Polychrome
England By Mr. Bob Gumbinner
As
Ilford did not actively pursue the sales of the presensitized plates,
we opened a sales office in London. Soon after, we hired Tom Heckels
to manage the office. In order to do some manufacturing, we rented
space in Watford. Tom Heckels and his wife, Shiela, who came from
Aberdeen, Scotland, lived in Watford. I went there a number of times
to set up an operation to cut, punch and package paper offset plates.
These were coated in Yonkers and the rolls sent to Watford. I also
set up facilities to mix and bottle various solutions used in offset
printing and printing inks. To get to Watford from London I usually
took a train from Eustis station. Once I took the Metropolitan tube
subway line.
To
better serve the United Kingdom printers, Mr. Halpern decided to
construct a plant in England as a subsidiary of Polychrome GMBH to
manufacture presensitized plates. Tom Heckels, who had visited the
plant in Yonkers several times and was familiar with the operation,
was asked to locate a site for the factory. He chose a site in
Berwick upon Tweed. This was in northern England on the border with
Scotland. The authorities there welcomed us. They were happy to
have an industry that would employ people. I worked with Tom Heckels
and several people sent from Osterode to design the line. While it
copied some of the features of the C-line in Yonkers, we left space
to make electrolytic grained plates. Mr. Halpern and I went to the
plant for the grand opening. A member of the Royal family was there
as well as all of the Berwick officials.
We
advertised for a chemist and hired Robert Armstrong, who had lived in
Berwick. On one of my trips there he took me to a bar where we had
fresh caught poached salmon. They had been poached - i.e., stolen -
from the Tyne. When Berwick was closed, Armstrong and several others
were relocated to the plant in Columbus, Georgia.