Robert Docherty

Retired carpet weaver

Robert Docherty

"The working conditions in a weaving shed are not very good. For a starter, there is the noise level. It's a well known fact that a lot of weavers communicate with sign language because you can't hear yourself speak with the noise of the looms. We are all hard of hearing. I think every weaver that I know that worked beside me over that spell all qualified for noise damage against the ears."

"Believe it or not I made a carpet for the Queen Mother. I think it was Holyrood House. It was pink and it was a twist. It was for her bedroom. You don't want a single beam but there was a single beam lying on the floor for about a week. All hell broke out. Management were in wanting to know why. It turned out the Queen Mother's carpet had been lying on the floor nobody bothering about it. Because I just happened to be the first loom that would come out …I had to cut it out to get the Queen Mothers carpet in. It was a single beam but I got paid average wages because it was a special job. It meant you could take your time over it. Do the job properly."

"In the early 1970s there was quite a lot of redundancies in fact from 70s to 90s the work force in the whole factory just began to dwindle. Stoddard's carpets were at that time expensive they were top of the range stuff and round about 80s when a lot of new houses were being built. Like Barrat, they had a contract with some American carpet company which the British government allowed into Britain at cheap prices. These cheaper carpets came into the market not just when you bought a new house. These big carpet shops began springing up selling carpets at about a quarter of the price that Stoddard was making, although Stoddard's carpet was a far superior quality. At that time not only was the carpet cheaper but people were actually beginning to change their carpet more because people were wanting to do their houses up."

"It wasn't up until the 80s, I would say, the safety factor came into it. I'm not sure but I think it was some new government law that said factories with over 100 or 200 workers had to have a full time health and safety officer. That's when a few changes started in the 80s. We had to start wearing ear muffs something which we had never done before. For a lot of us it was a bit late in the day for that because we've all got hearing deficiencies. The likes of guarding for looms, this all came in as well, but to guard a Wilton loom is very difficult because there is too many moving parts on it. Till 1980s health and safety was nil."