HOUSE MAGAZINE OF J. SAINSBURY LTD

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Round the Branches

ThreeBranches

in KentFolkestone is one of Britain's busy

gateways to the continent. Here the roadsigns appear in three languages, the

quaysides are always ready towelcome the traveller (anything to

declare?), and from the spacious Leasalong the cliff top you may gaze out

towards France as the Roman Admiralof the Channel Fleet did from hisvilla there 18 centuries ago. Our

branch in Folkestone was opened at27 Sandgate Road in 1909, the same

year in which Bleriot flew theChannel for the first time and

landed near Dover not far away.

The Leas

Sandgate Road

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In the shop. A view of the meat department hard at work. In the picture Messrs. G. Hooker, K. Drury, P. Walter, G. Hillion, P. Jordan, Assistant Head Butcher, L. Peall, Miss G. Ravenscroft, Messrs. C. Hart and R. Wilks. Below, left, is a more general view of the branch. Miss Crouch, Grocery Supervisor, is behind the counter. On the right Colonel E. Vaughan, one of our customers.

Manager at our Folkestone branch is Mr. J. N. Marsh, below, who joined the firm first at Purley in 1922, and first became a manager in 1935. He managed the Ashford branch, and in 1943 moved to Folkestone.

Four of the Folkestone branch butchers, Messrs. S. R. Kennett, Head Butcher,

J. N. Wood, W. Thompson and D. Andrews. Below are some of our girls, Miss V. Ward

and Miss P. Jarvis, Miss A. Buss and Miss G. Atkins. Assistant Manager

Mr. E. Smith {below) was photographed when on relief at Hythe.

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Housekeeping at Folkestone {above). Mrs. N. Coughlan, Mrs. N. Finnis, the Housekeeper, and Mrs. L. Barton. Book-keeping at the same branch, Mrs. A. Lee, Miss J. Solley, First Clerk, and Miss D. Baker.

Hythe At Hythe there still stand Martello

towers, built to repel Napoleon's invasion that never came. The town

stands on a canal that was built across Romney marshes for the same purpose.

Its only real use in history was to provide boating waters for a

local boy, Francis Pettit- Smith, who when he grew up invented the screw

propeller. His house still stands and is called Propeller House.

J.S. opened their branch there in 1935. Its Manager is Mr. J. A. Jordan,

who joined the firm at Reigate in 1937, and was appointed Manager

at Hythe in 1960.

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Left, Mrs. Y. Struk, First Clerk. Below, Miss M. Hay den, part-time Clerk. Below, right, Miss M. Down, Hythe's Housekeeper.

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Head Butcher at Hythe is Mr. M. Lester (left), a popular figure at all three Kent branches since 1947, when he came back from war service. He has been at Hythe since 1953. Assistant Head Butcher, Mr. R. Wiltshire (above).

Ashford Ashford is an old town lying in a gap in the downlands. Trade has flowed through this charming market town for centuries. Today it is a railway centre for its area, but in spite of this it preserves much of its old charm. Its parish church tower (below) is visible for miles around the town, and just behind our branch is an oasthouse. The branch itself in the High Street is part of a pleasant 18th century building. The firm began trading there in 1934.

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Manager at Ashford is Mr. F. Gillam, who joined the firm in 1932 at 14 Hove. He became manager at Ashford in 1958.

Some of Ashford's butchers

Above is Head Butcher, Mr. W. R. Saunders.

Above, right, Messrs. C. J. Stephen, B. Britland,

A. P. Dorey, A. Brown.

Right, Mr. L. G. Hall, Assistant Head Butcher.

Below are Mr. A. Shrubsole and

Miss A. Kenwell.

£Ss*j$y*i Looking across country from the roof of our branch towards Wye. The long low white building is the recently completed Batchelor factory.

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The Oxford Farming Conference At the 1961 Conference the firm opened discussion on selling and presentation

One of the refrigerated cabinets fitted up at the conference.

Each year a Farming Conference is held under the auspices of the Department of Agriculture of Oxford University, which attracts many of the most for­ward looking farmers in Great Britain. This year it took place in early January and some 700 or so dele­gates attended the papers during the three day session, being addressed by a variety of stimulating and authoritative speakers including a representa­tive of the Australian Government talking of Aus­tralasia and the British market, a director of Unilever on the Future Requirements of the British Consumer, as well as addresses and discus­sions on such subjects as Future Marketing of Vegetables from the Farm; World Pressures on U.K. Agriculture; and the Agricultural Problems of the Common Market.

Probably never before has such a sustained high level of papers been put forward anywhere in the world to a farming audience. The organisers find themselves faced not with the problem of getting people to attend but rather of how to cope with increased attendances.

It was, we felt, quite a compliment for J.S. to be asked to initiate a discussion on presentation and selling to the public accompanied by a demonstra­tion of pre-packed fresh meats.

A compliment, yes, but a challenge as well, since the venue of the demonstration had, of necessity, to be a Hotel Ball Room, access to which was not

possible until the same morning as the evening demonstration. (One of our people actually found himself an involuntary guest at a Polish wedding in part of the room during the afternoon.)

Doubtless, the organisers who invited us had but a hazy idea of what was involved in organising such an exhibit. A reconnaissance made on the site made it obvious that the principal difficulty would be in setting up the two refrigerated cabinets (complete with lighting) in time to ensure a suitable cabinet temperature to receive the selection of fresh meats and other items which were to be prepared and pre­packaged in our nearby Oxford branch. Two of our engineers had to leave London at 4 a.m. on a morn­ing made dangerous by frosty conditions to reach Oxford in time to get the installation completed.

More than two hundred pre-packed items were displayed including a representative selection of fresh meat and pre-packed offals. Five people were kept very busy on this work—for such an exhibition no faults, however small, can be overlooked. The number of re-wraps was accordingly higher than we would expect in a self-service branch!

The reception by the audience was, however, full recompense for the trouble taken. The discussion was fruitful and far reaching; the comments not only interesting but often stimulating. Was it worth it ? Most certainly, yes!

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A Computer for J.S. Early in the summer an Emidec 1100 computer will be installed at Stamford House. It will cope with the growing amount of office routine and calculation which has resulted from the con­tinued expansion of the firm. One of its first tasks will be the routine work done in the Sales Office in preparing orders for non-perishables and the printing of debit notes for these goods. At the E.M.I, works at Hayes, Middlesex, work began on making the computer two years ago, and is now entering its final stages.

Intricate though Emidec may be it is useless until set to perform some task. But give

it a series of coded instructions and it will carry out tasks which could range from

translation from Russian to English, design of aircraft, or calculation of

non-perishable orders for J.S. branches. The writing of instructions for the Stamford

House computer has been carried out by J.S. programmers, who have written

over 30,000 instructions to cover the first stage during the last 18 months. The sequence of these instructions must be

thoroughly checked and proved - an operation which can give rise to deep thought! Deep

thinking in the picture on the right is being done by Mr. J. D. Finn,

Mr. A. Dumont, Mr. D. Heath of J.S. and Mr. C. J. Kentish of E.M.I.

Opposite; to jog its memory Emidec can be fed with data of each shop's

sales and stocks, all recorded on reels of magnetic tape. Each of these

three {there are five in all) magnetic tape decks can read or write 8,000

characters of information each second. At this speed the stock counts for a

week for every item at every branch could be fed into the computer in

75 seconds.

Left, four of the units. In the foreground the control console, in the background a power unit and the two main computer cabinets which contain the "brains" of Emidec - its memory and its ability to do sums.

On the left is what is probably the most expensive portion for its size of the whole machine. The centre area is made up of thousands of small rings of magnetic material, each A in. in diameter and threaded with dozens of fine wires. Intricate and baffling as it may seem, at least the computer understands and through it carries out when instructed such orders as read, add, subtract, multiply, print.

To keep pace with the extraordinary speed of the computer a special printer is required. Each line of print can contain 140 characters and five lines can be printed every second on to a sheet of paper about 80 feet long. Later it will be cut into individual documents.

Boat Race at Obelisk House A Lewisham memory by Peggy Martyn Clark

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Time has a way of robbing places of their character. Buildings alter, roads widen, and where once was unhurried living, swift moving traffic takes over. From the Roebuck Inn on the left of Lewisham High Street to Lewisham Bridge, there is, today, much jostling of people intent only on their own business and the haste with which it can be done. It wasn't always so. In long past days, Lewisham was a village with a stream running through it and mean­dering alongside the old Roebuck Inn which has a history stretching way back to the 17th century.

You might ask what the Lewisham Obelisk com­memorates. Nothing! It is merely the site of an ordinary lamp-post put up when gas came into being. It stood for many years before being replaced by a fountain with lights overhead. Local wits dubbed it the Obelisk, and somehow the name stuck. It became the meeting point for everyone.

The old houses were turned into shops, and in the fullness of time practically all merged into Obelisk House, a departmental store called just Sainsbury's. This was a personal business of Mr. J. J. Sainsbury, and had no part in the provision business of J. Sainsbury, Ltd. Here one could buy laces, silks, and an assortment of cottons and bobbins for Tatting—now almost a forgotten art. Perhaps Mr. J. Sainsbury hoped to bring back to Lewisham the wonder of its long lost fair. Who knows ? Of a surety he did indeed, once a year, bring back to Lewisham Obelisk the crowds of yesteryear. The occasions were the Oxford and Cambridge boat race days. For about 60 feet along the tops of his shops, and about 8 feet high, he had a replica of the Thames Varsity Course set up. The canvas boats were mounted one above the other, according to which side won the toss, and the miniature crews were brightly painted in their respective colours. Hidden from view behind this tall, imitation waterway, employees of the firm, on information received by telephone from the course, moved the boats forward as the race progressed.

From the first positioning of the boats and their subsequent movement to points of vantage, loud cheers echoed through the crowd. Young people, wearing favours of light or dark blue, climbed the Obelisk. Trams were brought to a standstill and horse drawn vehicles halted. Excitement was intense. At the finish caps were thrown in the air, while cheers for the successful crew smothered the boos from the disappointed.

A few years after the turn of the century, it was estimated that the crowds at Putney could not have been so dense as the crowds watching Sainsbury's shop at the Obelisk, Lewisham. When Mr. J. J. Sainsbury died in 1927, the business was disposed of.

Perhaps somewhere, tucked away and forgotten, are the boards that constituted that small Thames course, with the canvas boats that gave so much delight to past generations.

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Norwich Norwich held a

very cheerful dinner and dance at the

Norwich Federation of Industries Club on January 18th, 1961. Parties of

members and friends from both

J.S. branches in the town enjoyed a very pleasant night

on!.

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nd socials

The Office section held itswinter dance at the VictoriaRooms on January 27th.Mr. and Mrs. Alan Kettleywere present as guests -and aspecial presentation was madeto them. They were celebratingtheir 21st wedding anniversary.Mrs. Dudman is makingthe presentation on the left.

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e South Norwood guestsat the Dinner and Danceat Kennards in January. Onthe left some of the guests.From I. to r. Mr. Huggett,Mrs. G. Gibson, Miss S. Smith,Miss M. Edwards,Miss E. Marcher. Back rowMr. Williams and Mr. Pagden.

"X" Section held their dance at the Crown Hotel, Morden, in January, and here are some of them enjoying themselves.

Lively night out for S.S.A. members and friends at

our East Harling poultry packing station last

January. They certainly seem to have enjoyed their

social and party.

Over 150 members andguests turned up atthe Friars Hall onFebruary 10th to a veryenjoyable dance heldby theJ.S. Motor Cycleand Car Club. Onthe right Mr. Gorhampresents a prize; below,left, SecretaryMr. Iverson. A largecontingent of guestscame in from Aveley,and many otherbranches were repre-sented too.

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Women have not always been well treated by

industry. Makeshift and graceless garments

were often an illustration of this lamentable

fact. Today industry is changing its ideas

about what the working girl should wear. The

right kind of protective clothing influences her

safety, comfort and efficiency. James Laver—

historian, playwright and expert on costume—

reviews the changes that have taken place in

the fashions of clothing for women who work.

Clothes for the Working Girl

It is easy enough to discover what the fashionable woman in Europe wore during the last two centuries. For ever since about 1790 we have had fashion plates - those charming hand-tinted etchings and lithographs so much prized as collectors' pieces. But even before that there is no lack of material in an abundance of painted portraits and prints of famous beauties.

But there is a snag in it all from the point of view of social history. These documents do not present a true picture even of the fashionable woman, because the fashion plate represents what the dress-designers of the day hoped women would wear. Similarly, the portraits are misleading, for a woman who is having her portrait painted almost always wears her grandest clothes. Even rich women did not always dress like that!

What of poorer women ? Towards the end of the 18th century, artists took a delight in painting peasant women and country girls of all kinds. Milkmaids, in particular, might be said to have been a la mode. That is the trouble. Everything is idealised and prettified. Sentimentality falsifies the image and even rags are made to look picturesque. A good honest picture of what the working girl really wore is not at all easy to come by.

At this period, moreover, there was a time-lag between the clothes of rich and poor. Whereas nowadays the fashion magazines and the big shops see to it that the woman working in industry is only a little behind the fashionable woman, at least so far as style is concerned, in the 18th century she would probably be about thirty years behind. Poorer women wore "old clothes" in both senses of the term. And of course the materials were plainer j coarse woollen cloth instead of embroidered silk.

For about twenty years on either side of 1800 there was very little change. The ordinary outfit for women was a coarse linen smock, a long woollen skirt, a laced bodice, a fichu or shawl, coarse knitted stockings and stout shoes. Few working women wore hats: a head-scarf usually sufficed and was even worn indoors. Bare heads for women were long considered rather daring if

We would like to thank "Unilever International" the magazine for the employees of Unilever Ltd., for permission to reprint this article and most of the photographs which illustrate it.

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The photograph above was taken in a Rotterdam

margarine factory in 1910. This was the packing depart­

ment and the overalls worn by the girls reflect the

current fashion for puff sleeves. The men's hair­

cuts seem right up to date.

not actually improper. The distinction between town and country wear did not as yet exist, in fact Town and Country were much less clearly disting­uished than they are today. And Industry, in our sense, hardly existed, either. The women of Dorset worked at the rope and string trade and later took up gloving and button making. Framework knitting was carried out in Nottingham, Derby and Leicester, basket making in the Thames Valley. And rather "superior" girls were employed in fan making factories since it required neat fingers and some degree of taste. But production still remained on a comparatively small scale.

From time immemorial women's work, except for work in the fields, had been carried out in the home. When women were driven into factories by the Industrial Revolution they still at first continued to wear their ordinary clothes. The exception to this - and it is a startling one - was in coal mining. It seems hardly credible, but it is none the less true, that women working in coal mines, even as recently as the early nineteenth century, did so practically naked. The women who dragged heavy trucks through the underground galleries, often so low that they had to advance on all fours, wore only a short pair of trousers and a belt tied round their waists. A chain was attached from the belt to the truck. It is no wonder the indignation of philanthropists like Lord Shaftesbury was excited, and that Factory Acts were gradually introduced to pave the way for better conditions.

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The photograph above was lent to us by Mr. Mitchell, one of our veterans. It is the J.S. factory staff taken in their working clothes in early 1920. Sitting in the middle is Mrs. Johnson who was the wife of the factory manager. Below on the left is a girl packing Sunlight soap in the prettiest outfit of all our pictures. On the right are workers in the packing department of Joseph Crosflelds, Warrington. They are packing Carbosil washing soda and wearing heavy protective clothing.

Above are girls working at herring gutting at Yarmouth in 1920 and

wearing the traditional dress, rough skirts, jerseys, a big apron and a shawl which had changed

hardly at all in a century.

At the top of the opposite page is one of the early efforts to adopt a more stylish type of design—

belted overalls, trousers and clogs for these girls at Bromborough

Margarine Works in 1925.

A more recent picture of girls at a Margarine Factory. This one

dates from the 1940's.

In factories, as opposed to coal mines, women simply wore whatever clothing they could afford. There was no regulation dress and, of course, no overalls or other special garments "provided by the management." The Lancashire cotton spinners wore, down to living memory, a skirt and bodice with a shawl thrown over the head and clogs on the feet. In the early part of the 19th century conditions in the mills had been "enough to freeze the blood." Young women were obliged to stand from five in the morning till seven at night in an atmosphere of excessive heat, fumes and cotton dust. Conditions in the woollen industry and among the linen workers of Belfast were even worse.

In dressmaking workshops, especially in London, a higher standard of dress was demanded, and it was a source of astonishment to contemporaries that the seamstresses who worked in the stifling, unventilated rooms managed to dress as well as they did on their wretched rates of pay. The seamstress working at home was worse off as she had neither the means nor the inducement to take care of her personal appearance. The poet Tom Hood has painted an unforgettable picture of her:

With fingers weary and worn, With eyelids heavy and red,

A woman sat, in unwomanly rags, Plying her needle and thread.

Stitch - stitch - stitch, In poverty, hunger and dirt

And still with a voice of dolorous pitch She sang the Song of the Shirt.

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The irony of it was that she was sewing not only shirts - at a few shillings a dozen - but the gorgeous dresses of her more fortunate sisters who were going to a ball, or being presented at Court.

Heavy workers were sometimes better off, for at least their surroundings were more healthy. Herring-gutting was carried on in the open air and the girls' costume was both practical and picturesque - rough skirts, jerseys, a big apron and a shawl. But some occupations, such as chain-making (almost entirely in the hands of women), involved working in dirt and heat, with clothes grimy and soaked with sweat.

Nursemaids, of course, represented a more superior class altogether. Their employers expected them to be reasonably well turned out, and even provided the clothes. At first these were merely a quiet version of the current fashion with the addition of the now ritual cap. This fossilised relic persisted in the dress of women servants almost until our own day. Modern servants refuse to wear it, although waitresses, curiously enough, seem to have no objection to doing so.

Hospital nurses who were often (following the example of Florence Nightingale) drawn from the middle classes, or even the aristocracy, quickly adopted a uniform and, having done so, continued to wear it long after the contemporary dress on which it was based had passed out of fashion.

With the "lady typist" we enter a new world of women's employment. An efficient typewriting machine was gradually evolved in the second half of the 19th century, and even Government departments saw its advant­ages. It is recorded that "one morning in 1888 the monastic calm of the Inland Revenue Department in Whitehall was disturbed by the entry of two young women clad in black, with stiff collars and long celluloid cuffs." Two "lady typewriters"!

By 1915 the Government was employing 600 of them: it now has 35,000. But typists never had any special uniform; they simply wore (if they were wise) a quiet version of the dress of the day. As the average wage, in the 'nineties, was about thirty shillings a week, there could not have been much left over for finery. Women also began to be employed, for clerical duties, in the Post Office. Like their sisters, the typists, they wore celluloid cuffs, and so saved the expense of laundry.

By the beginning of the present century, conditions in factories had very much improved. Labour-saving machinery made tasks lighter, and cleaner -and this was a very important point. Pioneers in factory improvement like the Cadburys and the first Lord Leverhulme realised that a neat and clean appearance helped to keep employees cheerful and to increase their efficiency, and so smock-like overalls and caps began to be provided by the management. It became clear very quickly, though, that frills and flounces about a costume were dangerous as they were likely to catch in machinery.

Gradually, also, the long-standing prejudice against the wearing of trousers by women disappeared. Skirts proved quite unsuitable, for example, for women land-workers during the first world war; but it is only recently that dungarees for women have made their appearance in factories. For many factory jobs they are not necessary; and the problem has been faced of devising a working dress which is practical and hygienic and which makes enough concession to the contemporary mode to allow women to wear it with pleasure.

Such a problem can never be permanently solved, since Fashion is notoriously fickle in regard to such matters as the length of skirt. But certainly the woman in industry today would have excited the envy of women workers in any previous age.

We have come a long way from the spinners and weavers, and an infinite distance from the women miners of little more than a hundred years ago.

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Visitors Conference On February 14th the J.S. Veterans Group called the first annual meeting of the Visitors Panel

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Back Row: Mr. A.J. Curtis, Mr. R. H. Hopker, Mr. A. E. Snow, Mr. E.J. Harvey, Mr. G. H. Giblin, Mr. H. A. Steward, Mr. A. Austin, Mr. H. H. Stevens, Mr. J. Seaton. Centre Row: Miss M. Richards, Mrs. E. Dooley, Miss V. E. Shadbolt, Miss I. B. Munro, Mr. J. Burgin, Mr. H. J. Turner, Mr. W. H. Holder, Mr. W. V. Baker, Mr. A. Turner. Front Row: Miss E. French, Mrs. Pickering, Mr. W. C. Gurr, Mr. G. H. Lovegrove, Mr. J. H. Smith, Mr. F. Loveless, Mr. L.J.King. Unavoidably absent from this conference were Miss M. Potter, Mr. S. Walter, Mr. H. W. Younger, Mr. E. G. Wagland and Mr. H. A. Crispin.

The Visitors Panel was first organised at a meeting at Blackfriars on January 19th, 1960. It was felt advisable after 12 months' working to hold a general meeting of the Visitors to study the year's work and discuss points which have arisen in the course of visiting.

Mr. W. C. Gurr, the Chairman of the Group, took the Chair, and was supported by 22 Visitors in addition to members of the firm's Personnel Department.

We were very pleased to have Mr. Farrell with us for a time, and all present appreciated his words of thanks from the Directors for the work the Visitors Panel was doing.

Several visitors were absent through ill-health, luckily only of a temporary nature.

It was reported that over 500 visits had been made during the year, but there were still some pensioners who had not been contacted. This was largely due to the illness of some visitors, eight of

whom had been obliged to resign during the year. It was reported that these visitors had been success­fully replaced by other volunteers and that the arrears in visiting would be overtaken during the coming year.

A very helpful discussion took place, covering the experiences of visitors during the year, and Miss Munro of the Personnel Department noted many points that arose.

The Chairman expressed the thanks of the Group for all the help, both financial and administrative, which the firm had given them during the first year of the Visitors Panel.

It was unanimously agreed that the visiting filled a need in the life of the old pensioners, and experi­ence had shown that everywhere the visitors were well received, and in many cases were instrumental in bringing to the notice of the firm pensioners who were in difficulties arising from ill-health or other causes.

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Well worth a visit

The Ceylon Tea Centre in Lower Regent

Street is the subject of this article. Founded in 1946, ithas since become one of

London's established institutions.

London has many "centres." Quite apart from the disputed geographical ones, Charing Cross, Hyde Park Corner, London Bridge, the post-war years have seen a crop of buildings housing "Centres" of many descriptions. There are, for example, such well-known ones as the Building Centre and the Design Centre; the Bedding Centre, the Lettering Centre and the rather delightful Woodworm and Dry Rot Centre. Although we give no prizes for the longest list, one that would certainly appear on most is the Ceylon Tea Centre in Lower Regent Street. It also has a good claim to being the first of such Trade Headquarters as it has been in existence since 1946, when it was opened as the Tea Centre by a group of producing countries. In 1952 it was taken over by the Ceylon tea growers as part of their campaign to maintain—and if possible increase—the amount of Ceylon tea used in this country. Tea is Ceylon's major industry, and as Britain is by far her biggest buyer our continued custom is vital to the island's economy.

Within the shell of what is the oldest building in the whole of Regent Street, one of the country's leading designers, Mr. Misha Black, has been responsible for some striking modern decor. In the foyer you can examine samples of the many grades

of tea that Ceylon produces, while pictures, maps and handicrafts present a wider view of the island's life. For those with a head for figures there are tables showing how many millions of pounds of tea are produced and consumed each year—Britain easily tops the list of tea drinkers with ten pounds per head. If you are rash enough to think that you already know all about the beverage, you can try your skill on an electric machine which poses alter­native answers to a series of questions. The word Yes lights up if you are clever enough.

During term time, dozens of school parties visit the small but comfortable cinema downstairs where they are shown colour films on tea production. The film shows are also popular with women's organisa­tions, and it is usually possible for individuals to join a party. If you are interested in the history or technicalities of the industry the Information Department keeps a library of over three hundred volumes, including several rare books written in the days when tea was an expensive luxury, guarded by the mistress of the house in a locked caddy.

The centre would not attract over half a million people a year if it existed merely to improve our knowledge. Londoners and visitors from many countries have found that here you can also drink

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Above is one of the Tea Centre's collection of teapots. On the right at the top is the tea room, where visitors have a choice of two kinds of Ceylon tea. Centre is the exhibition room used for showing paintings, furniture., fabrics, pottery and even machinery at times. Below is the entrance hall of the Centre.

tea—of finest quality and brewed to perfection. A tea lounge caters for those who prefer a leisurely pot in quiet and elegant surroundings, providing a choice of two fine Ceylon teas to accompany cakes and pastries made on the premises.

Downstairs, the Colombo bar offers a quick cup and a snack in a contemporary decor of mellow panelling and Eastern colours. Here you can also try a tall glass of lemon, orange or mint tea.

As well as being a mecca for tea drinkers the Ceylon Tea Centre has become equally widely known for the many and varied exhibitions it sponsors in the gallery on the first floor. This year's programme includes furniture and light fittings, modern British paintings, hand printed cottons and Swedish glass and pottery.

For anyone in the West End with half an hour or so to spare the Ceylon Tea Centre is well worth a visit. For the Manchester area, a smaller replica in Oxford Street offers most of the London Centre's facilities and later this year a third Ceylon Tea Centre will open in Buchanan Street, Glasgow.

Ceylon's percentage share of the British market has steadily increased over the past few years, perhaps due in no small measure to her excellent "shop windows."

Food maketh man Dr. E. S. Krudy, D.Sc., M.R.C.V.S., of J.S. laboratory writes about our diet

Food is an eternal problem for all forms of life and obviously there is nothing more important to man than what and how he eats. Though man has a greater capacity than any animal to adapt himself to a large variety of foodstuffs, man's diet has always been somewhat limited. These limitations are mainly due to superstitions, aesthetic considerations and restrictions without any reason. Some of these tradi­tional taboos and dislikes of food become rationalised by society or religion. For instance, beef is prohi­bited for Hindus, pork for Jews and Mohammedans. We will find these superstitious attitudes every­where. Again, why does the modern Englishman fear tainted beef and not tainted fowl or game.

The most important factors of nutrition are the quality and quantity of food, eating habits, hygiene and aesthetic surroundings. Good nutrition can add years to one's life and life to one's years. Ability to get the desired food is one of the important factors in the evolution of man's diet. Intelligence counts for a great deal in successful food quests. Un­intelligent animals must be content with a bulky, monotonous diet, whereas more skilful primates, rats and squirrels, exhibit their superiority over herbi­vorous creatures by their ability to obtain more concentrated foods. Thus their digestive systems become less bulky.

The importance of nutrition as a social activity is well attested by both ancient and modern thinkers. Long ago people realised that to preserve mental ability, physical strength must be maintained. It was Juvenal, a Roman poet, who coined the phrase Mens sana in corpore sano ('a sound mind in a sound body'). And the French writer Rabelais related a story in which he personified the stomach as being the ultimate organ of creation with supreme power over other organs.

We need not be so realistic in our approach to food as was the actor, Edmund Kean, who altered his diet to suit the role he played: he ate pork for a tyrannical part; beef for a murderer; and mutton when playing a lover. The influence of nutrition, however, on mental processes is becoming better known through the work of many nutritionists, bio­chemists and psychologists. We know now that an unbalanced diet can lead to an unbalanced mind.

To prove this, McCarrison, a noted nutritionist, fed one group of rats a diet based on that of the Hunzas, a primitive people of Northern India who are extremely hardy, and possess superior powers of strength and endurance. They also enjoy buoyant health. The rats fed on the Hunza diet were gentle, playful, and affectionate; others fed on a diet similar to that of the then poorer classes in Britain became irritable and vicious in behaviour.

It is known that "hidden hunger" from faulty diet leads to psychosomatic disorders, but despite knowledge won over many centuries, we cling to old habits of nutrition. Reluctance to change to a better diet is largely due to intellectual apathy. Partly, it is inherited from our ancestors even more resistant to dietary progress than people of today. There is an old German saying, "What the peasant does not know he does not eat." Every one of us has a sub­conscious fear of a new food even though our diet may be monotonous.

It is interesting to note that an emigrant tends to forget his native language before giving up his in­digenous food habits. Class consciousness also slows the advancement of nutritional progress.

We must never forget that proper nutrition in childhood is of overwhelming importance, both physically and psychosomatically, to life in present and future generations. Improvement of nutritional standards would undoubtedly increase resistance to diseases. Nutrition, as well as heredity, is a most important factor in longevity. We cannot choose our parentage, but we may choose our foods, provided they are financially obtainable. When rising incomes result in the increased consumption of meat, milk, eggs, fruit and certain vegetables, there is also a general improvement in health, longevity, adolescent growth and adult stature.

Despite these facts, many of us are not enough aware of the value of good nutrition. Often there is little relation between real nutritive value and prestige, as can be seen when "good" children are rewarded with delicacies of small food value.

Finally, adequate food supply is a vital factor of democracy. History shows us that democracy has never existed in a country where food supplies were inadequate.

26

Staf f News Movements and Promotions To Assistant M a n a g e r

R. OLLEY Woodford

Assistant Managers

F . H . ALLEN from Harold Hill to

A. B R I D L E

F . J . BUTLER

P . F . CROSS

C. CURRAN

H . DAWSON

Collier Row from 55 Brighton to 59 Hove from Belmont to Forty Avenue from 14 Hove to Portslade from 177 Haverstock Hill to Brent Street from Kingsbury to 357 Harrow

A. G. H O W E L L from 66 Brighton to

3 Brighton F. PALMER from H.O. (Training

Centre) to 218 Sutton o. P H I L L I P S from 3 Brighton to

24 Brighton v. R A W C L I F F E from Purley to

H.O. (Training Centre) M. A. RHODES from Forty Avenue to

Kingsbury E. sTONER from Portslade to

66 Brighton

40 Years' Service

Congratulations to the following members of the staff who have completed forty years' service with the firm.

Manager at Thornton Heath Traffic Supervisor Manager, 87 Ealing

A. E. FOWLER

W. G. GILLETT

A. HARPER

Obituaries We regret to record the death of the following colleagues and send our deepest sympathy to their relatives.

J. Farmer , who started with the firm in November 1913 as a butcher. His first few years were spent working in the Croydon and Epsom areas, but in 1922 he was transferred north of the river to 34 Ilford. Just before he retired in 1947 he was transferred to 48 Ilford. He died on February 1st, 1961. Mrs. A. Ford h a m , who joined the staff of the main canteen at Blackfriars in 1947. In 1955 she undertook

Mrs. A. Fordham (left)

Mr. W. G. Haynes (right)

part-time duties until ill-health forced a long absence upon her. She died on January 30th, 1961. W. Gould , who was engaged in 1934 as a painter in the Works Department. He was later transferred because of ill-health to the office where he worked as a clerk before undertaking the job of Recordax Operator. He retired in 1957 and died on February 2nd, 1961. W. G. H a y n e s , who died on February 3rd, 1961. He first joined the firm in 1906 at Seven Kings. He resigned for a short period from 1909, but on his re-engagement went to 114 Ilford, where he was to spend the greatest part of his subsequent career with the firm. He retired in July 1948. T. P. Wright , who joined the staff of the factory in 1916. He reached the grade of skilled tradesman here, retiring in 1946 after completing thirty years' service. He died on December 27th, 1960.

Retirement F. J. Tyler, who joined the firm as a porter in 1940 at Wood Green. In 1954 he was transferred for a period of five years to 7 Palmers Green, but returned to his first branch from which he retired on January 14th, 1961.

Postscript and Warn ing about

T H I S Y E A R ' S D A H L I A S To judge from my own experience and as a result of enquiries made, it appears that the excessive rains and general lack of sunshine in 1960 had an adverse effect on the keeping qualities of the Dahlia tubers in store. Losses in consequence have been heavier than is usual, with the amateur and the trade grower suffering alike.

This news underlines the necessity of getting an order in quickly for any replacements required. It is good policy when sending your order to choose a few extra varieties which the nurseryman could use to select a substitute in the event of your first choice being out of stock.

One notable casualty is the new variety Barbara Rooke, most of the stock being lost. Fortunately, sufficient has been saved to perpetuate the variety but there is now no possibility of it being distributed until 1963.

H. G. BROWN

KEL1HER. HUDSON & KEARNS. LTD.. LONDON- S.E.I

C o n t e n t s SERIES No. A 78

2 Three Branches in Kent 9 The Oxford Farming

Conference

1 0 A Computer for J.S.

12 Boat Race at Obelisk House

1 3 Dinners, Dances and Socials

17 Clothes for the Working Girl

2 3 Visitors Conference

2 4 Well Worth a Visit

2 6 Food Maketh Man

7 Staff News ^ ^ ^ ^

On the Cover—Folkestone Harbour

J.S. Empties Dept. 2 a.m.