Long Clawson Dairy

The former Long Clawson dairy. The small plaque says 'Original entrance to the dairy. Closed April 1986'.

Jean Morris: Well, Mr Tom Wiles, the chairman of Long Clawson dairy, knew the family and he knew that I’d been to college, and he said, Jean come and help us out. And in the end I was persuaded to, because I knew what it would be, working like mad over at the dairy and working like mad at home. But anyway I went three days a week to start with, and after that it got to four and five days, and sometimes six days and I was there 28 years.

Interviewer: And what were your duties to start with?

Jean Morris: To get them out of trouble, mostly. If they’d got dirty milk I had to go to the farms to see where it was. And, in fact, at one farm that’s where I was confronted by a gun. The farmer came down his farm path with a gun tucked under his arm and it looked a bit ominous, I didn’t know whether to go forwards or back, but in fact he’d been rabbiting, it was alright, and I had to go and show him how to clean his machine, there was some dirt in it.

Interviewer: Was that before TB testing?

Jean Morris: No, no, it was during that time, yes. But it was during the time of development of milking machines, and perhaps they didn’t change their rubber liners often enough and they used to get cracked inside and of course you can’t see inside a rubber pipe, if it’s really clean, and that’s where the problems arose.

Interviewer: Could you describe Long Clawson dairy when you first went there?

Jean Morris: Well it is a farmer owned dairy and that is really why I got the job, because being a farmer’s daughter I understood the farmers’ problems but I also understood the dairy problems, so it helps. And so our ideal at Long Clawson has been that the farmers help the dairy, the dairy helps the farmers, and that’s part of my job. I was in the laboratory, that was my proper job, but luckily I had time to go into the dairy itself, and work in the various departments, and also with the lady cheesemakers who were in charge at that time. And they had been there, they were in their sixties, both of them even then, so we learnt quite a much about the old ways of going about things.

©EMOHA