When you drive into the beautiful setting that is Bodiam, you immediately start to relax, our factory is based on a farm that looks back across Bodiam and the views are simply stunning. The factory is 10 minutes away from our main base in Hawkhurst, but ties in on the phone system and computer network. The work we carry out at the farm is now creasing and bag making. The creasing consists of using a machine called a cylinder which has the bag matrix on it, and as the printed sheets pass through it, the matrix applies all of the creases and cuts, necessary to construct the bag. Once the sheets have all passed through they are released from the sheet via the guillotine and passed to the girls for constructing, where all the glues, tapes and boards are applied and the
intricate process of making a bag begins.
This art of making a bag, really is a thing to watch, it looks so simple and yet when you start on your own, it stops making any kind of sense and the sheets get ruined. This, I have always felt, would have been a great task for the Generation Game. Quick when you watch somebody experienced and a complete disaster when a novice tries. Once the bags are made up we then drill them for the rope handles, or at this point send them off to a specialist machine called a platten for die cut handles. The bags are drilled in units of five. When we get ropes in stock cut to length, we immediately rope one end so that they are ready to thread through the drill holes, again when you see someone experienced doing this it is simply amazing to see. The bags are then packed and boxed ready to send to the customer.
