OLDEST Signmaker? Edmund is new contender for the title
In our July/August issue we threw down the challenge to find the oldest working sign maker in the UK with Gordon Waylett of Eurographics at 81 years old. Now Edmund Pearson has upped the ante, he’s 83 and still working full time at a company he set up along with his wife Margaret (81), Signs and Plastic Products in Middlesbrough. Signs and Plastic Products celebrates its 50th anniversary this
year. Today the company provides a range of signs, vehicle and window graphics, labels, engraving, and screen printing, as well as HSE books, posters, and hi-viz clothing. Prior to starting Signs and Plastic Products, Edmund had a
variety of different jobs. When barely a teenager he volunteered with the air raid Messenger service before becoming an assistant to the engineer in a bakery and, as soon as he was old enough, he served an apprenticeship as an electrical fitter with Middlesbrough Dock Power Station. Ambitious and keen for new experiences he then went to India to work as an engineer on a tea plantation in Assam and later for an electrical supplier in Calcutta. “India was a marvellous experience. For six years I had the
kind of life you could only dream of. We worked hard and played hard. It was very social, lots of parties and mixing with aristocracy,” says Edmund. “But I wanted to get married so in 1954 I came home to Middlesbrough and met Margaret who became my wife. I didn’t want to bring a wife out to India, so we stayed in England.” But Margaret had ambitions and wanted to experience life
abroad too and consequently the couple went to Vancouver, Canada, in 1956 where Edmund got a job in electrical sales. “I took the job because I wanted to learn about business. I wanted more than the life that being a craftsman would offer.
“.. one of the oldest students to achieve a City & Guilds qualification” Edmund Pearson, pictured at his desk in the early 1970s.
My ambition was to be in business on my own, but I soon realised it wasn’t going to happen in the electrical supply trade,” explains Edmund. Therefore, when the couple returned
home from Canada in 1960 Edmund looked at other trades and began by selling shop flags, machinery and shelving to the numerous local shops in and around Middlesbrough. Then Edmund saw a potential new line of business, and Signs and Plastic Products came into its own. “These shops needed signs so I got hold
of ICI to find out about Perspex. From there I learnt to cut Perspex letters, which I sold along with the necessary fixings,” says Edmund. Another opportunity presented itself in the
late 1960s which gave Edmund a brainwave that was a key factor in the success of Signs and Plastic Products for years to come. “Ozalid had brought out a system
Edmund and wife Margaret (who also still works within the business), about to embark on a two week venture to gain business from Europe in 1973/4.
60 Sign Update ISSUE 132 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2011
whereby a photo could be transferred onto film. It dawned on me that I could take a photo of alphabets in different styles of letters, put them on an enlarger machine and zoom to whatever size was needed. We could then cut perfect letters at any size. I think it was the first time that had been done,” he says. Inspired, Edmund realised that with a
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