Welcome to the Picture Gallery. Don't miss the section (added in December 2009) devoted to the art of Corrie Graddon, an engraver who worked at the Sun from 1956 to 1982 and who is still very active in the world of art.

The pictures are in roughly chronological order. Our intent has been to display here as many facets of the companies, and as many faces of the people, as we can. You will find pictures on many other pages of this site as well. See, in particular, the Timeline, Facts & Arguments, and People pages.

If you have photographs or memorabilia that will make this collection more complete, please contact us. Pictures Wanted tells you more.

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Mystery picture. We originally ran this photo, identified on the back as ‘Transfer Dept., Doping Shop, Jan. 1/43’, as an example of war work at Sun Engraving. Along with transfers of American flags, these workers are silk-screening decals that read ‘MAX. SPEED 40 MPH’ and ‘AID’. The photo comes from the remains of the Sun archives, which contain little that is not directly Sun-related, and the style of the roof trusses and the circular brick design on the back wall (upper right) are typical of Sun construction. However, one or two contacts doubt that this was the Sun. Can anyone confirm whether it was or not?

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Mystery picture. Sun Warehouse workers, but who are they, and when was this picture taken? (From the archives)

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Storey Brothers & Co. Sir Thomas Storey (founder), left, and his sons Herbert and Frank, of Storey Brothers & Company Ltd. in Lancaster, were calico and oilcloth manufacturers, and printers of textiles. In 1890, Karl Klic offered his services to them, along with the rotogravure process he had developed. With their support, rotogravure saw its first commercial application in 1893. The Storeys, civic-minded art lovers, were quick to realize rotogravure’s potential for producing good quality art reproductions at prices the working classes could afford. The result was the creation of a subsidiary firm, Rembrandt Intaglio Printing Co. Ltd, with Klic as technical manager.

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Richard André. The original caption of this picture (source unknown) reads: ‘Richard André, c.1910. A flamboyant author and illustrator, and pioneer of colour process engraving, he was one of the founders of the firm of André and Sleigh of Bushey, which much later became the Sun Engraving Co.’ (Photo supplied by Pat Skeates)

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An André & Sleigh staff dinner, 1914. The question was, ‘How can a Dinner be held in Bucks and Herts at the same time?’ The answer is on the cover of the program for the dinner held at Buck’s Restaurant, Watford, [Herts] on February 6. The program’s pages are a lively mix of cartoons, in-jokes, spoofs, and doggerel, all poking gentle fun at company personalities (including director and general manager David Greenhill), and an outline of the evening’s entertainment: songs, toasts, recitations, and a selection by a banjo trio. It was the last staff dinner before the sale of the firm to Edward Hunter’s Anglo Engraving. On the cover is a reproduction of ‘Our Village,’ an 1890 painting by Bushey artist Hubert von Herkomer. (Courtesy of Derek Hutton)

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Locations in the first twenty years. Centre left: Anglo Engraving Co. Ltd, Farringdon Street, London, where the firm occupied the ‘shop’ with a room or two at the back. Top right: Anglo Engraving Co. Ltd, Raynes Park. Centre and centre right: The Sun Engraving Co. Ltd, Milford Lane, London. Top left: André & Sleigh Ltd, Bushey, soon to be purchased by Anglo Engraving and renamed André Sleigh & Anglo Ltd. Bottom: Menpes Printing & Engraving Co., Whippendell Road, Watford, soon to be purchased by Sun Engraving and the factory expanded to accommodate all these companies in the same premises. (From the archives)

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Not a war zone. Jack Garratt recalls that the Watford Observer ran this photo around 1922 with the comment that it was not a picture of a battlefield in Flanders. It is an early photo of Whippendell Road as seen from the Hagden Lane junction, with the Jones/Menpes factory on the left. The Garratt family lived in one of the houses on the right, and Jack remembers the factory before Sun Engraving acquired it in 1919. The houses, built in 1914, were the first in Watford to have electricity. (From the archives)

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The staff of the Sun Engraving Co., Milford Lane, London, c.1917. Annette and Dorothy Greenhill, flanking an unidentified co-worker (possible surname Rouse), join the company’s ranks to fill jobs vacated by men off at war. The firm’s founders worked alongside their employees in those early days and are thought to be in this picture – J.A. (Archie) Hughes (back row, far right) and Edward Hunter, in winged collar and fur-trimmed jacket (second row, far right). (Photo supplied by Eileen Chapman)

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On the roof of Milford House, c.1917. Dorothy Greenhill (left), an unidentified co-worker, and Annette Greenhill take a break on the rooftop of the Sun Engraving Co. The two women in work smocks are looking over an issue of The Sphere. (Photo supplied by Eileen Chapman)

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Illustration, no. 6, vol. IV, 1919 (cover). This Sun Engraving promotional piece reproduces on its cover a J.A. Shepherd illustration whose reproduction is, according to the text, ‘wonderfully true to the original. The basis is photogravure, with specially engraved colour plates printed over.’ This is Illustration’s New Year’s issue, celebrating the dawn of ‘a new era in printing – the Era of Colour.’ (Greenhill archives)

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Illustration, no. 6, vol. IV, 1919. ‘The Madonna of the Toys,’ by M.V. Wheelhouse, is reproduced as a Christmas card above a poem by Francis Thompson. On the page opposite, Sun Engraving offers customers ‘Designs and process blocks; line, half-tone; two, three and four colour. Wax engraving. Reproductions by photogravure (one and two sided).’ (Greenhill archives)

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In the Warehouse, c.1919. This photo comes from a promotional brochure published shortly after Sun Engraving moved to Watford. While a copy of the brochure has yet to come to light, some tantalizing details and photos from it were reprinted in the December 1962 issue of Sun News. Here we see women doing hand-folding in the Warehouse. (From the archives)

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Leslie Hodge’s apprenticeship indentures. Signed on October 5, 1920, by directors Edward Hunter and J.A. Hughes and by first company secretary John Edwards, the indentures accept Leslie Hodge as an apprentice of Sun Engraving. He had been working for the company as a ‘boy’ since April 8 of that year. Leslie will stay with the Sun as an etcher and overseer until his retirement 49 years later. (Courtesy of Alan Hodge)

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Sun Engraving’s victorious football club, 1921-22. Sports were part of the Sun from the beginning. The winners of the Printers’ Cup for 1921-22 were: back row: Frank Kirby, William Brunt, T. Goodman, and William (Bill) Cooper; middle row: W. Bundy, C.(?) Habbijam, William Page, C. Brookes, W. (Bill) Compton, and William Cartwright; front row: Fred Thorne, William (Berko) Monger, Jack Wheatley, Eddie Hutton, A.G. Symmons (Sun’s works director), A. Goodman, and Len Cotton. (Photo supplied by Derek Hutton)

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Rembrandt staff, early 1920s (#1). Workers gather for a photo outside Rembrandt Intaglio Printing Co. in West Norwood, London. The man in the middle row, second from left, was a carpenter. In the same row, fifth from left (dark hair, clean-shaven, no glasses), is Mr Wilson, who later moved to Sun Printers to take charge of the Proofing Room. In the front row, far right, in suit and glasses, is Mr Bell, a director (who chose not to move to Watford when Rembrandt did). Behind Mr Bell, in cap and overalls, is Mr Waterman, who moved to the Sun as a chargehand, working on the letterpress machine that printed the insides of catalogues for which photogravure covers were fed in. (Photo and information supplied by L.C. Leach)

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Rembrandt staff, early 1920s (#2). The rest of the employees of Rembrandt Intaglio Printing Co. pose for their picture. No one in this photo has been identified. (Photo supplied by L.C. Leach)

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The Sun Engraving Co. head office, Milford House, London, c.1929. This photo of the attractive, wood-panelled waiting area and office appeared in the Sun Type Book. So did many photos of production departments at the Watford works. (From the archives)

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Inside head office, Milford House, London, July 6, 1929. Heavy wood furniture, candlestick telephones, an Underwood typewriter, and, on the desk behind, an Oliver Visible Typewriter – a downstroke machine that was hugely popular in offices in the early years of the 20th century (it was excellent for stencil cutting and could produce up to twenty carbon copies at a time). The name on the basket at the lower right is E. [Eddy] Hutton (a member of the sales force). (From the archives)

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A Sun Engraving executive office, Milford House, London. We don’t know for certain that this handsome, well-appointed office was Edward Hunter’s but chances are that it was; it is clearly that of a senior executive. The photo appears to have been taken around 1929. Note the two candlestick telephones behind the desk, one of them on an extendable mount. In the upper right corner atop the panelling are four bells, two for each telephone. (From the archives)

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An order office? Another intriguing glimpse inside the firm: studded leather chairs, a roll-top desk, an Underwood typewriter, candlestick telephones. (From the archives)

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... and just down the hall... This looks like a finishing or shipping area. Blocks of engravings, ready for packaging, are lined up on a bench furnished with a weigh-scale, a glue pot, balls of cord, and labels reading ‘Press Blocks – Urgent’, ‘Bristol’, ‘Ex Paddington’, ‘Ex St Pancras’, and so on. At centre front is a small apparatus, complete with bobbin, that might be a stitcher, and beside it are covers for a book entitled His Private Life. The date is July 19, 1929. But is this Watford or London? (From the archives)

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A Sun office, Watford, c. 1929. On the table, a copy of a Carters Seed catalogue and sheets of a fashion spread (likely for Weldon’s). There is no name on the small office with its elegant desks, brass flower pots, and framed photo of an Alsatian dog (an image used in the 1929 Sun Compendium to demonstrate the effects of different halftone screens), but L. [Len] Cotton’s name appears on one of the lockers just outside the office door. (From the archives)

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A Sun Engraving advertisement. Created by calligrapher Edward Johnston, who had also handlettered the title for the Sun Engraving’s quarterly magazine, Illustration, this advertisement appeared in The Times on October 29, 1929. (From the archives)

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Sun Engraving’s Natural Objects Studio, c.1930. Products ranging from foodstuffs to furnishings were photographed here for magazines and catalogues. (From the archives)

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Sun Engraving’s Black-and-White Photographic Studio (Watford), c.1930. The cameras in this studio were galley-mounted, so as to be easily rolled back and forth as required. Carbon arc lamps illuminated the subjects. (From the archives)

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Sun Engraving’s Composing Department, c.1930. Note near the ceiling the little black box with four coloured light-bulbs, used as a paging system to summon managers to the front office or the telephone. (From the archives)

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The Cylinder Depository, c.1930. In the Depository’s lead-lined tanks, steel cylinders were rotated in a bath of copper sulphate and sulphuric acid while an electric current was passed between copper anodes hanging in the solution on either side of the cylinder. The current was maintained throughout the deposition, which, over a period of several days, built up on the cylinder a copper coating one-eighth inch in thickness. When removed from the bath, the cylinders were in a rough state and were taken to the next department for grinding and polishing to a flawless finish. (From the archives)

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The Letterpress Proofing Room. Graham Dallas and Alan Hoare identified this room. Printing plates were test-proofed here, hence the dearth of paper. Other photos in the archives, similar in look and quality, date from the early 1930s, so this one is probably from the same time. (From the archives)

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The Art Department? Some employees seem to be retouching negatives, others are measuring or checking alignment or are using scissors. Can anyone confirm which department this was? (From the archives)

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Half the Sun Engraving delivery fleet, 1930. These vehicles carried the Sun’s output to local customers and to railway termini in the London area. (From the archives)

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Taking a gravure cylinder to the press. Moving a gravure cylinder from the ‘cylinder square’ to the press was not a job for one man. Cylinders could weigh a ton or more. (From the archives)

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The ‘home of engraving at Watford’, 1931 (#1). This picture of the works appeared in the Souvenir Programme of the Official Visit of the Prime Minister (Rt. Hon. J. Ramsay MacDonald) to Watford, January 30, 1931. On the P.M.’s agenda were a civic reception hosted by the mayor, the opening of the Trade Union Hall, and a visit to Sun Engraving. This view shows half of the Sun’s frontage on Whippendell Road. (Programme supplied by Derek Hutton)

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The ‘home of engraving at Watford’, 1931 (#2). The rest of the Sun’s frontage on Whippendell Road. The text of the accompanying article reads in part: ‘Of all the factories this writer had to inspect during the latter half of the war, and of all those whose products he has written about since, none seems to him to have been so thoughtfully or efficiently equipped as this home of engraving in Watford. [...] The photographic studios here remind one forcibly of a film-set erecting-room at Hollywood. They are immense. There are none like unto them anywhere.’ (Programme supplied by Derek Hutton)

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The ‘home of engraving at Watford’, 1931 (#3). Sun Engraving’s dining hall/canteen, the tables set for a directors’ dinner. According to the accompanying article, ‘the well-equipped Dining Hall supplies refreshments to meet the general need. [...] The Watford factory is a difficult place to leave, once having been allowed to wander about in it – a privilege accorded only to the few for obvious reasons. “Dash it,” one says to oneself, “these people do at least know their job; and knowing it has given them a poise and a bonhomie that is distinctly enviable.”’ (Programme supplied by Derek Hutton)

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The canteen and garden, c.1931. The staff canteen and director’s dining room overlook a splendid rose garden, which (it’s been rumoured) the tireless works manager Mr A.G. Symmons, an avid gardener, helped to maintain. (From the archives)

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The Sun’s clock tower then... This little building, a water-pumping station, was erected on Ascot Road in 1934 over an artesian well, enabling Sun Engraving to overcome problems of fluctuating water supply, especially serious after lengthy periods of low rainfall. A license was granted for the firm to extract up to 16,000 gallons per hour. The water was pumped to the boiler house and thence to the rotary gravure presses to steam-dry the ink. Our thanks to John Kirkham for this information and for giving us permission to reproduce his pen-and-ink illustration. Framed limited edition prints as well as greeting cards of ‘The Sun Printers Pumping Station, Ascot Road’ and other familiar scenes of old Watford may be purchased from Mr Kirkham, 5 Sycamore Road, Croxley Green, Rickmansworth, Herts, WD3 3TB (Tel./Fax.: 01923 224168).

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... and the Sun’s clock tower in early 2005. The structure is still waiting for its promised restoration as part of the redevelopment of the Sun Printers site. (Photo courtesy of Roy England)

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A complicated business, printing Woman’s Own. In the mid-1930s the magazine was produced on an Albert letterpress machine with two pre-printed gravure webs run in. Registering of these two webs was likely done using the automatic inset registering method developed at the Sun in the late 1920s and described in an article on our Facts & Opinions page. (From the archives)

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Cup winners, 1934. The Sun Football Club poses with the winners’ cup. Front row, left: Ted Sedwell (manager?), and centre: Len Cotton (captain). (Photo courtesy of Carole Pitman)

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Record-keeping in the Composing Room, c.1935. A ‘comp,’ standing at a work bench lined with galley proof drawers, reviews a collection of past issues of Woman’s Own. He may be recording page counts. The issue in front of him (price 2d) is advertising a special millinery supplement and carries an article on ‘three bad hats.’ (From the archives)

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On the loading dock, c.1935. The Woman’s Own issue with the special millinery supplement heads off to newsagents across the UK. (From the archives)

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Destination Blackpool, 1935. To celebrate the King’s Silver Jubilee, the firm’s chairman and directors booked four trains (their locomotives sporting bright signs declaring ‘Here comes the SUN!’) to take their London and Watford employees on a day-trip to the seaside town. Breakfast was served on each train, lunch was laid on in three halls of the Winter Gardens, speeches and presentations followed, and then everyone headed out to enjoy Blackpool’s many attractions. By all accounts, it was a grand day. (From the archives)

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A group of Warehouse employees at Blackpool, 1935. Posing in the Palm House are, back, l-r: [seven unidentified], Louie Hedges, Dorothy Brown, Elsie Hilton, and Wally Brewer; front: [?], Gladys Swanson, and Nellie Hanson. Elsie Bryant talks about this day in her entry on the Reminiscences page. (Photo courtesy of Elsie [Hilton] Bryant)

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Getting out the latest Farmers Weekly, c.1936. Employees in the finishing area of the Warehouse trim and count copies of the time-sensitive weekly. (From the archives)

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Lunch break, 1936. This photo appeared in a Watford area newspaper with the caption: ‘A white-coated traffic controller on duty while employees of the Sun Engraving Co. leave the works at lunch time. [...] Watford is one of the busiest printing centres in the country.’ The young man on the bike in the centre of the photo is Charles Hilton, aged about 15 or 16. Charles went on to work in the Proofing Room and on gravure machine #10 before leaving the Sun in 1948 to emigrate to Australia. (Supplied by Elsie [Hilton] Bryant)

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A need for more factory space dooms the canteen building. The canteen is demolished in 1937 or 1938, along with the rose garden and the stone cottage on Ascot Road that served as the girls’ rest room. They will be replaced by a three-storey building to house the Composing Department, two recently ordered Vomag presses (and their reelstands, in the basement below them), the Warehouse with its Christensen stitching machines, and a loading bay. Canteen operations have been moved to premises on the other side of Whippendell Road. (From the archives)

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Sun Engraving hires a new employee, January 1937. The Gravure Machine Room hires Jack Garratt for a one-month trial (wages £4.7.6d). Jack will stay with Sun (Sun Engraving and then Sun Printers) for thirty-nine years. (Courtesy of Jack Garratt)

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A rank of Miehles, c.1937. These are #1 type, Quad Demy, 35-inch x 45-inch sheet-fed, flat-bed presses, furnished with HTB automatic feeders, in probably the largest such pressroom in the world. (From the archives)

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Carbon-tissue sensitizing room, 1937. Carbon-tissue is a mixture of gelatin, plasticizers, pigments, and similar ingredients on a paper base. The gelatin is sensitized (that is, made light-reactive) by placing the tissue in a bath (centre of photo) of potassium bichromate, after which it is dried and stored under refrigeration (at left) until required. Exposed to strong light together with a gravure screen or a photographic transparency in a vacuum frame, the gelatin hardens to various degrees, depending on the amount of light different areas receive. The exposed tissue is then transferred, gelatin side down, to a wetted gravure plate or cylinder and the backing sheet removed. (From the archives)

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The victorious Sun Nats. ‘1937 Winners,’ reads the caption on the back of this photo supplied by Shirley Childs. Jack Garratt was able to identify most of the Natsopa team members: back row, centre, goalkeeper George Willit (dark jersey); middle row, l-r: Dave Burton (trainer), [?], Alf Davis, Jack Owen; front row, seated l-r: Charlie Trevers, George Trevers, Charlie Hunt, and Jerry Callow. Can anyone identify other players?

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Sun Engraving hires a new employee, 1938. Bill Wiseman’s application for employment results in this letter from the Sun’s photogravure machine room overseer, A.G. Lambert. Bill Wiseman will stay with the Sun for thirty-seven years, until his retirement in 1975. (Courtesy of Brian Wiseman)

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The Sun Engraving works, from Ascot Road. A look at the company’s elaborate mosaic sign over the loading area. The Sun was by then printing Picture Post, the magazine that pioneered photojournalism in Britain. Within months of the launch date, more than a million copies were leaving the Sun’s loading dock each week. A ‘Post’ lorry (left) arrives to pick up another shipment. (From the archives)

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A new home for the compositors, 1938. Manager Alex Smith stands outside his office in the Composing Room, now situated on the top floor of the new three-storey building. (Supplied by Basil Boden)

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From the Comp Room manager’s desk. Alex Smith has a commanding view of his department from his semicircular office. Photo by J. Allan Cash. (Supplied by Basil Boden)

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The Reading Room, c.1939. The sign on the door says ‘Reading Room. Quiet Please.’ A copyholder (girl, right) reads source copy aloud (but we presume very quietly) as a reader marks corrections on typeset proofs. (Supplied by Basil Boden)

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A ‘Sungravure’ press, c.1939. One of a number of presses built to Sun Engraving’s specifications by Baker Perkins. This one printed Picture Post. The Sun had just begun to market these presses internationally when WWII broke out and the plan had to be shelved. It was never revived. (From the archives)

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An ad touts the Sun’s new Vomag press from Germany, 1939. In the ad, Sun Engraving is described as ‘the largest and most modern combined letterpress–gravure plant in the world’. This Vomag gravure press printed the popular weekly Everybody’s. (Supplied by Peter Milham)

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A new boiler house for the Sun. The first two of three coal-fired boilers are photographed on May 2, 1940. Steam from the boilers will drive the solvent-recovery process, help dry ink on the gravure presses, and heat the factory. (From the archives)

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The coal-fired Lancashire boilers, 1940. Purchased second-hand, one dating from 1894, these boilers will serve the Sun well for thirty-six years. When the boiler house is demolished in 1976 to make way for an up-to-date system, the old Lancashire ‘hot pots,’ still in good condition after almost 80 years of constant, heavy use, will be broken up for scrap. (From the archives)

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The boiler house nears completion, July 25, 1940. Works director A.G. Symmons reportedly placed the last brick of the 120-ft. chimney but history doesn’t record whether that brick was at the top or the bottom... (From the archives)

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Jack Garratt’s A.R.P. (Air Raid Precautions) card (#1). A similar card is issued to every employee of Sun Engraving.

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Jack Garratt’s A.R.P. card (#2). Every group of Sun employees has a designated air raid shelter area within the factory.

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Sun’s Red Cross Section, May 1942. Charles Petts, head of the Block Proving Room, also heads up the firm’s Red Cross staff and is shown here with Gwen Joiner (left), winner of the Efficiency Cup presented by the St John Ambulance Association in Watford, and Louie Hedges, who placed second in the examination. All three ran well-attended weekly St John classes in the works canteen. Both women were also members of the Sun’s A.R.P. First Aid Party and were volunteers at local hospitals and First Aid posts. (From the archives)

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Propaganda leaflet, 1942. When Britain’s Political Intelligence Department decided it wanted colour in the propaganda leaflets that R.A.F. planes were dropping over enemy territory, the Sun’s facilities were found to be ideally suited to the task. In this leaflet, a smiling Hitler stands in a snow-covered field of corpses, saying: ‘The thought of the coming of spring refreshes me.’ Printed by Sun Engraving. (Courtesy of Basil Boden)

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The ‘Sun’ at War (four volumes). In April and December of 1942 and again in April 1944, the Sun published The ‘Sun’ at War: A Record of Service, a compilation of the activities of staff members on service both at home and abroad. In a letter to the Sun in September 1944, Field-Marshal Montgomery wrote: ‘I always thought that the Magazine was a very good idea, which other business concerns might well copy.’ The fourth and final issue, The ‘Sun’ at War: A Record of Victory, published in October 1945, carried a list of Sun staff – almost half the workforce – who had served in the forces during the war. (Courtesy of Jack Garratt)

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A recurring motif in The ‘Sun’ at War volumes. A steel A.R.P. helmet is set against a backdrop of printing presses. It was the A.R.P. wardens’ responsibility to get people into the shelter and keep watch over the factory during an air raid alert.

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‘Sun’ girls at war, 1943 (#1). In the first three volumes of The ‘Sun’ at War, very little detail is provided on the Sun’s war work – not surprising, as the content of the books had to pass scrutiny by the censors before a word could be published. But luckily for us, one photo of this room appears in the initial volume (October 1943) under the heading ‘‘Sun’ Girls at Work’ and is captioned ‘Copper-depositing’ – confirming that the three photos presented here do indeed show Sun staff contributing to the war effort. (Supplied by Digby Wakeman)

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‘Sun’ girls at war, 1943 (#2). The fourth volume of The ‘Sun’ at War states that an enormous amount of plating and anodizing work was carried on at the Sun in the later years of the war, and since experienced electroplaters were impossible to find, most of the recruits were volunteers from the warehouse, who, the writer adds, brought great energy and ability to a type of work unlike any they had done before. Although the final volume was published after the war, it remains very stingy in terms of details, and we are not told what the women in these photos were producing. Printed circuits, perhaps? Can anyone enlighten us? (Supplied by Digby Wakeman)

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‘Sun’ girls at war, 1943 (#3). A closer look at the work. (Supplied by Digby Wakeman)

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‘Sun’ girls at war, 1943 (#4). A closer look at the work. (Supplied by Digby Wakeman)

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A woman assists in the press room, 1944. A make-ready is being done on a section of Country Life. The sheet on this press, a hand-fed Miehle, carries an article on Beatrix Potter’s ‘gift to the public’: she had willed to the National Trust 14 farms in the Lake District as well as some 4000 acres of surrounding countryside. (From the archives)

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Copy #469 of Tactical Targets, Area 4901W (Caen), May 1944. Sun Engraving began the top-secret production of these massive loose-leaf books of aerial reconnaissance photos in November 1943. The final volume of The ‘Sun’ at War reveals that ‘each department had an area partitioned off; entrances were guarded, and plates and copy were transported between departments in locked containers.’ The first series of books, code-named ‘Boxes’ by the Sun, held 90 to 200 full-page illustrations in which the targets were engraved by hand (in some cases, over 50 engravings per photo). The heaviest book weighed 7.5 lb. and contained 360 separate printed items, all hand-collated. The second series (‘Cases’) covered the strategic bombing of single targets. The third series (‘Kartons’) covered targets not dealt with in the first series, and a fourth series (‘Pakkets’) comprised 46 two-colour books (of which this is one) covering area operations, including the Rhine, the Ems and Elbe rivers, and the ‘Southern Redoubt’ on the Danube. The statistics: 600,000 sq. in. of 175-screen halftone plates etched; over 70,000 hand engravings of lettering and diagrams done; 1,300 separate sheets made ready and printed; over 14,000,000 hand folds; 27,000,000 hand collations. Called ‘the Bible of the invasion’ at the Sun, all these books were printed by Sun Engraving. (Courtesy of Eric R. Greenhill)

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Map #5 of Tactical Targets, Area 4901W (Caen), May 1944. The map contains numbered rectangles corresponding to each aerial photo in the book. Note rectangle 11 on the coastline at the upper right, indicating the territory covered in aerial photo #11 (see below). Printed by Sun Engraving. (Courtesy of Eric R. Greenhill)

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Aerial photo #11 from Tactical Targets, Area 4901W (Caen), May 1944. The photo shows the coastline and the town of Les Bains. Taken March 7, 1944. Printed by Sun Engraving. (Courtesy of Eric R. Greenhill)

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A bomb falls on head office, 1944. Milford House took a direct hit from a V.1 flying bomb on the night of July 28-29. A third of the old building was destroyed, along with all its plant and fittings. Shortly after the incident, Sun artist E.J. Samuels produced this composite drawing of the wreckage as seen from the window of the artists’ room. The ‘Sun’ at War, third volume, carried a black-and-white reproduction of the ink and wash illustration. We are delighted that we have managed to obtain the original for the Sun archives.

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Safe conduct. The leaflet reads, in German and English: ‘The German soldier who carries this safe conduct is using it as a sign of his genuine wish to give himself up. He is to be disarmed, to be well looked after, to receive food and medical attention as required, and to be removed from the danger zone as soon as possible.’ It is signed Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force. Printed by Sun Engraving. (Courtesy of Basil Boden)

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A.G. Symmons’s wartime gardening. Sun director A.G. Symmons, by all accounts a man of prodigious energy, ploughed up over two acres of his property at the start of WWII and began growing fruit and vegetables on a massive scale. Besides giving free plants to others to encourage them to grow their own food, he also staged exhibits of his produce to raise money for local charities, the Sun’s Forces Fund, and the Red Cross. The impressive display shown here was set up at Watford Post Office in September 1944. From The ‘Sun’ at War: A Record of Service, vol. 3. (Courtesy of Jack Garratt)

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A.R.P. warning sign, 1944. Despite the care taken with early A.R.P. planning, the various types of ‘alerts’ must have sown confusion at the Sun. A.G. Symmons felt obliged to post this clarification, although it doesn’t seem all that clear to readers now. Perhaps it never was; it appears to have been used at some point for target practice! (From the archives)

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War work, 1944/1945. The Composing Room has been given over entirely to war work and would be unrecognizable were it not for the manager’s semicircular office on the right. (Compare this photo with the one from 1938, taken from the window side of the room.) Tapes to a window of the temporary cubicle by the office is a jingoistic poster depicting landing craft delivering soldiers to a beachhead under massive air support that almost blots out the sky. It reads: “This Is the Year! It’s up to Us to Let ’Em Have It!” (Supplied by Digby Wakeman)

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The Sun Engraving Light Orchestra. Inaugurated in November 1944, the orchestra gave its first performances at the Old Merchant Taylors’ Home and at Peace Memorial Hospital, and then entertained 300 Sun colleagues in the works canteen. The evening was such a success that a second concert was given in the canteen two weeks later. The Sun’s management, impressed by the response, arranged for the orchestra to put on a show at the Palace Theatre, Watford, in aid of the British Red Cross P.O.W. Fund. From The ‘Sun’ at War: A Record of Victory. (Courtesy of Jack Garratt)

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Nachrichten für die truppe, 1944-45. This German-language newspaper (‘News for the Troops’) went into production at Sun Engraving on July 14, 1944, and was produced 7 days a week until May 14, 1945. Production started at the Sun at 5 a.m. daily with the arrival of the formes. Stereos were passed for press by 8 a.m. Printing was begun at 8:30 a.m. and the machines were run full tilt until 2 p.m. The product was packed into special containers as it came off the presses and then was driven to nearby airfields and loaded into aircraft, which took off at 4 p.m. One million to 1.5 million copies of this newspaper were produced daily by the Sun and dropped over Germany, 10,000 copies per ‘bomb,’ by Allied forces. We show issue no. 365 for Monday, 16 April, 1945. (Courtesy of Basil Boden)

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Post-war reunion programme. On October 19, 1946, a reunion dinner and evening of entertainment were held in Watford Town Hall for Sun’s machine minders and assistants. Fallen comrades were remembered (13 names appear in the programme); a three-course dinner was served; toasts were proposed to the King, absent friends, guests, and the Sun Engraving Co.; seven skits were performed; the directors were thanked for their financial help; the indefatigable Mr A.G. Symmons was thanked for assistance rendered; and the evening’s music was provided by the Sun Engraving Light Orchestra. This copy of the programme belongs to Jack Garratt and carries the autographs of at least seventy colleagues.

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Sun’s Returned Men’s Dinner. The ‘Record of Sun Staff on Service’ in the final volume of The ‘Sun’ at War lists over 1,000 names. At least 228 ex-servicemen appear in this photo, taken in Watford Town Hall during the Sun Printers Returned Men’s Dinner and Variety Evening on November 19, 1946. Three former mates from the Proofing Room at Sun Engraving, reunited for the event, are: bottom, from left, Ron Naylor (R.A.F.), Ken Hall (Army), and Charles Hilton (Royal Navy). Photo by the West Herts Post. (Supplied by Elsie [Hilton] Bryant)

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Sun Inter-Departmental Cup winners, Warehouse, 1946. A sure sign that the war is over: the sports rivalry at Sun has resumed. Standing, from left: Fred Cooper, Percy Walker, Harry Fishlock, Keith Powell, [?], [?], Jim West; seated: Keith Picton, [?], Arthur ‘Tiger’ Smith, Harry Westall, [?]. Thanks to Alex Fayer for these names. Please help us identify the rest of the team. (Photo supplied by Bette Fishlock)

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Alan Clark’s indentures. Apprenticed at Sun Printers in the Letterpress Department in June, 1947, Alan Clark will remain with Sun for forty-one years. (Courtesy of Allan Clark)

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Sun Printers at the Watford Industrial Exhibition, June 5, 1947. After formally opening the Exhibition, Lord Brabazon (second from right) visits the Sun Printers exhibit in the Town Hall. Also watching the operators on the Christensen stitcher/collator are, l-r: Howard Marion Crawford (radio’s first Paul Temple), [?], Sun director and general manager Cyril Greenhill, and Sun chairman Edward Hunter. Can anyone identify the operators? (Supplied by S.R. Matthews)

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On the Chris (late 1940s?). Women in the Warehouse feed the Christensen collater/stitcher. The clock-tower/pumping-station is just visible through the window behind them. Photo by J. Allan Cash. (Supplied by Basil Boden)

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In the Foundry, 1948. Ernest ‘Charlie’ Jermany works on the Pony Autoplate. Photo by George Konig. (Supplied by Basil Boden)

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On the Sheridan, 1948. On the top floor of the five-storey block, Keith Powell runs a Sheridan binder. Photo by George Konig. (Supplied by Basil Boden)

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On the Sun’s first Sheridan Square-Back Binder, 1949. Pictured are (l-r): Keith Powell, Margaret Heinz, [?], Stan Dack, and Nora Rolf. (Supplied by George Sanders)

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Binding Picture Post, 1949. Irene Jones (foreground), Eddie Goodall (second from right), and Mick Mitchell (right) work on the gatherer–stitcher–trimmer. (Thanks to Basil Boden and Alex Fayer)

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At the Seybold 3-knife trimming machine. These machines were capable of very large outputs and required a comparatively small staff. As with the continuous trimmer (next picture), all waste trimmings were conveyed through the trunking to the central baling machine. Photo by Red Lion Picture Service. (Supplied by Alex Fayer)

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On the Seybold continuous 3-knife trimmer, 1949. Tom Dearing (left), Warehouse journeyman, operates this semi-automatic trimmer with assistants Eric Post and George Ellis. Photo by George Konig. (Supplied by Basil Boden)

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In the Warehouse (late 1940s?). Basil Boden has identified George Kent (in dark shirt and white apron, back right), Jean Christy (smiling behind a stack of magazines), Margaret Hobbs (on the right at the second table with her back to us), and Dagma Puddifoot (bottom of the photo). (Photo supplied by Basil Boden)

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Monotype keyboard operators. The date is unknown but possibly 1949. Can anyone identify any of the operators? (Supplied by Basil Boden)

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A new paper warehouse goes up. It is March 1950 and a state-of-the-art white paper store is under construction to the south of the railway tracks on Ascot Road. Sun managed to obtain permission from British Rail to build a tunnel (shown in the foreground) beneath the tracks to link the warehouse with the main works. Prior to this, the paper had been stored in the factory’s basement, which, being so close to the River Gade, was not an ideal location for it. Photo by George Konig. (Supplied by Basil Boden)

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The South Paper Store is completed, June 1950. The volume of work is increasing at such a rate that this new warehouse will be stretched for space almost before it opens. Photo by George Konig. (Supplied by Basil Boden)

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Now you see him... It was September 12, 1950, and Douglas Fairbanks Jr was making a visit to the works, much to the delight of all his fans there. Having served as a Lt. Commander in the US Navy during WWII, he was familiar with the Sun’s contribution to the war effort but only discovered the true extent of that contribution during his tour of the factory, when he recognized aerial photographs used during the lead-up to D-Day and all printed by the Sun. He is shown here at the business end of a press, admiring an issue of Woman’s Own as a stream of copies rolls past him. There was some evidence that the image had been retouched – tidied up, perhaps, as was often necessary prior to publication – but we had no idea to what degree the original had been altered until we were sent the photo below. (Greenhill archives)

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... and now you don’t... Shirley Greenman forwarded this clipping from the April 13, 1950, issue of Woman’s Own, preserved because the publishers were giving a word of thanks to the ‘happy lot’ of Sun men who printed their magazine, one of whom was Shirley’s father, John ‘Jack’ Priestley (front left). It took us a moment to realize that Douglas Fairbanks Jr was nowhere to be seen in the otherwise familiar picture! This April version was clearly the original photo, the September version a clever composite: one pressman had been removed and Mr Fairbanks inserted with such deftness that we had never noticed the extent of the retoucher’s handiwork. All of this was, of course, long before the days of Photoshop...

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... where he really was... Basil Boden’s archives yielded a third piece of the puzzle: Mr Fairbanks had been captured on film as he signed the visitors’ book in the office of Watford’s mayor at the time, Mrs Mary Edith Bridger.

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... and how it was done. This piece of the puzzle was recently discovered in the Sun’s archives and provides many clues to the steps that were followed to achieve the final image. The photo of Commander Fairbanks was resized and he was carefully cut out of the print. Into his hand, in place of the pen, was slotted a cut-out of the Woman’s Own magazine originally held by a Sun employee in the other picture. This composite was rephotographed and Commander Fairbanks, now holding the magazine, was cut out a second time. Meanwhile, on a fresh print of the press picture, the man at the back right was airbrushed out entirely and the press man in front of him was partly cut away from the print. Mr Fairbanks and his magazine were slipped in behind him, and details in the background were retouched where necessary. Finally, this new composite was rephotographed and the cut edges were retouched to remove evidence of the subterfuge. A lot of work for a photo that would appear only in a staff magazine. But post-war, Commander Fairbanks was not only a movie star but a hero to many, and perhaps there was keen disappointment that during his tour of the works a photo opportunity had been missed. This Sun artistry managed to put things right.

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Planning the itinerary of the Sun Printers Productivity Team, autumn 1950. Representatives of the Composing, Letterpress Machine, and Gravure Machine departments are about to travel to America to study production methods at printing firms in Buffalo, Niagara Falls, Toronto, Chicago, Washington, Philadelphia, and New York. Each team member was a leader in his department and familiar with the problems his department regularly faced. At the table are (l-r): Sun’s night manager and the team’s leader Kenneth Harman; Letterpress machine minders FOC Cyril Manders; Sun’s general manager C.R. Greenhill; Gravure machine minders FOC Leslie Dixon; Gilbert Smith (an advisor from Aylesbury); Natsopa FOC Frederick Taylor; and Composing Room FOC Douglas Lindsey. (From the archives)

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Annual dinner of the Letterpress Machine Minders’ Chapel, January 20, 1951. Buck’s Restaurant in Watford does the honours for some seventy chapel members, their wives, and guests, among them T.R. Walker, Mr and Mrs Cyril Greenhill, and Mr and Mrs Cyril Manders. At the event, Mr Manders was presented by Sun management with a barometer and by chapel members with a gold wrist-watch in appreciation of his twenty-one years of service as a chapel official. (Photo supplied by Basil Boden)

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The Edward Hunter Awards. Edward Hunter knew that a company was only as good as the people it employed. With this in mind, he created two annual student awards for exceptional work in the Printing Department of the Watford Technical College: one for compositors, the other for photogravure process work. In 1951 the Edward Hunter Award went to David Cave ‘for outstanding merit and progress in photo process work.’ (Courtesy of David Cave)

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Inside the South Paper Store, 1951. The building is no more than a year old yet reels and packages of flat stock are already competing for scarce space. During the 1950s works expansion known as Operation Sunrise, a new white paper bay will be built to warehouse the flat stock, and the South Paper Store will be widened to accommodate more reels. The Store would be enlarged again in 1960. For more on the works expansion see the Facts & Opinions page. (Photo supplied by Basil Boden)

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Loading Picture Post, c.1951. A Seddon Diesel lorry is loaded with thousands of copies of the magazine’s latest issue. (From the archives)

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Retouching Palatia plates, Rembrandt, 1951. T.C. Lovell (left) and colleagues are shown at work in the Process Department at Rembrandt. (Photo courtesy of Lynn Westcott)

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Aftermath of a break in the web. Scraps and shreds of Woman’s Own are all over the place, including on the walkway of this press, after what must have been a dramatic few moments. Usually, there would be a clear-up before the press was restarted. Photo by the West Herts Post. (Courtesy of Basil Boden)

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An Impressions cover from 1952. In the early 1950s, covers of Impressions, the house organ of Hazell Sun Group, featured Ronald Searle cartoons, while the inside pages were a busy, homey mix of typefaces and formats. The look would change radically over the next decade. (Greenhill archives)

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Impressions, spring 1952 (Women’s Page). The Women’s Page was a frequent feature in early issues of Impressions, running alongside balance sheets, discussions of presses and paper, and photos of weddings, dinners, and dances. In the spring number, readers were told how to make a pattern and sew a blouse. The next issue gave instructions for knitting a cap and mittens – according to the text, ‘a Parisian design reserved exclusively for Impressions.’ (Greenhill archives)

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The Nurse’s Room, 1952. Arthur Badrock (Monochrome Process) waits to have a large splinter removed from his hand by State Registered Nurse Eva Soar, while J. Bradshaw (Grinding & Polishing) looks on. The Sun Works Surgery was a small room off the binding warehouse, equipped with medicines, medical instruments, steel surgery furniture, and a chintz-covered settee. Nurse Soar treated everything from headaches and sore throats to gashes and mangled fingers. She also attended Rembrandt workers and saw to it that all first aid boxes were regularly replenished. (From the archives)

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A Sun Sports Day, c.1952. Sports Day involved sack, potato, and obstacle races, the ladies’ relay, high-jump competitions, distance racing (220 yards, 440 yards, the Printers’ Mile...), and many other attractions, including the de rigueur bathing beauty contest. The latter was judged, on different occasions, by the fashion artists of the Daily Express and Woman’s Own, and by representatives of Vogue magazine. The games were sometimes opened by celebrities, who also handed out the prizes, and one year (1950) Sun’s Sports Day was photographed by, and presumably featured in, Picture Post. (Supplied by Basil Boden)

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A tug of war at a Sun Sports Day, c.1952. This popular event pitted department against department, chapel against chapel, Sun men against Rembrandt men, managers against staff. (Supplied by Basil Boden)

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Crowds enjoy a Sun Sports Day, c.1953. The enthusiasm for this annual event, still very much in evidence here, would wane in the coming years. Times were changing. Discontinued ‘in view of declining interest,’ is how the 1961 spring/summer issue of Impressions would put it. Yet there was never any lack of interest in sports on the part of employees. John Try remembers that in 1963 Sun Printers’ large sports ground still included cricket pitches, four tennis courts, two football pitches, rugby pitches, and a bowls club with a well-kept green used by 6 mixed rinks. (Supplied by Basil Boden)

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The Colour Carbon Department at Sun, 1952/53. Gathered for the photo are, back row: Derek Spruce, Wally Archer (assistant), Jack Simmonds, Percy Perryman, Denis Margetts, Bernard Sharpe, George Jarman (2nd i/c), John Dryburgh (apprentice), Bob Habbijam (assistant), Fred Habbijam (assistant), Jim Eldridge (assistant); front row: Len Mellor (jr asst.), ‘Uncle’ Harry Bell, Charlie Bowden (overseer), Leon ‘Twinkle’ Wendel, and Rhys Thomas (apprentice). Missing (he may have been the photographer), is Peter Peskett (apprentice). Those not otherwise identified are all journeymen. (Courtesy of John Dryburgh)

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A new tennis pavilion is opened on the Sports Ground. Edward Hunter (deputy chairman), Cyril Greenhill (general manager), and Mrs Ruth Harrison (daughter of the late David Greenhill), open the pavilion in the early summer of 1955. A plaque over the door reads: ‘This pavilion and the equipment of the children’s playground were provided by a legacy [of £1000] left by David Greenhill, a director of the company from 1919-1947.’ (From the archives)

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The Sports Ground gets a new entrance, July 26, 1956. Before a group of applauding onlookers, Edward Hunter steps up to the blue-painted wrought-iron gate embellished with a gilded sun. (From the archives)

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Registering and lining up. Gilbert Lane, Composition Department, demonstrates a new ‘S-H’ register and line-up table. Photo by Smith-Horne Ltd. (Supplied by Basil Boden)

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Stripping and imposition in the Planning Department. Photo by J. Allan Cash. (Supplied by Basil Boden)

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Exposing carbon tissue for conventional gravure. The sheet of sensitized carbon tissue was given two exposures. The first was to a point source (originally a carbon arc lamp, later a xenon lamp). The exposure, to a glass screen under vacuum, established the cell/wall structure on the tissue: the areas that would become the cell walls were exposed to the U.V. of the lamp and were hardened, while the unexposed cell areas remained soft. Here we see the second exposure of the same piece of tissue, but in a different vacuum frame, to the planned-up continuous positives. The light source is a bank of fluorescent tubes (just visible on the right). The operator is positioning a photocell, used in the timing of the exposure. These frames could be swung to the horizontal for loading the tissue and foils. Photo by J. Allan Cash. (Photo supplied by Basil Boden, information by Barry Humphreys)

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Measuring acidity. Conducting the test is Sun’s chief chemist, Jack Riley. Photo by Howard Atkins. (Supplied by Basil Boden)

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Water mystery solved. A stretch of apparently deep water flows between the Sun’s clock tower/pumping station and the factory, in one of only two photos in the archives to show water here (see the other immediately below). Alex Fayer has explained that during the expansion, Ascot Rd was rerouted a little distance from the factory. The ground there was waterlogged, obliging the road builders to dig a deep diversion trench and keep pumps running most of the time. This photo was taken when the pumps were not running and the trench had filled up. Ascot Road has since been widened and there is now no sign of the trench, but Jack Garratt recalls that watercress was grown in it for some years. Alan Collette adds that a footbridge built mainly of railway sleepers crossed the water near the railway embankment to allow access to allotment gardens between the clock tower and the River Gade. The photographer was likely standing on the bridge to take this picture. (Photo from the archives)

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An aerial shot of the Ascot Road façade, April 1957. Work is nearing completion on the Operation Sunrise factory expansion. Here we see the drainage trench running past the clock tower, with allotment gardens filling the space down to the river. On the right are the railway line, the little footbridge over the water, the White Paper Store, and the entrance to the Ink Factory. (From the archives)

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An Impressions cover from 1958. The Ronald Searle cartoons have been replaced by a new design. This issue carries a humorous drawing based on a well-known Norman Rockwell illustration. The artist, identified as GAT, is Gordon Atkins, the magazine’s art director at the time. (Greenhill archives)

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Sun’s Camera Club winners, 1958. Started in 1952 by resident photographer Howard Atkins (joint deputy departmental manager, Mono Gravure Process), the club attracted 40 members during its first year alone, and soon began holding annual photographic competitions. In 1958, as reported in Impressions, first prize went to A. Reed, of Colour Retouching, for ‘Girl behind Net,’ and the Hammond Trophy went to David Hopley for ‘Cardplayers’ in the ‘Print of the Year’ competition. Clubs abounded at the Sun. In this same year, employees could choose from a motoring club, a darts club, a snuff club, a golfing society, a gardening club, an angling society, a cage bird society, and several others. (Greenhill archives)

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Rembrandt ‘boys,’ 1958. Taken on by Rembrandt, this group will all wind up as employees of Sun Printers when the Rembrandt factory is closed three years later. Left to right: Pete Walker (who restored this photo), Ron Rooney (now living in Australia), Michael Hood, John Gallon Jr, Derek Rymill (described as ‘the one and only’), Mick McGrath, and John Halliday. (Courtesy of Mick McGrath)

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Charles Chaplin’s artistry. Chaplin, a manager in Sun’s Gravure Process Department, was a master engraver, considered one of the best in the UK. Parallel with his career he pursued more-artistic interests as an etcher and engraver, eventually having his work shown in Royal Academy exhibitions. He went on to exhibit internationally. Remarkably, given the extraordinary visual demands of his profession, the distinguished-looking Mr Chaplin had only one eye. The 1958 engraving shown here is ‘Moorhen and old willow,’ from a limited edition of thirty. (Courtesy of Peter Greenhill)

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A Sun Christmas party, c.1958. Rene Warren, whose father, Walter Willis, worked on gravure machines at Sun, remembers attending great Christmas parties at the firm when she was a child, and always looked forward to receiving a ‘lovely present at the end from Mr Symmons Sr.’ The tradition continued into the next generation: in this photo, Rene’s daughter Brenda and son John sit beside the clown while other youngsters ply him with cakes. The girl standing at Brenda’s right is Mary Frost, and Mary’s younger brother is proffering the plate.

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Polishing shop. Before the copper-plated cylinders are engraved they are polished to a high sheen to remove all blemishes. (From the archives)

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Chromium plating gravure cylinders, 1959. Cylinders intended for long runs need a very hard finish, such as chromium, to prolong their life. A million copies or more could be printed from a chromium-plated cylinder, while unfaced cylinders might wear down after only 60,000 or 100,000 impressions. In this photo, cylinders already etched and manually retouched by skilled craftsmen arrive in the chromium plating room. The overhead cranes (dated 1955) were installed during Operation Sunrise. For more on Operation Sunrise, see ‘The 1950s Expansion’ article on the Facts & Opinions page. (From the archives)

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The cylinder store, 1961. In the rack on the left are 30-inch cylinders for the ‘baby’ press. Hanging on the right are cylinders for the Goss. Cylinders were plain-paper wrapped when fresh from Gravure Processing. While waiting to be used, they were hung in the cylinder store (which could provide vertical storage for 3,000 cylinders) between the Process Department and the Gravure Machine Room. Used cylinders were also often hung here before stripping, pending a reprint (for whatever reason), and would be wrapped in white paper with a copy of the job or section pasted on them and the job/date/section number, etc., crayoned on the outside. It was not unknown for a large Goss cylinder to fall out of the hoist. Given that these cylinders weighed upwards of 2 tons, their landing didn’t go unnoticed! Pictured (centre) is George Hammond (Deposition). (From the archives)

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The Composing Rooms get a new home. Between April 29 and May 8, 1960, the Sun and Rembrandt Composing departments were combined and moved into the new South Extension. The move involved more than 1,000 items of equipment, including 186 compositors’ frames and desks, 19 proof presses, 85 galley racks, 30 readers’ desks, 20 Monotype keyboards, 27 Monotype composition and super casters, 11 Linotypes, and 4 metal-melting furnaces, along with 3,600 cases of type, over 15,000 galleys, and over 100 tons of type metal and type. Today, such a move would involve a few desks, a few personal computers, and a few laser printers, all the work backed up on media that one person could carry with ease. (From the archives)

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Goodbye to the second canteen building... This little building had been the works canteen since about 1939 but was always too small for the company’s needs. Here we see it meeting the same fate as the first building. (From the archives)

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… and hello to the third. In 1960, when the Letterpress Department moved to the South Extension on Ascot Road, it vacated this building on Whippendell Road, opposite the main factory and beside the canteen, and freed up space for a new and larger canteen to serve both Sun and Rembrandt. The building also housed the Personnel Office at that time. In the 1970s the canteen was destined to move once again – into the factory space that had been used by Sun Engraving during its final years in Watford. By 1980 canteen operations will be run by outside caterers. (From the archives)

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Rembrandt retouchers, 1961. These men joined Sun’s Retouching Department when Rembrandt was closed. Back, l-r: Jim Crossley, Tom Dixon, John Castle, Colin Herbert, Bob Crosby, Gerry Ireland, Dennis Thorn, Bill Palmer, George Brett, Bob Glover; middle: Dawson Piper, Maurice Brown, Peter Elliott, Jack Barnes, Arthur Jarvis, Vic Payne, Bill Cheeseman; front: Paul Hancock, Anthony Petts, Geoff Halsey, Rodger Wise. (Photo and names supplied by Pete Gardner)

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Rembrandt House stands vacant, 1961. Rembrandt Photogravure is absorbed into Sun Printers proper, and employees are transferred to Sun.

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A Rembrandt employee’s letter of recommendation, 1961. Jenny Treacher’s letter of recommendation, on Rembrandt letterhead, is signed by works manager Len Cotton on October 13, 1961. (Courtesy of Jenny Treacher)

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An Impressions cover from 1961. A decorative Christmas presentation by art director Gordon Atkins. (Greenhill archives)

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The Larcombe Cup Departmental Rink Competition. Jack’s 1961 medal. His team (C. Abel, K. Beasley, Richard Roberts, and Jack), of the Gravure Machine Department, were runners-up in that year’s bowls competition.

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Sun’s Darts Club, 1963. The runners-up in the Men’s Fours competition in April receive their prizes from Charles Brinsden. The players, all gravure machine minders, are (l-r): Mick McGrath, Tony Holden, Terry Gerrard, Ken Kelly, and Dave Carter. (Photo supplied by Elizabeth McGrath)

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The new 13-unit Goss and its output, c.1963. Shown here is only a small part of the week’s output of the Sunday Times Colour Magazine. Photo by Graphic House. (From the archives)

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An Impressions cover from 1963. The design is a montage of drawings on the subject of Hazell Sun’s presence at the annual IPEX [International Printing Exhibition] show, Earls Court. (Greenhill archives)

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Hazell Sun’s booth at IPEX 1963. The display shows only a sampling of the many magazines and books the Hazell Sun Group printed at the time. (Greenhill archives)

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An Impressions cover from 1964. The firm pays tribute to the 77-year-old Draper’s Record magazine. (Greenhill archives)

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Impressions gets a make-over, 1966 (#1). The design of vol. 8, no. 4 (summer 1966) bears no resemblance to earlier numbers. Serious graphic design considerations have trumped the homey-ness of former days. (Greenhill archives)

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Impressions gets a make-over, 1966 (#2). Gone are the justified paragraphs, the myriad type styles and sizes, virtually all the serif faces, and all the zany cartoons. The Bauhaus has come to Hazell Sun. All pages of Impressions now conform to a grid, and text is set in Helvetica, flush left, rag right. Even the wedding announcements and table tennis tournaments are given the no-nonsense, sans serif, three-column grid treatment. (Greenhill archives)

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A new data processing department for Sun Printers. Here we see the sorter, which can sort punched cards into twelve different pockets at a rate of 24,000 cards per hour. The cards are then fed into the ‘1004’ pre-programmed reader, which can read 400 cards per minute, add 9,000 six-digit numbers in one second, and print out the results at 400 lines per minute. So explains an article in the 1966 summer number of Impressions, which also reminds readers that ‘the 1004 is a good machine, but it is only a tool – though an extremely complex one – and it is not a substitute for good management. It must always be remembered that in spite of the numerous checks built into the system, the information it provides can only be as accurate as the “source documents” – THE DAILY DOCKETS.’ (Greenhill archives)

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Inside the expanded South Paper Store, 1960s. With flat stock moved to its own area, this part of the Paper Store can now accommodate many more reels. Pat Keilly is in the foreground, nearby is A. Selway, and on the hoist is Bert Buckingham. The sign on the hoist reads: Working load 1-1/2 tons. (Courtesy of Basil Boden)

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Cylinder Room, 1960s. Alf Chambers, Gravure Process, is shown at work. (Courtesy of Tony Martin)

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Cylinder storage, 1966 (#1). A cylinder is moved to the cylinder store on a trolley. (Courtesy of Digby Wakeman)

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Cylinder storage (#2). The cylinder (this one the key for a Barker’s autumn catalogue) is raised by a hoist. (Courtesy of Digby Wakeman)

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Cylinder storage (#3). The cylinder is hauled into position on one of the racks. (Courtesy of Digby Wakeman)

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A closer look at the cylinders. Most are wrapped for protection but the cylinder on the left is not, and shows etching for one colour of a Woman’s Own cover. (Courtesy of Digby Wakeman)

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Snuff Club celebration, 1967. More than half of the celebrants at the snuff club’s 30th anniversary get-together have now been identified, thanks to John Swan. They are, back, l-r: Fred Gillingham, [?], [?], Syd Towndrow, Stan Perry, Butch Hutchins, Jock Chapman, Harry Latham, A.J. Smith, George Webb, Pat Ryan, [?], [?]; seated: Bert Smith, [?], Fred (?), D, Seamons(?). All were machine assistants except for Harry Latham, who was a chargehand on Sunday Times. Can anyone provide more names? (From the archives)

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The Sun football reserves, 1967-68. Back row, l-r: E. Butler, R. Curzon, T. Barber (captain), C. Cunningham, D. Seabrook, C. Palmer, B. Kent, and C. Hows; front row: R. Rooney, T. Webb, G. Seabrook, S. Kiiling, and P. Nicolson. (Photo thanks to Shirley and Alan Greenman)

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The Solvent Recovery Plant, January 1969. The plant was part of the modernization of the Sun works in the 1950s (for more on solvent recovery and the expansion, see the Facts & Opinions page). A fifth adsorber chamber was added when the new 13-unit Goss press was commissioned. The white trunking runs under the railway tracks from the Gravure Machine Room to the recovery plant. The photo is stamped ‘Sun Printers Ltd, Physics Research Laboratory.’ (From the archives)

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Sun’s netball team, 1969. Wearing their bright new uniforms are Sun’s ‘netball dollies,’ as the December issue of the house magazine put it. Photographed at the Sun Sports Ground after beating Leaford Ladies 30–21 are, standing, l-r: Mary Mitchum (Foundry), Jennifer Priestly (associate), Christina Sills (associate), and Marie Clarke (Budget Control); in front: Gillian Dobson (Process Office), Elizabeth McGrath (Process Office), and Diane Whalley (associate). Other Sun team members were Diane Legg, Chris Pigg, Rita Fry, and Janice Gregory. (Associates were not Sun employees.) The uniforms were made by Sun switchboard supervisor Irene Smith. (Photo supplied by Elizabeth McGrath)

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K&B Rotafolio letterpress machines. Purchased in the late-1960s, these four-colour presses were a last-ditch attempt to keep letterpress alive at the Sun. Especially adapted for Sun’s needs, they were used for printing high-quality catalogues and fashion magazines. John Terry (foreground) minds a press in this photo from the marketing brochure ‘SUN in the seventies.’ (Supplied by Tony Quick)

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The beauty of polished copper. A flawless gravure cylinder, ready for etching. From ‘SUN in the seventies.’ (Supplied by Tony Quick)

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Minute measurements, c.1969. Harry Miller of the chemistry lab uses the latest type of Tallycell surface-measuring device to assess the finish of a gravure cylinder after deposition and polishing. From ‘SUN in the seventies.’ (Supplied by Tony Quick)

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Gravure machine #81. John Woods units, modified to take Goss-type cylinder bearings and with a new Albert folder added, are shown here printing a 32-page fashion section for a British mail order house. From ‘SUN in the seventies.’ (Supplied by Tony Quick)

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Product rolls off the Goss. Finished copies of The Sunday Times Colour Section roll off machine #90/91. From ‘SUN in the seventies.’ (Supplied by Tony Quick)

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The Goss’s trial ‘hush hut.’ A tight squeeze for three, this was a quiet spot in which to confer in the gravure machine room. The men rarely used it, though, relying instead on a time-honoured system of signals to communicate over the din of the presses. The signals are described by Jack Clarke on the Reminiscences page. (Photo supplied by Jack Clarke)

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The Planning Department, c.1969. This is where film positives were planned onto two-page assemblies. From ‘SUN in the seventies.’ (Supplied by Tony Quick)

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Part of the Cylinder Room, c.1969. The area known as the gravure ‘cylinder square’ stored a range of cylinder sizes unique in the world. From ‘SUN in the seventies.’ (Supplied by Tony Quick)

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Lost and found (under machine #57), June 1970. While dismantling gravure machine #57, engineers Dave Wallser (left) and Harold Healey discovered a 34-year-old section of Home Journal under the concrete floor. Containing an appeal for the preservation of rural Britain as well as articles on the death of King George V, the pages showed some signs of chemical reaction after having been buried under concrete for so long but, as Sunews reported, ‘all credit should go to Sun, for the print remained perfect!’ (From the archives)

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The new Cylinder Stripping Room, 1970. This was where the cylinders had their engraved copper skin removed after the print run was completed, then had their surface readied for a new skin. The Gravure Machine Room was to the left of the far entrance in this photo, the Process Block to the right. A passageway on the other side of the right-hand wall ran under the railway line to the Letterpress and Typesetting departments in the new South Extension, and also to the car park. (Photo and information courtesy of Tony Hind)

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Banged out!! Painted, costumed, ‘enthroned,’ and noisily paraded through the factory by co-workers to mark the end of his apprenticeship, Maurice Brown of Mono Retouching is ‘banged out’ in traditional style on October 30, 1970. Departments tried to out-bang each other. At least one apprentice was taken through the streets of Watford in a kind of mini-car and another was wheeled through the works dressed entirely in paper cups. But the relentless competition eventually resulted in some injuries. Shortly after the ceremony pictured here, banging-out was stopped (no doubt to the relief of some apprentices) and was only briefly revived in 1978. (From the archives)

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The Readers move again, 1973. With Sun Printers in financial difficulty, the Readers and Comps have been moved out of the South Extension (which is to be sold) and are back in the main factory, in refurbished space that was formerly the premises of Sun Engraving. Reader Ivor Maldoom is shown at centre. (Courtesy of Vernon Maldoom)

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Bubbly for the record breakers, 1973. Stan Daw, the Sunday Times production manager, promised a crate of champagne to these machine minders if they could produce more than 420,000 copies of the colour supplement within 24 hours, without a hitch. What started as a joke became a record-breaking press run. Happily reaping their reward are (l-r): Harry Latham (chargehand), Ernie Hayes, Joe Johnson, Arthur Wedgerfield, and Arthur Willis. At right is Machine Room manager Alan Hoare. (From the archives)

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Going out on a high, 1973. Chargehand Fred Cooper (right), a month or two from retirement, peruses, along with Machine Room manager Alan Hoare, a copy of the 120-page issue of the Sunday Times colour supplement from the record-breaking run to which his crew contributed. (From the archives)

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Sun’s firemen are tops, October 1974. Sun’s prize-winners are shown here with the trophies they won at the international contests of the British Fire Services Association at Hayling Island. They took, among others, the all-England prizes for the pump drill and wet hydrant drill, and the all-England Grand Aggregate Shield. Back row, l-r: Peter Walker, Micky Praide, Roy Miller, Derek Pangbourne; second row: Ray Holt, Dave Carter, Denis Gurney; front row: Second Officer Joe Johnson, Bob Ashley, Dave Haines, Barry Langdale, Ron Rooney, and Chief Officer Freddie Soar. For more on the fire brigade, see the article on the Facts & Opinions page. (From the archives)

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Sun’s cricket team, 1975. The team poses for a photo prior to its annual management match against Thomson Tycoons – this year, fought to an honourable draw. Back, l-r: Ken Wicks, Don Coxon, Alan Nockles, Bob Lawrence, Denis Wells, Michael Knowles, Ray Tarbox, Bob Waller, George Sturrow as umpire, [?]; front: Graham Smith, Ivor Maldoom, Bert Nockles, and John Godfrey. (Supplied by Vernon Maldoom)

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Winners of the Interdepartmental Bowls Competition, c.1975. The Warehouse comes out on top for the third year in a row. The competition was played for the Larcombe Cup (donated by Alf Larcombe, Gravure Department manager). Harry Fishlock (white flannels) and other team members accept their trophy before an appreciative audience at the Sun Sports Ground. Bette Fishlock, who supplied us with this photo, is at right.

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Goodbye to the ‘Tiny,’ December 1975. Engineers Jack Adams (left) and Ron Toulson plan the dismantling of the Sun’s last ‘Tiny’ gravure press, to make way for a new Gravure rest room. In the 1930s the Sun had had two such machines, of six units each, one of them running in tandem with an old Foster letterpress rotary and printing the four-colour covers of Wild West and a girls’ magazine called Silver Star, the other running in tandem with an Albert letterpress rotary and printing two-, three-, and four-colour covers to be run in with the letterpress printing of Nursing Mirror and Practical Motorist. The presses were later reconfigured into three groups of four units each. Two of these four-unit presses eventually went to the Watford College of Technology and the London School of Printing. The ‘Tiny’ pictured here was used for testing purposes by the Gravure Research Department. (From the archives)

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Equipment arrives for the Ink Factory. Ed Joyce supervises the delivery of an ink mill. (From the archives)

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Sun’s hard-working DE5, June 1976. Alan Abbott, Arthur Ayres, and Jim Paige pose with one of Sun’s two 1-ton platform trucks. The machine was one of Lansing Bagnall’s first models. About 26 years old and obsolete when this picture was taken, the DE5 had been sidelined several times, only to be resurrected by friends in Truck Maintenance. With spares no longer available, Sun engineers made any needed parts, and in 1976 the DE5 was still working full shifts and was thought to be the only one of its kind then in service. (From the archives)

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New livery, March 1977. A Sun Printers vehicle sports the firm’s new look: a stylized orange sun and white lettering on a royal blue background. The designer was Paul Yandell, from the Technical Department. (From the archives)

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Campers at the ink factory, 1977. When a pair of wagtails chose to make their home among the pallets behind the Ink Factory, George Sharpe (left), showing Kevin Corbett the nest, created this sign to make sure the birds would not be disturbed until they were ready to leave. (From the archives)

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News of a royal baby forces a rethink, May 1977. The announcement that Princess Anne is expecting a baby in November keeps Sun staff busy through the Easter weekend, redesigning the front cover of an issue of Woman’s Own that was already well into production, and altering inside layouts to accommodate a new three-page article. The race is on to be the first of the women’s magazines to carry the story in colour. Reviewing the new layouts are Woman’s Own comps Sid Blow, Albert Perkins, Ray Smith, John Tyrrell (clicker), and Lew Whitehouse. (From the archives)

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Hot stuff, 1977. Sunews captioned this photo ‘Not a new number for Chorus Line.’ Members of Sun’s hard-to-beat fire brigade show their stuff on the way to winning a total of seventeen trophies in local and national competitions this year, missing out on an overall first-place finish by only 10 seconds. For more on the fire brigade, see the article on the Facts & Opinions page. (From the archives)

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Cap badge of the fire brigade. The same badge design, but in green, was used by Sun security staff. (Courtesy of Peter Walker)

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Car badge of the Sun Motoring Club. (Courtesy of Peter Walker)

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When ‘long service’ meant long service (1977). In the course of three ceremonies in November and December, long-service awards were presented to 103 men and women whose combined service at the Sun totalled close to 4,000 years. In something of an understatement, managing director Bob Phillis noted in his congratulatory remarks, “It is clear to me that there is considerable attachment and loyalty towards the firm.” This photo, taken in the directors’ dining room, shows just a few of the recipients. Left to right: H. Parr, E.H. Challis, J.C.W. Bennett, R. Preston, H.A. Alston, S. Bailey, N.J. Edwards, R. Humphries, Miss J. Willoughby, D.A. Jones, H. Andrews, J.G. Messider, E. Warren, T.G. Woolner, L.J. Tilt, A.W. Roberts, R.C. Nobbs, W.A. Ramsay, R.A. Bray, and S. Martin. The archives contain many such pictures.

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New computers for old, spring 1978. Sun’s rented ICL 1901T computer is replaced by a 2904 processor and two additional disc drives. The old computer had served 12 other fee-paying companies as well as Sun, and it was expected that the new one would bring in more revenue from outside sources. (From the archives)

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A new gravure press, spring 1978. The Albert TR5S gradually takes shape. Engineers had begun assembling the press the previous September. Photo by JBW Photography. (From the archives)

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New blood, 1978. Sun apprentices, back with the company after several months at Watford College, review the progress being made on the installation of the Albert. They are (l-r): David James (Engineering), Geoffrey Hale (Electrical), David Blackburn (Engineering), Chris Ahearne (Engraving), Clive Hooley (Retouching), Colin Boddy (Planning), and Russell Haines (Engraving). (From the archives)

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The Albert’s first crew, July 1978. This is the crew that will train on the Albert TR5 and that in due course will train other crews. Shown with managers Ken Gravestock (fourth from left) and Alan Hoare (far right) are: Ron Coppin, Len Knight, Larry Bayley, Peter Laws, Alan Clark, Fred Gillingham, Cliff Goodyear, Ralph Blagden, and Ted Ivison. Commissioning of the press had begun on April 24 but technical problems plagued the crews for another 18 months or so until sorted out by Albert engineers under considerable pressure from Sun management. See the story on the Facts & Opinions page. (From the archives)

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In the wee hours. The Engraving Room at the end of the night shift. The blinds are down, the clock reads 5:30. The papers draped over the cylinders are proofing sheets. Cylinders were proofed after etching and were marked up if any revisions were needed. The sheets shown here may be just for identification or they may be the marked-up sheets for the engravers to work from. The light frames in the background held the transparencies/separations that the engravers used as guides. (Photo courtesy of John Dryburgh)

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Raising the roof, 1980. A tower crane is needed for the construction of a vast new press hall in the heart of the factory. Sun is literally raising the roof (to 45 ft) to accommodate the folders of two new Cerutti gravure presses, purchased to print TVTimes. Rembrandt House can be seen in the distance, to the left of Whippendell Road. (From the archives)

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New stacking equipment is put through its paces, 1981. Mike Batchelor and Ken Gravestock watch Rowland Thorn put a ‘log’ through the Muller-Martini Jumbo Stacker in the Gravure Machine Room. (From the archives)

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Signing the first ‘survival plan,’ 1981. When Robert Maxwell takes control of the company (by then part of the British Printing Corporation), he puts forward a series of what he calls ‘survival plans’ and insists that the unions agree to them if any future investment is to be made in the company. Here in the Sun Printers boardroom he and the firm’s union heads sign the first plan. Seated, l-r: Peter Childs (Process Sogat FOC), Bill Ford (NGA FOC), Robert Maxwell, Don Griffin (Sogat Finishing FOC). Standing, l-r: Eric Codling (NGA Comps FOC), [?] (Prepress Sogat Deputy FOC), [?], [?], Dave Wright (Pressroom Sogat Deputy FOC), Stewart Fraser (Commercial Director), Brian Reynolds (Printing & Engineering Director), Ray Cox (Prepress Director), Terry Davis (Electricians FOC), Mike Jose (Finance Director), Ron Stephens (NGA Comps Deputy FOC), Tony Fuchs (Engineers FOC), Gordon Templeton (Planning), Chris Gill (Industrial Relations Manager), [?] (Sogat Finishing MOC), Denis Wells (Sales Director), Barry Dixon (Slade FOC), David Staton (Personnel Director), John Swan (Pressroom Sogat FOC). Please help us complete the list of names. (Photo supplied by Brian Wiseman, information provided by Brian Reynolds)

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After the signing, 1981. Maxwell and his co-signatories gather for another photo outside the Sun’s office entrance. New investment in the company had been promised with the signing and it appeared that redundancies had been avoided – hence the smiles. With a big contract in hand to print the ‘new-look’ TVTimes and two new gravure presses coming in to do just that, it seemed for a while as if the Sun’s fortunes, in decline for a decade, were about to change for the better. (Photo supplied by Brian Wiseman)

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One of the new Ceruttis, 1981. Sun purchased two of these Italian machines. On these presses would be produced the editorial pages (i.e., the magazine section) of the ‘new-look’ TVTimes, with an average 3.7 million copies per week. They were capable of running at 36 feet per second and could deliver more than 80,000 magazine sections per hour, using over 10 tons of paper and three-quarters of a ton of ink to do it. Together they cost £8 million, and the renovations required to accommodate them would eventually cost the same amount again. (Photo supplied by Brian Reynolds)

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The Cerutti reel room. A view ‘below-stairs,’ where reels of paper waited to be swung into position and used. (Photo supplied by Jack Clarke)

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Who Loves Ya, Baby? Sunews captioned this photo ‘Kojak and friends!’ It is September 1981 – launch day for the ‘new-look’ TVTimes and the official opening day of the Cerutti press hall. Shown here are (l-r): Roy ‘Whisky’ Miller (engineer), actor Telly Savalas, Jim Warner (press maintenance), A. Byrne, Wally Newman, Bob Goodyear, Don Keen (engineer), and Gordon Cook (engineer and welder). (From the archives)

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Checking the product, 1981. Cerutti crew members David Carter (left), Len Hooker, and Denis Cutler check TVTimes copies during the press hall opening. (From the archives)

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The Cerutti control room and crew. Consulting, (l-r): chargehand John Bennett, Jack Clarke, Derick Haynes, Den Gurney, and Peter Laws. (Photo supplied by Jack Clarke)

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Italy fêted at Sun, 1982. The Italian engineers installing the second Cerutti press gather with the Sun crew to celebrate Italy’s win in the World Cup final. Left to right: engineer Mauro Pastorino, Andy Cook, Geoffrey Hale, engineer Carlo Rota, Terry Apps, John Bennett (with Italian flag), Peter Draper (background), engineer Biagio Casalino (kneeling), Bob Manley, D. Blair, B. Ausden, Len Hooker, David Farino, F. Jacket (seated), Bernard Scott. (Photo supplied by Len Hooker)

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A Cerutti folder, 32 ft high. (Supplied by Brian Reynolds)

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The second Cerutti’s control room. Len Hooker is at the controls in the ‘hush hut.’ (Photo supplied by Len Hooker)

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Cylinder etching, the modern way. A cylinder is prepared for one of the Ceruttis on an experimental Crosfield Lasergravure machine. (Photo supplied by Len Hooker)

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Sun’s 1982 football team. Pictured are, back row, l-r: J. Furie (manager), E. Fletcher, J. Plunket, G. Border, T. Duckett, D. Cripps, and T. Birch (captain); front row: T. Spicer, N. Ahern, N. Border, T. Evident, A. Morton, D. Churchill, and J. Perks (coach). (Photo courtesy of Shirley and Alan Greenman)

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The chairman pays a visit to newly merged Odhams-Sun, October 1982. Robert Maxwell and print and finishing director Brian Reynolds review a completed section of Woman magazine. During his visit, Maxwell hints that Odhams-Sun might in future be printing newspapers as well. Even with an influx of Odhams employees, staffing at the works has been reduced to about 1,400 – just over a third of the number of workers Sun had employed in the early 1960s. The country’s largest magazine printer is now Bemrose, in Liverpool. (Supplied by Brian Reynolds)

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Odhams-Sun, c.1984. The Cerutti press hall stands well above the rest of the factory buildings, white ducting linking the hall to the solvent-recovery installation. However, the South Extension, behind the solvent-recovery plant, is now a Post Office sorting station, and the Ink Factory has been closed, the land sold, and the building razed. The clock tower, untouched amid all these changes, looks incongruous beside a complicated new traffic intersection. (Photo supplied by Basil Boden)

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‘Stopping out’ a cylinder after laying and developing. Etchers Brian Hall (left) and Colin Bailey paint the copper areas with bitumen to protect them during etching. Is it August 30, 1987, and they are working on the last issue that Sun will print of the Sunday Times Magazine. (Photo supplied by Ray Cox; thanks to John Snell for the missing name)

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A K. Walter Gravurpilot etching machine, 1987. Around the cylinder is a sheet of developed Autofilm (a clear, stable polyester with a pigmented gelatin coating). The surrounding areas have been painted with bitumen to protect them during the etching stage. This machine did not alter the baume  (the specific gravity) of the ferric chloride etchant, the way early Crosfield machines did. The sensor (an inductive device) was in the head near the operator (Brian Hall) and referred to a control wedge on the cylinder. The machine changed rotational speed according to the rate of etching against a set programme. A rubber roller underneath the cylinder kept the ferric chloride evenly applied over the length of the cylinder. (Photo supplied by Ray Cox; details supplied by Fred Frost)

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‘What should I do if I become unemployed?’ At the retirement get-together for engineer Jack Adams, several Sun employees find a table beside a less-than-celebratory posted article. (Photo supplied by Gordon Cook)

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New name, new logo. Not long after the Sun symbol has been replaced by the BPCC mark and the Odhams-Sun name has gone up, as here, the name will change again – to BPCC Consumer Magazines (Watford). Barry Humphreys recalls that the constant tinkering prompted some wags to suggest that the letters of the company name be suspended outside from cup-hooks. (Photo supplied by Brian Reynolds)

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Remnant of former days, 1992. The door below Sun Engraving’s mosaic sign is boarded up. What remains of the printing operation (web offset only, now) has been transferred to Ascot Road and installed in what was once the Sun’s South Paper Store. (Photo supplied by Brian Reynolds)

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Empty shell, late 1990s(?). The Sun buildings lie derelict and vandalized, their glory days just a memory. (Supplied by Jack Garratt)

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The Sun site is sold, 2002. Demolition begins on the Sun site, which has been derelict for so long that barely a windowpane remains intact, and shrubbery has grown quite tall on the caved-in roofs and upper floors. The billboard adds more than a touch of irony.

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Last views inside the Sun, c. 2002 (#1). The clocking-in/out hall – the employees’ entrance – on Whippendell Road is now littered with refuse and broken furniture. A cigarette and sweets kiosk was once on the left. The doors on the right led to the first aid and medical department. Near these doors had been mounted the memorial plaques to the fallen of two world wars. When these older buildings were abandoned in the early 1990s the plaques were moved to the changing room in the litho section. They have since found a new home in the current Sun Sports Pavilion. (Photo supplied by Jack Clarke)

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Last views inside the Sun, c.2002 (#2). A vandalized corner of what was once the busy ‘cylinder square’ filled with gleaming copper cylinders. The doors led to the Process Block. (Compare with the photo from 1969.) (Photo supplied by Jack Clarke)

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Demolition, c. 2003 (#1). The remains of the multi-storey building on Ascot Road. (Photo supplied by Jack Clarke)

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Demolition, c. 2003 (#1). The rest of the old Sun factory on Ascot Road comes down. (Photo supplied by Jack Clarke)

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Demolition, c.2004 (#1). Opened with such fanfare and hope in 1981, the Cerutti press hall, Sun’s final addition, is now a skeleton in an otherwise vacant lot. (Photo supplied by Jack Clarke)

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Demolition, c.2004 (#2). The Sun’s brick chimney and the shell of the Cerutti press hall await their fate. (Photo supplied by Jack Clarke)

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Demolition, c.2004 (#3). Final act. After a mountain of earth has been built up around the old boiler-house chimney to allow the digger’s claw to reach the top of the stack, the last remnant of the old factory is pulled down. Few traces remain of the Sun by now – an empty building that was once the new South Paper Store, a Post Office sorting station that was once the new South Extension, and the ruin of the clock tower/pumping station. Despite some Watford residents’ interest in preserving this little icon and piece of local history, its future was very much in doubt in 2004. (Photo courtesy of John Try)

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A promise kept, 2007. The developers of the Sun site have refurbished and installed the smaller Sun Engraving mosaic sign on one of the new buildings. The larger mosaic fell to pieces during removal and could not be repaired. (Photo courtesy of Alan and Shirley Greenman)

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The Sun Engraving plaque. Close-up courtesy of Brian Reynolds.

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Rembrandt House, 2007. While the Sun factory has disappeared without a trace from Whippendell Road, save for the small mosaic plaque, Rembrandt House, always a handsome and substantial building, lives on. (Photo courtesy of Alan and Shirley Greenman)

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A tribute to Sun sports teams. In the club directors’ meeting room of the Sun Sports Pavilion (currently home of the Sun Postal Sports Football Club), the walls are lined with Sun memorabilia and photos of the firm’s teams and cup winners over the decades. (Photo courtesy of Alan and Shirley Greenman)

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In remembrance, 1914-1919. Inside the Sun Sports Pavilion are preserved the memorials honouring Sun employees who died serving their country in two world wars. (Photo courtesy of Alan and Shirley Greenman)

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In remembrance, 1939-1945. The WWII memorial. (Photo courtesy of Alan and Shirley Greenman)

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The Sun’s clock tower rescue (#1). In December 2007 restoration work began on the 73-year-old clock tower. (Photo courtesy of Alan and Shirley Greenman)

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The Sun’s clock tower rescue (#2). Long disused, this quirky building took on a life of its own both as a landmark and as a reminder of the firm that had launched Watford on its near-century ‘in the print’. (Photo courtesy of Alan and Shirley Greenman)