The company's logo can still be seen above the 
door of their old offices.

Hector had been wounded or gassed and we seldom saw him at the works.  In fact a few years after I joined the company he died and I remember that one of the works vans was filled with flowers on the day of his funeral.

Herman liked fast cars.  I think that in his youth he had raced at Brooklands.  He travelled to the works from his home on the Thames in a French car, a Darracq, and although he had a chauffeur he used to take the wheel himself when they hit the open road (there were no motorways then).

Conditions of employment were rather different then to those of today.  This is not any criticism of Bradley's - it was common practice among employers.  They would take on school leavers, such as myself, and when a few years later they had to start paying them adult wages, they would sack them and take on other juveniles.  I had been at work there for several weeks before I found out that I had been given the job from which a very good friend had been dismissed (but there were no recriminations).  

My first job was to help to make coal scuttles. They were called "Waterloos" because they were shaped like the hats which soldiers wore at the Battle of Waterloo. After about twelve months I went into the tool room as an apprentice tool maker.  This meant a drop in wages but it ensured that I would still have a job after I reached the age of 18 and that I would have a trade to my name.  The tool room foreman was a man of most uncertain temperament and, apparently because he frequently referred to peoples as "proper Job's comforters", he was known as Joey.  He called everyone "Chile", in much the same way that men today used the terms "mate" and "pal".  I do remember, however, one pearl of wisdom that he imparted to me:  "Remember this, Chile, the man who never made a mistake, never made anything".

The company had an excellent reputation as makers of high quality domestic wares, and the product range included dustbins, buckets, household shovels, kettles of all sizes, watering cans and a host of other items, including frying pans by the thousands. Most of the products were galvanised, though some were tinned and others, such as kettles and coalscuttles, were black enamelled.

Some of these items we made then have now passed into history such as the small hand bowl, with a wooden handle about 6" long, with which the housewife would ladle the water out of the washing tub when washing was done. Another was the mortar bowl, a large steel receptacle shaped like a pudding basin, which had been flattened somewhat, and about 24" in diameter. I never saw them in use but I always understood that ladies in Africa carried them around on their heads with goods and merchandise in them.

This is me holding a watering can, which I can still remember making the tools for

The watering can, from Reg Aston's collection, is dated before 1950.  The body is galvanised iron and the rose is brass.  With its original label it is now a rare survivor.

One shop made oval tin baths and in the tool room was a machine which I believe was most unusual. 

It was a lathe made by Maud & Turner. It machined no circular but elliptical shapes on which tools were machined to produce the bottoms of the oval baths and oval frying pans. The rise and fall of the revolutions of the lathe head were achieved by a series of cams and slides. Needless to say it did not revolve very fast.

Freeman Place, off Bunkers Hill was named after him, since he bought one of the first houses in that culde-sac, (though others may say that it was named after his wife, Mrs Hattie Holland, a JP and local councillor who represented the New Town Ward on the Bilston Urban District Council).

Similarly Holland Road was named after Mr Albert Holland, the foreman/manager of one of the large machine shops. 

This display at the Made in Bilston Exhibition, 2002, shows many pieces of Beldray brass and copperware and some chrome plated ware too.

An advert from 1950, showing, at the top, Billy Owens, then aged 71; and, at the bottom, Billy Booth.  They both symbolise the traditional craftsmanship of the factory.

An old chap who appeared in many of Bradley's adverts was Billy Owen. One of these adverts is shown on the right. I knew him very well, although he was old enough to be my father. He lived near us, in Beech Road, and we sometimes walked to work together - before I got my first bike! 

The shop in which we worked was known as Hayward's Shop, for the simple reason that that was the foreman's name. Billy's machine was the only piece of machinery in that shop. Everything else was bench and hand work. In the picture he is rolling together the body and the bottom of an oval bath tub, to make a watertight joint and seal. (You can just make out the shape of the bath through the slots in the plate and spindle which were holding them in place while they revolved).