Braunstone Through the Lens

Photographic scenes showing changes as Braunstone develops.

Future Planning of Junction 21

Former Jones and Shipman factory site

Face of the future - new houses replace the factory buildings at the former Jones and Shipman site on Narborough Road South

Shippies Remembered.

As I drove past the pile of rubble that is all that is left of Jones and Shipman’s canteen I smiled as my mind jumped back to the extraordinary stories surrounding it. It is for the sake of posterity and your amusement that I jot a few of these down for the Life.

Firstly you must understand that the Canteen was separated from the Factory by Watergate Lane, a public highway. As all the staff had the same lunchtime it was considered a great advantage to get to the head of the serving queue. To maximise your chance of such a happy blessing it obviously paid to have a head start and therefore many Engineers took advantage of their five minutes ‘washing up’ time, in which they cleaned their hands, to loiter around the exit doors by the toilets. In the final minute they lined up behind the closed doors, like athletes awaiting the starting gun. In this case the starting gun was the dinner bell and woe betide anyone in front of those doors when the bell went and a mass of men sprinted out.

[extracted from Ian Wright's memoirs found in the Braunstone Life, September 2007 Issue]