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HP Sauce Factory

  • Thread starter Thread starter Chrissy
  • Start date Start date
Does anyone remember the old saying 'Ansells beer and HP Sauce, meks a stink on Aston Cross? It only rhymes if you're a Brummie ;)
 
I've heard that one, Nipper.

Maybe some rich, enterprising Brummie businessman or ex-pat will start a Brum Sauce place up based on HP/Daddies' recipes....?! You never know your luck.

:D :crazy2:

ChrisB
 
Heard a snippet the other day that someone is going to start manufacturing sauce in Birmingham and calling it HB Sauce. Anyone know if that's correct? :smiley6600:

ChrisB
 
My dad, Donald Draper worked at HP as a lorry driver and union man. (Does any one remember him?) He would drive long distance - thumbing a lift home if he could. Staying away for several days if he couldn't. We had the Cafe at 260 Park Lane, (grocery shop before that).When he was at home, he would be working in the shop.Smells? Lovely. Vinegar, hops and town gas!! I worked at the HP during the school holidays - either in the office or the canteens. Long, hot days.Boring overalls! My own (small) wage packet at the end of the week.Happy days.
 
Hi watton My Cousin & his Mom & Dad lived at 266 Park Lane. His name was Derek Mattews, Mom & Dad Hilda & Jim,
Jim worked over the road at the wire drawers (cannot remember the firms name) But Iam sure someone will tell us.
Derek & His wife Beryl Both worked in the offices of HP BACK IN THE 50S.
Do these names ring any bell ?
ASTON
 
I know it began with CH; but thats all Sylvia. I will have to ask Derek next Wenesday when I see him (that if I remember)
 
watton said:
My dad, Donald Draper worked at HP as a lorry driver and union man. (Does any one remember him?) He would drive long distance - thumbing a lift home if he could. Staying away for several days if he couldn't. We had the Cafe at 260 Park Lane, (grocery shop before that).When he was at home, he would be working in the shop.Smells? Lovely. Vinegar, hops and town gas!! I worked at the HP during the school holidays - either in the office or the canteens. Long, hot days.Boring overalls! My own (small) wage packet at the end of the week.Happy days.
  Hi Watton I remember your dad Don very well as I also worked on the transport at HP for 17years until being made redundant in1985.They were very happy times. Best wishes Clive
 
The End Of An era

hp in the rain
 
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The End Of An Era

2nd Set Taken Of The Hp Sauce Factory In Aston
 
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End Of An Era

3rd Set Hp Sauce Aston
 
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End Of An Era

4th Set HP Sauce Aston
 
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Hello Dolly......

Great photo's.......can I ask you.....was you allowed inside the grounds of the HP...? I know its going to close in March and I was hoping to take some shots of the area were Upper Thomas Street School once stood....I did ask them for permission but still waiting for an answer.
 
no,i didnt ask,in case they said no,so i take em first before i ask ,but i will pop back and try and get inside
 
:angel: Great pic's once again Mr Dolly... Say those gasometers are looking a little empty (They would be the Nichells ones? Windsor St/Gt Lister St/ Rupert St area)
 
My Dear Pom, as a Nechells Kid ......I cannot see any Gas holders or "Omiters" anywhere up to yet .....I climbed a few and they had Frames around them and the Gasometer would rise and sink into the ground.....
Lay of them "Ozzy cocktails" ya losing touch with ya roots
 
:angel: Now Crommie Mate I thought I was the BLIND one on this site!!!!

Take another look at an enlarged pic ' of this one!!!:P

"People with sight just don't use it" :)
 
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:angel: Now Crommie Mate I thought I was the BLIND one on this site!!!!

Take another look at an enlarged pic ' of this one!!!:P

"People with sight just don't use it" :)

Pom, I will give ya that one as I only looked at a few pics
(but I reckon you slipped that one in)
 
ok ,own up,whos got 4 bars on the gas fire now looked what you done
 
Thanks for replying Clive - sorry that I've only just picked up your reply!
The H.P cetainly was a big part of our lives. Apart from Dad working there, and renting property from them.It's great to be able to come onto a site like this, and catch lots of peoples 'rememberances'.
 
HP Factory closure

I'm sorry to see that Heinz have gone through with their planned closure of the HP factory at Aston Cross. Another iconic landmark destined to the bulldozer methinks. I was fortunate to have visited the Ansells brewery when it was still there, another great recent loss. Anyone care to share some memories, good or bad, of HP or Ansells ?
 
Oh my Ian you have triggered a memorie when you said bad! When my husband and I were courting (well going out) my day off work was a Monday he was a driver for a CO 2 company and I used to go with him on my day off, we would go to power stations and many breweries. One Monday we went to Ansells the lorry had to go through the narrow entrance into the brewer. I sat there all demure in my latest mini skirt (well it was the fashion in the 70's) all of a sudden two security guy's said driver "cab search" I scrambled to try and get out when they said "stay where you are" I froze. This doesn't happen to a hairdresser on her day off! Then I looked up, there was a sort of gantree above and it was full of men all laughing. I had been stitched up. I was so embarressed I still wonder sometimes why I married him! he did grovel later. I am now glad I got to see the courtyard at Ansells though!
 
Ian......Being an Aston boy both the HP and Ansells have played a big part in my life......Upper Thomas Street was next to the HP, and in front of Ansells...so depending on which way the wind was blowing did depend on what aroma we had to breath in.......it was terrible at the time....but how I missed it when we had to move away.

My Uncle Ronnie worked for both companies as a driver, HP in the middle to late fiftes and Ansells in the early to mid sixties.

As a child I used to go with him in the Guy Thornicroft Lorries he drove, you could get into the rear of the lorry via a door behind the drivers mate..who at that time was a man named Jimmy Pearce who owned the newsagents next to the HP in Tower Road, I can remember helping to carry the boxies of baked beans, tomatoe sauce, brown sauce and boxies of vinegar....I could never carry the bake beans very far.....they was always to heavy.....we seem to visit every shop in the midlands....not the large super market.....there wasn't any about at that time.....One moment that always stays with me is a trip to Boston, we stopped at a cafe in Waterworks Street (Drew Drop or something like that) the reason I know it was the one in Waterworks st cos I was told by Ronnie at a later date...anyway...while the other eat their eggs,bacon etc....I was given a eccles cake......well I don't know how we got before I decided I didn't want to keep it.....the drivers mate was a young man named Mac...don't know his proper name..he held me out of the side window while I pebbled dashed the side of the lorry....I cannot remember too much after that...apart from Ronnie and Mac makeing me a bed out of the bake bean boxies...and Mac washing down the side of the lorry....I must have aged about 5 or 6 at the time.....

I was never allowed to go with Ronnie when he work for Ansells, every dinner time (not lunch them days) he would call home for his dinner, that was the time I and my nates would climb onto the back of his lorry and play whatever we played at....mainly climbing over the wooden barrels. we used to pinch the corks out of the heavy duty sacks which they used to drop the barrels on when they delivered to the public houses. Ronnie had two drivers mates also...Colin Barker was one...his parents had a clothes shop on the Kings Road Great Barr nr Shady Lane....and the other was Johnny MacEwan who lived behind the shops,where the number 8 bus used to stop at Saltely Gate.....and I did attend a couple of christmas parties at Ansells....
Last but not least....my first job interview was at Ansells, office boy...and I think the person I seen was Mr Pace.....
 
I'm sorry to see that Heinz have gone through with their planned closure of the HP factory at Aston Cross. Another iconic landmark destined to the bulldozer methinks. I was fortunate to have visited the Ansells brewery when it was still there, another great recent loss. Anyone care to share some memories, good or bad, of HP or Ansells ?

Ian

If you go down the Forums and look for History in that you will have a subject Factories & Offices you will find thats got memories of Ansells &
HP and many more:)
 
Nice to see a few memories posted. Like John I remember the smell from the HP got right up the nose sometimes. I was lucky enough to 'visit' a great number of local factories in the late '70's early '80's . I was an apprentice with GPO telephones and had to go around quite a few places mending telephone faults. A lasting impression from Ansells was the staff 'canteen', there was a goldfish pond in the middle, and beer could be bought from the bar very cheaply, even cheaper if you were 'granted' staff beer tokens as a visitor.
I also have memories of the butchers shop with abattoir further down the Lichfield Road, Thompsons if I remember rightly. One particular memory involves sheep running amok up and down the road after escaping when being delivered, presumably for slaughter, must have been a similar time period late '70's.

Ian.
 
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