Like Peter I have been scouring the ink off about two hundred copies of Cycling magazine from 1950 onwards, and have just come across one, April 1953 I think, in which Paris Cycles announce, proudly, that William Hurlow is taking over control of production at the company's new premises, after its move from Stoke Newington.
The job at Gillott's advertised in Peter's copy of the the 1948 Cycling sounds, to us now, all glitz and glamour, the sound of the files rasping and the emery strops hissing as the lugs are given a final polishing and thinning down..and all this set in an atmosphere redolent with the odour of cutting fluid, thinners..and the sent of old oil on cotton waste used to wipe the greasy hands of cosumate crafsmen.
A few months ago I was fortunate in having a couple or three very long conversations with Bill Hurlow about those "good old days". he telles a very different story of frame-builders with only a couple of days work each week, of incredibly low rates of pay..of a totally unglamourous and unromantic way of earning a living.
It is unfortunately only with the benefit of hindsight and a ready supply of rose-tinted spectacles that the life of a framebuilder in the post WWII days manages to look at all attractive. For most of the builders it was just a means to an end.
Norris Lockley..Settle Uk
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