A work in progress. We stripped this one down and sent it away to be sandblasted and then powder coated. Slowly rebuilding…

This is Dads old pillar drill. It drills slow and gentle, which is just what you need on some of the vintage machines that come in for attention.

An original Bernina 530 spare parts catalogue. We used these ‘old’ catalogues to order all the parts we needed – back in the day.

The back of the Bernina 530 spare parts catalogue.

A Singer 216 Book.

Me at the barbers – early 1960’s.

Bambers Regent Road shop in Salford. You can just see it on the right hand side. I started work here as a ‘Saturday Boy’.

Bambers Deansgate Shop. A photo from the 1980’s. Tony Hammett and our kid are standing outside with the vans…

A Companion Sewing Machine. This one came into the workshop for a service (Oct. 2018). Nice little machine.

Dad – Corporal Bamber from his War Office days.

Dad. In his ‘last’ shop.
Dad had many shops, over the years. And in our present (Eccles) shop, he came back to his roots – to Salford.
(1931 – 2016)

Bernina Repair.
This one came into the workshop in August 2019. It still carries the old company transfer. You can see the addresses of the two old shops.
Dad would set me the task of dipping the transfers into a saucer of water, and then placing them on all the machines. It still looks good…

A Pfaff 360 sewing machine.
This one came into the workshop for repairs and a service. They don’t make them like this any more…

Mum – looking beautiful…

Dad – sat on the roof of, what I am reliably informed was, Frankensteins Mill in Salford. He worked there for a while as the sewing machine mechanic. Look at the size of his mitts

Dad in younger days cleaning his motorbike behind the house on ‘The Height’ in Salford.
I wish I could get hold of that registration.
GBA 397

Needlework Classroom. For many years – from the 1950’s on – we used to visit schools & colleges and service all the sewing machines in-situ.
They don’t seem to teach it much these days.

Regent Square. Just round the corner from the old Regent Road shop. This photo is from one of the Salford groups on Facebook.

I can’t quite remember which shop this was. But if I had to guess – I’d say it was the old Urmston shop. There again, it could be the old Stockport shop…

Our kid – Steve Bamber looking quite dapper.

Another machine that came into the workshop for repairs. Sold by Dad, probably in the 60’s. We’d moved on from transfers to bright gold stickers.

Me and ‘our kid’ on the road – somewhere near Ipswich delivering another Brother PR embroidery machine.

Alans Adana. Dad came home one day when I was around 12 or 13. He’d taken an Adana printing press in part exchange for a Bernina. ‘Learn how to use this’, he said. I did. And for years I printed all the company stationery.

Bambers Company Seal.

Singer 221K Instruction Book

Alan & Steve at a Brother meeting at Rushton Hall, in Kettering. September 2022.

Country lanes.
Steve and I are often to be found tootling along some country lane or other. Wednesday is our day for delivering & collecting the Brother PR embroidery machines. It takes us all over the country – from Elgin to Plymouth.

Sewing machine parts cabinets. Dad had a number of these cabinets in his Regent Road shop. A few years ago I bought one or two more, cleaned them all up, and brought them back into service.

My office.

Wilcox & Gibbs instruction book

Bradbury Sewing Machine

Alan & Steve Another Brother do at the Carden Park Hotel, Chester. September 2018.

Singer 216 sewing machine. This one came in for repair October 2018.

A Bradbury from Dads collection. Over many years Dad collected a number of ‘vintage’ sewing machines. We have quite a few of them on display in the shop.

Faudels London

Frister & Rossmann