Mr Herbert Morris plays Father Christmas

17 December 2021

‘Herbert Morris, the founder of the Empress works, used to come at Christmas time and he would throw pennies and apples and oranges to the children. He came in a big open car. He was a little man, very dark with a large moustache.’

‘The drays that brought the steel to build the cranes were drawn by cart horses. There was many an accident halfway down the bridge because they couldn’t stop the drays running on the slope. They used to come down the bridge and the brakes wouldn’t hold them. They often used to go over hedges into the fields. The horses and the carts, all the lot. The strain on them was too heavy.’

Extracts from ‘Loughborough As I Remember It (Memories of the Town before 1945.)’  (Various contributors. edited by Jean Carswell, published by Leics Libraries, 1988).