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This company had great importance to my early life. My father worked for Smith Dennis from just before I was born (1961) until the middle 1970s.

I have many fond memories of the factories, which faced our house on Bobbers Mill Road. Another was on Berridge Road.

I recall one night that one of the chimneys on the factory was truck by lightning and partially collapsed.

Mr Hemsley (I think the correct name) was a senior manager for the firm and was a Liberator bomber pilot during the war. He flew a little one engined plane from Tollerton when he could, and took my father and me on some flights.

It would be delightful if the experts on here could unearth some photographs or information about this firm.

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George Hemsley is the man. Still alive, in his nineties and living in Cropwell Butler. He was a flight engineer on Lancasters during the war.

He was a member of a flying group to which four of us belonged. We bought a Piper Cherokee in 1980 which we kept at Tollerton airfield. I crashed it and wrote it off in 1981 and survived to tell the tale!

Phil

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Phil

Thank you so much for your post. Good to hear Mr Hemsley is still alive.

He certainly flew on Liberator bombers, as he lent me the flight engineer's manual for me to read when I was in my early teens.

If I recall correctly, the aircraft which I flew on with Mr Hemsley was called the Yellow Peril. Its a long time ago but I recall it may have had a V shaped tailplane.

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The "Yellow Peril" to which you refer was most likely the yellow Grumman AA5 Traveller, reg G-AZVE which was operated by the Sherwood Flying Club up to about 1977. I have about 50 hours to my credit on that one and George Hemsley would certainly have flown it. The only light aircraft with a V tail, as far as I am aware, was the Beechcraft Bonanza and the club never operated one of those.

I knew George through the flying club and was also a customer of his when he was a director of Parr Computer Services. They became the first Apple agents in Nottinghamshire and I bought one of the original Apples from him. Coincidently he also worked (but had left long before I joined - he's 20 years older than me) for the accountants Hubbart Durose and Pain on Park Row. He was also a big mover in freemasonry circles but could not persuade me to join!

Phil

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What did Smith Dennis do/make? It sure sounds familiar, we took in a lot of computer work at the bureau I worked for, for companies not big enough to have their own computer dept. I seem to think we did their processing.

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Philmayfield

That sounds about right. It was certainly the yellow peril I flew on with Mr Hemsley on many occasions. Thank you for bringing back many dear memories. I certainly recall the wings being below and not overhead Cessna style.

I vaguely recall Parr computers, which my father was involved in.

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Katyjay

Smith Dennis made big valves and controlling apparatus for many purposes including the north sea oil companies. They made control valves from about 3 inches bore to far more than that. Smith Dennis made some of the control valves in the Piper Alpha disaster, but none were faulty.

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Mercury dancer, what was your dad's name? I was there from 67-70, first on Cranmer Street in an old Victorian house, then above the bowling alley, and finally on Canal Street.

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  • 2 years later...

Straight from school I  started work at Syd Smith And Sons on Egypt rd Basford making and calibrating bourdon tube pressure/vacuum gauges. Doing a net search of that company produced some promotional literature and a bit of history. I think the Egypt rd site was the original family owned business and later, early 20th century, the family for some reason split and started their own individual businesses each with the name Smith or S Smith. There was one offshoot on Cinderhill rd one on Bobbers Mill rd and the original in Basford all in the valve business. The Basford one had an annexe machine shop somewhere up Palm st where I trained on capstan lathes. They also had a unit down Lenton lane where Easter park is now. The Basford business was taken over by Hattersley Newman Henderson (I think that's correct) in the early 60s after I'd left.

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10 hours ago, Willow wilson said:

Straight from school I  started work at Syd Smith And Sons on Egypt rd Basford making and calibrating bourdon tube pressure/vacuum gauges. Doing a net search of that company produced some promotional literature and a bit of history. I think the Egypt rd site was the original family owned business and later, early 20th century, the family for some reason split and started their own individual businesses each with the name Smith or S Smith. There was one offshoot on Cinderhill rd one on Bobbers Mill rd and the original in Basford all in the valve business. The Basford one had an annexe machine shop somewhere up Palm st where I trained on capstan lathes. They also had a unit down Lenton lane where Easter park is now. The Basford business was taken over by Hattersley Newman Henderson (I think that's correct) in the early 60s after I'd left.

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. After that I think it was amalgamated into Hattersley and close to where the Pork Farms factory was on Wilford Lane. I went to Mundella so got dropped off on the embankment each morning. 

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On 12/09/2017 at 4:03 PM, NewBasfordlad said:

^^^^^^^And a loading bay with a big roller shutter door that backed onto the bottom of Rosetta Rd opposite Graham Whites house

I didn't use that end, that was the welding shop. I went in Malt Cottages entrance, past the bike shed and up the flight of stairs to the 1st floor.

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