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Hi Keith,

I've sent you a message. To read it you need to be signed in and then click on the envelope in the top right corner.

Regards Mess (Ian C)

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Ive been looking at the section of the forum about areas of Nottingham. Could I request that Hyson Green is added to it? Either as part of the Radford section or one of its own? Hyson Green was where

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Hello peeps, I came upon this by chance. My mum worked at the Berridge Aircraft Company at Hyson Green during war work. I have this picture which she has written all the names of people on the back but it won't let me upload a very big copy. Whereabouts on Berridge Rd was the factory?

dad077 copy.jpg

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Welcome to Nottstalgia, bigrob. Interesting photo. I was born and grew up on Bobbers Mill Road and attended Berridge Road School so knew the area well. Not sure where Berridge Aircraft actually was but often heard my father mention it, although I don'think he ever worked there.

 

I'd be interested to see the names written on the back of the photo as some may be familiar to me.

 

This is a topic for our now sadly offline member, Chulla. He would know where it was but, equally, there may be others who do.

 

My father also talked about Berridge Engineering. Same place, perhaps?

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Could it be the place opposite Berridge school a little further up that made ships horns in the 60's/70's. You would occaisionally get an ear shattering test from one. 

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I reckon it was here, previously the Sydney Smith Engineering Co. Made a lot of money out of manufacturing steam pressure valves etc. Now long gone.

 

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.9664882,-1.1772775,3a,75y,345.17h,87.25t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sKnMG_SL24oxZzwTYrlANcg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en

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On 8/7/2015 at 3:05 PM, Chulla said:

#38. That would be Berridge Aircraft (Company/Limited). It made parts for aircraft, as sub-contractors, but likely had to make other things when the aircraft industry started to go downhill. I once knew someone who worked there in the early 1950s and he told me that they were making parts for the Supermarine Attacker aircraft.

This from a thread entitled Hyson Green and Basford. Started by mercurydancer in may 2014.

I don't know how to link the thread, sorry.

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I remember she used to make Ailerons for a certain make of aeroplane but I can't remember which plane. I know it wasn't for a type flown by my dad so that rules out most of the famous ww2 ones, Lancaster,Hurricane etc etc

I think I scanned the back of the photo in with all the names on but this site only allows small uploads so I might have to transcribe :) 

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On 9/12/2017 at 10:09 PM, mercurydancer said:

Yes. As I understand it, Smith Dennis was one of the offshoots. It had a sizeable factory on Bobbersmill Road but a machining factory on Berridge Road about 200 meters away. Smith Dennis was certainly in operation until 1970.

One of these factories for sure. Also, Bigrob, it seems that the ailerons were for the Attacker:-

 

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Thanks for all the info. I'll try and post the back of the photo later. It couldnt have been the Supermarine Attacker as this was a post war jet and my mum left there in 1945. I wish I had written everything down dammit :(

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Right. Having tried in vain to shrink a picture to 51KB (bear in mind the original is 51000KB, it's not going to happen)

I've uploaded a copy and the back to my website so you can have a good look. I can't remember whether I cropped the back or it was cut down anyway, I'll have to check on the original if I can find it again. Unfortunately she only wrote first and nicknames with only a few Mr's and Mrs's. Hopefully some will ring a bell :)

Follow this Link http://www.vickersvaliant.com/berridge.html 

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I've had a look at the old maps site and it looks like Berridge road continued further in 1955 and didn't end a Lambeth street. There are two Engineering factories on it one that made oil field equipment and one sheet metal works. Assuming if you made ailerons you would work sheet metal that must be the one. Using google street view it looks like the building is still up and is now the Bobbersmill Community centre. The windows have changed but the brick stantions and wall vents are all still there. Awesome. I've uploaded a pic for you to compare 

http://www.vickersvaliant.com/berridge.html

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Excellent work, bigrob. It's a shame there aren't more surnames on the back of the photo as, undoubtedly, some of those people would have lived locally.

 

Berridge Road is now truncated and the street pattern has changed but I remember it as it was in the map you've posted, including Cammomile Street, where our chimney sweep lived! Also remember the works on Bobbers Mill Road, as will MercuryDancer when he next pays a visit.

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Looking at the old street map bigrob has posted brought back memories of walking up Berridge Road with my mum in the early 60s. On the right, between Lambert Street and Camomile Street, is marked an Embroidery Works. I remember this building. It looked prefabricated in construction and I'm trying to recall the name of the firm.

 

My mum's older sister, Edna, worked there prior to and just after her marriage in 1940. Edna, apparently, was something of a magnet to the males...a sort of female equivalent of Ben!  She was, I'm told extremely good looking and the boss at the embroidery works had a son who was besotted with her, much to the annoyance of Edna's fiance and later husband, Raymond.  I'm told it came close to fisticuffs on more than one occasion, much to Edna's amusement. She wasn't averse to arranging dates with several chaps and then not turning up, leaving them all standing in a group staring at each other! She thought this was hilarious until their irate mothers starting knocking on grandma's door, demanding to speak to her heartless daughter!

 

Her actions caught up with her in 1955 when Raymond died, leaving her with 4 children to bring up alone. Her life after that was a struggle until she remarried in the early 60s and, again, they were still fighting over her even then!

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I can totally confirm that the works identified as Berridge Road works are the ones which were part of Smith Dennis. I know both factories well, as my father worked at both. The Berridge Road metalworking factory was certainly still in operation until the early 1970s. 

 

The one on Berridge Road was a general purpose metalworking factory, which not only produced sheet metal, but turned metal products too, which supported the heavy casting plant on the other side of Lambert Street and fronted onto Bobbers Mill Road. The big castings were valves for the oil industry but the fine metal workings were the actual turning mechanism for the valves. Although Berridge Road was much busier than today as it was a through road from Radford Road to near Gregory Boulevard, I can recall castings being rolled down the road to the metalworking factory for the turning mechanisms to be fitted. 

 

On a personal note, almost exactly outside the door of what is now the community centre ( and at the time was the factory) I was knocked down by a car and spent a horrifying week in the Children's hospital. 

 

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Fascinating - 70 years ago I used to walk past these factories on the way to Berridge Inf and Jnr schools. I just knew one as the Berridge Aircraft factory and remember they very occasionally put outside a box of (presumably slightly defective) ball-bearings which we used as hi-tech (and very desirable) marbles.

Thanks to BigRob for the old streetmap of the immediate area - do you have a source for this and adjacent bits please? What was nice was to be reminded of the names of all those side streets off Bobbers Mill Rd which mostly no longer exist. I remember Nov 5ths, every side street would have at least one bonfire so the whole area was well lit (not so good for Health & Safety).

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I'm guessing that since you passed these places en route to Berridge, JohnS, you lived at the top end of Bobbers Mill Road, nearer the junction with Radford Road.

 

That end has changed, structurally, far more than the bottom end, where I lived.

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Yes, straight opposite St. Stephen’s church in the grandly-named semi, “Esperance Villas” which my mates from the council estates would make much of! I was recalling how brilliantly off for shops we were, even without venturing on “the Green” (Radford  Road): I think every corner of every side street had a shop. Now it has changed dramatically - I haven’t been back since my mother. Died in 2001 - even the Old General now longer exists to be dressed in red gown at Christmas! The Green itself was brilliant for shops.

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