England - a nation to take pride in

Last night I was privileged to have been invited to a dinner where I heard of the manufacturing tradition of our region and found that, despite a marked lack of apparent will on the part of our political types over the past years, manufacturing is still alive and well, especially within the West Midlands.

The success that is the Acme whistle company, manufacturers of the distinctive police whistle and the world famous 'thunderer' - the whistle that is football refereeing! The success of the Morgan car company, a family run business that has been making superlative british sports cars and continues to keep this a much desired marque to this day. Expertise that means that wherever you go it's a sure fire bet that whatever is flying you there, driving you there or present when you get there has some link to the Midlands and manufacturing.

We are still very much a nation of engineers and manufacturers despite the trend towards importing rather than making and this is something, like England and St. George, that we need to celebrate and engage in a little bit of national pride over. Hadron collider? Yep, you'll find the seals in it were made in the Midlands (to 0.025 mm tolerance) - the list is endless - so take some pride in the fact that we are still a force to be reckoned with when it comes to doing stuff of the manufacturing kind.

Think I'm going to have to encourage our kids to do science and engineering - it's in our blood and I reckon is something we inherit from God - after all, He's pretty big when it comes to great design and brilliant manufacturing, isn't He?