The Moniton trading estate at Worting is a collection of small companies, some at the beginning of their lives, hoping to grow and become larger, repeating the history of what happened on this site in 1926 when Auto Tyre Services was formed, a small tyre company with dreams of becoming larger and more successful.

In time they grew and eventually became a leader of the country for the production of re-tread tyres, registering the company name of Blue Peter Retreads Ltd in 1951 from the name of one of the tyres they produced.

The company expanded on the site and eventually took over the whole area, producing in the region of two thousand tyres a week.

READ MORE: Origin of the name Basingstoke

Like most companies of the time, Blue Peter had a thriving football team and also used to provide social activities for it’s workforce and their families.

Blue Peter, although very successful, by it’s nature was rather dirty and smelly. The smell of burning rubber from the buffing machines permeated throughout the building and it was usual to emerge at the end of the day black with rubber, especially from the Chemical Shop where the powdered constituents were mixed. Blue Peter was unique in that it compounded it's own rubber on the premises. Although protection was provided it was nowhere near today’s strict regulations on the breathing in of harmful powders and, from this workshop especially, it was commonplace to emerge black from head to toe.

In the Mould Shop temperatures reached incredible levels in the height of Summer and workers had to work fast to service their row of moulds, all operated by steam, before once again being outside in the fresh air.

The production of steam did, however, have it’s advantages in that a large reservoir of water was formed in the guise of a swimming pool open to the workers who enjoyed a one-and-a- quarter hour lunch break and made the most of the warm water, even in the Winter when snow was on the ground.

SEE ALSO: The scorching summers of old

From the year 1938 an annual swimming contest took place between three Basingstoke companies, Kelvin Engineering, Auto Tyre Services and Thornycrofts with the prize called the KATT cup, named from an acronym of the company names.

Like any technology it is necessary to keep up with the latest trends and inventions, and also to keep the foothold in the market of the product that you created. This unfortunately Blue Peter did not do in both aspects. The company allowed the market to run on ahead as far as tyre advances were considered, and they also allowed their production to be dominated by a large contract from Michelin which, when withdrawn, caused the complete collapse of the company in the 1970s.

But Blue Peter’s demise has allowed smaller shoots of industry to emerge to go on to become tomorrow’s large companies – completing the industrial circle.

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