Fond memories of ‘family’ printer

With reference to your article on the future of Headley Brothers in Ashford (‘Printers up for sale in bid to save business’, KE, February 2), I worked there for 49 years, from 1947 until I retired in 1996. I saw all the effort put in to keep the firm going amid technology advances.

I only found out the company was in difficulty when I saw your article, and it was a real shock. Headley Brothers was a huge part of my life so I was quite upset.

They kept up to date with all the newest equipment and means of production, but now it’s all gone.

And it’s all because of modern technology. In the time I was there it changed an awful lot, it went from letter press into litho printing.

We used to print a lot of the Oxford University Press but modern technology got rid of a lot of jobs.

I will be very sad if it does go. When I was there we had 116 members and everyone knew everyone’s name, it was like a family. Terence Chedgey Kennington elderly women of Nepalese origin. How dreadful, how disgusting, but was it really a ‘racist’ attack?

As a cyclist it is fairly common to be screamed at by teenagers who are on foot, or from out of open car windows. My wife has even been spat at by ‘white’ youths while approaching Ashford town centre. I suppose we can be described as being homegrown Europeans, so one cannot label these attacks as ‘racist’. Perhaps the one thing we have in common with the Nepalese woman is that we are slightly elderly.

That sort of experience is very unpleasant, has never happened to us over the thousands of miles we have ridden across mainland Europe. The big question is – why here? Ted Prangnell Kennington