Cefn without the works?
Post categories: History & Memories,ÌýHot Topics,ÌýWrexham
| 08:04 UK time, Thursday, 22 May 2008
Wrexham's Flexsys factory - or whichever name you've known it as over the years - has been around for as long as everyone can remember. And through thick and thin such as health concerns from people living in its shadow, it has long been a focus of local life and even regarded with affection.
Like the kind of relative you can curse one minute and hug the next, local people have taken it for it is because it has been there for living memory. In fact, it's one of our oldest factories. And so news yesterday that the factory will shut has come as a big surprise to the local community as well as the people who work there.
You could not have missed the story when it broke locally yesterday. It was picked up by the , the and and then again on the TV news.
Over the years we've received a number of different comments and stories about the factory which show the regard in which a chemical plant could be held.
There's the photo of the funeral procession of the factory owner Robert Fredinand Graesser in 1911 showing nearby streets lined with hundreds of people.
And we recorded local resident Lawrence Curphey reciting his poem, There was a terrible smell, with a kind of affection and humour for the memory - of a smell that used to emanate from the old Monsanto's plant.
Lawrence's poem triggered a lot of memories like Barry Brookes who wrote: "Oh, the memories of that awful smell! I was a 14 year old lad in 1956, visiting Cefn Salvation Army Corps as a member of the Dudley Young Peoples' Band. We took one step from the coach, and nearly fainted from the dreadful stench. To make matters worse, the kind members of the corps had prepared a fish and chip supper for us. The combined aroma was something to be believed!"
Yesterday, reading the reactions of the people closest to the factory closure story, it seemed now there is little hope that the factory and the jobs can be saved.
So, will it be missed, or will you be glad to see the back of it? You can share your reaction to the factory closure announcement in our Cefn Mawr guide and/or use Memoryshare to pass on recollections about working there or living next to the works.
