IS it not time that we stopped referring to what remains of the once famous and internationally renowned furniture manufacturer, as 'Gordon Russell'?

I have no doubt that the move of the Guilds to Chipping Campden and the opportunity for the young Gordon Russell to meet with the likes of Paul Woodroffe, J C M Shepherd, Will and George Hart, must have been a significant influence on him as a designer and founder of a furniture manufacturer. The fact that in order to make things of beauty and quality, the environment played its part, Broadway filled this criteria admirably.

With generations of local craftsmen and designers working to meet these high ideals, the company prospered and achieved a world-wide reputation as a producer of high quality, cutting-edge modern furniture.

However, by the late eighties, the then management, running out of ideas and no longer a Russell family involvement, sold the company and its name to an entrepreneur salesman and the directors shuffled off with the Russell inheritance.

The upshot of all these shenanigans was the eventual resale to a multi-national company whose management had absolutely no understanding about making furniture. They then proceeded to deluge the company with 'consultants' and their ilk to prop it up. After spending millions of pounds they have managed with all this expertise to downsize this once-famous company to a handful of workers in a shack on an industrial estate in Worcester. The fabric will be left to the speculators and property developers. RIP Gordon Russell Ltd.

N J STRINGER, Salubrious, Broadway.