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I join this thread incredibly late and have missed all the fun but have been very busy finishing our film "The Lost World of Mr Hardy". Although our film is completely independent I feel I do have to jump in and rectify a couple of things posted previously. We filmed at Alnwick several times last year and what we saw contradicts some earlier posts. Graphite rods are indeed still made, rolled, whipped and finished at Hardy's plant there. On the bamboo front they also still make the Gladstone and the C.C. de France. Interestingly we did have several discussions with Richard Sanderson the M.D. about the long slack years at Hardy's. This was most illuminating however I must say that there was a limit to how much we could include in the final film (it is a mere 95 minutes). However they do now see themselves as a Design, Sales and Marketing company which must bring a frown to every devotee. It can't be easy running a company with such a reputation and history though. I think the word 'millstone' was mentioned. I really do understand the pain and difficulty that must cause. To paraphrase Richard, "the market is about Performance and Classic and Classic is only about 10 percent of the business". what to do? In making our film we slowly realised how Hardy's are such a great example of the problems of post war British industry. Many of their recent decisions seem very tough and but what do you say "that's business!"? By the way Hardy's in not actually owned by shareholders at all but was privately bought by Jim Millar of Harris & Sheldon back in the 60s and I believe his son Max now chairs the company. Oh and one more thing. As I understand it, Hardy reels will now say "designed in the UK" rather than "made in the UK" I don't think they ever actually misled customers about the country of manufacture of their products.

I'm reluctant to appear to plug our film on a forum as surely it's pretty bad form but as Shoeless Joe was kind enough to ask about our release date I guess it's okay to elaborate. "The Lost World of Mr Hardy" has been at the DVD authoring shop being 're-made' for The North American NTSC format as this runs at a different speed and size from our European format. It is a completely normal and relatively painless operation but it looks like a big film has come along and muscled us out of the queue. However we are just about complete and can very shortly go to press and have the American DVDs ready in a week. My apologies to anyone waiting for the film, it is very frustrating for us too.

Onto a more sentimental note and a tail of woe - alas we have no redheads in our film! But it does strike a chord. I was asked in an interview recently if there were any surprises in the film. What did surprise me was when filming, one of the interviewees Jackie Dotchin MBE, a reel assembler since 1937 pulled out a picture from a 'works day out' in the 30s. There he is as a lonely little 14 year old apprentice but is surrounded by a hundred girls and some of them really are eye catching stunners. "Aye, we had our flirts" laughs Jackie in the film. My surprise was this photograph of a factory so full of beautiful young women, all excited and full of hope for their annual 'works day out - a trip to Glasgow in this case. I'm sure working at Hardy's was no picnic but I do feel we have lost something in that sense of camaraderie and fun that those young people could share with each other. Dear dear, you would never guess I'm still only 18 myself ;)

Andy