MADAM,

I was intrigued by your front page article on the platinum wedding anniversary of Ken and Irene Brown.

Apart from being impressed at reading it was their platinum anniversary, I was interested to hear that Mr Brown had been managing director of the uniform clothing manufacturing company Compton’s.

I assume this is the Compton Son’s and Webb who bought Lotery’s in Newport at the end of the 1950s.

My grandfather, William Thomas Saunders was a principal of Compton’s at the beginning of the last century and prospered as a result of the First World War.

In the 1930s his eldest son, my uncle William Marin Saunders joined the firm at their factory in Swindon and was transferred to the Lotery’s as managing director when that business was taken over. My uncle moved to the Old Bank House in Usk and remained there after retiring in the 1970s.

Lotery’s factory did not last much longer; the site on the banks of the Usk succeeding to new motorway junctions in the 1980s.

My congratulations and best wishes to Mr and Mrs Brown. My wife and I have some way to go to reach our platinum anniversary having married in 1960 but God willing, here’s looking forward to 2030.

Barry Saunders

(Tintern)