“It (Polikoff’s) was massive. Absolutely massive... If we had step counters in those days you were probably doing about 30,000 steps a day... The canteen was huge as well. And then we had like the sale staff shop type of place as well... my mother also worked there on the shop floor, and my dad was a standard 38 suit, and all the samples that came into the factory for them to decide whether they were going to make them or not were always in a 38 regular. And they would be put in the sales room then and you could buy them. So my dad was probably the smartest dressed man in the Rhondda Valley because he had all the sample suits! Yeah, absolutely stunning – Italian makes, you know, and often from Sweden and things like that. Yeah, they were amazing. They were absolutely amazing.
And we used to do all the clerking cards to go with the trousers, the jackets and waistcoats called vests, because of the American term for them... And we would make out all the cards. So if the trousers were like, say, a 32 waist, 32 leg, we'd have to mark all these cards so they were cut correctly then, and then we'd go into the factory then for sewing.
A job came up in EMI... and it was over on the tape side... Capital Records owned it then. And, they used to make all the tape... the tapes were made in 30 minutes, 60 minute and 90 minute reels... This preceded CDs, very, very thin tape. And then you could record, you put it in your tape recorder... And then you would record and you would press two buttons. You’d press the on button and the record button, I think, and then you could record your own music and things like that... we made the tape to go to be pre-recorded to different places, you know, all over the world really.”