Thursday, April 11, 2013

Hobbies of the Flimby New Balance Men


This morning I found myself on the 'Visit Flimby' website which is the love child of New Balance and the West Cumbria tourist board.  Flimby is a town on the border of the Lake District and home to the UK's New Balance factory, and indeed you can 'visit Flimby' and have a tour around the factory which is exactly why I found myself on the site in the first place on a rainy Thursday morning when a day trip elsewhere is an attractive prospect. The site is a great read with some beautiful photographs and videos (by North West photographer Percy Dean) documenting the community and some of the men who work in the factory.

I'm always interested in people who are dedicated to a particular hobby- I wrote about hobbies here last year- and these videos focus on the curiosities of the New Balance factory employees. Bill climbs the local peaks when he's not working, Wayne races pigeons, Mark plays in a band and Roy who is a leather cutter during the day, is a fan of Northern Soul and still has the recordings he used to make from the balcony of the Wigan Casino in 1973. You can watch the other videos here but naturally the irresistible pairing of New Balance and Northern Soul was too good an opportunity to miss for posting Roy's video:

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Save Flimby for my northern town visit- been meaning to do this for many years! Hope all is well,

J