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Charles Hatton, 93, is the last survivor of this group of workers who received long service medals from the new owners of Derby sugar machinery manufacturers George Fletcher and Co in 1957. Charles of Allestree, describes his early days at the factory, where he worked for 50 years.

My last visit to see the grasshopper engine at Derby Industrial Museum, made me realise how many hours the skilled staff must have put in to attain such perfection – and all credit to them.

It was certainly a vast improvement on when I saw the engine for the first time in the early months of 1929 as a lad of 14. I had started work at sugar machinery manufacturers Geo Fletcher and Co, in Litchurch Lane, Derby.

The engine was sited in the stores and alongside it were two pennyfarthing bikes. One of my Saturday morning jobs was to wipe the engine over with an oily, paraffin rag.

Early in 1939, I was asked to take over the job of works timekeeper and to combine it with my duties in the stores. One of my timekeeping duties was to sound the works siren – “blow the men in and out”, the saying went.

On September 1, 1939, I blew them out as usual at 12.25pm for the dinner break.

As the men came filtering back to check in, two or three of them knocked on the office window and told me not to sound the 1.25pm siren but with no explanation.

This left me in a quandary, so I rang the police station in Full Street for advice.

They told me that it had been announced on the 1pm news on the wireless that no more public sirens were to be sounded as Germany had invaded Poland and war was imminent.

Two days later, on September 3 at 11am, we declared war on Germany.

The works siren was taken over by the Civil Defence for use as an air raid siren.

On about September 4, the watchmen and myself were interviewed by a member of the Civil Defence and I was told what phone messages to expect and what action to take in response.

From memory, they were: ARW yellow meant enemy planes were crossing the coastline (be on alert); ARW red meant we should sound the alarm (aircraft were over our section); ARW green was the all clear.

In January 1940, I was promoted to take control of the stores, so I had to give up the timekeeper’s job.

By the end of 1940, the Civil Defence had installed their own purpose-built siren on one of the firm’s tall buildings and it was remotely controlled from their headquarters, taking away the responsibility from us. We were told that our own siren and switch must be totally disconnected so that there was no way it could be used.

The custom of sounding the works siren was never resumed after the war. I don’t know why. Perhaps it was some Government directive or maybe the firms all thought we had had enough of sirens during the war and didn’t want to be reminded of those days.

I know they were missed by many people as they were so handy to check whether you were on time on your way to work or whether you needed to get a move on. They used to sound almost every five minutes from 7.30am-8am.

George Fletcher never recognised long service in any way. This all changed in 1956 when the firm was taken over by Bookers.

Personnel with 25 years’ service or more were presented with a gold wristwatch by the managing director, Mr C W Murray, on April 26, 1957, at a social in the works canteen. This was a catching-up process as some of the staff had done well over 40 years’ service.

I was the youngest of the group and, at that time, had already served 28 years. I retired in 1979 after 50 years’ continuous service. Sadly, I am the last remaining one from our group. Bookers went on to buy Duncan Stewart in 1958 and combined the two companies to create Fletcher and Stewart. The factory closed altogether in 1982.

The grasshopper engine and the two bikes, along with a model of a sugar mill – made by a good friend of mine, Fred Philpott – were given to the museum in 1974.

I thought someone might recognise a relative in the photograph.

• If you have memories of Fletcher’s, click on the Discussion link at the top of the page and add your comments.

County:  Derbyshire

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