“When I went there in ‘73 they were still loading railway wagons. And the railway wagons come into the yard, hence the Bedford to Bletchley line, and that. And they used to come alongside the kiln there and they used to be loaded directly from the kilns straight onto the railway wagons. And men were doing that all day long, you know, five days a week, and that. And then, of course, we got modernisation, that was already in the works, but you still got the people that were working with barrows, hand-drawn chambers and that, as well, which did make a bit of a difference. And of course the lorries were loaded by hand, as well. And when we got into modernisation they came with the fork-lift trucks and that made it so much simpler. And of course now the lorries can more or less load themselves - or unload themselves anyway. Whereas before you used to go down the middle of a lorry, and load one side, and turn it round and do the other side, or vice-versa at the other end when your unloading them, like, you know, but erm.
Yeah the thing that has amazed me is how much of the yard has disappeared, over the years, you know, to what it was. The downfall I think really was when they brought in breeze-blocks, and that and of course when all the houses used to have a common brick inside wall, and that, and then you’ve got a facing brick on the exterior, but erm. That got rid of no end of bricks that did. And, of course, over the cost and that other products come in, and bricks were generally fading out.”
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