00:00:02 My name is Phil Jones, I’m a team leader in preparation and I work for Gibson’s. I make sure all the ingredients for all the mixes are correct specifications. Every mix is a different mix for different companies. We use three types of eggs and every one could have a different mixture in them.
00:00:27 When I was 10 years old I wanted to be a joiner but I used to deliver meat for me father in his business and he persuaded me when I left school to work for him. I wanted to be a joiner because I enjoy doing things with me hands but DIY at home I’m absolutely useless. When I left school at 15 I didn’t have any qualifications. The school I went to was a bit hard, you had to defend yourself otherwise you would’ve got bullied if you weren’t careful.
00:01:10 I worked for me father and he retired and we took the business over. We had two shops and then supermarkets were starting to come into their own a bit then so we lost a lot of business and my brother left the business so I had to run two shops then. We closed one down and I struggled on earning and just I gave up in the end. I felt sorry for me father because he was still alive and he’d worked hard to build it up and I explained, he knew what the situation was so he was a bit upset, really. I applied to Asda on a Thursday, I still had the business and on the Saturday evening they rang me at home to say, “You start work on the Monday.” I go, “Oh, I’ve still got the business.” So, I just cleared the shop out what meat I had left on the Sunday and I shut it there and then and I worked up from a butcher to a meat and fish manager.
00:02:23 Basically what it was is that all the meat was pre-packed at another factory somewhere so we didn’t need meat managers or fish managers. They offered me a security job which I declined so I took redundancy and applied for Gibson’s as a team leader and I got it.
00:02:47 I lost my wife when my son was 10 years of age so I had to bring him up through his age, really, through teenage years by myself which was very difficult. It’s hard, you’ve got to just get on with life and look after your son, bring your son up as best as you can, you know, and still keep a full time job, you know, and you find out who your friends are and who can help you. You learn to survive and get on with life. Yeah, I think that would’ve been the biggest hurdle I’ve had to do.
ENDS
Phil Jones
Phil Jones
My name is Phil Jones, I’m a team leader in preparation and I work for Gibson’s. I make sure all the ingredients for all the mixes are correct specifications. Every mix is a different mix for different companies. We use three types of eggs and every one could have a different mixture in them.
When I was 10 years old I wanted to be a joiner but I used to deliver meat for me father in his business and he persuaded me when I left school to work for him. I wanted to be a joiner because I enjoy doing things with me hands but DIY at home I’m absolutely useless. When I left school at 15 I didn’t have any qualifications. The school I went to was a bit hard, you had to defend yourself otherwise you would’ve got bullied if you weren’t careful.
I worked for me father and he retired and we took the business over. We had two shops and then supermarkets were starting to come into their own a bit then so we lost a lot of business and my brother left the business so I had to run two shops then. We closed one down and I struggled on earning and just I gave up in the end. I felt sorry for me father because he was still alive and he’d worked hard to build it up and I explained, he knew what the situation was so he was a bit upset, really. I applied to Asda on a Thursday, I still had the business and on the Saturday evening they rang me at home to say, “You start work on the Monday.” I go, “Oh, I’ve still got the business.” So, I just cleared the shop out what meat I had left on the Sunday and I shut it there and then and I worked up from a butcher to a meat and fish manager.
Basically what it was is that all the meat was pre-packed at another factory somewhere so we didn’t need meat managers or fish managers. They offered me a security job which I declined so I took redundancy and applied for Gibson’s as a team leader and I got it.
I lost my wife when my son was 10 years of age so I had to bring him up through his age, really, through teenage years by myself which was very difficult. It’s hard, you’ve got to just get on with life and look after your son, bring your son up as best as you can, you know, and still keep a full time job, you know, and you find out who your friends are and who can help you. You learn to survive and get on with life. Yeah, I think that would’ve been the biggest hurdle I’ve had to do.
ENDS
Phil Jones is a Team Leader at Gibsons Foods. He was a butcher who took over his father's business when he retired. He lost so much business when supermarkets opened that he gave up the business and went to work for ASDA.
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