Whatever became of Steadfast Tools (screwdrivers?

[alarmingmark]

My dad worked at stead's at the bottom of manor lane as a wire drawer the building is still there , it closed early 80,s

[kidley]

Spear & Jackson is still going on a much smaller scale, i dont know what they make these days.

[stpetre]

Spear & Jackson is still going on a much smaller scale, i dont know what they make these days.

 

According to their web-site just about what they always made, perhaps with a few more name brands. The current premises are not far from where they used to be -Greystocks Street/Sutherland Street- at Atlas Way, which is between Brightside Lane and Carlisle Street East.

[D Kilpatrick]

Hi Stuart! Came across this by chance, hope you are well, and also that Philip ended up owning half the Pyrenees. I'm sure I started doing the product photography and catalogues, and some packaging related product design, for Steadfast when Philip and you were working together. The photo here is a small, A5, catalogue cover and I can't date it now, probably 1986. The whole catalogue was produced a way we had never attempted before, using a 1m square plate glass sheet suspended over a white field and the technical camera mounted on a roofbeam looking down - every page with the tools arranged precisely for a single shot. The same glass table was used with some then-unusual holographic foil for the cover.

 

http://www.pbase.com/davidkilpatrick/image/166862768/large.jpg

 

After we moved to Scotland in 1988, I continued to produce leaflets and marketing photographs until Steadfast changed hands. We had a range of the tools, to be able to produce whatever photographs were needed and needless to say they remain in good service 30 years. I think the concreter's end cutters were stolen by an enforcer for the Scottish mafia... apart from the hacksaw blades, not a single one has ever broken and the through-tang huge screwdrivers have demolished buildings and lifted manhole covers.

 

I never found any kind of replacement business in this line in Scotland - we had already become publishers with a worldwide readership, and that grew. But I still miss the work with manufacturers and engineers, and Sheffield!

[victormh]

Alarming Mark

 

What was your dads name, I was there in the Production Control Office 1959 - 1963 with Ray Walker. George Rogers was Works Manager but replaced in 1972 by a Balfours guy called Don Waterhouse

 

The guy who was foreman of your dads section then was Tom ???? tall guy I recall

 

Victor Hutchinson - Malaysia