A MAN who fled Nazi persecution in Germany created Newman’s Footwear, a once major industry in Blackburn.

Walter Newman had created what had become the largest slipper factory in Europe in 1920, which at its height, produced 120,000 pairs of slippers, sandals and casuals a day.

When he arrived in Blackburn with his family in 1935, he was persuaded by his English agent – he had exported all over the world from Frankfurt – to begin manufacturing here.

Aided by Blackburn Corporation, production began in a disused cotton mill in 1936.

The manufacturing unit was Griffin works and shoes would go from there to a warehouse in Brookhouse for distribution.

His son, Jack, joined him in the business in 1940 and following his father’s death became managing director.

In 1965 he employed 650 mainly women and men and knew every one of them by their Christian names – and it was a real family firm, with mothers, fathers, sons and daughters involved in the various departments.

Works director was then Norman Hurst and works manager Leslie Sewell; Leila Rosenberg was in charge of home trade sales and a director of one of the subsidiary companies.

Jim Burke one of the original employees in 1936 – he was appointed general manager, which meant he recruited labour, dispatched goods, paid the wages and gave first aid treatment! – had retired in 1959, but still gave a few hours a week in sales.

Other workers who had been with the company since its birth and completed nearly 30 years in 1965, included Annie Bass, who had risen to become personnel manager; Mrs Mary Walmsley, who had worked as a socker for almost three decades and Eddie Croasdale, who began in the dispatch department and had become a foreman.

Then there was Mrs Sally Melia, who worked in the finishing room, Hilda Edmundson, who was a sole sewer in 1936 and had knowledge of the entire operations in her department and Miss Elsie Towneley, a socker and sole sewer, who remembered that on the first Christmas, Mr Newman had given each worker a free pair of slippers.

The firm also ran a long service scheme, by which workers received annual cash gifts, £1 for each year, at a special dinner dance.

n THERE’S also the story of a man who climbed a mountain in his bedroom slippers in the 1950s.

Not quite to the top – but at least 18,000 feet up Mount Kilimanjaro.

Afterwards, the climber wrote to the manufacturers of his three-year-old footwear, saying: “My warmest congratulations, they have been asked to do, with great success, what no slippers should be asked – to climb one of the most notoriously rough and rugged mountain paths in the world.

“Nailed boots are the usual wear. I had blistered my feet in the approach climb.

“I used my slippers and claim to be only man who has climbed to 18,000 feet in bedroom slippers ... and they survived their unfair gruelling marvellously!”

And the makers of these super slippers?

Yes, you’ve guessed it, Newman’s Footwear!