Roydon Allen
ROYDON ALLEN, on leaving school, was offered four opportunities of employment, one of which was at Raleigh. Allen’s mother was already an employee at the factory. His decision to become a Technician apprentice was influenced by the conditions he saw his mother working in. “I saw my mum in the press shop where there wasn’t…
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Burnett George Anderson
BURNETT GEORGE ANDERSON worked at Raleigh between 1966 and 1992, moving between several different departments, including: the hubs department, the Toy Fab department, and then onto electrical welding. “I was the only Black person to enrol on The National Education Board of Supervisors Studies training course at Loughborough University in 1975. It was a one-year…
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Lydia Benjamin
LYDIA BENJAMIN came to Nottingham in 1969. After working at Players for a short period, she moved to Raleigh in the 1970s and stayed until Raleigh closed in 2002. Her work was hard and involved lifting bicycles off the conveyor belt and working with toxic chemicals. “Sometimes I had to mix my own glue as…
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Milton Fitzroy Cosdale
MILTON FITZROY CROSDALE worked at Raleigh for four years as a Production Controller until he left to work for the Race Relations Board in 1979. Crosdale’s work involved ensuring that all of the components needed were in place for the production of between 10-12 different models of prams being built by Raleigh. “After the 1958…
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Gladstone Deslandes
GLADSTONE DESLANDES worked for over 30 years at Raleigh in three different departments, including: the general machine shop, the plating shop (a job he detested because of the harmful chemicals he was exposed to) and finally, for the last eight years of his employment, he worked as a tool setter and operator cutting racing bike…
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Jasmine Deslandes
JASMINE DESLANDES worked at Raleigh for nine years from 1965. She worked in the finishing shop putting the final touches to the bikes. Like many of her colleagues she worked piece work. “If you went in on a Saturday, you might take home £7, but you had to work hard for it, really hard.” Jasmine…
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Lloyd Dunwell
LLOYD DUNWELL was part of a team of young Black men aged between 16-17 years old working in the rim shop assembling wheels at Raleigh in 1961. We were getting more work done than our white colleagues and we were being paid less for the piece work. Nothing was done about it and there was…
When We Worked at Raleigh 