Russia
Tuesday, December 13th, 2011Pavel Danischewsky was the grandson of the original founders and the man who brought the soap company to England after leaving Berlin in the late 1930’s. During his life he witnessed many remarkable things. He was an inveterate story teller. I was lucky enough to hear a few and I remembered one the other day when the subject of ‘dacha’s came up. These were the summer houses that initially wealthy and subsequently ordinary Russians would have to escape from the city at the weekends in order to grow food and to breathe the country air. 
RECENT VIEW OF DACHAS
The story is that while the family were escaping from Russia after losing their factory to the Bolsheviks, they spent some time in a dacha outside Moscow, before they could travel on to Berlin. Papa Danischewsky expressly forebade the young Pavel (who was a teenager at this time) from straying too far from the hideout as they were trying to keep a low profile. In this time of uncertainty, many dachas lay empty or abandoned as their owners stayed away or had ‘disappeared’. Pavel, being adventurous, instantly started exploring these properties and seeing what he could find. It appears he found some quite useful stuff but how that made it’s way back into the household without his father getting wind of it, I’m not sure. Anyway, one of the items of contraband he uncovered was a stash of Turkish cigarettes, which obviously he started smoking, and probably contributed to his lifetime habit. He said he felt bad though, not because he was defying his father, but that he couldn’t offer him any, as his dad liked to smoke and was reduced to making his own using dried leaves and cones of newspaper.
Just to put this era into context, one of the events Pavel witnessed was a rally with speeches by Leon Trotsky and VI Lenin.
PHOTO FROM AROUND THAT TIME
We’ve had a few issues recently with the bottles, which we’re trying to resolve. Actually not so much with the bottle but the pump, which sometimes refuses to work. We’re not quite sure why, but we are lookng into it and talking to the manufacturers. It hasn’t been a problem in the past so we’re hoping it’s a temporary issue. In the meantime, if any customers find a bottle with a faulty pump, please contact us and we’ll send a replacement.
e are probably the only people in the world who still make factory scale Transparent Glycerine soap in a similar way to the original Pears. Ours is cast into large one tonne blocks and then cut down by hand into bars before stamping into shape. As you can imagine we have been very interested in the debate about the Pears formulation change and my own personal opinion is that the change was purely for cost saving. Raw material prices have increased dramatically over the last couple of
years and since these are global commodities (like coconut oil and
Not only is it a lovely warm (relatively) sunny day here in Chorley, but also we finish work at lunchtime (or dinnertime, if you prefer) to honour the long service of one of our employees, Eileen, who retires today. She started working at the soap factory under the management of AP Danischewsky in 1965, aged 15, and apart from taking time out to raise a family, I don’t think she’s ever worked anywhere else. I’d like to say ’which was before I was born’ after the 1965 but sadly, it wouldn’t be true. It seems such a long time ago. Tom Jones in the charts and Leeds in the top flight, and so on. It’s an interesting topic for debate - whether this sort of achievement is less likely to occur with our current, more mobile workforce, but I think it says something about the work and also the working environment at this factory, that we have had several retirements recently of long serving employees. Anyway, it’s also an excuse for a drink or two in the middle of the day, which probably means that while I will come back into the office afterwards, I won’t be doing anything critical. The Chorley Guardian have just turned up to take photos, so I’ll try and remember to post the link when they publish. TGIF.