Sheila Waters-Hughes discusses her canteen job at ICL [Text only]

'At the age of 11 I went to the new modern Barclay School, which has only been built about two years...'

Stevenage Museum

At the age of 11 I went to the new modern Barclay School, which has only been built about two years. My favourite subject was the cookery class so on leaving school at 15 I decided to work in ICL canteen, which became a very happy working part of my life.  It was very hard work for all of us canteen workers but we had great laughs to get us through the long working days.

At first I was a very shy girl at seeing a big crowd of factory workers coming through the canteen doors each day. As I could not reach the high counter they found me an orange box to stand on to pour out the teas and coffees.

At dinner time, I would again be standing on my orange box ready to serve the hot soup from a large pot using a ladle to fill up the bowls.  Then after the folks had gone we would clear the tables and wash up before we had our dinner break.

Then after a little rest we would set up the counter with cakes and teas for the afternoon rush of the factory workers who were always teasing me.

This page was added on 16/04/2018.

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