Re thethread on East Anglian Rod Co Ltd. (EAR) The company was formed in 1966 when my father & I bought the bankrupt company of RC Kirk Ltd in East Molsey & moved Bob Kirk & his machinery up toWymondham in Norfolk with the idea of selling rods justin East Anglia. Hence the name. 1966 was before Carbon Fibre had been invented, and most of our blanks came from Lerc in France, Sportex in Germany & Fibatube, which was the blank making division of Hardys of Alnwick. We made for coarse, sea & game fishing &, at our peak, production reached about 12000 rods per annum.
In themid 70smoderate quality glass rods started to be imported from South Korea. Quality quickly improved & we found it harder & harder to compete. We started to import from Korea ourselves & our UK production declined & we ceased our own production in about 1985.Meanwhile EAR had become general wholesalers & were now suppling tackle shops throughout the UK & exporting to 32 countries. Sales were over £7m in1989 whenwe sold the company to Porter Chadburn plc, who then bought Taylor & Johnson. Steades & Leeda. All 4 companies were put into one group, called Leeda.This is how Leeda as you now know it came into being. I could provide much more history & detail if readers are interested.