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The author of The Feuding Foden Family and ERF family friend explains how the Foden and ERF firms' stories might not be as accurate - or clean - as they seem
I MOVED WITH MY parents and sister to live in the village of Elworth, just over a mile from Sandbach, on 3 January 1948. It was my 10th birthday.
It might have been only three miles away but it was a new world to me. I soon discovered the local cricket field, a truck factory right in the middle of the village named Fodens, and a famous brass band. Curiously, 2 miles up the road was another truck manufacturer named ERF, run by part of the same Foden family.
I was soon put to rights as to how this strange state of affairs had come about. Brothers Billy Foden, born 1868, and Edwin Richard Foden (ERF), born 1870, had both worked for their father, Edwin (senior), who had passed away in 1911. The Foden company built steam-powered road vehicles, probably the best in the world. Nearly 20 years after the founder's death diesel power started to find favour with operators and the debate between steam and diesel took off.
I was told that Billy Foden was something of a stick-in-the-mud and wanted to persist with steam, while younger brother Edwin was the progressive who wanted to pioneer diesel power. The two fell out, and Edwin left the family firm and set up ERF a mile away at Sandbach; an interesting story, but one which never seemed to convince me, even while I was still at school.
Six years later I began at Fodens as a student engineer apprentice; well it was only a hundred yards from door-to-door. I trained as an engineer, working in the drawing office and truck development department, then as production superintendent, finally becoming head of personnel with nearly 3,000 employees.
My various roles brought me close to all the members of the Foden family and their intriguing relationships. I tried to draw a family tree but it only made sense when I realised that both the founder and ERF had been married twice.
The falling out of the two brothers did not stack up, even though it was in...