THANKS to everyone who has been in touch lately following my columns about Crosfields.

Last week I wrote about Warrington’s transporter bridge, which linked two Crosfields soap and chemical works. Hopefully we’ve seen a rise in the number of ‘friends’ of the transporter bridge as a result.

Keep your thoughts and memories coming, please, and as always I’ll share them here.

Let’s return this week to Crosfields chairman Tony Curtis (as you will recall, dad of screenwriter Richard).

I was contacted by Arthur Kemp who provided the following lovely recollection which will be of interest to Blackadder fans.

Arthur says: “A little snippet of information for you about Tony Curtis. My late older brother Joe Kemp took over the job as chairman’s chauffeur from Jack Jones after Jack retired.

“My brother said that Mr Curtis was a gentleman and really good to work for. Some evenings he would take guests to the Curtis home and, if it was a party night, my brother would help out serving drinks.

“He always said that Mr and Mrs Curtis were really friendly and not at all like so many bosses.”

He continues: “My brother was the chauffeur until Unilever made the job redundant after Tony Curtis left.

“My brother also said the name Tony Curtis was chosen because he was advised to choose a more pronounceable name. He saw a poster advertising a film starring Tony Curtis, so he decided on that.”

Arthur says his nephew Paul Kemp worked for a few weeks at Crosfields with Richard Curtis when both were on holiday from university.

He says: “He said that the usual morning greeting in the department was ‘Good morning, peasant’.

“Maybe Richard Curtis remembered that when writing Blackadder.”

You may be right there, Arthur. There is a scene in the first series, The Black Adder, where Rowan Atkinson and Baldrick (Tony Robinson) stroll through a mediaeval market and Black Adder greets people with ‘Morning, peasant’.

It’s interesting to note that this first series was written by Richard Curtis and Rowan Atkinson. One can imagine Richard filing away the ‘peasant’ greeting in his memory bank and dredging it up when he sat down to write the scripts with his uni pal Rowan.

This first series didn’t do so well. The Blackadder character was wimpy, while Baldrick was the more knowing and scheming one.

By the second series, set in Elizabethan England, those roles were reversed and the show took off.

Thanks Arthur, for getting in touch.

Please keep your memories coming. An advance warning: next week I’m going to stir up memories and recollections of Greenalls brewery.