Houghton's Maxim brewery- set up by former Vaux workers - is holding an event on Friday evening to mark this week's anniversary.
Category
đź—ž
NewsTranscript
00:00Mark Anderson is the boss here at Maxim Brewery, which will be hosting a reunion of Vaux employees.
00:06How long were you at the brewery?
00:08Oh, from 85 to 99, so in total working for Vaux and Ward's breweries as well, so 24 years, something like that.
00:16And what was it like as a place to work?
00:18It was great. I mean, obviously very busy, much, much bigger than we are now.
00:21You know, 550 employees, so lots of customers.
00:25Very busy, great brands, you know, just a lovely place as well, and people were all friendly.
00:31Never an issue with the employees, so it was lovely.
00:34And how does it feel now it's 25 years?
00:36Well, 25 years, yeah, I still get lots of memories about the closure.
00:40Very sad about how it worked and how, you know, the City of London closed it.
00:45But at the same time, pride as well.
00:47It's nice to hold a 25-year anniversary, meet up with some old colleagues, old friends,
00:52and also some general public as well who can come here and have a look at the memorabilia.
00:56So, looking forward to tomorrow, and, you know, it should be a good day.
01:00And how important is it to keep the memory of the brewery alive, do you think?
01:03I think it's very important, you know.
01:05I mean, obviously we've got plenty of information, plenty of memorabilia.
01:09There's a film being done, of course, which I encourage people to have a look.
01:12That does tell the story about the closure.
01:15And, yeah, history's a great thing. It's great for the city.
01:19And, obviously, things have moved on. The site's now totally different.
01:23So, it's great to remember what the city was like, both in the brewery terms and its industry.
01:29Obviously, the site was empty for a very long time. That must have been quite heartbreaking.
01:33Are you pleased to see it taking shape now?
01:35I am, yes. I think, certainly, obviously, the council offices look great.
01:39I believe there's going to be the hospital on there, the Eye Hospital as well,
01:42which is really nice to have something new.
01:45It would have been nice to have a small brewery on there as well, but that wasn't to be, unfortunately.
01:50But we did try at one stage, but it didn't work out.