We’re backing Britain – again!

A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece about the sad loss of the 1960s Colt office building at the north end of New Lane.  The ‘We’re Backing Britain’ campaign from 1968 which spread rapidly down the lane to Kenwood, has been immortalised in a BBC Radio 4 play, first broadcast on Sunday 23rd September.  Available on BBC iPlayer at this link, it’s well worth forty five minutes of your time if you remember those days and the importance of New Lane to the town of Havant in the sixties.

The ‘We’re Backing Britain’ campaign was soon picked up by Kenwood, just down the lane from Colt, and I was delighted to see a terrific turnout at The Spring on Saturday 29th September for the launch of their six month Heritage Lottery funded Kenwood local history project.

Soon after my seventeenth birthday, I punched into the time clock at the Kenwood factory to raise funds for what would now be termed a gap year. Within an hour I was handed a roll of ‘Kenwood – We’re Backing Britain’ stickers, the ‘K’ of Kenwood picked out in the colours of the union flag.  The stickers, intended for the boxes of appliances leaving the production lines, were also proudly displayed on the flasks, lunchboxes, bicycles and cars of the workforce.

#kenwood #havant