STAFF old and new spent a day celebrating the work of one of Dursley's oldest surviving engineering companies.

Lister Shearing held a special open day last week to mark its centenary, a milestone achieved by very few other businesses still running in the town.

Displays of shearing equipment through the ages were on show and visitors were treated to a sheep shearing demonstration by professionals.

The message from current and former members of staff was that Lister Shearing was a great place to work, with most employees staying at the factory for their whole career.

Jack Ford, who has worked at the company for 20 years, said: "It is a unique company. A lot of people who work here have been here a long time. You actually enjoy coming to work."

Roy Smart, who worked at Lister Shearing for 30 years as a wood pattern maker before retiring, came back to see how things had changed.

"It has changed a lot since I worked here, we used to make the patterns out of wood, now it’s all plastic and machines. It is nice to come back and see it all again though."

The products the company makes have changed very little, but the processes to make them have changed immeasurably. In the quality control department where once men measured the products with old fashioned methods, today they have a machine that measures things to within one thousandth of a human hair.

Lister Shearing was set up in 1909 by Robert Ashton Lister as part of R.A. Lister, which built diesel engines.

In 1986 the company was sold to Lister Petter, who didn’t want to continue with the shearing department and three men saved the fate of Lister Shearing. Alun Williams, David French and Ray Grimwood saved it from closure before in 2003 the company joined with American shearing firm Wahl.

Today Lister Shearing is still the only company in Britain making shearing equipment.

Mr Williams said: "Lister Shearing has an immense history. It is all down to the staff, without their skills, effort and dedication we would not be here today and we are happy to say we are still doing very well."

Mr Williams said he was really pleased with how the centenary event had gone and was ‘gobsmacked’ that over 170 people turned up to help them celebrate.

On sale at the event, held last Friday, was a new book about Lister Shearing's history written by Mr Williams and local history writer David Evans, called ‘A cut above the rest’.

Mr Evans, of Dursley, said: "When I was asked to do this book I thought, what am I going to write about sheep shearing? But it turned out to be extremely interesting."

An exhibition about the history of Lister Shearing is now on display in the heritage centre until October 3. David Evans will be doing a book signing at the heritage centre this Saturday from 10.30-11.30am.