ROTHMANS brought hope to the North-East when it said in 1976 it was opening a factory in Darlington.

Applications poured in for the jobs. Within weeks, more than 4,500 people had applied for the 1,000 positions.

The first workers said it was more than just the lure of high pay that made the place so special.

Mike Marriner, 66, of Shildon, said: "It was fantastic, really good. The people were great, the company was excellent to work for and we all started there from scratch and saw it grow and grow.

"Some people think that we say this because the pay was good, and it was, but that was not the only thing; the conditions were excellent and the way they treated people was good."

Mr Marriner started at the factory in 1977 as a trainee accountant and progressed to become recruitment manager. He was made redundant in 1990 when the management was reduced.

He said: "Back then, it was a top company which treated people like people and not robots as most companies do now."

Rothmans was ahead of the game in many respects. Years before Nissan introduced a single-status factory, everyone at Rothmans, from the directors down, ate in the same staff restaurant and drank the tea from the same machines.

The group was keen on social events designed to foster team spirit. Mr Marriner said: "We also had social events, dances, balls at the Beehive, sports days, barbecues. It was really, really good."

Lawrence Sturman, 62, from Darlington, joined in 1977 as a fitter, but became a production group manager before taking voluntary redundancy in 2000.

He said: "For the first 13 or 14 years, it was a brilliant place to work.

"But after that it was just too hard. The targets we were set and what we had to get people to do, you could achieve it eventually, but it wasn't conducive to a happy atmosphere."

Margaret Chapman, 50, started working there as a machine operator for 18 years from 1977 and remembers how she and her colleagues looked forward to going to work.

She said: "It was such excellent pay. It meant people could buy their own properties and it was such a boost for the town, so it is a terrible shame it has come to this.

"So many people in Darlington prospered from that factory. They all have cars, decent homes and holidays they would never have had otherwise."

But tastes change and smoking among people in Western Europe has been declining for years.

Staff at the factory realised long ago that the writing was on the wall. Mr Sturman said: "I knew it would not be permanent, but I thought it would have lasted a bit longer than it has.

"The majority of cigarettes coming out of that factory when I left in 2000 were for export markets, but it is cheaper to get them made in those countries than paying high wages here and then shipping them."

One in four of all smokers now live in China, where smoking rates are well over 50 per cent. By comparison, in the US and Europe, the proportion of men who smoke fell from 55 per cent in the 1950s to 28 per cent in the 1990s.

British American Tobacco (BAT), which owns the factory, is the second largest tobacco company in the world after Philip Morris. It sells few of its cigarettes in the UK.

In 2002, BAT produced 777 billion cigarettes worldwide, with a global market share of 14.6 per cent. BAT reported an operating profit of £2,681m.

Formerly owned by Swiss company Compagnie Financire Richemont AG, Rothmans was acquired by BAT in 1999. At the time, Rothmans' share of the UK market in 1999 was 7.75 per cent.

Gerry Hird, who worked at the factory for 24 years from 1976, fears for the futures of the 500 people made redundant.

The 55-year-old, who worked in the Leaf Bond Warehouse and was the factory union convener and shop steward, said workers would struggle to find equivalent employment.

He said: "I just do not know what people will do once it closes. There are no big employers in the town any more and manufacturing is getting smaller and smaller. It is a very, very sad day.

"This will be a big blow for people who have worked there for the last 20-odd years, and even more so for the younger ones, because how will they ever get on the property ladder now?

"When I left in 2000, I would say the average pay for a shift worker was £22,000 to £26,000 a year, or £10 to £12 an hour, but everywhere now is minimum wage, so these people are looking at going from decent pay levels to almost half as much. It's going to be very hard for them."