Keith Turner’s fifty‑year Long Service Medal, awarded by the Clayworkers Institute in 2004, marked a lifetime shaped by the London Brick Company.

 

Keith was born in 1939 at 28 Churchill Close in Stewartby. His family had arrived in the village only a few years earlier, when his father, Herbert George Turner, accepted a position at Coronation Brickworks after its takeover by the London Brick Company in 1935. Herbert became foreman in the engineering department. He travelled from to Stewartby with two friends, Mr Atkins and Mr Pratt, all three men originally from the Peterborough area.

 

In 1954, at the age of fifteen, Keith followed his father into the London Brick Company as an apprentice engineer. Engineering was a respected trade, but the brickworks offered many opportunities, and Keith soon noticed a setter vacancy on the large notice board at the entrance of the brickworks when returning home one evening. The work was physically demanding, but the piece‑rate system meant that a determined worker could earn far more than a basic weekly wage. Keith made the change, and before long he found himself earning more in five days than his father earned in seven, despite Herbert being a qualified engineer and on call every day of the week, night or day.

 

Keith was also a keen sportsman and a member of the Stewartby Fire Brigade, reflecting the close‑knit nature of the village and the many ways in which people contributed to its life.