10.  Final Thoughts

Many of the large family owned factories would have a works magazine such as Gibbons "Key", though before these came into prominence the Boss would give a little speech at the end of the year just before the break up for the Christmas holiday. Information about sales, progress and commitments for the coming year would be listened to with respect and silence.  This is quite unlike today, when the owners could be shareholders or could be in another country, with little care about individual workers or their interest.  This loyalty to the firm and owners of the past is now lost and only the people who remember the way we were can appreciate how important the "Christmas Speech" was and how genuine and honest was the regard of man and master during this period. Each had to depend on each other, though things have changed to pass power to the unions to get a fairer deal for the worker, the changes should be recorded as a part of local history with regard to the changes in industry locally and nationally. 

Everything has to change but the changes benefit some, not all. Gibbons’ quality could not match the change in price and quantity nor the challenge of shareholders of rival takeovers that could only help kill off this great old firm.  Just a little remains of the name in small units far away from Church Lane but even these will never win the affection of those workers of yesteryear who can remember when the works closed, with the worn away floor boards of the lock and key shop, some worn an inch deep where a man had stood on that very spot for nearly a hundred years, one taking over from another.  They had used the same old vice and old techniques, producing locks and things that  have now become valuable collectors items, architectural treasures of a time when skill and quality took first priority, however long it took to produce.

When Mr Paul Gibbons retired there was the usual "What shall we give him as a retirement present?".  A small committee came up with an extraordinary idea.  A large sketch of him in the field shooting with the signature of everyone in his workforce on it, from directors to teaboys, supervisors to labourers;  somewhere on this picture their names would be found in the trees, in the grass, along his shotgun, names, names, names. Some he would remember, some, but very few he would not recognise, but all would eventually learn that these were benefits in working for a family owned business as opposed to one run by people who never knew the old employees and cared even less when it came to sacking or redundancy; allegiance to the factory and future of it disappeared on that day.  

A photocopy of the plaque presented to Mr. Paul Gibbons on his retirement.

James Gibbons Ltd have now long gone from St John’s Works. People shopping in the area may never know that the area that they now shop in was once a thriving place of work and that, perhaps, people in their family history had a part in earning a living there. 

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