Kidderminster carpet museum

We were invited to the Kidderminster Carpet museum. Many “you know how to live” and “you lead such an exiting life these days” comments were aimed our way lol. But to be fair we managed to involve beers so all was good lol. Joking aside we actually had a great time we went there with Matt Bourne, Rob Harper, Peter Trimmer and Simon Johnson in the morning.

True to form Lee was the first to arrive and I kept winding him up saying that the carpet museum isn’t open to members of the public until the end of the month and nobody will turn up lol.

I am not going to mention much about the museum itself as you can watch the video I made and go there yourselves. We had the privilege of meeting the managing director of Brintons Kidderminster plant from back in the day when the carpet trade in Kidderminster was booming. We also met properly Mr John Hopkins, who wrote and still owns the old nicf manual. (Hope I got that right?) He then twisted our arm for a quick pint before taking us around the Brockways Carpet factory after the museum visit.

On our way out of the factory I met NICF member #001 (and disgracefully I can not remember his name now) but all these people with such great histories were nothing other than legendary to us, offering so much help and showing us a tremendous amount of respect.

This was hugely welcomed by me as I must admit I had started to loose faith in the entire trade due to the sheer wrong guy, wrong time, wrong place situation that I have sadly been through recently.

I actually started my fitting career in Kidderminster, long after the good old days but it is still nice to be able to say this. I must admit I am not a fan of struggling with 4 and 5 meter wide carpets and wish I could turn the clock back to the good old days of skilfully joining body width carpet.

All in all it was a great day. I even managed to photograph Rob Harper in a Carpet Styles hat lol. I am looking forward to our next trade related social event,  cause lets be honest work and no play quite simply sucks!

Kidderminster Carpet Museum