Hi All,
Well today I drove up to the Carradice factory to see if I could bag some stuff.... (pun intended)
I phoned first and spoke to a lady who said just turn up no problem.
Took me a little while to find the place, neatly tucked into a side street behind some buildings but find it I did.
I tried a few doors until I found one open and then climbed some stairs that looked like they might lead to a office, at the top of the stairs and through a door was the work area and a long office looking out onto the workers.
In total at any one time there are 20 staff at Carradice, the admin staff and a few guys wandering around were brits but from the conversations I could hear the rest looked like migrant workers from Easten Europe.
Seems I was topic of conversation for a while amongst the workers who watched me intently, Im assuming it was my good looks and film star presence, although some would say they don't get many visitors and I was a distraction.......
The lady I talked to on the phone came out of the office and showed me a rack with a load of seconds on it, she ushered me to rummage around and stayed to help me pick out a set of rear panniers.
I noted to her that the rack seemd mostly made up of Carradry items of which she said 'Yes' and then whispered to me that they were made in China, the factory only make the cotton duck products, everything else is outsourced......
I took an interest in a set of panniers and she prompty gave them a good pulling and twisting and said that one of them was missing a bracket, she took it to one of the workers who then replaced the bracket.
I said I would take them and a saddle bag I was pulling apart.
She asked for £50 for the 3 items which I paid.
All in all not a bad experience but in hindsight I think £50 was probably a lot to pay for seconds, albeit they are as new thanks to her quality testing and maintenance there and then.
