A fantastic 1940s group photo of ladies at Streetly Works. Image Kindly supplied by Patricia Cotton. Click for a larger version.
You’ll all know I’m in constant search of material on local factories – either photos of people at work, day trips, group photos, adverts, pamphlets – whatever; whilst theres some stuff emerging now, considering how much time we all spend at work there’s actually surprisingly little in the local historical record.
That’s why I was glad to see this photo recently from old friend of the blog Patricia Cotton – it’s one from a place I know very little about but employed lots of local people, British Industrial Plastics (BIP), Streetly Works.
I think at this time, the STreetly Works was particularly engaged in the war effort, which is I guess why the photo is of a group of ladies – does anyone know what they did there in the war please (Obviously their peacetime business was thermosetting plastics, machinery and tooling)?
Now long since gone, many people worked there, and like the BRD and other big factories, works buses used to collect people in the morning from Brownhills and other nearby areas to get to their shifts.
Patricia said of the photo:
Many locals used to work at Streetly Works. Myself included in the mid sixties.
This photo is before my time there, but my aunt is on there and she dates it at around 1944 /1946.
If you can identify anyone in this photo, or have memories of The Streetly Works, or any other local factory, please do get in touch – and thanks to Patricia for a great contribution. Comment here or mail me: BrownhillsBob at Googlemail dot com.