The South Midlands Area Jigsaw

No, not the many and diverse strands that the lives of our area members weave for themselves but the product of rather an unusual visit made by six members and a further five non members to a remote ex milking parlour in the depths (or should I say heights) of Devon on Friday 19th September.

When Ian Leighton-Boyce first suggested this about a year ago I admit to being both sceptical and intrigued. Google and Tomtom were in agreement that a 65 mile trip each way was needed to get to Ashmore, a few miles from Shaftesbury, however neither of them bothered to mention a series of hairpin bends on a 20% incline made all the more interesting by the presence of thick mist/low cloud. Thank goodness there was little traffic as getting round the bends in a stretched Mercedes that needed both sides of the road!

Having all arrived at JHG Jigsaws we were introduced and entertained, mainly by the co-owner Julie Wilkins with able assistance latterly from her business partner Brian Knight into the making of jigsaws, starting with the lid of the box they are retailed in. After a demonstration two members of the group (mother and daughter) had a go making reasonable attempts with a little bit of generational rivalry and suitable comments from the audience. A further four stages took us to the sheet of card with a picture on it being cut into 1000 pieces. Most of us had a go on this machine, made to look simple to operate by Brian, and whereas we all came away with a full compliment of fingers, the results of the cutting were definitely mixed.

Ian had supplied the factory with a collage of pictures from previous South Midland area meets and that was what we had followed round the various stages of production. Having all placed our jigsaws in their boxes, the final process was to shrink wrap them. Again we were encouraged to participate after having been regaled with the tale of the machine’s previous owner who lost a finger using it with the wound being quarterised due to the heat created by the machine.

Clutching our still warm shrink wrapped boxes we had this wonderful one & a half hour visit crowned by homemade Victoria Sandwich (choice of 2 flavours) and a cup of tea whilst putting Julie through a question and answer session. It transpires that this factory is one of only two production units in the country producing about 100,000 jigsaws a year to many household names including Royalty with, at the other end of spectrum, small clients such as a newsagent in Portishead near Bristol who is retailing a collage jigsaw featuring notable buildings in that town including the local Scout Hut!

We were made to feel really welcome during our visit and it was wonderful to see two people (with one employee) obviously succeeding in a business, that they had no previous knowledge of, purely by hard work and attempting things that were initially well outside their "comfort zones".

Fortunately by the time we left and were met at Compton Abbas airfield by Robin Moseley most of the mist had cleared allowing us to enjoy the view to the West whilst light aircraft taxied, arrived and departed. Quite a unique venue for an extended lunch that was thoroughly enjoyed by all.

I was amused to see one red light aircraft with the registration G-GRRR. A few months ago my dog was featured in "Supply a Caption" , that registration, to my mind, embodied him : 11 kilos of muscle and vocal opinion!!

Finally on that rather flippant note, I would like to thank Ian for arranging the day for us. Maybe we could have communal jigsaw assembling event next year.

Paul Coombs

Posted in Events on the 30th October 2014 at 10:07pm.