TWO of the most powerful men in the world at the time pause to look at the latest high-tech machinery produced by a Bolton firm,

Prime Minister Harold Wilson and his Soviet counterpart Alexei Kosygin were visiting the Moscow Exhibition when they stopped to find out more about the first MDT 3 Drawtwister which was being made by Dobson and Barlow Ltd.

The Bolton textile machinery manufacturers had won a major contract to supply specialist spinning machines to a £30m synthetic fibre plant which was being built in Mogilev in what is now Belarus.

Dobson and Barlow were based at Kay street and in its heyday, the company employed around 1,600 people.

It was one of the largest producers of munitions in Bolton during the war having switched production for the war effort.