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We held our meeting in the Holy Trinity Social
Club, which is attached to Holy Trinity church in
Oxford Street.
Our theme was the larger companies which had flourished in
Bilston in the last fifty years but which had now closed.. |
| We hoped that a lot of people who had worked in
these companies would come along, so that they could meet old
work friends and also tell us about those companies.
Thanks to Jim Speakman, Reg Aston and Gerald Hanrahan, and
others, we got a great deal of publicity in the local press and
an local radio - as well as on the usual local notice boards!
And a lot of people did come! |
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They shall not pass! - anyway without being
given the chance of making a donation and buying a raffle
ticket. Barbara Presland, our
Treasurer, and Bill Pope, took up their usual station by the door
and, helped by Alma Darby, collected subscriptions and donations
and sold raffle tickets - all to such great effect that we did
very well financially, more than covering our expenses. |
| We started setting up the exhibition at 10.00, to
open at 10.30. But it was a sign of how popular the show was
going to be that several people came in before we were supposed to
start! As usual Reg Aston - ably aided by Sandra -
provided an amazing display of photos of local industries. |
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We had also managed to borrow, from the depths of
the city council's stores (many thanks to Michelle for heaving it
out into the light), the original name plate of the Elisabeth
Furnace - the great icon of industrial Bilston. |
| Reg's display was not only of photos but other
things as well - including this remarkable collection of
labels which illustrate the range of welding rods produced by the
Quasi-Arc. |
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Frank Sharman had a display of products from Beldray
- the latest, and we hope the last, of the big local firms to
close. The display included their "art metalware"
and their better known domestic items. |
| Kath Keily not only brought along a Beldray step
ladder but also some Phoenix ware from British Heat Resisting
Glass. Your reporter has chosen this one for illustration
because he has never seen this particular design before. |
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Henry Metzger, the well known videographer, brought
along and showed - and sold for club funds - videos he had
made of many of our previous events. |
| In the church hall - where he could keep an eye on
them from his vantage point at the refreshment stand - David
Fitzgerald-Plummer was showing a number of interesting local
items, including a vast book of plans for the construction of a
new pipe line from the Bilston pumping station at the Bratch to
the reservoir on Goldthorn Hill. |
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