Trading Over 60 Years, we're a 3rd generation family business based in Ilford Essex, on the cusp of east London. Starting from humble beginnings as a one man engineer, servicing industrial sewing machines in factory's in the early 50's, we have gradually grown and grown. In the late 50's we then moved to Ilford from the Romford Market. It is at this point we then stated to retail Sewing Machines, both Domestic & Industrial. 

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Here is a snippet from our interview with 'the good company' on 'Rediscovering Ilford Town Centre' on how we accidentally started selling fabrics -

Keith Bentley - 'An uncle of mine was in this trade, mending sewing machines in factories. He used to repair machines from home and from a small shop, here in the location. I used to help him sometimes on Sundays, at family get-togethers. I'd go over over with mu mum when I was about nineteen and help him mend machines in the garden. He'd go on and on, "Come to work for me, come to work for me". And I finally did relent and I started working for him. Of course, what he did was alien to what I knew. I didn't particularly know much about them when I started.'

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'When I used to go round the factories, we'd have a cutting table and cut the fabric out in quantities, and surplus fabrics at the time were stacked under the cutting table. And I used to scrounge bits for testing machines and cleaning machines, to use as cloths, and once I'd brought some back to the shop, around here there used to be several big factories, Ilford Film was opposite, for example, and there were clothing factories at the end of the road, so there were lots of women workers that would pass our shop. And once when I was unloading bits of fabric from the factories, one of these ladies stopped and said, "How much is that piece?" and I said "What're you talking about?" and she wanted to buy some of this stuff from the factory. So I said, "Oh I don't know how much is it worth?" and she said "Oh about two bob". and so I said "Give me one and six then". So she bought this bit of fabric. And then I got into going and getting stuff from the factories and selling it. We used to have a little table and the ladies used to come in they wanted to make a skirt, or a top, or a blouse, and really that's how we got into fabrics."

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Fast forward to 1999, we moved into what we now call home, at 4-6 Chapel Road, in our double sided shop, to fit Sewing Machines, Fabrics, Haberdashery all under one roof!

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