Hello Bob6,
Something my dad said after I left has been triggered by your comments and I now seem to recollect that Stan had some connection with a work clothing group. I remember Stan being very supportive, after my mum was taken ill, whilst dad was working at an exhibition at Olympia in London in the late 50's. We have a picture somewhere of a group in white overhauls setting up and operating a 4 roll ironing machine at the exhibition.
My other small recollections of Stan was of quite a dapper individual, well suited to sales and heading up a company. he came over as quite charasmatic.
With us having started this chain of dialogue I have had quite a few memories of both my days at Manloves as a child visiting in my dads car as well as a young apprentice. One sad memory in particular, whilst there as an apprentice electrician, was one of the older electricians/maintenance men being found deceased on one of the 'posh' toilets in the office area. Apparently he used to do this as part of his routine every day after getting to work early. This must have been a long time after you left, maybe in the late 60's.
One of the most vivid memeories I had was watching them pouring in the foundry, which to a young 17 year old lad seemed quite magical.
Uncle Percy (Gregory) was a fitter and my recollection of him at work was assembling Sterilisers in the gun shop?
One of the machines under development after I left that dad talked about often was an oil fired ironing machine which I suppose was as a result of the lack of steam supply in many new laundries and hospitals.
Another mememory, sorry if they are darting about a little, was of dad going to Carlshalton? where a laundry employee had been killed when a pulley wheel on top of an extractor came off during operation?
And a silly mememory that shapes my inclination towards certain numbers even today was my personnel clocking on number of 711.
Regards Porridge
p.s. was the Rose and Crown the pub just down from the Queens medical centre after leaving University on the way in to town on the left?
p.p.s Also Ironic is the fact that the QE2 finally docked at Dubai yesterday, 40 years to the day she first set sail with a Manloves equipped laundry, Jimmy and, I am sure, a number of his colleagues having been responsible for installing and setting it up. He used to bring back pictures and other items from the time he spent on board getting it set up. I bet it was all replaced a long time in the past, by the time it set sail on its last voyage.