The Magic Polish Company traded from premises in Western Road, Leicester near to the railway arches (off Braunstone Gate). The single storey building has survived.

I became an employee of the company in 1959 on my demobilisation from the army, and was employed as a “Van Driver/Packer”. My Austin van was garaged in one of the railway arches adjacent to the building, the arch next to it being the store for sacks of wax and other materials.

The company made not only high quality wax polishes but also black enamel paint, and they were also one of the first to use aerosol cans for their products. Although it was a small family business and did things the old-fashioned way, it was quite innovative being at the forefront when it came to new ideas.  

One of their initiatives were window cleaning products containing DDT which were very useful for polishing around window-frames, killing many of the flies that seemed to always be in evidence in the warm weather. Also, the company produced a polish containing Silicon which was a another new innovation back in the fifties.

This bottle, dating to about 1885-1895, was found in an old dry stone wall in Plymouth in 2004.  It measures 90mm (height) by 45mm (diameter )

The Magic Polish Company produced a quite extensive range of polishes, which included black lead polish for fire grates, DDT polish (which was unique to them), lavender perfumed polish and red wax polish for floor tiles.

They also marketed a system of shoe stretchers which went out to private purchasers, but the bulk of their output was to Woolworths with whom they had a large contract, and without which they would probably not have been able to continue for as long as they did. Their other brand name was “Quickshine”

They also had a contract with the local Education Authority and part of my job was to deliver polish in large tubs to schools in and around the county.

It was a small family business run by a family named Potter, the owners being an ex RAF man and his spinster sister. In Kelly's Directory for 1957, the Managing Director is given as Mr Keith Potter.

Mr Potter was (perhaps still is) a typical ex-RAF character complete with “Wing Co” moustache. He drove a white Jaguar (the model with the enclosed rear wheels) and his sister drove a black Standard Eight. I was asked, occasionally, to take the Standard to a Filling Station near the Braunstone Gate end of Western Road to have the oil checked, and almost invariably found that the dipstick registered empty.

The company was eventually merged with J.Goddard and Sons Ltd, the famous silver polish company in Leicester based in Nelson Street.

There were absolutely no machines at all in the factory. All the mixing of the ingredients was done by hand as was the filling of the tins, and that, in itself, was very interesting. There were, I think, three women in the filling department, and the process started by them laying out in rows, the empty tins on long flat-topped benches, perhaps fifty tins at a time, with the lids off, of course. Then they ladled out of a copper the molten polish into a jug and poured the mixture into the tins with great rapidity and skill, never overfilling, refilling the jug as necessary until all the tins were full. Then about an hour or so later, when the polish had set they picked up a pile of lids, perhaps a dozen or so, and went along the line, putting them on, again very rapidly. (We in the Packing Department always knew when they had got to that stage as it sounded like several horses clip clopping along). Then they packed the tins in two-dozen piles and wrapped them in brown paper before placing them on a rack, ready for when we needed them for an order.

I remember that one day the man who formulated and mixed the ingredients for the polishes, and who was also the Boiler man (at that time, the factory had one of the usual tall chimneys), tested various proprietary brands on a piece of slate, and our polishes beat them all hands down. I often wondered, in later years, whether Goddards knew that to be the case, and were worried about the competition.

The man in charge of the packing and dispatch, Archie Warren, was also the key holder for the factory and lived opposite at, I believe 106 Western Rd. He was a wizard with radios and was often asked to undertake repairs for the staff and anyone else. 

In the office were three or four women; there was the boiler man/mixer, the three women in the filling room, and the foreman in charge of dispatch, us two packers, (and in my case, also van driver), and also an elderly man who seemed to do odd jobs, and sweep up. There was also a man named Smith, very dapper, and always in a three-piece suit and trilby hat, who came each day, and went into the office and then greeted us before leaving. I think he was a Director, and possibly related to the Potter family.

The original factory chimney is no longer. I think it must have been demolished in the 1960s. It served the large industrial boiler that provided not only the heat for the factory but also for melting the waxes for the products. 

Everywhere is now boarded up, and is, I think, due for demolition, as is the Upperton Road bridge where the arches were.

It was a very friendly place to work in although the wages were poor. All the pouring was by hand into the tins, and I can remember, even now, the speed with which the two women poured the hot polish, straight out of the melting vats, and the all pervasive, though not unpleasant, smell of lavender essence. 

Chromed Metal Shoe Stretcher  manufactured by the  Magic Polish Company