IN 1966, a 15-year-old school leaver called Les Williams, together with many of his classmates, went to work at K Shoes.

Today, the 51-year-old president of the Kendal branch of the KFAT union will leave the factory for the last time as shoe manufacturing in the town ceases after 154 years.

Mr Williams does not want to knock the company which provided him with a livelihood, and yet he is full of sadness and disappointment at what has happened to the firm that at one time employed a member of almost every family in the town.

When Mr Williams started at K Shoes, it had around 6,000 or 7,000 workers all over the country, including Askam, Kendal, Norwich and Lancaster.

"Out of every family you would have one person that worked there," said Mr Williams. "It was the mainstay of Kendal back in the 60s through the 70s."

Mr Williams started working on the Gold Cross premier court shoes range in a factory where K Village is now located. It was his job to wash off the resin sole before it was polished. Over the years, he has done other jobs in the shoe-making process, which included edge trimming, waxing, polishing, and a myriad of other tasks.

The busy factory had a special atmosphere: "The environment then was like a family party. Everybody was laughing and joking, and having a craic. Obviously we were on piece work so you had to get on with your work but it was a good environment."

Everybody knew everybody else, and lasting friendships were formed, as well as "one or two" romances, recalled Mr Williams. The friendships will be one of the things that Mr Williams will remember most from his years at the firm, which he is reluctant to criticise: "Even though they have made us redundant now and we have lost our jobs, K Shoes and Clarks have given me a good living, they have given everybody in the town a good living, paid for my house, my car and my holidays, so I can't knock them for that."

In return for the good living, the workers gave commitment: "I'm proud to have worked with them because they are the best people and the most loyal people that I have ever worked with.

"Even in the last three or four months, those people have been absolutely fantastic."

The staff had also done everything they could to try to keep the business going, and given 110 per cent, said Mr Williams. "It's more sadness than anger really," he said of his reaction to the end of Kendal's shoe-making tradition.

"Initially I was angry - angry because it's not one of the best workforces, it was THE best workforce that they had, and anything they were asked to do, they did it.

"It was one of the most skilled workforces and it's their (Clarks) loss.

"You can expand on it forever and a day but in the end a lot of people felt angry but they have come to terms with it now and they know they have got to get on with their lives."

Mr Williams has seen changes in manufacturing, including one of the most major when rows and rows of machines were replaced by the Toyota Sewing System, or TSS, under which teams of four or five people would work on an entire upper.

He was also aware of changes in the management style, as more and more shoes were produced each week. Inevitably, competition from abroad took its toll: "I can't remember who coined the phrase, but it was one of the lads on the shop floor who said we can't compete with a bowl of rice."

Around 30 staff, including office workers, remained in the Springer factory this week finishing off the last sandal orders. They have already held a farewell party for the 169 people who lost their jobs, and the evening was enjoyed by all.

Mr Williams and his wife Joyce, who live in Kendal, will be taking a holiday before he looks for another job. The deal the union had secured was the best that any of the redundant K Shoes workers had received before, he said.

The only question Mr Williams couldn't bring himself to answer was how he would feel when he walked out of the factory gates for the last time today.

"I don't want to go there," was all he would say.

May 2, 2003 09:30