I left golden in 1971 and I was offered a job, a printing job, which is what I wanted
to do in a tea factory. We made tea bags and coffee bags and when my dad got busy I left
him and come at me full time.
We're the oldest company in this factory unit. We were standing there as an old RAP
underneath us because it's all reinforced concrete. So it was helped against the bombing
during the war and that's why we could have these machines up here otherwise they're full
for the floor. I mean I must wear about two to two and a half tons each. That's 50 years
old that one, just built to last.
Sometimes we have to cut forces, every job has a force. You can't use that force for
the next job or a job before, so every job is an individual job.
My granddad started it in 1926 during the general strike. He bought a little basement
and a tabernacle suite with a little baby weight machine. From there he built the company
up with some bigger machines and these sons and daughters went into it. Yeah, so that's
it. I'm always learning, always something new. William Graves is, he handcuts it. I
know it's all script, it's slightly different, you know, I mean like now if you do a computer
script, you know it's a computer script. With hanging and gravy, you get that flow
and it looks lovely. You do get that lovely detail and because I see the finished article
from start right away to the finish, it's a lovely process.
My daughter will be the fourth generation. I'm teaching her at the moment, like my father
taught me. One day she'll be able to run a job and start to finish like I do and keep
teaching going. So we'll go from there.
