May & Baker At Dageham East Gone But Not Forgotten.

A Memory of Dagenham.

I was shocked and saddened when looking on Google Street view recently to find the M&B factory gone, with just a few of the old roadways and outlines of buildings left as testament to the years of work, sounds and smells that used to be.

My father Stan Wilson worked as a pipefitter/welder in the engineering department from about 1954 until he retired in 1979. He helped to construct many of the different process plants around the factory before joining the shift maintenance team keeping things working throughout the factory 24/7.

I joined the shift maintenance team myself in around 1972 and can still remember many of the names of those I worked with and others I met working around the factory. The complex was so huge that us shift fitters used to pedal around on trade bikes - like "Open all Hours".

I became redundant in about 1985 and re-trained to become a "suit" in the City - but that's another story....

M&B was a great place to work, employing folks from all over the world, yet I never witnessed any form of racism.
The banter was brilliant and if you ever entered a building or went past someone around the factory without receiving a torrent of abuse there was something wrong! A visiting French engineer from the parent company Rhone Poulenc once asked me "Why all these workers hate each other and shout so much abuse?" I told him that on the contrary it was an acknowledgement of mutual respect. We were comfortable with each other, knowing the "abuse" was meant in jest and far from hating each other, all these workmates knew they were working in a hazardous environment and would not hesitate to help anyone in danger. There could be a lesson somewhere in these days of political correctness.

It would be great to hear more tales of M & B

Alan Wilson (Brown overalls - not the other one with white overalls!)