"LIFE-jackets made in Bolton since the dark days of the war have travelled all over the world in troopships and come back to a small workroom in Saville-st., behind the bus depot, to be renovated and sent out again," reported the paper in January, 1949.
The story and picture was headlined "To save Servicemen's lives at sea", and continued: "The firm which makes them fills the stout canvas covers with kapok, a substance like silky cotton wool.
"Wearing one of these life-jackets, a man will float for 48 hours or more. In fact, a similar life-jacket tested in a tank in Liverpool in 1936 is still keeping a weight equivalent to that of a man from sinking.
"At the Bolton works the kapok, which comes from the pods of a tropical plant (remember the 'fur' inside a bean-pod?) is cleaned and packed into tins to keep it from mixing with foreign substances until it is ready to go into the canvas bags which, with the shoulder straps, make up the life-jacket.
"Each jacket is inspected and passed by an inspector who comes from Liverpool for the purpose. Nothing but the best will do when a life may depend on it."
The problem is, that as with many stories of that time, the paper did not print the name of the firm involved. However, I have looked in the 1932 Tillotson's Bolton Directory - seemingly the last one before the Second World War - and the only firms in Saville Street at the time (it is just off Shifnall Street, off Bradshawgate) were Thomas Taylor, Ltd, quilt and toilet manufacturer, Saville Mill; George E. Wood, Ltd., cotton waste merchants; 46, George W. Bardsley & Co., Ltd, cotton yarn and waste merchants; 38, Fred Lomax, haulage contractor; also 38, Bolton Motor Coach Owners' Association; 8, William Smithies, cotton waste merchant.
No doubt a couple of those firms can be sidelined automatically, but the life-jackets might well have been made by one of the remainder.
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