Business News


...The Griffin Report from page 17 “The world wants to buy quality,


high standards and expertise. We are not here to take away tradition, we are future-proofing it. There is an old adage of business, ‘buy cheap, buy twice.’ “But if you carry on the same


way, you will fizzle out. You have to have interaction with your customers’ needs and listen to them. You have to be aware of your customers’ needs and limitations. “It is evolution rather than


revolution. It’s not easy, sometimes the trading environment works in your favour, sometimes it is very tough. We are now in a world market, not a parochial market, at one time you were just competing with British companies.” Firmin and Sons are part of the


wider £7m turnover Kashket Group, itself family-run. Extraordinarily, the badge and button maker has only had four family owners throughout its long and distinguished history. Away from the pomp and


circumstance of the Royals, Firmin boasts more than 2,000 customer accounts, including supplying insignia products to Government departments, from the Home Office to the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Office. Its order book includes buttons for MCC members at Lord’s,


‘We go all the way from the time of Cromwell and the restoration of Charles the Second through to the present day’


products for staff at Claridges, the Dorchester, the Ritz, work with embassy staff, prisons, police and fire – and there’s even a rare slice of Cromwellian expertise still in place at the firm’s Newtown headquarters. The company’s 360-year-old blacksmith’s elm is cut from an elm tree and its springy texture is used


to absorb the shocks from blows to shape metal objects, like brooches and buckles. It is still in occasional use today on the Firmin shop floor, more than 360 years after the nation’s brief existence as a republic. “You will see Firmin and Kashket


products all over the UK but work does not just come to us – we have


MAIN PICTURE: Tony Kelly with the original die used to make buttons for the officers of the White Star Line


LEFT: A hand-built helmet destined for a Household Cavalry trooper


to compete. Our product range is very specialised – we are a niche company, fulfilling a need which is still required. “We go all the way from the time


of Cromwell and the restoration of Charles the Second through to the present day. But the impressive thing is that we are still a manufacturer today. “This company is not a museum,


it is a working business. The state still wants to turn out in its Sunday best and that is where we as a company play our part.”


18 CHAMBERLINK October 2019


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