More tales of Zachariah Onions
DO YOU know why Stilton Cheese has blue veins?
More to the point do you know how you create those little blue veins that make it so distinctive?
Well a machine that was manufactured at the well remembered Zachariah Onions workshop in Loughborough, and a former employee, who worked with the man who created it, has been in touch with Looking Back.
Terry Selby from Shepshed said that he actually took the photograph that was brought in by Pauline Hallam several weeks ago and that he worked at the firm with Pauline’s husband Barry.
Mr Selby said he remembers it was dinner time one afternoon and he set the camera up on a timer on the bending machine outside the workshop, before nipping back into the photo.
Mr Selby said that he started off working in the machine shop working with Jonny Wilders before Mr Selby then went on to maintain and install boilers into factories before finally working in the blacksmith’s shop with Tony Freeman.
One of the most fascinating things that Mr Selby spoke about was about an “extremely talented” gentleman called ‘little’ Jimmy Hoskin who was the main engineer and designed a machine that gave Stilton cheeses their unique blue veins.
He said the machine was made up of a huge metal plate where you would place large blocks of cheese, and then 12 inch long stainless steel spikes would pierce the cheese to allow air into the core.
Once one cheese had been pierced from one side it would then spin on the plate and the spikes would pierce another section until the whole cheese had been done.
Mr Selby said that the machine had been thought up and designed by Mr Hoskin, but had in fact been built by Barry Hallam, Pauline’s husband.
Mr Selby said that one of the terrifying jobs that he had to do when he was working at Zac Onion’s was that he would climb in though the fire holes of boilers and would have to de-coat them.
He said that the hole was only about two feet wide and it was scary but once you got in then it was fine as long as you weren’t claustrophobic.
He said that he would be paid ‘dirt money’ to do it which was half a crown.
Mr Selby said: “You would just climb through the whole and then would using a hammer and chisel to de-coat the boilers.” Mr Selby remembered a host of his old work colleagues who included: Andy De Ville, Graham Waldron, Jonny Wilders (laths and milling.) Tony Freeman a blacksmith at the firm, Joe Walton, Derek Hassall and Jeff Marsden known as ‘punch’ because of his nose, who were all part of the “welding gang”. Brian Poole, Barry Ladkin, Jimmy Dexter ‘chatty’ and his workmate Harold Russell, along with Len Stone, Sid Goodson who was finance and book keeper and also Ken Onions who was Zach Onions’ son.
Mr Selby said that the firm was then sold to Fabian Jackson the scaffolding company owner from Craddock Street in Loughborough, and he said that he worked with the firm when it moved to the new premises in Station Avenue but that it closed down soon after the move.
Zach Onions’ great-great grandson, Stephen Latimer, also got in touch.
Mr Latimer told Looking Back: “The company appears to have been founded by my great-great grandfather Zachariah Onions (1833-1898) in 1852 in Regent Street and then later carried on by my great grandfather another Zachariah Onions (1862-1937) who was married to Sophia and later again one of his sons another Zach took over the business and he died during the 1950s.
“My great grandfather Zach lived in a house called Oakdale adjoining the yard sideways on.
“I remember as a boy delivering Calor Gas with my Uncle Henry Onions in a Morris Commercial lorry and also I used to spend time fishing in the canal at the bottom of the yard.
“In the stores were many rows of Dexion shelving and I recall them making a wooden truck with metal wheels for me.”
Mr Latimer told Looking Back that after looking through the family archives he found out that the daughter of the last of the three generations of Zach Onions, was his grandmother.
He said that Mr Onions’ daughter Hilda Onions married Edward Latimer, a chemist in the town and that Hilda’s sister Lucy also married Stephen Latimer who was a jeweller in the town.
So ultimately two Onions sisters married two Latimer brothers.
• Maybe you recognise any of the names that Terry Selby remembers from his time spent at the firm, or maybe you even worked with Mr Selby?
If you know anything more about Zach Onions please get in touch with Liam Coleman on 01509 635806 or email
liam.coleman@trinitymirror.com