Last week’s photographs of Trowbridge back in the day prompted a few memories from readers.

Gill Cooper’s photograph of the Chamber tree planting prompted Mike Berry to contact me to put names of some of the faces.

He names Jim Ladd on the left, then Sid French, Derek Noble, Vic Greaves, unsure of the next one, Eric Cochran, and possibly Pat Ladd. Thanks Mike – we are nearly there!

Onto another of Gill’s photos and this time it is the picture of Trowbridge railway station when it had a processing plant for Bowyers sausages. Long gone of course as have much of those station buildings.

Bowyers began in Trowbridge in 1805 when Abraham Bowyer opened a grocery shop. It later merged with Wiltshire Bacon and Harris in Calne. Bowyers also opened a unit at Innox Mill in Trowbridge in 1954. That business in turn was acquired by Northern Foods in 1985 which spelt the end of the bulk of the area’s bacon and sausage industries.

By 2001 Kerry Group bought out the firm from Northern Foods who by then had merged with Park Farms Bowyers and well the remaining firm has since been sold on more than once.

Back to the 1980s and Calne when the Harris Factory was torn down. Nick Baxter snapped an image in colour of the sad event. His photograph also reminds us of how popular the Ford Cortina was as there is one on the right of the photograph.

We’d love to see photos of your cars of the 1960s to the 1980s as so many are now classics.

The end of the Harris factory was a tragedy for the town with as many as 2,000 jobs reliant on its prosperity at its height so when it went it put a huge strain on the town. It had begun as a family butchers in the 19th century growing into a major industry by the turn of the century which had its own power station.

Fast forward to the 1970s and the recession of that period and the loss of its Marks & Spencer contract and the rise of the Danish bacon industry and the writing was on the wall.

In 1982 the factory was closed and two years later the last rites were read out leading to its demolition.