Lionel Jones has just published his second book – shortly after celebrating his 100th birthday.
Lionel spent all his working life at Mawdsley’s in Dursley, a company specialising in DC motors and dynamos.
“I started there in 1942, and I worked as a detail fitter throughout the (Second World) war,” explained Lionel.
After the war he moved into a job in the drawing office before gaining electrical and mechanical qualifications and in 1968 he took over the role of head of the AC design department.
After his retirement in 1988 Lionel was asked what he was going to do next: “I said I’d like to write, having not done it before, so I started writing little articles and I got interested in family history, so I started writing about that.
“When Mawdsley’s closed down in 2000 I was told there was a lot of information about the company that had been dumped in a skip, so I went along and filled eight boxes.”
The paperwork, documents and photographs that Lionel rescued prompted him to write a book about the history of the company, doing everything from writing through to page layout.
“I hadn’t had anything to do with computers, so I joined a ‘nervous novices’ computer course at the old Technical College in Dursley,” said Lionel, with his first book, The Mawdsley Story published in 2010 by The Woodcock Press.
This year, to coincide with his 100th birthday, Lionel has published a second book, Rivers Mill & More, a sequel to The Mawdsley Story.
Lionel also sang in the choir at St James’ Church in Dursley for more than 85 years – joining when he was 11 in 1935 and only stopping in recent years due to the Covid pandemic.
Rivers Mill & More is available at Dursley Heritage Centre for £9.99 – the centre is open on Saturdays throughout January.
