Leyland Laird being washed by our Wilcomatic vehice wash at our Green Lane Industrial Estate complex spennymoor
What went wrong?
Part 1 Prologue
I know I am leading up to explain what I think we would have been doing today and I finally will get there but first I felt I had to set the scene, and then explain what went wrong.
I hope readers are not getting bored as at times it gets quite heavy reading, but I think by setting it out as I am perhaps there is some facts that can help budding entrepreneurs who are considering starting up or developing an existing business.
In the last three parts of these explanations I have told of mistakes we made, such as not buying out one or two removal contractors from other areas of the country and making the business more national rather than purely based in Spennymoor a small 19.000 populated town in North East England, but in defence What happened was happening in real time and it is easy to look back in hindsight. Whereas, in reality our days were very full and usually worried and scheming how we were going to get the amount of work that were to be done that day with the amount of vehicles that we had available.
On the last discussion of this matter I have explained the amount of empty vehicle journeys we had travelling north back to Spennymoor each week but we also had many empty vehicles travelling from Edinburgh — Glasgow regions and several from the most north of Scotland, for instance we had one vehicle each week delivering in Wick and Caithness. Similarly from Liverpool and Manchester and the south west were making weekly journeys empty. Another instance is Norwich and East Anglia where we had at least one vehicle a day. Looking back now I can see it was madness that we never optimised on this capacity, but in reality we were always desperate to get the vans back and had they been delayed we never could have coped with our daily outward traffic, and would have let our customers down.
I know in general haulage often drivers and companies had used clearing houses and sub contracted and we had done that with the small number of platform trailers we operated when there was not the emergency of getting them back, but the rates were pathetic and we never sub contracted with our van traffic as all our customers were our own and rates charged were set by ourselves and negotiated with our customers. Realistically, thinking back now if we had separate businesses here and there round the country, each of them could have had and developed customers of their own and the profit margins would have been high. The national removals market was the one thing we could have tapped into more as with working branches we had all the vehicles, equipment and staff to make us a leading player.
What went wrong?
Part 2 ATM
Advance Throwing Mills Ltd were textile manufactures with factories in Crook and West Auckland near Bishop Auckland. Owned by Pretty Polly, the stockings-tights manufactures they had their own fleet of vehicles. We, in fact did a little work for them from the mid-sixties when their factories opened. Mostly last minute urgent deliveries and in my youth had found myself often nipping down to Sutton in Ashfield, Mansfield, Nottingham and Leicester in our small vans.
I had been to see them several times about doing their transport and on one occasion an old Mr Lax, a local Crook builder had reversed into the front of my new ‘F ‘ reg green Rover 2000 as I approached the main road as I left their factory. In error he had put his car in reverse instead of 1st gear as he attempted to pull away in front of me.
It must have been early 1976 when I received a telephone call asking me to go and see them at Crook. When I got there I was greeted by two accountants, not someone from the Transport side of the business or a Managing director as would be the norm. Telling me that their company had been bought out by the American Chemical Giant Monsanto they explained that they had to dispose of their own account vehicle fleet and make the drivers redundant and were wondering what we could offer them and could we accommodate their work? Apparently it was not Monsanto’s policy to operate vehicles wisely instructing that transport should be left to the professionals.
Following several meetings and discussions we came to a deal. Agreeing on our rate of charges for their transport it was agreed that we would buy their vehicles at written down value and although legally they had to make their drivers redundant it helped cushion the blow if we agreed to offer them employment with ourselves, but subject to our terms and wages.
During the discussions it turned out that they depreciated their vehicles at 25% straight line rather than20% reducing balance as was the norm in Road Haulage. For those of you who do not understand I will attempt to explain. Supposing you buy a vehicle for £10,000 Straight line it devalues £2000 per year so that when the vehicle is 5 years old it is worthless. Whereas the normal way is 20% reducing balance each year. Therefore at end of year 1 it is reduced by 20% making value 10,000-2000= 8000. Year 2 depreciation is calculated at 20% of 8000= 1600 making value £6400 and so on, so the vehicle always has some value and never reaches zero and at the end of 5 years the value would be £3686
I also suggested that to make the progression to us doing the transport smoothly we would buy from them 1 vehicle every 2 weeks making it 18 weeks for us to acquire all their 9 vehicle fleet, with the following sting in the tail ‘It would be best to make our vehicles priority use so that you are fully satisfied with our services before the deal is finally completed’. The next week I was pleased to receive an AEC Mercury 16 ton box van in excellent condition completely free, as it had book value according to their accounts nil, and furthermore it had guaranteed 100% usage as they had agreed to run it even if it meant parking their vehicles up. A fortnight later another AEC Mercury again free.
This way I had been able to finance taking over their complete vehicle fleet out of increasing profits and to do so we had neither had to borrow or break into our reserves. Their fleet when we took it over comprised of 2 AEC Mercurys 3 Leyland Boxers, 3 Bedford TK’s and 1 Ford D series.
Although they had nine vehicles we managed to do the work with four .All vehicles were repainted 5 in our livery leaving 4 in Advance Textile Mills as Monsanto had re christened the company. All had Hatcher illuminated headboards and the four in ATM colours were painted with our name and details on the cab doors and illuminated headboards. The five painted in our colours were used mostly on Courtaulds work and because of the price agreed we had bought nine very cheap vans.
After 12 months of working for them we added another new Bedford KG box van in their livery and repainted the oldest that had been running 12 months in their livery into our own and once again put it in work carrying Courtaulds goods and thus kept our word of replacing a vehicle each year.
At the end of the next twelve months it just so happened that we had bought the fleet of Craig’s of Darlington who had gone out of business and one vehicle had been brand new and not registered so AUP997S a Seddon 16 ton gvw box-van was painted in their colours and used on their work.
Another 12 months and we had a new Bedford KG in our workshops having a new box van body fitted. It had just been painted in ATM blue waiting for Peter Butler to come along and sign write it when we got the devastating news that Monsanto was pulling out of UK production and closing all UK plants including the two ATM ones.
You might recall, just before Margaret Thatcher had come to office Britain had been described the Sick man of Europe and hearing of all strikes and Industrial troubles Monsanto had taken fright and pulled out of the UK. It’s sad as ATM itself had never had a strike or any problems but in 1979 our country was in such a state no one could ever envisage that we could have got a woman Prime Minster who had the guts and determination to turn the ailing nation round, and Monsanto were not prepared to take the gamble.
As for us the New Bedford had a Radcliffe Tail Lift fitted was panted red and replaced CUP305L which had for five years carried out the Thorn Heating Contract and was registered and put on the road with Curzon Heating (The new name of Thorn Heating) on the sides. CUP305L was repainted cream and brow as were all the ex ATM vans apart from two that were painted In Moores Furniture livery, which was one of the new customers we had picked up to replace ATM, but none of them offering the same quality of work.
Our warehouse at Green Lane Industrial Estate Spennymoor. In front you can make out a Seddon —Marsden pantechnicon waiting to either load or unload with a Seddon Box van waiting, similarly next to it. The small garage type building is our tyre storage/workshop and if you look closely you can see the used tyres that have been removed after changing waiting to be collected by the company who bought our used tyres. The small square brick building is our toilet block which was for drivers and site workers use. Inside the workshops (Not showing on photo) there were toilets for workshop staff and also male and female toilets in the office block. I cannot make out what the vehicle is standing next to the tyre storage/workshop. (Anyone any ideas?). The rest of the vehicles are parked in the area designated to vehicles waiting for servicing in the workshops. The white building next to the entrance to our site is the security/gates man’s hut, and behind there is a pathway leading down to the side entrance of the warehouse which is not in view due the natural fall of the land.
We designed the warehouse in 1972 and it was built the following year. Unfortunately for us we had not at that time considered using it as a containerised furniture warehouse and stored removals inside in a conventional manner. Packing in cubes and sheeting with white sheets. Eventually after a couple of years we found we were quickly filling up and decided to use furniture containers. The inside height at the sides were eighteen foot and we could only forklift containers to two high with three high in the centre. As warehouse needs increased we managed to acquire a much bigger, very much higher warehouse on the old Courtaulds site, where we could, if it was safe to do so stack up to four high. This warehouse was then used for distribution with part sectioned off for extra office space.
What went wrong?
Part 3 Courtaulds part 1
I am finding that setting out what went wrong is very difficult to write down, not that I feel upset, but it is very complicated and perhaps long winded, but it is something I want to put down whilst I can, as I believe expanding haulage businesses will benefit from reading, as it gives an honest appraisal.
To the many readers I hope that read this, I hope it is not too heavy going, am I am therefore splitting this Courtaulds section into two parts, as I will be doing with Thorn EMI Domestic appliances which eventually follows on this theme. Eventually I will get to my opinion of what would have happened had we carries on trading, and where we might have been, and what we would have been doing today.
It was 1969 and we got a telephone call from the new Courtaulds factory at Spennymoor. Could we deliver four boxes of Yarn to Coventry (Courtaulds HQ)? I obviously knew that Courtaulds were building this massive plant on Green Lane Industrial Estate Spennymoor, next to the original Perkins engine factory that never opened and became Black and Decker. I had seen that they had been recruiting the first of 2,000 workers, but did not realise they had actually produced anything, but apparently this was their first trial of the new machinery and they wanted it sending off for quality appraisal.
We picked them up and brought them back to Marmaduke Street, just as a van came in loaded for the Midlands and they were put on and delivered about three hours later. It transpired that this was not the first; as they had sent a similar batch with Watson’s carriers, part of Tay-Forth group that had moved from their South Church, Bishop Auckland premises to new premises they had built on Green Lane Industrial Estate. Watson’s were carriers specialising delivering food and manufactured goods to town centre shops in the North East, including Boots Chemist. They had attempted to deliver the Courtaulds boxes through the Tay-Forth depot network and they had been lost. History might have turned out so different had they effected satisfactory delivery, but fortunately, for us they didn’t.
Following our successful delivery we received a call from Courtaulds asking could we go and meet them to discuss their transport requirements. So at the age of 21 I found myself going up to Green Lane, on my own, to meet John Blake, Distribution Manager at Courtaulds. It was strange because John had just started working about a week before so he was uncertain, to say the least of his new job. Courtaulds was a very well established UK business of over 100 years, and had established practices that kept suppliers at arm’s length from the decision makers to avoid corruption or bribery, so John was as such just an agent to find out what we could offer and could we handle the traffic and finally discuss prices. At the time they were the second largest UK company.
I suppose to many I would appear very young to represent our company on such a massive opportunity, but I was very experienced as I had spent my life in the business, with school being a necessary distraction.
I have written many times of incidents that happened with our work for Courtaulds, tales have been told and no doubt many more will be in the coming months so I don’t intend to go too much into the detail, but to cut to the quick we delivered over 90% of the production of the Spennymoor plant over its 12-13 years run of production.
Several factors helped us succeed in this venture, the biggest being that it was a completely new factory, still being built when we started and it took about four years to reach full production, which gave us time to expand our fleet, infrastructure and resources. At its peak we were delivering over 100 loads a week out of Courtaulds to every part of the UK including Northern Ireland, and never could have achieved that instantly.
When courtaulds were planning building the factory they obviously discussed government grants, and I do not obviously know the figures, but know agreement with the government was reached subject that they made 80% of their recruited workforce ex miners, and I believe that was a big factor in the failure and eventual closure.
The massive production facilities were designed for a male only workforce. Toilets for female workers were only provided in the office block. It was a continual production process only stopping once a year over Christmas- New Year period. The shift system was something completely different four 12 hour shifts one week three 12 hour shifts the next either night or day with fixed wages and in theory no overtime. The wages were very good for the time and date and in fact the best in the area. The grant provided to Courtaulds must have been very generous as they were greatly overstaffed and appeared happy being so. The joke at the time was that Courtaulds employed two people for every job.
But, in my opinion employing ex miners was disastrous. By tradition miners liked good booze up on a Sunday and I was reliably told that not many turned up on a Monday in the mines, taking it off as an additional weekend day off as they sobered up. Certainly it was always a problem on a Monday in the loading docks as loaders often didn’t turn up, with our drivers doing the work to be able to load. Had it not been for the readiness of our drivers to pitch in and load the vehicles themselves we never would have got any vehicles loaded on a Monday and the yarn would never have been delivered on time to the customers that were waiting to knit it into man made wool. Strange as it may seem this never caused any union problems as it would in most other factories in the early seventies. Many would have gone on strike on seeing our drivers doing ‘Their work’, but this never happened because, in my opinion the attitude of the ex-miners loaders was to get through work doing as little as possible.
The production jobs were very simple but boring. Each employee had to watch three spinning machine and if the yarn broke switch off the machine and re thread. It was a well-known fact that many drifted off to sleep particularly during the nightie and allowed the machines to continue, instead of switching off and rethreading. This yarn was then defective and unfortunately Spennymoor got a bad name for producing inferior yarn as a result.
Never the less it got delivered efficiently and on time by our drivers who were conscientious, and in the majority of cases ‘Hard Working’…
To be continued.
hiya,
I read your stuff with interest Carl and look forward to a new chapter,
never having done you’re type of work it is interesting to know how the
other types of hauliers carried on their business’s, keep it up.
thanks harry, long retired.
Hi Carl,
I have closely followed the W.H.Williams ( Spennymoor) story , and I think this cartoon from a 1967
Commercial Motor is appropiate to be attributed ( in good taste of course ) to this thread.
Perhaps this method of your employees evening relaxation` did indeed occur.
Cheers, cattle wagon man.
wombat2010:
edworth:
pbsummers:
Hi CarlI wish you a great and wonderful Happy Birthday on Sunday. I hope you have an amazing day and lots of fun! Enjoy this day, you deserve it.
Peter
Same here Carl, how old 95 hoops sorry caught the 9 instead of the 6, Happy Birthday, tell your Mam I am aking after her.
Eddie…Nice you and Paul went to see Geoff he is a good lad.hi Carl my dad had his 1st cataract done just before xmas he’s having his 2nd one done in may but he has been unwell and been in hospital again he’s doing ok but has now developed a hernis which is very painful for him he is going in for surgery to remove it sometime this month
hope your keeping ok
love barbara ■■
Hi Carl
my dad has to be at hospital next week at 7.45 for his hernia op he’s gonna be in overnight hopefully home the next day , i think its praying on his mind a bit but i know he’s gonna be ok and is in safe hands , i’ll let you know how things go ■■
wombat2010:
wombat2010:
edworth:
pbsummers:
Hi CarlI wish you a great and wonderful Happy Birthday on Sunday. I hope you have an amazing day and lots of fun! Enjoy this day, you deserve it.
Peter
Same here Carl, how old 95 hoops sorry caught the 9 instead of the 6, Happy Birthday, tell your Mam I am aking after her.
Eddie…Nice you and Paul went to see Geoff he is a good lad.hi Carl my dad had his 1st cataract done just before xmas he’s having his 2nd one done in may but he has been unwell and been in hospital again he’s doing ok but has now developed a hernis which is very painful for him he is going in for surgery to remove it sometime this month
hope your keeping ok
love barbara ■■Hi Carl
my dad has to be at hospital next week at 7.45 for his hernia op he’s gonna be in overnight hopefully home the next day , i think its praying on his mind a bit but i know he’s gonna be ok and is in safe hands , i’ll let you know how things go ■■
Hi Barbara,
Wish Geoff agood luck and tell him I will be thinking about him during his operation. Lets look to te brightr side when he can join me ,Gordon and Christine for a drink when we come to Birtley
Carl
harry_gill:
hiya,
I read your stuff with interest Carl and look forward to a new chapter,
never having done you’re type of work it is interesting to know how the
other types of hauliers carried on their business’s, keep it up.
thanks harry, long retired.
Hi Harry,
Its alway so good to hear your comments as the encouragement makes writing on this thread worth while.
However I take issue at you saying’ Never having done this type of work’ don’t you remember writing of picking up a load with a van from Fyffes of Forres? I am sure in life you will have experienced most things.
Carl
Carl Williams:
harry_gill:
hiya,
I read your stuff with interest Carl and look forward to a new chapter,
never having done you’re type of work it is interesting to know how the
other types of hauliers carried on their business’s, keep it up.
thanks harry, long retired.Hi Harry,
Its alway so good to hear your comments as the encouragement makes writing on this thread worth while.
However I take issue at you saying’ Never having done this type of work’ don’t you remember writing of picking up a load with a van from Fyffes of Forres? I am sure in life you will have experienced most things.Carl
hiya,
Carl I don’t think the return load from Forres compared with loading a removal
the stuff was so well wrapped it would have been nigh impossible to damage it
unless I threw it off on a roundabout, the nearest I got to van traffic was the odd
container or more often a tilt although as a very young lad I drove for a company
who had a few van trailers and did the umpteen drop job of cookers from Bellings
at Burnley nearly always electricity showroom deliveries and always do it yourself
when you got there any male store staff being unavailable, plenty of oil on the old
sack barrow wheels eh’. PS if my memory still works it might have been a load of
cookers that got me up to Forres in the first place, but a long time ago.
thanks harry, long retired.
cattle wagon man:
Hi Carl,
I have closely followed the W.H.Williams ( Spennymoor) story , and I think this cartoon from a 1967
Commercial Motor is appropiate to be attributed ( in good taste of course ) to this thread.
Perhaps this method of your employeesevening relaxation` did indeed occur.Cheers, cattle wagon man.
Hi Cattle wagon man
What an excellent cartoon, and it probably would have summed up things well had our drivers had the chance to sleep overnight with removals in them. However we always arranged to load most things except essentials on long distance removals and take the van back to our depot and return early next morning to load the seesentials incuding the Freezers and down and unload so they were left with an empty van.
As no doubt today many drivers had their portable TVs but I never heard of any with a full size fixed up and a settee in the back, but I am sure if tey could have they would have.
Pleased to see you are still reading
Best wishes
Carl
Carl
Remember the coffins we picked up from the sawmills in Upton on Severn Worcs for the Co-op in Middlesborough i could get 100 on my van & put a hessian cover over each to protect them it was hard work lifting up to six high, if you ever wondered like i did how did they get the bend in the coffin for shoulders well run the blockboard over half a dozen saw blades half way thru the wood & you get the curve what knowledge Carl,some drivers would sleep in one Bob Heathwaite if not mistaken was a lover it kept him warm & cosy with no draughts ha ha.
Take care & all the best to Geoff Pye - Gordon.
goggietara:
Carl
Remember the coffins we picked up from the sawmills in Upton on Severn Worcs for the Co-op in Middlesborough i could get 100 on my van & put a hessian cover over each to protect them it was hard work lifting up to six high, if you ever wondered like i did how did they get the bend in the coffin for shoulders well run the blockboard over half a dozen saw blades half way thru the wood & you get the curve what knowledge Carl,some drivers would sleep in one Bob Heathwaite if not mistaken was a lover it kept him warm & cosy with no draughts ha ha.Take care & all the best to Geoff Pye - Gordon.
Hi Gordon,
Just shows how accurate Cattle Wagon Man’s cartoon could have been , given the chance. I can just imagine Billy Robinson sitting in the back of the van with someone’s furniture on watching the TV. Sleeping in an empty coffin is the best I have heard.On the other hand we had drivers who were supersticious and didn’t like loading and driving a van with coffins.At the end of the day its like all jobs, ‘What the eye doesn’t see!’ and I’m sure when the new coffin owner got put inside, he or she woudn’t complain that someone had laid in there before.
Anyway it was educational seeing how they bent the wood. The company who we carried the coffins for was called Vowles.
Carl
What went wrong?
Part 3 Courtaulds part 2
We went through a lot in fulfilling our obligations to Courtaulds over the years that we carried out their work. I don’t intend to go through detailed instances in this summery as most have or I am sure will be mentioned as our full history emerges on this thread, however it would be impossible to tell the story of Courtaulds without mentioning the ‘Blue collar workers’ strike of almost two years.
In part 1 I explained that Courtaulds tended to hire too many staff when they opened the plant at Spennymoor. I explained that for every job they hired two people, and it would be difficult not to imagine this practice was not fuelled by the huge grants provided by the government for each person employed.
About 1974 about 170 supervisors (Blue collar workers) went on strike. This presented a huge problem for us and Transport and General Workers Union. They picketed the gates of the site. Should we allow our drivers to cross or not in order to load the vehicles? Courtaulds made things plain to us either we worked and delivered their goods or they would get someone else, and about 40 of our staff would be redundant. The 2,000 workers who were represented by the Dyers and Bleachers Union spoke to dad and assured him that they would carry on working and asked us to continue and ignore the pickets.
The problem initially for us would the other unions ‘black our vehicles’ and the Transport and General Union took time to make a decision whether they backed the strikers union or the Dyers and Bleachers union and their 2,000 workers who were continuing within the factory. Whilst they wrestled with the decision I went along to the factory gates where several of our vans were waiting for the decision to let them cross the picket line. Talking to the strikers I asked them why they didn’t want us to deliver the goods. I explained to them that none of our drivers were going into the factory to do their jobs and without them working surely the factory would come to a standstill. Reason, at that stage, prevailed and they withdrew the pickets and let our vans in and out with their loads. However the problem was that we also delivered into the factory raw materials and this problem has already been chronicled. The end result was a two year strike until they all gave up and were dismissed, never replaced and life went on without them.
The other good news was that Courtaulds were building another factory, almost identical, adjacent to the existing one that would both double the output and double our work. As soon as it was finished it was mothballed. I don’t know the true reason why it never opened. Officially it was because Courtaulds felt that following the strike they considered that the workforces in the Spennymoor area were too problematic and so 2,000 jobs were lost; mirroring the reason Perkins Engines never opened their factory in spennymoor. However when I have read recently the true facts of what was going on within Courtaulds, I suspect that that was just an excuse, and eventually the empty factory was taken over by Rothmans the cigarette manufacturers
Out of the blue, after 13 years, came the news that Courtaulds were closing their Spennymoor plant after 13 years of operation. Everyone would be made redundant within six months. I am sure, like everyone else; I thought it would not happen. It was just a way of pressurising wage negotiations to reduce their payroll costs. Negotiations were continuing and I, for one thought compromises would have been met to keep the factory alive.
In the event the factory closed, but we were fortunate, to some extent that we were kept busy for some six months after that time delivering the finished stock that had filled their massive warehouse, and in the end removing machines and fittings.
Courtaulds were criticised for taking all the grants and after pocketing them walking away and there were calls made for them to pay them back. Looking into things after this time has passed how wrong they were, and although Courtaulds pulled out under Margaret Thatcher’s term in Downing Street, it would have been completely wrong to blame her government. Why? Because now there is no Courtaulds. Once, the second largest British Company is no more.
Looking through the history of Courtaulds it appears the company was in a perilous financial state when all this was going on. It’s easy to see this formally rock solid company and think they can afford every eventuality, but it was not. Two matters led to their downfall, according to records. Loss of Marks and Spencer as a customer and loss of the Russian exports.
Marks and Spencer had traditionally bought 100% of its clothing from British manufacturers. All the factories we delivered to throughout the UK had manufactured clothing material and much of this had gone to the small clothing workshops with British Workers with their sewing machines producing the clothes on the M& S Shelves. It now seems the only one of these factories that has survives is the one on Coronation Street.
Marks and Spencer themselves were struggling with foreign imports being sold by their competitors. It was a case that they had to close or do likewise if they wanted to survive. In its turn the Courtauls yarn produced in Spennymoor was not needed.
A Russian export was the other largest customer. We knew to our cost that deliveries were eccentric to say the least, with dickers’ delaying and playing at unloading our vehicles when they were not striking and at work. The Dockers strike caused chaos and when the yarn arrived at Russia faulty goods ensured as they tried to knit yarn that had been defective as the Spennymoor workforce had fallen asleep and let the yarn snap.
Possibly it was just a matter of time before the Russians decided to spin their own yarn, but who knows. Had our British workforce been more conscientious and had the Dockers not been so political and involved themselves into trying to make the transit from UK to Russia reliable perhaps people in Spennymoor might still be working at Courtaulds. Who knows?
For our part we lost 30% of our turnover. We wrongly decided to fight on and get more work to cover this and made no redundancies. Much of the work was very competitive with very poor margins. However, my Grandmother always said ‘As one door closes another opens’ and just as we were about to finish the last remnants of transport out of Courtaulds along came Mail order, which if we had got it right would have been our salvation.
What went wrong?
Part 4 Thorn part 1
This includes the various companies that we had to invoice for our work, from Spennymoor within the Thorn Banner, between 1945 to 1986.
Smart & Brown Engineering Ltd, Atlas lighting Ltd, Ferguson Televisions Ltd, Thorn Electrical industries Ltd, Thorn Lighting ltd, Tricity Cookers Ltd, Thorn EMI Domestic Appliances Ltd. All these companies were used from time to time as the customers we had to invoice for our work over the years. Dealing with accounts departments in Spennymoor, Enfield, Edmonton and Havant.
As illustrated in items below our dealings with Thorn dated from 1945 and stemmed from my grandfather doing work during the war with the Munitions factory that Smart & Brown (Engineers) Ltd took over. I don’t know what we did for the munitions factory, but apparently did quite a lot of work and it was a natural progression that we carried on working for Smart & Brown, so I was told. Here is a little historical background
Despite the greater loss of life in the First World War, reflected in the War Memorials throughout the District, Spennymoor changed more as a result of the Second World War than the earlier conflict. The building of the huge Royal Ordnance Factory (ROF 21) on Merrington Lane brought new engineering industry to the town. Smart and Brown Engineering was established there in 1945, being taken over in 1951 by Thorn Industries.
Birth of the Company
The Thorn brand started life as the Electric Lamp Service Company Limited, established by Sir Jules Thorn on 29 March 1928, importing incandescent filament lamps and radio valves from the continent. Faced with increased import duties introduced to aid British manufacturing, Jules Thorn bought his first lighting factory, the Atlas Lamp Works Ltd in Edmonton, north London in 1932. In 1936 the company went public as Thorn Electrical Industries.
1940s and 1950s
The lamp businesses prospered until 1939 when production was geared to military needs. When war broke out a second lamp site, run by the Vale Royal Electric Lamp Company, was bought in nearby Tottenham - in case Edmonton was bombed.
When the war ended, Jules Thorn continued expansion through investing in new plants, partnerships and acquisitions, including the opening of an incandescent lamp operation in Merthyr Tydfil,[4] South Wales in 1947; a technology transfer with Sylvania Electric Products Inc. to mass-produce tubular fluorescent lamps in Enfield, north London and taking over 51% of Ekco-Ensign Electric (Ekco) in 1950, which added a further incandescent lamp factory — in Preston, Lancashire.
In 1951, Thorn took over Smart & Brown (Engineers) Ltd.’s luminaire factory at Spennymoor, near Durham. In the mid-1950s specialist incandescent lamp factories were opened in Buckie,[6] Scotland and in Wimbledon, London (the Omega Electric Lamp Works Ltd).
Between 1952 and 1964 Thorn established additional overseas connections, including a controlling interest in an Italian lamp manufacturer (SIVI Illuminazione SpA) and plants in Australia, South Africa and New Zealand, followed by agencies in the Middle East and Hong Kong, the latter with Jardine Pacific.
In September 1959 a new London-based HQ was opened. Thorn House, designed by Sir Basil Spence, was at the time England’s tallest office block.
Looking into what Smart & Brown made from day 1 at Spennymoor has proved impossible to find but the company was founded in 1900 and was based in Essex area, I believe. They were manufactures heavy engineering before and possibly when they first moved to Spennymoor, and I have read that at one time they manufactured a type of Primer Stove, My knowledge is mostly of what we carried and delivered for them over the years and in my account of what happened will be as accurate as I feel legally able to be, as I don’t want to find myself in court facing either a libel or slander charge. As often things we have a good idea what went on in the mid-seventies into the eighties in particular are only thoughts and beliefs and may or may not be true. I will only tell facts I know to be true and it is up to the reader to put together 1 and 1 and perhaps make 2 or perhaps make a complete wrong answer, forming an opinion, which may r may not be true.
It is my opinion that the best thing that ever happened to Spennymoor was Smart & Brown taking over the munitions factory and Jules Thorn, and in turn buying them out. Anyone who lived in Spennymoor in fifties, sixties , seventies and early eighties, should kiss his feet, as one way or another his companies influenced everyone’s life.
I cannot remember who it was or on what occasion I met a senior director of the then Thorn Electrical Industries who happened to visit us, down at Marmaduke Street, in the early seventies on an occasional visit to their Spennymoor site. ‘You must understand that we are financiers and the fact that we manufacture cookers and fridges at Spennymoor is just because its economic and profitable to do so. If, some day it turns out that it was possible to import cheaper, we will close Spennymoor’.It was very hard for me to take in as at that time about 8,500 were employed at their Merrington Lane site. I understand Thorn Lighting are still trading , but that has no direct relationship with either Thorn Electrical Industries or Thorn EMI. Thorn demerged from EMI and Thorn Electrical Industries are no more.
To be continued:
very intresting Carl , now what do you think of the present climate ■■? be honest ? will we make it ?
My dad told me before he died 30/4/12 that this present recession will finsh us off , now I know my dad was not allways correct but he knew this line of work better than most, ever since that day I have been hoping he was wrong .
JAKEY:
very intresting Carl , now what do you think of the present climate ■■? be honest ? will we make it ?My dad told me before he died 30/4/12 that this present recession will finsh us off , now I know my dad was not allways correct but he knew this line of work better than most, ever since that day I have been hoping he was wrong .
Hi Jakey,
I cannot see the current economic climate is a killer. Both our businesses survived through the second world war, nothing could have been worse than that, and being resourceful and changing direction slightly many, ours included thrived and did well. Things will get better as we approach the General Election, be it artificial, possibly. It always has and always will do, no matter what politicians say, and I am sure as we speak plans are in place to artificially make a feel good spirit before 2015. If you have survived so far, hang on, you’re over the worst, unless you, as some seem to do, you rely on MOD work, which will dramatically reduce as the army and air force downsize and that work dramtically reduces…
Personally I agree with the view of my father, that you need a broad mix of work to survive at all times. I always remember him saying we must get involved in food, somehow as people always eat, but we never did in any significant way, although our business was founded on the delivery of groceries.
Van haulage and removals are a perfect mix, whatever anyone’s views are. The former gives you more smooth reliability of regular work, whereas the removal trade is busy some parts of the month and quiet other, with no long term reliability. Dad always described it as the haulage side of our business gave us the bread and butter and removals put the jam on.
I am going through what went wrong and why we stopped trading and went into liquidation. I intend to be thorough, including going into such things as our dealing with the banks which should be interesting. You often learn by making mistakes and perhaps by my spilling the beans on our mistakes can help others who might read this doing the same.
Finally I will explain what I think we would have been doing today had we traded trough and out of our problems.
Carl
Hi Carl , thankyou for the kind thoughts, plenty of quotes going out as I write, but Robinsons are hitting the market hard with £700 plus plus jobs for two days 
, its not funny being told they are cheaper than us , then they ring me to help them with porter etc because there men are leaving because of low wages ,to top it off they take 3 months to pay me !!! 
I’m glued to this informative and very honest account of your family’s business, Carl. Looking forward to the next episode.