Was there a job at Paddington nicknamed 'Ribena Girls', and if so what happened to them?

[pt_mad]

Re-runs of 'The Railway, First Great Western' are currently being shown on the Yesterday channel. Available on playback in UKTVPlay.

Interestingly, they frequently feature a group of staff at Paddington, ladies, wearing purple dresses. The narrator mentions on one episode that they are known as 'Ribena Girls', and are (were under FGW) customer hosts at Paddington.

Further searches on Google seem to find nothing.

Were they really ever widely known as Ribena Girls? Did any men do the same job? What happened to them? Do they wear dresses today?

I'm not sure when the program was recorded, guessing 2012 or 13 ish? But it's surprising how things have changed even since then. Can't really imagine a job called Ribena Girls today.

 

[FGW_DID]

Not Customer Hosts but Customer Ambassadors, I only ever heard them referred to as ‘Ribena Girls’ due to the purple uniforms they wore. At the time they were mainly (if not all) ladies. Not an official title just a nickname!

Since the GWR introduction, the CAs (male & female) now wear normal GWR uniform, although they do seem to be of a darker green than other uniformed staff.

 

[pt_mad]

Not Customer Hosts but Customer Ambassadors, I only ever heard them referred to as ‘Ribena Girls’ due to the purple uniforms they wore. At the time they were mainly (if not all) ladies. Not an official title just a nickname!

Since the GWR introduction, the CAs (male & female) now wear normal GWR uniform, although they do seem to be of a darker green than other uniformed staff.

Edit. Indeed I think you're right, the show referred to 'Ribena Girls'.

Wonder whether the dress code for the job has since changed on equality grounds?

 

[Starmill]

The whole company was rebrandes to GWR, and all staff got replacement uniforms. So it was probably just that.

 

[pdeaves]

So it was just that

Corrected that for you!

 

[MDB1images]

Had the pleasure of working with one of the girls later in her career and when chatting about what jobs she'd done she said she'd been a ' Ribena girl at Padd'