Made in Smethwick!

Jan 3 2009

carried copper ore from a mine in the Atacama Desert in Chile to the coast – a distance of nearly EIGHT MILES.

Amid this harsh and grimy industrial world were oases of culture and beauty.

Smethwich was home to Ruskin Pottery, part of the arts and crafts movement and whose wonderful wares are still cherished today.

The town’s firms helped the war effort, often in both world wars, and brave workers who stayed at their machines were killed and wounded in German air raids.

British Pens Ltd, which made classy items for clients including the royal family and the Waldorf Hotel, switched to making machine gun ammunition clips in World War II.

Among the amazing insights in this book is the number of people who worked in any given factory – for example, 1,200 at Scribbans Kemp.

The tragedy, of course, is that most of these firms are no more – victims of a changing world.

Much like now with the imminent demise of such giants as Woolworths, it once seemed inconceivable that so many household names would just vanish.

But they did.

* Copies of Smethwick’s Industrial Heritage (£10 plus £1 postage) may be ordered from David C. Bryant, 17 Pitcairn Road, Smethwick, West Midlands, B67 5NF. Telephone 0121 429 1223.