The Penn's of Chiswick Products 2

Cherry Blossom Shoe Polish

Dan & Charles Mason, pioneers of the shoe polish industry in Chiswick

The Penn's of Chiswick Products 2

THE PENN'S OF CHISWICK PRODUCTS Ltd Page 2 of 5

The Chertsey Road factory, when it opened in 1928, was one of the most modern of its kind and incorporated a large square tower which was really a chimney to exhaust the heat and fumes from the gas fired tinplate stoving ovens. The tower was of considerable interest at the time because a giant thermometer and barometer were erected on the side of the tower, which was clearly visible to travellers on the railway line. The dial type barometer was 9 feet (2.7 metres) in diameter and was mounted 48 feet (14.6 metres) from the ground. The thermometer scale covered the entire height of the tower below the barometer and was also quite legible from the railway line. Large electric clock faces occupied the other three faces of the tower.

The Chertsey Road factory in 1930

With the very close proximity of the company's Sports and Recreation Ground to the Chertsey Road factory it is not surprising that Mark was very much involved in various sporting activities held there. He was a very keen member of the men's hockey team and later also became a very active player of lawn bowls. After playing for the Chiswick Polish Company cricket team in 1919 and the early 1920's, Mark later became the secretary of the company cricket club and in that capacity came to know a number of top county cricketers of the 1920s and 1930s.

With the help of Dennis Hendren, the brother of the more famous "Patsy" Hendren, Mark's small son Ron was able to collect the autographs of many famous English and Australian cricketers in a book that was one of Ron's most prized possessions until 2002 when he donated it to the Bradman Museum in Bowral, NSW, Australia, in his own name and in the name of his two grandsons Elliott and Julian.

After moving from Chiswick Square to a larger house located on the factory side of Burlington Lane, that was also owned by Chiswick Products, Mark was able to indulge in the hobby of breeding and raising various breeds of birds. He built a large aviary in the garden to house a large collection of budgerigars and also had a bird room in the house in which he had caged containing special "budgies" and finches. Mark was also a keen gardener and home handyman. After moving to Twickenham in 1935, he greatly enjoyed developing the new house and garden into very comfortable places in which to live. He also purchased a small "Andana" platen printing press, which he used to produce small items such as visiting cards, labels and letterheads. He sometimes used it to do small contract jobs for Chiswick Products that were too small to be done conveniently within the company. On many of these occasions Mark involved all the other members of his family in various processes and from this his children obtained a good knowledge of small job printing at a relatively young age.

Mark seldom touched any type of alcoholic drink and definitely preferred a quiet time at home rather than being involved in a social gathering at home or elsewhere. He was however, a heavy smoker of cigarettes, and as these were days when no one was aware of the dangers associated with the habit, he and all other smokers of the time did not realise that many of them were virtually contributing to their own deaths.

Apart from ailments that were largely the result of his years in waterlogged trenches in World War I (Trench Feet etc.), Mark kept in quite good health, enabling him to cycle between his home at Twickenham and Chiswick each day, summer and winter, even through heavy rain, "peasoup" fogs, snow and ice. His only concession to his very active days was his Sunday afternoon "kip" in which he indulged every Sunday.

Mark had a fine singing voice and on Sunday mornings he liked nothing better than to treat the family to breakfast in bed and to sing cleaned-up versions of many World War One army songs while he was preparing it in the kitchen.

Mark was by this time what might be called a "Master Cardboard Box Maker". With the aid of his razor sharp small pocketknife, he could make almost anything out of cardboard. He was an expert in constructing the special cutting boards which stamped the cardboard box shapes out of sheet cardboard in various types of presses and was a very skilled supervisor and operator of all types of cardboard box printing and making machinery. His son Ron particularly remembers a toy garage which his father made out of cardboard and which he played with for many years. Mark also passed on to Ron many tricks of the trade of working with cardboard which he was able to put to good use later in his own life.

Just prior to the outbreak of World War II Mark joined the Air Raid Precautions Service and was appointed as Chief Warden at Warden's Post A12 located in Crane Park, Twickenham. His son Ron was already an ARP messenger at the same Warden's Post and they spent many memorable and sometimes anxious moments in each other's company during the London blitz period. Some time later, Mark transferred to the Auxiliary Fire Service branch of the National Fire Service based at the Chertsey Road factory, where Ron eventually joined him when he too, joined the staff of Chiswick Products prior to joining the Royal Navy.

In 1942, Mark was elected as a member of Chiswick Products Works Council to represent the staff of what was then known as the "Cardboard Department" and to put forward recommendation for the better running of the company. In 1943, his competence and skills were rewarded by his appointment as Foreman of the Cardboard Department, a formalisation of the job that he had been doing for quite a few years.

In the early 1950s, Chiswick Products were taken over by the Reckitts and Colman Company and it was not long before Mark realised that there were going to be a lot of changes in the company. Having been in the Cardboard Box and the renamed Cardboard Department since 1912 (apart from the time he was in the army), Mark found it extremely hard to cope with the new regime and in September 1956 he collapsed at work. This was a tremendous shock to everyone in the company as during all his years of service, Mark had not taken a single day of sick leave and thus had a 100% attendance record over a 44-year period. It was also said that even during the London blitz period when he cycled eight miles to work through bomb damaged streets, he still arrived on or before starting time.

Mark did not return to work after his collapse and officially retired on 30th June 1957. He was quite heart broken to know that so many things that he had worked so hard to develop over many years were being thrown aside by the new management. After a period of severe illness Mark died on 24th April 1959, in an ambulance on the way to hospital with his much loved wife Vera at his side. Although the cause of death was officially given as Coronary Thrombosis and Atheroma, doubtlessly brought about by his lifelong habit of cigarette smoking, the changes at Chiswick must also have played a very big part in his death.

In some ways it may have been just as well that Mark did not live to discover the changes that he saw happening when Reckitts and Colman took over Chiswick Products were only a small indication of what was to come. Eventually both the Burlington/Hogarth Lane and Chertsey Road factories were demolished and all polish making and allied trades were transferred to the vicinity of Reckitts and Colman own factory in Hull, Yorkshire. By 1988 the company sports grounds had been sold and developed into a commercial sporting complex, a large sports and health centre was built on portion of the site of the Chertsey Road factory and the Staveley Gardens estate was extended to cover the rest of the old Chertsey Road factory area. The Hogarth Lane factory site was also sold to developers and a large, quite hideously modern Hogarth Business Park complex was built on the site. However when Ron Penn saw it in 1988, the complex was proving to be rather a "white elephant" with most of the factory and office areas still empty. Even the Chiswick Square/Boston House area was sold to developers, but fortunately the buildings were treated with a good deal of respect and although they were made into modern high class apartments and offices, their exteriors were retained with all their old world charm.

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