Birth of a Web Site

I’m not an ex-Sun employee, nor is any member of my own family, but Sun Engraving and Sun Printers became an inextricable part of my life when I married Peter Greenhill. As you can imagine, the Sun loomed large in the Greenhill family, and the firms were always mentioned (and mentioned often) with both fondness and respect. The companies’ many achievements over the decades had an epic quality to them, and the Sun seemed a shining example of enterprise at its best.

So I felt an almost visceral shock the day I came across a Watford Council News article on the Internet that began with the words: “An eleventh hour deal will see the demolition of a local eyesore – Sun Printers.” The article went on to describe the sorry state of the long-abandoned Sun buildings and the arson and vandalism that regularly occurred there. A number of other articles on other web sites carried much the same information, expressed in a similar tone. The explanations helped us understand the concern and frustration of present-day Watford residents, and the articles were, after all, just reports on current events. Yet how sad it seemed to us that not one of them included so much as a nod to the Sun’s proud past – all that bustle and camaraderie, all that innovation and hard work. All those successes. The Sun’s long and impressive history had been reduced to one small, inglorious, dismissive word: eyesore.

That word, more than anything else, was what led to the creation of this web site. With your help, we will make certain that the Sun’s story is told and that the firm’s proud name is preserved and honoured.

Pat Valentine