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A lifetime in the print: How one boy’s
By Miranda Robertson miranda@westdorsetmag.co.uk
A farmer’s boy who became fascinated by printing after being given his first John Bull printing set dismayed his family when he left agriculture to chase his dreams.
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Now that boy is pushing 90, and his granddaughters are busy printing all kinds of materials in the print business he established all those years ago.
John Creed first became excited by print in the 1940s when given a little printing set, where you could line up little metal letters in a row, press them against the ink pad and print official-looking materials.
Many of us remember that frustrating and absorbing toy – far fewer were inspired to establish a printing business because of it.
As a teenager he enjoyed printing lessons at Bridport Grammar School and was given a little Adana Press, on which he produced stationery and cards for family and friends in the evenings, after finishing the milking.
He married Audrey and decided to go into printing full time –raising eyebrows among his family. However hard work and innovation quickly paid off and by 1957 business was brisk.
John installed new equipment in an outhouse on New House farm in Broadoak. The machines ran on petrol – there was no electricity in the area until the 1960s. As business started booming, John and Audrey moved to a former carpenter’s premises in Broadoak, just down the road. He loved to engineer solutions, and built a ‘jogger’ to jostle the paper into position. Their daughters helped out from an early age, composing type, stapling draw tickets, tidying the works. Their husbands later joined the business. John’s passion for print never abated and he set about investing in all the new technology – adopting computerised systems in 1973, then desktop publishing in the 90s. By 2013, Marylin and her husband Harry owned Creeds, and moved the business to Gore Cross Business Park on the edge of Bridport, retaining the older equipment beside the newer machines so they could tackle any print job, from a business card to a book to a banner.
