wrg print The end of an era One indirect result of the pandemic has been the end of the long-time garden shed based Navvies printing operation, as John Hawkins explains duced booklets, fliers etc for Canal Societies, other groups and local businesses to raise money for WRG. We also produced and sold For many years we (I, and formerly my late Christmas cards and notelets, printed by me, wife) have been printing and distributing hand folded and packaged by my wife. Navvies magazine. All was going well... until along came Firstly, a little history: when we first Covid-19 and its derivatives. started the only machinery we used was a Unfortunately, as the initial Covid rules bench-mounted friction-fed A4 litho copier dictated, the company that I used in Watford and an A2 guillotine. We then moved onto an to produce the master plates for Navvies etc A4 suction fed machine. had to close part of the business, which As time marched on we acquired varimeant that they couldn’t process the plates. ous machines, either bought at good second- Later, as the rules were eased, the company hand prices, or bought by a WRG regional couldn’t draw-in sufficient work and it was group, or just donated to us. These inwound-up. Several other companies were cluded: a small booklet maker, a collating also having the same problems. machine and the latest addition to our setMeanwhile WRG had decided that (in up, a machine that takes collated sets, then order to limit our contact during the worst of staples, folds, trims the fore-edge and finally forms a ‘square back’. The purchase of the collating machine really helped with the production process; prior to its purchase Navvies was collated and stapled by hand. For many years Navvies was totally printed in black ink – with the exception of the cover sheet which had a second colour. We bought an A3 machine (which had a ‘second colour head’) and so I could have printed the full four colour by doing two passes (which may not have looked too good if I didn’t exactly match the settings), but soon after that Chris Griffiths (who has been a WRG volunteer and supporter for many years) from Stroudprint offered to print the covers in full four colour. These were then sent to me by courier in readiness for me to collate with the inner pages that I would have already printed. We also printed the bar-codes etc on the envelopes, and we printed other WRG related book2020: the press stands idle. John Hawkins takes up baking lets. As time went on we proJohn Hawkins
R. I. P. WRG Print (well at least in its old format)
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