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Well "th'owd rubber" aka L&B finally closed today. The name was closed down and all assets transferred to Phoenix Medical.
At Lunch time I went for a fare-well drink with my ex work colleagues to The Old Leyland Gates, a pub built on the site of the old BTR works on Golden Hill Lane. L&B was founded in 1862. The site is rapidly being demolished with plans for 400 new homes. A sad end for a once grear employer in Leyland.
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Just a quick update, the site behind Fishwick's is cleared now, all of what was Leyland Medical has gone, the 3 storey building has been reduced to rubble. I was on site yesterday, it looks like a bomb has landed.
The significant owl hoots in the night.
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Noel I have my Bible on Leyland here and it says that in 1898 the Leyland Rubber Co. amalgamated with Stanley Morrison and Co of London and with the Birmingham Rubber Co to form the Leyland and Birmingham Rubber Co . In 1906 the palatine heel Co of Preston and James T.Gaudie and Co of Glasgow were incorporated in the firm.. just thought you would like to know . The Leyland workhouse was nearby and the rubber co used the workhouse as part of their premises>>>in those days the rubber arrived from Brazil in balls when thee were cut open it was not a surprising thing to find stones and bits of old iron in the centre the natives would have placed these items in the centre to increase the weight before wrapping them.Sometimes livestock? would be included and the cases of rubber once time one of the men was bitten so badly by a centipede it was necessary to amputate his arm<<<<catch you later Doreen
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My Mum's first job was at the rubber works, sometime during the war. She left after a week, four days of which she was off sick due to the smell of rubber. Even when we were kids she used to avoid going past!Did anyone find my baby sister's toy rabbit which she dropped outside the building from her pram in 1952?- we only realised when we got home as she couldn't talk....
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quote:
My Mum's first job was at the rubber works, sometime during the war. She left after a week, four days of which she was off sick due to the smell of rubber.
I love the smell of rubber Caroline, I guess being a polymer chemist it's something I had to get used to.
Doreen I didn't know that bit of history you told me, though the firm did make Goudie squash balls at one time back in the seventies/eighties, I guess that's where the name came from.
The significant owl hoots in the night.
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Just remembered I'm out for a pint tonight with my old L&B buddies. We are going to The Old Leyland Gates pub, situated on the ex Goodrich site on Golden Hill Lane. There will be about 5 of us. I'm a relative newy having spent time down in Wiltshire but the other 4 members represent nearly 200 years joint service to the company.
2 of them have got fresh jobs but 2 haven't and with the advent of the minimum wage--£4.10 an hour, an awful lot of jobs these days are offering just above that. Quite how anyone can manage on that I do not know.
The significant owl hoots in the night.
