Tears as factory that gave hope to disabled shuts after 156 years

Published on Friday 13 November 2009 19:18

COLIN and Helen Middler collapsed in tears in one another's arms yesterday as the doors finally closed on the workshops for the blind and disabled where they fell in love 22 years ago.

Mr Middler, 44, who has been sightless since he was 14, has worked at the Glencraft factory – formerly the Aberdeen workshops for the blind and disabled – for almost three decades.

His wife, 42, who suffers from severe visual impairment, has worked in the factory's showroom, selling beds and mattresses, for 22 years.

They were among 34 blind and disabled workers at the plant who were yesterday left on the jobs scrapheap as the entire workforce of 51 men and women were made redundant.

The sheltered workshops in Wellington Road closed ending a 156-year history of providing employment to the disabled and visually impaired in the city.

Mr Middler said: "This isn't just a place where you work – it's a community. Working here has meant everything to me. I met my wife here. We got married 19 years ago. We got a house and everything we wanted – everything a normal person works for, Glencraft gave us."

He added: "I don't know what the future holds for us now. Jobs are hard to find for able-bodied people these days, never mind people with a disability."

Equally heartbroken were the two longest-serving employees, Ian Pirie, 63, and his brother Terry, 64. Both registered blind, they have clocked up almost 100 years between them.

Terry Pirie said: "I am very disappointed and sad that it has come to this. We survived two world wars and several depressions and we are finished now."

Andrew Laing, 52, branch secretary of the Community Union, who has worked at Glencraft for 27 years, said it was a black day for Aberdeen. And he said there was only the faintest glimmer of hope of securing alternative employment for the workforce. "We have some really serious issues here because we have people with severe learning difficulties and they are not coping very well at the moment," he said.

"We have to look at every avenue to see if there is some way of saving something from the wreckage of Glencraft. But we don't want to build up false hopes because the staff have been kicked and kicked again."

Last night, an appeal to help save the factory was launched after the appointment of Iain Fraser and Tom MacLennan of Tenon Recovery as joint provisional liquidators.

Mr Fraser said: "We will do everything possible to encourage interested parties to help save the organisation. This is a challenge requiring a major injection of finance and stability of future support to save the organisation and to secure the key role it plays in our community."