Bennett&Sayers Nuns Street Derby

A Memory of Derby.

I served my apprenticeship at Bennett&Sayers from 1964 to 1972, the scrap yard opposite was always called Frank Radfords, further up Nuns street [over the bridge] this was the original Samways for the highways,[now situated on Ashbourne road], the cotton mills were further down Nuns street, my Mother was born in back Nuns street, was Precise Torque for many years, I have not got the knowledge for the recent changes, as I worked on construction of Nuclear power stations for 35 years, so I worked away from Derby for most of my career.

Next door to Bennett&Sayers, was a very small house, a man and woman lived there, the man only had one leg, a casualty of the first world war,[I met their Grandson at Aitons on Stores road, many years later mid 90's] a small world, Aitons were pressure pipework fabricators, one of the finest in the world in their day.
the Bridge in Nuns street one of your readers mentioned, was over Markeaton Brook, this Brook was clean, and had a variety of fish,[no bedsteads or rubbish] where all the youngsters from the West End learned to fish, and I was no exception, we had no money to do anything else.
the Sayers family lived at Brailsford on the A52, some of their long serving employees were from Brailsford, Ashbourne and Hulland Ward.

Mr Ducker was the manager,[he married one of the Mr Sayers daughters] Mr Ducker I believe was originally in the RAF, my Ancestors also worked at Bennett&Sayers, My Grandfather Roland Green, his brother, and my cousin Billy, many of the Westenders also worked there, the Lawrences, Tommy,John, Raymond, and Tony, John Ong, Jack Kirk, Jack Hilliard,Melvyn May my old school mate was from the west end, lived in Mundy street.
from Brailsford; was Freddy Warner, Ken Soresby, his brother Joe Soresby, from Ashbourne was Joe Cheadle.

all for now.

Geoff Barker