Hi, 1st post as I only 'happened' across this forum whilst, ironically, googling 'Hadfields' earlier. Mike Williams was my father - and joined Hadfields after completing his RAF national service in the early 50s - starting off as a clerk and then becoming one of the few non-degree qualified employees to be put through their new [at the time] graduate apprentice scheme - eventually becoming their Marketing Manager & travelling all over the world on the Company's behalf including to the states (when I was only 6 weeks old as my mother regularly reminded him!). He ''left'' in 1978 - shortly after the unsuccessful takeover bid for the company by Firth Brown resulted in Hadfields being bought out by Lonhro, under Tiny Rowland. Lonhro had promised no redundancies when they took over the helm - but the writing on the wall quickly became clear that this organisation with comparatively limited experience in this arena were really ultimately only interested in asset stripping & maximising the return on their original investment by steering the company toward its ultimate closure. Dad disagreed once too often with decisions being made at that time & was ultimately given the choice of leaving with his company car & on the remainder of his then current contract - or simply seeing it not being renewed the following year.
Whilst all the above is relaid as I recall the way in which the information was imparted to me many moons ago - I do know Dad had many, many happy memories of the 24 years he spent working at the East Hecla works; he met & married my mum (Fay Hudson who worked in the Hadfields lab), met one of his childhood heroes Douglas Bader (of 'Reach for the Sky' fame who visited the works) & met & made many, many good friends over the years. He often used to say that it was the people who made a workplace good or bad - and that Hadfields was a great place to work in that respect.
Conversely, his watching & seeing the ultimate outcome of the strikes at the end of the 70s, and my taking him back up there from his [final] home in Cornwall many years later to see 'Meadow Hall' - were most certainly memories he would undoubtedly rather not have had. He certainly found the latter particularly traumatic - seeing a singular statue on the ground floor of the meadowhill complex as an apparent singular reminder of the sites former use most certainly did not, he felt, bare suitable memorial to all that was acheived & undertaken in the vicinity for so many years and by so many people. This said, at the time we visited I believe the local pub where he & colleagues occasionally met for lunch et al still remained standing!
I still have some of the Hadfields in house magazines and also some of the engraved ashtrays, parker pens, calculators & magnifying glasses Hadfields commissioned as gifts for current & prospective customers too - and have many photographs of the site and vivid memories of visiting Dad at work myself.
It would be great to hear from anyone who knew him or indeed to read of further memories of people who worked at Hadfields, too; I've certainly found it very interesting reading through all the memories recorded here
