The closing of the camps

How long were they there?
I think till, about 47 I think when they came and I think it finished in about 58 or 59, somewhere there. It might have gone on until 60 but I don’t know.

What did the people do when the camps closed?
The camps started to empty as the people moved. You see, as they got jobs, so they started to move into the town. There’s still quite a fair number of Polish people, I still know some, I still get greeted by one or two of the older ones of them. They moved into the town so they all moved away. You see, it really wasn’t intended to be as permanent as it was. So that they did move out and there were people coming and going all the time. People moved in and as they got accommodation, better accommodation, which weren’t difficult, wasn’t difficult at all. They moved out as they got jobs in the town. A lot of them worked for Pet Foods, um (Master Foods) Pedigree, Pet Foods we knew it as. They had just taken over the old dye works.

What jobs did they do there?
What jobs? At Pet Foods? Everything. They were production workers and engineers, some of them were…these weren’t just labourers, some of them were quite clever.