Torridge Vale Dairy - A Tribute: Dairy Closure - Local newspaper articles from 1992-93

Recently Sid (Walter) let me have some old newspaper articles relating to the closure of the Dairy.
They were saved by Sids' late wife Angie who ran the Torridge Inn.

Thanks, Sid!

I present a selection of those pages beneath my text and hope any who visit here may find some interest and some facts about how the closure came about.

Briefly.

As a young bloke in my early 20's I had not much time for politics. There were more pressing issues to focus on.

So it was that, one morning in 1971 driving in my old Ford Zephyr, I heard over the radio that the up and coming referendum on joining "The Common Market" would, essentially, improve trade and reduce the chances of another major war.

"Good enough for me" I thought and when it came to the allotted time that's how I chose to vote.

Not a big consideration you may deduct but that's how it was for many like myself.

Soon, belonging to the "Common Market" began to have effects on the throughput of milk at Unigate Foods, as it was then.

Working in the Lab it was noticeable that in the first years of membership local farmers responded to requests to improve their yield and quality.

By 1976 it was indeed the outcome of such encouragement and the dairy was going flat-out to coordinate the manufacture of all its products and did it very well.

The excess products, Butter and Milk Powder, went for what was known as "Intervention"

- a new term for mass storage.

Thus a new phenomenon arose, featured on the daily news.

Terms such as "Butter Mountains", "Apple Mountains" and "Wine Lakes" became the new

speek.

It couldn't last.

Not more than 5 years after joining this "Common Market" the directive from the bureaucracy of Brussels directed that there would be quotas on farming and fishing to reduce production.

This did not fit well with, in our case, the farmers and many gave up dairy herds

which in turn had an impact on the dairy with reduced throughput of product and a drop in consumer demand.

Indeed for some years fishermen had to throw back into the sea perfectly good fish as a result of the quota system.

As for our dairy it was not good timing as the company had made some big investment with a new separator floor and a huge powder drier.

Worse, from Torringtons point of view, was that Express Dairies had built a new plant at North Tawton which took away a fair quantity of such milk as was available.

At the same time milk was also diverted to the large dairy at Chard.

All this is better-explained on Graham Martins' page,

The Dairy - Performance to Decline - The Real Story by Graham Martin, Factory accountant.

Graham had first hand knowledge of what was going on.

So it came about that in less than 20 years from becoming a member of "The Common Market" the once-thriving dairy was closed and presently stands as a monument to our membership of the EEC. Many other dairies were subject to the same fate.

All the folk lost their jobs.

Although I left some 8 years before closure to start my own business I record here that I have a burning dislike for the way we were treated.

My passion is to see the place that once gave me a new opportunity turned into a useful site for the benefit of local folk.

I constructed this Blog for that very reason.

Q.E.D.

From local newspapers 1992/93.