WORKERS at a Bedworth company have won a race against the clock to produce medals for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.
The final batch have now left Toye, Kenning and Spencer’s factory to be distributed to proud members of the Armed Forces, emergency services and prison service personnel.
Toye, Kenning and Spencer shared the striking of the 450,000 medals with two other Royal Warrant holders.
But all of the medal ribbon, an incredible 60 miles of it, has been woven at the factory in Newtown Road, Bedworth.
Production director Bernie Cope said: “We have been working flat out, but we finished on time.
“We started on the ribbon just before Christmas and the contract has been completed almost to the day.
“It has been a fabulous effort by everybody concerned, who all pulled their weight and put in that extra effort when it was needed.
“When they had to put in that extra surge they did so and kept on top of it.”
The regalia manufacturers won the prestigious contract to produce the official medals to mark the Queen’s 60 years on the throne.
“It was fantastic,” said Bernie Cope. “It came at the right time at the turn of the year when business is slack and gave us a lot of work when a lot of companies are struggling.”
The medals were struck at the firm’s Birmingham factory and then made up at Bedworth where the ribbons were woven.
“It was not just a tremendous effort at Bedworth, but at Birmingham as well, who also had to be right on time,” said Bernie Cope.
The 300-year-old firm can trace its roots back to the Hugenot weavers who fled religious persecution in France.
Chief executive Fiona Toye paid tribute to the workforce: “It is a measure of their skills that we were awarded the contract for the medals,” she said.
But the company are not strangers to Royal events over the years.
They have held a Royal Warrant since 1953 when they made the Queen’s breathtakingly beautiful Coronation robes.
Toye, Kenning and Spencer also produced the medals for the Queen’s Silver and Golden Jubilees which are now much-prized family heirlooms.
They have also woven all of the campaign medals for the British Armed Forces since the Boer War, including the Victoria Cross.
Inside the lid of each burgundy coloured Diamond Jubilee medal box is an inscription in gold that tells the holder that it was made at Toye, Kenning and Spencer.
