Friday 13th February 2026  

Memories of Outdoor Work for M W Wright & Sons by Marlene Bradshaw nee Lidierth

Marlene Lidierth grew up in Quorn in the 1950s and lived with her family at 33 Castledine Street, Quorn. Her mum, Dorothy Lidierth, like many women at that time, did ‘outdoor work’ for M W Wright & Sons, the large factory on Leicester Road, which made narrow fabrics including elastic. This account of her mum’s work was written in 2012 by Marlene and was found after her death in 2018. Marlene has given us an insight into a rarely recorded aspect of life that is now part of our social history, as well shedding light on other aspects of her childhood in Quorn.

MEMORIES

Making men’s suspenders
Men's suspenders. It would take an older woman to remember lady’s suspenders to hold their stockings up let alone find someone who remembers men wearing them to hold their long socks up. The years between 1952 - 1956 mam worked at home making suspenders, garters and braces.
Wright’s factory in the village of Quorn produced webbing. Most of mam's family worked there at some time or other. Even I had two years cleaning at the end of day while our children were young. Then Andrew was employed for some time at 16 years of age.
So there we were living at 33 Castledine St. It was a new build house as we moved in about 1949.
There was a small front room which held a mixture of things and very little used. The living room was always busy. Mam's sewing machine at one end, three piece suite around the coal fire and dining table by the back window. Around the machine were various boxes of metal bits ready to be assembled.
First step was, thread a hook on end of length of webbing. This was machined into place, one after another creating a long snake like line, these we would snip apart and thread a bar shaped metal piece on. This was used for adjustment regarding the size of a person's leg. This task was called ‘threading up’ which could be done by anyone wanting to sit on the big old comfy sofa in front of a lovely coal fire.

Life at home
Of course we had no TV. The radio was well used and I remember Sunday evening with Wilfred Pickles, Winifred Attwell and her two pianos and Take Your Pick or would they ‘open the box’.
The water tank would be hot from the coal fire and this was the night for a bath. One after the other of us into the same water and when we'd scrubbed a week’s muck off us in went a cup of soap powder and the dirty washing. A ponch was used to airiate the washing and it would be wrung out days later when mam had time to do it.
Sunday night other rituals was ‘ironing’ getting school clothes ready for the next week, but mam’s ‘outdoor work’ had to be completed before Monday morning when Ernie Perkins turned up to take done work to the factory, and mam hoping he’d brought more.

The sewing machines
Joan Miller and Ivy Dene lived at the top of New Quorn they also did outdoor work. There was a low rumble of thunder between them if one had more work than another. Joan lived on Sarson Street and machined in her backroom, where as Ivy Dene had an extra room on the side of her house and worked in there. Whenever we walked past Ivy’s we’d look at the window and if the machine light was on we'd knows she was working.
The machine would be on a table bench and have a leather belt which powered the motor (*). That was progress as the machine had originally been a treadle where you had to pedal your feet - left toe down, right heel down. With the progression of the electric motor there were downfalls. The leather belt (like a long shoelace) was joined into a circle by a metal staple, many was the time when this snapped and work stopped. The light would be a household bulb fastened to the back of the bench and wired through.
As leather was sewn onto the webbing and backed by another fabric the machines were industrial type, used for heavy work but still mam made our dresses and curtains and anything she put her fancy to.

Making braces
Braces were another kind of work brought by Ernie Perkins in the factory van. These involved two long and two short lengths of webbing. Each length had a metal piece machined onto it, again in a long snake like row. They were snipped to separate and threaded up by another bit of metal. These lengths would be bundled up and put aside for the next stage of machining. The fasteners that were on each and were to attach to the waistband of men's trousers. The machining part of the job was heavy work in respect of fabric used but time was greatest on the threading up. That's where we were brought in to give a hand.
On ‘threading-up’ the two long ends and two short ends each with a tooth like clasp on the edge, which if it fastened too early was a devil to undo and ripped your finger ends off. Mam would assemble by shaping the raw end corner off, therefore they slotted into the diamond shaped leather cross patch.

Getting the work done
All the work was counted in dozens and gross. There was 12 in a dozen and 12 dozen equalled 1 gross. Every gross of work was paid on completion the next Friday. This was called piece work so the quicker you worked the more free days you had to do the housework etc.
Ivy Dene had one son a husband and her mother lived together so she had more opportunity to get her workload finished quickly, where as mam with three girls and a drinker was always running late. So when Ivy Dene was sighted coming up the path it was “All quiet, lock the back door”, because mam had realised she had nothing else to do and would hold mam up talking if she got in the house. For all of that though they were good friends for many many years.

Marlene Bradshaw 5.4.2012

(*) The motor was powered by electricity and the leather belt between the motor and the machine, actually drove the machine.

Images:
1) Men’s sock suspender, drawn by Marlene.
2) Braces drawn by Marlene.
3) A packet of men’s sock suspenders owned by Marlene. They were worn just below the knee.
4) Marlene as a little girl – at about the age she would have been when she had these experiences.

Submitted on: 2025-08-28 Submitted by: Pauiline Smith Artefact ID: 2620 Artefact URL: www.quornmuseum.com/display.php?id=2620 Print: View artefact in printer-friendly page or just on its own (new browser tab).