FIVE former employees of Avon Rubber in Melksham who became close friends were reunited on Monday at Trowbridge Oaks Care Home.

Gordon Sadler, Dave Griffin, John Mackleworth and Tony Little, who were all engineers at the Melksham workshop, visited their old friend Geoffrey Gray, who lives at the Bupa owned care home in West Ashton Way, to reminisce and catch up.

The reunion was organised by the home’s activities co-ordinator, Ray Horan, after he learned that one of the registered nurses at the home, Amanda Beavan, was the daughter of Mr Mackleworth.

Mr Gray, 81, said: “I see Tony once a week and John and Dave every now and then but I haven’t seen Gordon since we stopped working together.

“So to have all of us together is very rare indeed, in fact it’s the first time we’ve all been together since the Avon days.

“I have mostly happy memories of working there and that’s because of the people I worked with.

“It’s very nostalgic looking at the old photo of all of us.”

Amanda Beavan started working as a registered nurse at the care home in June.

One morning she overheard Mr Horan discussing Avon Rubber with Mr Little, who had come to visit Mr Gray, and told them that her dad had also worked for the company.

Mr Little said: “I was amazed, I couldn’t believe it when Amanda said that she was John’s daughter. It’s a very small world sometimes.

“I would like to say thank you to Ray for bringing us all together after learning of the link.”

The group of five started working at Avon Rubber in 1980 and built up a strong relationship before they started to retire from 2000 onwards.

Mr Mackleworth said: “I haven’t seen Dave since I retired in 2000 so it’s very nice to catch up and have all of us together.

“We had a very close knit workshop and if you went into work feeling down, you wouldn’t be feeling down for long.”