Stories

A warren of dimly-lit corridors leads to a set of rickety stairs that wouldn't be out of place in a fairground fun house.

Upstairs, hand engraver David Hacker is hunched at a cluttered workbench in an arid engraving workshop at historic Jewellery Quarter firm Toye Kenning & Spencer.

Rotary insignia

A black jeweller's loupe is welded to his right eye-socket and can-style headphones disguise his ears as he chisels delicately at a Rotary Club badge which is clamped on top of a sand-filled brown bench block.

It's one of thousands of the symbolic gold and blue 'inner wheel' lapel badges he has helped make since he joined the company 48 years ago.

The 63-year-old from Harborne is working at a bench crawling with 'gravers' - wooden-ended chiseling tools that look identical but which have subtly-different blades.

"I've made everything from lapel badges to the president's chain of office and use the same tools and techniques that have been used for hundreds of years," he explains.

"It's too expensive to make a 'die' for everything we do so a lot of work has to be finished by hand."

FA Cup Final

The 'die' he speaks of has nothing to do with snakes and ladders; he means the moulded metal which get mounted on to presses to shape or put patterns onto items.

Chelsea's John Terry clutches his medal

From British honours system gongs to the FA Cup final medals that Chelsea and Everton players clasped at Wembley in May 2009, he's worked on them all.

Judging by the glum expressions of David Moyes’ beaten players, a few of those Birmingham gongs might now be oxidizing in the Mersey!

"Keeping your concentration is important and can sometimes be difficult," adds David, "but listening to Radio 4 definitely helps!

"My family have been in the trade for more than 150 years and it was only natural to follow them into it.

"My auntie worked as a jobbing jewellery until she was 75 and only stopped when they pulled her workshop down! I'm not sure I'll carry on as long as her though."

Inside Toye's nearly a century ago.

Fear for their lives

Since 1911, when Rotary was founded, Toye Kenning & Spencer has been the official licensed supplier to the world's first service club organisation.

It's an important contract for the firm as Rotary International has more than 1.2 million members in 33,000 clubs worldwide and items made for them include flag pins, pendants, collarettes, chains of office, brooches and cufflinks.

"We are really proud of our long association with Rotary and it is great for the city that the international convention is being held here," says Christine Cushing, marketing sales manager for the firm, which employs 70 people in Birmingham and 200 across the company.

"Our work for them has moved with the times, too. As women have joined the Rotary we have had to make different items."

A medal made at Toye's

Cattle dealers

Adapting to the times is something that is at the core of the family business.

The protestant Toyé family were Huguenot refugees and moved to England in 1685 from France after Louis XIV revoked religious freedoms and applied punitive restrictions, causing many to fear for their lives.

The Toyés sailed into the Thames disguised as cattle-dealers and settled in Hope Town, now known as Bethnall Green, where they resumed the traditional family business of weaving, lace-making, embroidery and gold and silver wire making.

When demand for army and navy laces waned, caused by the change of uniform policy from the old spectacular style to the modern khaki (to make soldiers less of a target in battle) the firm again diversified.

In the late 19th century they started making metalwork items, such as buttons, and later became involved in manufacturing Royal insignia and sporting cups and badges, acquiring businesses along the way, including their Birmingham base opposite a cemetery in Warstone Lane.

Rows of moulded metal 'dies'

The factory itself dates back to Victorian times, and inside it feels like little has changed since then, other than the introduction of electricity. The bland 1960s facade is, I'm told, Grade II listed.

Offices and workshops are linked to dingy storerooms that contain a library of cylindrical metal. Wooden shelves are stocked with neat rows of grimy-looking 'dies'.

The metronomic drone of heavy machinery and generators bullies Lady GaGa's Poker Face into waspish background bass notes.

Goliath's corkscrew

Michael Puusta, from Moseley, has been at Toye's more than 20 years. The stamper is working in a room filled with machinery, much of which looks like it should be behind rope with descriptive plaques riveted to the walls.

Stamper Michael Puusta

He's operating a towering friction press that frowns at the ceiling and resembles Goliath's corkscrew.

"It's like a very big screw coming down very fast with a weight of about 250 tonnes so you don’t want to put your hand there!" he laughs, teasing me to try.

The 47-year-old quickly replaces his ear defenders and soon returns to work.

With the 100th Rotary International Convention from 18-24 June attracting up to 20,000 people to Birmingham, Michael and his colleagues have a lot on their plates.