singer and when i came back i thought
46:45oh now
46:46this is not what it was before you know there was there was a a different atmosphere in the whole
46:50place
46:51because i think people were beginning to get a bit anxious i mean there definitely was a sense of
46:57you know foreboding doom and gloom exactly yeah but the clock came down before they closed the place
47:13we never knew anything about it beforehand you know it hadn't been publicized or anything it just
47:20started one working day and started taking it to bits and in those days in the factory if i had
47:29a
47:29quiet time i would write wee poems about the people on the factory and i wrote this one after we
47:37started
47:37taking the clock down called whodunit i'd like to find the culprit the one who'll take the blame
47:44who stole the singer clock away and covered us with shame
47:48an edifice that filled the sky a credit to the town
47:54i'd like to find egypt who had our clock pulled down
48:00poor councillors were silent they had me much to say
48:03we never heard a whisper when the clock was taken away
48:08so instead of being world renowned as far as i can see all we've got left are photos of where
48:16the clock
48:16should be
48:24aye the yanks they must be laughing even to this very day for they took the workings of our clock
48:31to the old us away so now i sat in daydream help me put him in the dock the empty
48:39heated bumper who gave away our clock
49:25the singer machines made in clyde bank are not just relics of the past
49:31the kill barrier machines are really very straightforward to service but what we do
49:37have to do at this age is a lot of cleaning to get dirty sticky oil from what are meant
49:44to be moving
49:45spinning parts
49:49in a small industrial estate in southampton a charity called tools for self-reliance
49:55breathes new life into old sewing machines
50:00retired school teacher alan has been volunteering here for 10 years
50:07what we have in here is a singer 99
50:14it's about
50:161920 when it was made these machines are really astounding because of the skill that was used in
50:23making this sewing head this sewing head is the bit that we need to make sure works perfectly
50:28because of course when it does you can carry on sewing and sewing and sewing and sewing
50:35the singer sewing machine really comes from a time when the phrase throwaway culture hadn't been invented at
50:42all some of the earliest ones we see are probably 1912 1913
50:50sometimes when we open up the case we find some very very personal stories and there's one one just
50:56here that's turned up from rosemary in the united kingdom and she says i'm now 55 years old and have
51:03learned to sell on this machine which was my mother's wonderful
51:11the charity refurbishes over 300 manual singer sewing machines a year
51:18by the time they've been taken apart
51:21oiled cleaned put back together they will be
51:28so really this is the last stage is to make sure that it works and works and works and works
51:36and
51:36works and doesn't fail and really that's a compliment to the designers of that machine because
51:43that is 98 years old a wonderful piece of engineering my job is done
51:57the joke is of course is when you finish there shouldn't be any parts left in the tin lid
52:12once packed the sewing machines are shipped to their destination
52:16three thousand miles away to accra in ghana
52:44the charity street girls aid trains women on the refurbished sewing machines
52:50when i first came it was very difficult because i didn't know how to cut how to use the machine
52:57after the training i find it very easy to do everything and i'm very happy
53:04i am interested in a fashion and i prefer to be a sister so i chose the sewing center
53:12i find it very interesting how you cut and then you join pieces and it becomes
53:18something beautiful it's it's very nice along with sewing the girls also learn how to design clothes
53:26from scratch the machines that we use are single machines so it doesn't matter if the machines are old
53:34or not the machines that they bring are very durable the ones we have on the market are very sometimes
53:40very low quality
53:42so we are very grateful for these machines because they are very strong
53:50most of the girls sewing prefer the hand machine and not the electric one yes this one is best this
53:57one
53:58you're not going to pay any electricity bills in ghana sewing is a profession you choose to do
54:04it because you earn more money and it's not just a hobby for these girls too they can sew and
54:10then
54:10people will bring their cloth then they sew it for them so sewing is a very big business in ghana
54:19at the end of the year-long training course the girls get to take the machine with them
54:25it carries them through the training and when they graduate they take it to start
54:30their business they see the opportunity once you have your sewing machine you can start
54:36just in front of your shop or you can even go around and do people's things for them
54:40so they see that it's very easy to start their business over 20 girls graduate from the course
54:52every year yes because you can sew anything without a machine so having the sewing machine is going to
55:00change my life big time when i leave the center i'm getting my own business so that i can work
55:08on my own
55:10i'll become a good and prefer a professional quality seamstress so i own my own shop
55:19i love it if i sew for someone and i see the person worried and then you are just good
55:25to go
55:45it was just all such good fun when i think back on it just the camaraderie just the the carry
55:52on that went
55:53on it was just it was just lovely you know
56:10look how young you are in that my goodness and that was us in our haiti maureen do you remember
56:17where that was taken that's blackpool when we went with some of the girls in the flat yeah after
56:25that i mean we really are young there couldn't have life wasn't as complicated then as it is now
56:31and that's the singer magazine oh my goodness are they years ago 1959 1959 no vicky said imagine keeping
56:38the magazine all these years it was vanity because i'm on the front of it that's never you it is
56:48so it is anna oh my goodness i would have held on to it as well if i was in
56:53it
56:56and you were a lady-in-waiting i was a maid of honor oh you're a maid of honor is
57:01that better than a
57:01lady-in-waiting yes anyway happy nice you know i wouldn't have lasted in that place if anna hadn't
57:09been there oh quite honestly i think the company makes all the difference in the world you made so
57:16many friends didn't you well it's nice to look back you know to when we were my age and remember
57:32the things that we did you know and that we did enjoy life at that age i'm just ashamed to
57:39say
57:39never had a singer's room machine
57:41singer was such a community of people who worked hard and enjoyed the simple things
58:04singers was the place you know i was happy when i was at my work
58:10you couldn't go 20 yards without running into people you knew
58:14you got to know everybody and they got to know you
58:19they had good friendships and good to work with and that you know
58:27it was absolutely tremendous
58:35with the future on the line and the past re-ring its ugly head things aren't easy for
58:39the residents of shield inch in river city tonight at 10. and next on bbc scotland get ready to feel
58:46the
58:46force of the ocean as it hits hebrides islands on the edge
58:51so
58:56you
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