TO Ipswich on Monday for the launch of new machines by Ransomes Jacobsen. Hadn’t been to the Suffolk plant for few years, and it takes a return visit to remind yourself about the enduring nature of the UK grass machinery’s ‘signature’ brand. There might be the Stars and Stripes flying at the entrance, and the factory surrounded by a few more retail stores and fast food outlets, but this is still a strong ‘beating heart’ of mower making in this country.

For any company, no matter what the industry, to be still be manufacturing in the same locality for over 200 years is a rare feat. To still be manufacturing mowers for more than 180 years is nothing short of miraculous.  Sometimes we can take our heritage for granted.

In the 1990s, Ransomes was all over the papers – for all the wrong reasons. I well remember the talk of the show at SALTEX in 1992 when Ransomes shares were trading at just 7p. A new management team under Peter Wilson was installed 1993 to rescue the company, and almost certainly prepare it for sale.

In 1997, Textron made an offer for the company worth around £137 million, a deal which went down to wire when the required 90% acceptance level by preference shareholders was only reached with hours to go until Textron’s offer expired. The deal was subsequently finalised on 30 January 1998.

Even then, the manufacturing plant was not safe. Within a couple of years, Textron announced plans to shut down manufacturing at Ipswich in August 2002 – and even started talks with the unions.

However the management team at Ipswich, led at the time by Steve Chicken rapidly drew up a feasibility study, and flew to the States to present their proposals to the Textron board. Their plans were accepted and Textron withdrew the closure threat.  One of the three-man team who flew to the States on that plant-rescue mission was David Withers, now president of Jacobsen in the US.

The new machine for the municipal market launched this week was the latest in a series of commercial mowers built on a common platform. The first mowers were built at Ransomes in 1832, but the design engineers then would surely have had features such as Q-Amp speed reactive steering and SureTrac traction control systems furthest from their mind.

There is one common denominator though. From first to the latest, their role is the same. They both cut grass!

From one Ipswich manufacturing power-base to another.  Stopped to ‘chew-the-cud’ with Andrew Rodwell at SCH Supplies (once my sat-nav had recovered from overload - off the beaten track hardly describes it). Never less than entertaining with an off-centre view of the industry - and life in general – Andrew says that business is good, very good. “Recession, what recession?” he said. “We’ve been busy year in, year out”.  But then, his manufacturing schedule would reduce most self-respecting production managers to tears. “It’s all one-offs – and if someone wants something, we’ll make it,” he says.

In a strange way, although there is virtually no comparison between Ransomes and its tiny neighbour, SCH Supplies, there is a palpable bond, a passion and love of our industry which is hard to describe – and impossible to bottle.