 |  | | | Cover of "Through the Years, A 75 years Scrapbook of Manufacturing in Cradley 1921-1996" | |
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Bev Pegg, like his father Ashley, is a singer. Bev's parents were both opera singers, but Bev is more in the folk tradition, with a repertoire that includes many industrial songs of the Black Country iron trades. He is well worth listening to, not only for his wry sense of humour, but also for his occasional grim irony.
One example of the irony is rather too close to home for comfort. This is the song Incomparable Foundry Air, in which a Cradley lad whose time had come to learn a trade tells his tale. He decides that there is no future in being a chain mekker, who are ten a penny, and that instead he will become a moulder in a foundry. (In another song, Bev admiringly calls the moulders "artists of the sand".)
At the interview the gaffer told the young lad:
After 25 years with the company
Yo'll get a gold watch for yer loyalty. However, this is not a song with a happy ending: 25 years on I'm a craftsman now
And I can mould anything any old how.
I never got me watch of which the gaffer had spoke
'Cos 24 years on the foundry went broke.
And unfortunately by fate's strange quirk,
I'm a skilled foundry craftsman out of werk.
Nothing can compare with the foundry air
For putting yer down before yer time.
Sadly, on 20th September 2002, the doors were closed for the last time at the firm which Bev's grandfather William Pegg co-founded in 1921, the Cradley Chain and Manufacturing Company, later known as Cradley Castings Ltd.
Cradley Castings was one of the last 150 iron foundries left in the UK; there were 2000 in the mid-1960s. But this was more than just another episode in the de-industrialisation of the British economy. 35 workers lost their jobs, with 5 staying on for a while to help wind down the business. Bev Pegg had worked at Cradley Castings since 1958, taking over the running of the company in 1964.
Six years ago Bev compiled a book about Cradley Castings Limited, called Through The Years, sub-titled A 75 years Scrapbook of Manufacturing in Cradley 1921-1996.
The story starts with a brief family history, of William Pegg and Phoebe Worton, who married in 1907. The first picture in the book is of a group of chain makers, including Phoebe, outside a Cradley chain shop in about 1902. The new company started in the hand chain making trade, but as machine made chain and electric welding became dominant the firm began to turn to foundry work, making iron castings for the engineering trades in general and the motor trade in particular.
The book is well illustrated by pictures of scenes inside and outside the works, including many of the workers, at work and at rest. The photographs, captions and accompanying text document the expansion and development of the works, which is situated in Mill Street, near Lyde Green, next to the river Stour. They also depict several accidents and other episodes, such as the chain shop roof collapse in 1960 and the lorry that reversed too far and dropped backwards into a raw materials storage bay below in 1984.
The proximity of the works to the major demolition programme that engulfed Cradley Town in 1971 means that several photos also show scenes of the disappearance of "Old Cradley" at this time. One picture shows the corner of Lyde Green at the junction of the High Street and Bridge Street, just yards away from the Cradley Castings works. The caption points out that this was the site where once stood the house where Steve Bloomer, one of England's finest footballers, was born, in 1874.
A technical section at the end of the book, partly taken from an article published in the Foundry Trade Journal in 1987, describes the range and scale of production of grey iron and aluminium castings at the Mill street works.
The skills of the workers, and the quality of their products, are evident. Yet only six years after the publication of the book, the firm has shut its gates for the last time.
"...the foundry went broke." This book is a testament to manufacturing industry in Cradley, nearly the end of an era.
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![Cover of "Through the Years, A 75 years Scrapbook of Manufacturing in Cradley 1921-1996"](javascript:showImage('original/cradley_castings.jpg','Cover of "Through the Years, A 75 years Scrapbook of Manufacturing in Cradley 1921-1996"',425,600))
