We let the fire brigade run exercises at our empty site on Farmers Ward Road in 1996 (we’d moved to our current site, Millers Road, by then). Little did we know that it would lead to rumours of insurance fraud. We thought we were doing a good deed, supporting the local fire brigade. Instead, we found ourselves making headlines in the local paper!

The company started to expand in the early 1950s… literally. Our founder, Leslie Pickering physically built around the original 2000sq ft Nissan hut he’d acquired as his first factory. This is when we stopped producing combs and started making a name for ourself in filters.

The factory closed for two weeks one summer in the 1960s. We left a note for the milkman, cancelling the milk… as you do. When we got back off our holidays, we were amazed to learn that the neighbourhood grapevine had gone into overdrive and rumours were flying about that the factory was closing down for good! Who’d have thought cancelling the milk could be so dangerous!