More memories of Rowntree this week, courtesy of the Rowntree Society and the Nestlé archives.

As we wrote last week, the Rowntree Society invited people to send in their memories on postcards, and used them for a travelling exhibition which did the rounds of York before coming to an end earlier this year.

More than 600 memories were gathered altogether; memories of working at the factory, or of relatives going off to work or sometimes just of tasting Rowntree products.

This year marks the 150th anniversary of Henry Isaac Rowntree starting his world-famous chocolate empire in York. No further excuse is needed for printing a few more of the memories gathered by the Rowntree Society with pictures from the Nestlé archives to illustrate them.

G Readhead, 1957/1958: “I remember my dad working the evening shift and my mum working the day shift. We had a smallholding in Appleton Roebuck. I would come into York with my dad when I went to Park Grove School and my mum would pick me up after work. I remember all the bicycles coming out of the gates.”

Tony Cole, 1940s-1950s: “I remember when the workers left the factory at lunchtime and evenings, Dodsworth Avenue was athrong with cyclists. Also I can remember open staircase buses in Dodsworth Avenue packed with workers, and of course the smell of chocolate in the air.”

Jane Bailey, 1970s: “I worked in the postal department at the factory in the 1970s and Peter Rowntree would arrive in his white mini van… and he would ask to buy his stamps with coins he took out of his leather purse. He was a lovely, polite gentleman who wandered in quietly without any fuss, almost unnoticed.”

Alan Kay, 1958-1999: “Meeting my wife. We were both sixteen years old, we met on the landing stage packing and stores in 1958, courted and were engaged for five years, and married 47 years this year, and still going.

This is just one of many happy memories of 41 years at Rowntree & Co, early retirement in 1999.”

John Thornton, 1961-66: “I worked in the packing and store department and played cricket for both the packing and store team, winning several evening league titles and cups. I left Rowntrees to join the fire service.”