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Frank Poynting
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Contributor  Frank Poynting
Date of Birth  Not given
   
Interviewer(s)  Naomi Rourke
   
Place of Interview  Archers Court
Date of Interview  10th July 1999

Frank worked in the Nestlé factory in Salisbury from 1941 till 1982.

From 1941 - 1962 he worked in the milk area of the factory. This involved pouring milk from churns which it was transported in, to larger containers. These were then transported to London to be pasteurised and bottled. Lorries would collect the milk from all the farms locally and take it to the factories. This milk was then weighed for each separate farmer. This was measured in pounds and stones. There was a special job for someone to do this. When units were changed to imperial they were not given new machinery which measured in these units so they had to convert it manually. However they were very close to London and newer factories were bigger and fewer. Nestlés in Salisbury was only small and with transport and communication improving it started to become more economical to bypass Salisbury and taking it directly to London. Nestlés did not have the new technology needed to compete. It used to be that there was a spring flush with milk. This was because calves were only being born in the spring. During this time the factory would make condensed milk to deal with surplus stock. However soon cows were giving birth to calves all year round and there was always lots of milk, too much for the small factory to deal with. Because of this, this area of the factory closed down in 1962.

From 1962 onwards Frank worked in the warehouse. This included making deliveries up, unloading and loading boxes. This originally was done by hand, a backbreaking and time consuming process. However then palettes were introduced. This meant that boxes could be stacked and all moved together. Forklift trucks were then introduced to move these palettes. This made it easier but also meant that less staff were needed and so some were moved to different areas of the factory or made redundant. However this new technology demanded larger, purpose built warehouses. These were built to accommodate new forklift trucks and because of this the warehouse in Salisbury ceased to be used and a new one nearby was built instead.

Frank then worked in the packing station till he was made redundant in 1982. This involved the packaging of raw materials for the vending machines in larger factories. New machinery to assist in this process was not introduced as it was thought that the factory was too small and inaccessible to make it worthwhile. The factory was closed down in 1982 and all workers were made redundant.

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