ABSTRACT
One of the author's abiding memories as a vicar in Redditch in the early 1990s was of taking the funerals of men and women who had worked in the needle or fishing-tackle industries for 40 years or more all their working life. The author found some papers dating from about 1980 advertising a job for an industrial chaplain in Kidderminster, which stated that 20,000 people worked in the carpet factories. In Worcester, where the author now works, a similar story can be repeated with well-known names relocating abroad or ceasing to exist. Although there are still some big factories in large urban areas, by and large workplaces are smaller and a significant number of firms are what are called SMEs (Small and Medium-sized Enterprises). Large parts of the site of the factory at Longbridge are now rubble, though some manufacturing, even of cars, is to continue on part of it and a new innovation centre' is ahead of schedule.
