De Vere (Kensington): Memories

Note: This is a sub-section of De Vere (Kensington)

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Recollections.

I worked for De Vere from 1984 to 1992..

At the start of this period, Arthur Sparks, one of the co-founders was still alive and based in the factory on the Pottington Industrial Estate in Barnstaple. His wife, Ivy, was Company Secretary and his son, John, was the director running the factory. Arthur Sparks died in the late-80s or early 90s, before the company started to decline.

Personnel in the Beckenham offices included:

Sales and technical support

• John Boyce, sales director. John left a few months before the collapse of De Vere and founded Odyssey Sales to supply new (by then built in China) and refurbished De Vere enlargers.
• George Brian ('Dick') Hamblin, sales manager
• Tony Baker, sales. He later moved to California to set up the west coast office of De Vere Inc. (the latter being based in Maryland)
• John Joyce, technical sales (film- and paper processors), arrived after Tony Baker's departure
• Richard Bradford, technical sales / support and darkroom manager, later assistant export manager (succeeded Frank Owen)
• Mike Grotowski, darkroom and technical support manager (succeeded Richard Bradford from c. 1985)
• Frank Owen, photographer and darkroom manager
• David Tomlinson, darkroom and technical support manager (succeeded Mike Grotowski)

Service and spares

• Michael ('Red') Thurlow, who managed the spares and repairs. He later left, with Peter Glen, to form Advena Sales and Service Ltd. The company designed and produced a photographic enlarger which had some similar features to those produced by De Vere. Unsurprisingly, this somewhat annoyed the latter but could do nothing to prevent this as De Vere.
• Kim Burns, field service engineer
• David Clinch, field service engineer
• Richard ('Rick') Crisp, field service engineer
• David Godfrey, field service engineer
• Jim Tooley, workshop engineer
• Jim Willis, field service engineer
• Robert ('Bob') Willis, stores and field service engineer (son of Jim)
• Tony ?, field service engineer
• John ?, workshop engineer

Administration

• David Brown, export administration
• Marian Clark, secretary to John Boyce
• Sheila Puddephat, receptionist
• Gordon Stein, stock control
• Leonard ('Carl') Sutton, stock control for and repair of lenses. Carl had been a photographer with Picture Post and then worked in the Fleet Street, London, office (see below).
• Peter ?, USA stock control and order processing
• Joan ?, typist
• Lynn ?, typist
• Roger ?, payroll
• Pat ?, computer input / output
• Iris ?, computer input / output

In 1990, De Vere moved its Beckenham offices, workshop, and stores to a small industrial estate in Vulcan Way, New Addington (not 'Addington' as shown on the webpage, which is a few miles away). The Vulcan Way site allowed the offices, workshops, and stores to be under one roof and also had more space than the cramped Beckenham operation. All staff with the exception of Lynn ?, and Roger ? moved, with the company. De Vere provided transport for staff who needed it from their homes near Beckenham. Several new staff, some local, were also recruited to work in the offices, stores, and as a truck driver. In addition, Alfred ('Alf') Harris, who had previously worked in the MoD offices in London, became office manager.

De Vere also had an offices in London. Originally this was in Fleet Street (for the newspaper industry) then later in Frith Street, Soho, London. The Frith Street office was run by Paul Sparks, another director and John Sparks' cousin, assisted by Jane Cooper. Jane later moved to De Vere's main office in New Addington to be in charge of spares and organising repairs following Michael Thurlow's departure.

De Vere's decline set in in the early 1990s, unfortunately coincident with the move to New Addington. There were signs that the days of large-scale darkrooms using traditional film and paper processing were numbered (De Vere were UK agents for processors from Sitte GmbH in Germany). For example, in the late 1980s, the newspaper industry began to move to colour imaging produced by high-end scanners, and camera manufacturers were starting to introduce cameras producing digital images (albeit the digital imaging processing was expensive and limited by modern standards, and computer networks were in their infancy). Sales of De Vere's enlargers, the mainstay of the factory in Barnstaple, declined dramatically. I was made redundant at the end of August 1992, and the company was finally liquidated a month or two later.

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See Also

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