Not sure on the origins of the name, but a lovely thing. Images beautifully scanned and send in by David Hughes.

A lovely period piece reaches me from reader David Hughes, who’s been kind enough to scan a complete November 1954 copy of ‘The Omtitis’ magazine, which was the BRD Sports and Social Club newsletter.

B.R.D. were a huge manufacturing company, long since closed that were situated in Aldridge – David has previously written about them for the blog, Linda Mason has previously recorded with great love and fondness her memories of the great Aldridge factories. Many local people worked there and travelled daily on the works busses from local towns like Brownhills.

Like many large factories, the social life was almost as important as the job, and this 63 year old booklet records many things – events, satirical poetry, hatched matched and dispatched – even an emigration. But also local history, a crossword and other stuff. It’s a wonderful thing.

I’m sure many will recognise names and situations described.

Thanks to David for sharing something so lovely, and please don’t hesitate to comment or mail me with recollections or thoughts – BrownhillsBob at Googlemail dot com.

I have a further treat coming up for BRD enthusiasts in a week or so. Stay tuned!

You can click on any page in the gallery below for a full size version, or download the whole thing in searchable PDF form at this link here.