Memories, Memories, I also worked at Calico Printers as a young girl and remember a catastrophic flood. At the time I thought it was brilliant. I was a print examiner, at the time of the flood .I was working on an order of material for Freddie Laker Airlines. This was for hostess blouses. It was a troublesome order full of faults which meant constantly having to stop my machine to cut out the faults. We were expacted to examine 3000 yards a day and wind the cloth onto paper tubes to the customers requirements. It was a very tiresome job this one, and not reaching the target was often frowned upon even though it was not us the examiners fault. At that time being young and carefree, I used to wish this order would go up in smoke! Well my wish came true sort of. It wasnt consumed by fire it was drowned under 3 foot of water, The most foul, disgusting,stinking muddy water you can imagine, Im sure it contained sewerage. we were all evacuated as the water continued to rise. Myself and some of the other youngsters thought it would be a good idea to stand on the bridge that was nearly submerged. we were moved on by the police who shouted are you bloody stupid? Do you want be swept down the river?We were sent up on to Strines Road to await our transport back to Marple.we didnt want to go home as Granada reports or the programme of the day were there filming and we wanted to be on the telly. We went back to work when it was safe to do so.We were issued with wellies for the massive clean up.We thought it was great ,this wasnt work to us it was weeks playing in mud. I remember myself and a friend were given the job of distributing undamaged food from the high shelves in the kitchen of the canteen. Of course we took the best chocolate bars and crisps for ourselves. It was a massive clean up operation, one that us kids really enjoyed. when the factory was fully operational again. We would get excited when it rained and heard some of the worried management saying to each other " The rivers high" they judged it by pipes that ran from the works over the river. I believe they had a less severe flood after I left a few years later. Looking back as a sensible more mature person. I remember the river being like a conveyor belt of horrors, chemical drums, trees and debris all being swept along from all the other factories on the river. One of the most horrific sights was a build up of dead bloated farm animals all in a heap down river near the now wyevale garden centre
Its a wonder us workers didnt catch any nasty diseases. Would I buy a house on Printers drive or whatever its called? NO NO NO or anywhere near if for that matter.The first place to be cleared up was the canteen and that was the furthest away from the river, so you can appreciate just how far back the water spread.
