SUPPORT is coming in for our campaign to save Terry's - from across the York community and much further afield.

Scores of people have already signed our petition, which calls for the American-owned chocolate factory to remain in the York area.

Former Terry's worker Ann Hope, who fully backed our campaign, said she had retired in 1999 after working at the factory in Bishopthorpe Road for 16 happy years.

During this time, she had got to know some "really lovely people," many of them still working there.

"I feel desperately sorry for the employees who have young families and mortgages and rely on their work at Terry's to pay for these, especially when there is little or no similar work available for them in York," she said.

"I do hope your campaign is successful. As another ex-employee said today when we were discussing the situation, 'York will be losing some of its heritage'."

Graham Eason, a native of York now living in Darlington, threw his weight behind the campaign.

He said Terry's was a name as synonymous with York as the Minster.

"Please forgive my ignorance, but what gives an American company the right to buy up a company that has been associated with a city for nearly as long or longer than America has been a nation, then because they can't make it pay, calmly announce the intention to ship its range of products to Eastern Europe?" he asked.

He questioned whether Kraft expected the workers and people of York to calmly accept not only the loss of several hundred jobs, but the fact that their city's name would be carried on a product range which has no longer any association with that city. "Who are they trying to kid?" However, Kraft has said that the brand name Terry's of York was removed some years ago.

One reader was less impressed with our campaign, saying he was concerned that it might build hopes too high.

A couple of readers contacted the paper to suggest that excessive pressure from supermarkets on manufacturers such as Terry's was responsible for the need to cut production costs, and then close factories.

Support is also coming in from abroad since the petition appeared on our website, www.thisisyork.co.uk. Ann and Trev Audin, of Islington, Ontario, in Canada, were first to register their support from overseas.

Updated: 09:03 Monday, April 26, 2004