It was family affair for more than 25 years

He met his current wife on the assembly line as they put together the fridges and freezers for which the company is famous.

Joe (58) and Liana (47) began to know each other about 25 years ago. He had been at the factory for six years when the couple got together. They married and have three children, to add to the two from Joe's previous marriage, and live in Dorset Road. Joe moved on from putting the fridges together to become the production manager at the factory for its last 20 years.

He was responsible for an output which reached 2,000 models a day at its peak. Going to work to create that output was a family affair for Joe and Liana.

His two brothers worked there with two of his sons, one of them being among the employees who were made redundant by the factory's closure.

Several of Liana's relations were also employed there. Joe said: 'Lec was a family business. A lot of firms wouldn't employ people who were relations but Lec wasn't like that.

'If you did the work, then that was the only thing they were interested in.'

Bognorian Joe had been a shopfitter when he applied to join Lec. He saw his time on the assembly line as being temporary. But it lasted 31 years.

'I came to fill a gap in my workload and I have been here ever since,' he explained. 'I think a lot of people did that. They came to Lec and didn't leave. There must have been something about the place. I think it was the people here. I've been involved with lots of generations of workers and I've seen a lot of bosses. They've all had different ideas and I seem to have got on well with all of them.'

But it was his fellow employees who made the biggest impression on him. He explained: 'You could not have wished for a better bunch of guys. They always met their targets.

'If they were a bit behind at lunchtime, they would try their best to catch up in the afternoons.'

Joe intends to use his departure from Lec to become a self-employed gardener and maintenance man. 'I've another six years to go before I get my pension,' he added, 'and I would have done that time here. But I will try something different to see if I can make it work to see my years out.'

He praised Lec's parent company, Glen Dimplex Home Appliances, and Lec personnel manager Margaret Robertson for the efforts it had made to ensure the redundant employees were given the best start to life away from the factory.

For assembly line worker Chris Marsh the future was unknown when he stepped out of the factory. The 41-year-old of Collyer Avenue was being given advice by personnel experts about his best course of action.

He stated: 'I was looking to change anyway and, maybe, the factory's closure is the kick and the boost I need to go on and do something else. Most of the people here, though, were not looking to move on.

'There are people who have done 40 years and were looking to see out their years which would have been good for them.'

Chris had worked at Lec for just over ten years. He joined from a Chichester factory where he had progressed from the shopfloor to management.

He had been a member of Lec's works council for two years to act as a link between those on the shopfloor and their managers. 'It worked pretty well,' he commented. 'At the end of the day, I never had anybody really moan at me about what we decided.

'Most of the things we put forward, especially at this time, the company has given us.'