Member Article

Sheffield handmade scissor factory brought back from the brink by viral video

Sheffield-based Ernest Wright and Son, thought to be the UK’s last remaining scissor manufacturer, has been brought back from the brink after a video posted to Vimeo went viral.

The video, by photographer Shaun Bloodworth, which has seen over half a million plays, caused orders to increase rapidly with a flood of requests from the US and a waiting time of 3 months for orders as the backlog mounts.

Managing director Nick Wright, who will be appearing on BBC Look North tonight (14 August at 6.30pm) spoke to Bdaily and said: “We are completely overwhelmed, on June 20, we thought it was all over. A month later and we have over 2,300 individual orders in the system.

“We are absolutely elated, our phone systems have crashed due to demand, we won’t be complacent though, our customers still need their orders and we are working hard to deliver.”

Notices on their site also show the surge in interest: “Delays may vary from one month to three months; however we trust your hand-made scissors will be worth your wait.”

“We are collating information as quickly as possible from the recent order list surge since 1st August (when they were featured on the BBC); and we will let you know directly about your order as soon as possible. Please bear with us during this rush period; we trust your hand-made scissors will be worth your wait.”

The film documents ’ Putter ’ Cliff Denton literally a putter togetherer of scissors . Bloodworth’s film is part of Storying Sheffield, part funded by the Arts & Humanities department under Professor Brendan Stone at The University of Sheffield with music and sound design by The Black Dog .

The plight of the company was then picked up by the BBC which also ran a video documentary short on the ‘Master Puttertogetherers’, the real title for the workers who put together the finished product.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Clare Burnett .