Twins, our years at Pyrex

By Marjorie Kerrison

Hello, my name is Marjorie Kerrison and I have many happy memories of the time I worked at Pyrex. I started working there as soon as I left school when I was just fourteen. Myself and my twin sister, Audrey first worked in packing and then became scientific glassblowers, a fancy name for making test tubes and pipettes. We were shown how to make two test tubes from a tube that was 12” long, this tube was heated in the middle and then moved over to another flame where it was halved then we blew into the top of each tube to make 6” test tubes. After so long we were on bonus or piece work, we had to make quite a few each day and we were allowed breakages but not too many but I do remember Leslie Burns, one of the chaps, falling into a box of broken glass and cutting all his bottom! This photo shows a lot of the girls who started about the same time as me and some of them became lifelong friends. I do remember some of them, my sister included, making other things out of glass tubes, 21^st birthday keys and Christmas mobiles in their spare time, not me though. I also remember the lovely sports day we had that Pyrex held every year on the sports field at South Hilton. Me and my sister took part in lots of running races, as well as the egg and spoon race and 3 legged races. They were lovely days and other family members also came along. Another of my sisters also worked in the office at Pyrex and she also played tennis for them in the local league. All in all I had a good time at Pyrex.