The Whittaker Bros. Story
(Eric gets his skates on)
By Stuart Dale & John Whittaker
It was 1948, the UK had just come through a gruelling world war and the country was
on its knees. Eric Whittaker had returned to his civilian life as an engineer and was
working as a draughtsman for a company in Stockport, Cheshire. Eric, having a young
family to support, would do extra bits of engineering work in the evenings and
weekends. It wasn ' t long before he had to rent himself a small workshop to cope with
the ever increasing demand for his skills. He gradually kited his workshop out with a
lathe and a milling machine and other tools of the trade.
One day, a man came to see Eric. He ran a roller skating rink in Cheetham Hill in
Manchester and was looking for someone who could make some spare parts and repair
his stock of worn out skates. Roller-skating was a very popular pastime in the 30s and
40s and this was going to be quite a big job. Eric took on the job and beavered away
for a few weeks until he had finally repaired the last of the skates.
On collecting the last batch of skates, the customer told Eric that he was very
pleased with the work he had done. He said he had a friend in Blackpool who ran the
dodgem cars at the Olympia funfair, and he was also finding it hard to locate spare
parts for his dodgem cars, and would Eric be interested in going over to Blackpool to
meet him. The man he was talking about was the legendary Blackpool showman Tom
Catlow. Little did Eric know that this was to be that golden moment when his life' s
path would be changed forever.
The usual supplier of dodgem spares, Hawtins of Blackpool, had closed down
their amusements production works and sold off all remaining parts and equipment in
a giant auction in December of 1947. Eric, who was still working in his spare time,
managed to build up quite a range of dodgem car spares, and as you can imagine the
word soon got around about this new supplier.
Things were looking so good that Eric decided to take a selection of his spares
and exhibit them at the annual Amusement Trade Show in London. Despite the fact
that his first 'stand' was no bigger that a card table, he managed to secure enough
orders and enquires to prompt him into working for himself full time. Shortly after
that he took on his brother Paul, who was to become the company's secretary, and the
two of them set to building up the company.
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