St Albans feels proud

This advert has the feel of the 1950s about it.
Another East End company, Marconi, with
sites at Longacres and Hatfield Road,
supplied a world market in communications
and electronics products.

There are many firms and their products which either have/had their roots in St Albans, or chose the city in which to expand.  I always remember my first seminar in georgaphy at Birmingham.  Our prof really impressed me by knowing some industrial process, product or company which thrived in every town from which my fellow students came.  I nearly caught her out, however.  She informed everyone, "that I lived very close to Shredded Wheat town."  Which of course it was; the station name plates had formerly stated 'Welwyn Garden City, the home of Shredded Wheat'.  It was produced by the firm having the trade name Welgar, a shortened form of the town's name.

There are, or were, dozens of much smaller firms, who, although they did not have a name on the national stage, were very familiar locally; two of them with names many people confused.  There was Tuckett's, a well-known local ironmongery and general stores from Camp and Hatfield roads.  And then there was Tuckey's.  Tuckey's owned a car sales and repair trade.  Today such a trade in the Broadway, St Peter's Street would be unthinkable.  But in the 1920s they sold Ford cars from where the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) premises are now.  The firm also developed a piece of ground on the corner of Grimston Road and Stanhope Road, where now ATS will provide exhausts and repair brakes.  A Tuckey's advertisement is on the welcome page.