Meet the Maker - Chris Thompson, Brady

It’s not long now till we welcome Brady and their beautifully made bags to our Covent Garden shop. Labour and Wait have long appreciated Brady’s commitment to quality and tradition; having maintained their practices, values and standards that were established more than a century ago.As Brady approach their 140th year of business, we sat down with Brady manager, Christopher Thompson to discuss Brady’s inimitable history, the art of bag making and the continued importance of English manufacturing.

For those that are unfamiliar with Brady Bags, can you tell us the story of Brady?

Brady was founded in 1887 in Birmingham, predominantly making leather gun covers and fishing bags.It was owned by two brothers, John and Albert Brady who developed a reputation for hand making the finest sporting leather goods. The company was passed down within the family to the sons of the brothers, Ernest and Leonard, where the business prospered and a line of fishing bags was made, uniquely named after English rivers, that would become the mainstay of the company for years to come. Despite the challenges of running a small business, navigating wartime and the subsequent demolition of their factory on Shadwell Street, Brady thrived through its reputation for quality and longevity.

After Ernest’s death in the 1980’s, his daughter Helen ran the business before being bought by Michael Goold of W.A. Goold (Holdings) Limited, a saddle company,in which Brady were moved to Walsall, the heart of England’s leather industry, where we continue to make our bags today. In recent years, Brady has changed ownership, now owned by Boys Co (Japan), while keeping the entire manufacturing process within the UK.

Throughout the nearly 140 year history, the same styles that were made originally have stayed in the range and the most popularly ordered by our customers - the Ariel trout fishing bags and Stour,are ordered every season, every month - they really are our mainstay, and they’re not going anywhere. We also don’t production line, which is one of main things that a lot of manufacturers now do, whereas at Brady the same person who starts a bag, finishes a bag.

In recent years we have started really encouraging growth into other markets, shouting about Brady and focussing on why ‘Handmade in England’ is so important because we sort of became a best kept secret. We had our loyal customers and that was good enough for many years but as the world changes, we need to expand and grow. The company turns 140 years old next year, which for manufacturing of any kind is a huge milestone, especially manufacturing in England, because bag-making is a skill set that we’re seeing disappear. The new generation haven't been told about manufacturing as a working opportunity in this country or how they can get into it. My job is to go to schools and colleges and work with the students to make them aware of the options in manufacturing out there for them.

How did you come to work for Brady and what has your journey with the company been?

I joined the company 16 years ago whilst we were still owned by Jeffries Saddles as an apprentice in the packing department. I finished college where I studied animal welfare and was told that there was no jobs in that field, so I needed to find something else. So it was pretty much a case of applying for apprenticeships and applying for anything just so there was something. I got offered Jeffries Saddles as an apprentice and I was the youngest person at the time by 18 years. There was a lot of trying to navigate the working world, especially in the manufacturing industry where a lot of the people that work there had worked there for 40+ years having also left school and going straight into a factory. So for a young person to enter that world, I had to figure out the way they've always worked.One day, the owner of the business at the time came to me and said, ‘you're young, you must know how to use a computer’ and I was given Brady’s website to update, so I was really able to learn about the company history that way.At some point I had to take a cheque down to the boss to get signed, where he asked me what I thought about Brady Bags and I told him that I thought there was a lot of potential and opportunity and offered some suggestions, punctuated with ‘but what do I know, I’m a kid’.He gave me the opportunity to work on a specific project, which then led to me becoming the Brady department supervisor when the previous supervisor retired.I had known the team for about six years at that point, so when Brady was sold to BOYS CO in Japan and we moved into a new building, I was able to take the team across, and then the COVID-19 pandemic hit. So all of a sudden I've gone from being this apprentice kid to having to navigate a global pandemic with an aged workforce. Quite the jump.

Since then, the brand has grown, we’ve seen positive changes - we started with 16 employees and we now have 37. I’m quite fortunate in having the team around me, they’ve known me since I was 17, I’m in my thirties now, and they’ve always had my back and supported me as I’ve grown. I think a lot of the success of my journey and the company's journey is actually down to the employees on the shop floor. They’re the ones that have spent their life in this industry, they’ve seen companies that we’ve had relationships with close down, they’ve seen our previous parent company disappear. So Brady’s survival is a testament to their skill, dedication and loyalty. Especially now, as we’re employing younger people, there is more of a pressure on the older generation in dedicating their time to teaching them and passing on their skill and knowledge as well as doing their job.

I think a lot of my success and career journey isn’t actually down to anything special that I've done, I think it's actually down to them. They keep me grounded, we've got the type relationship where if they feel I've made a wrong choice, they know that we can have an open conversation. I can do lots of pretty spreadsheets but they make the products. So, yeah, I think Brady's success and my success is actually down to all of the team on the shop floor.

Yeah, they're like the real heart and soul of the company. It sounds like a brilliant working environment.

They're a great bunch of people. And the only reason that Brady's done 140 years is because of the makers. You know, without their skill set and knowledge there would be nothing. They don't expect anything fancy. They’re the grit and sawdust generation where they just want to come to work, put out beautiful work and they want to go home. That's what they want out of life.

That's a huge testament to them and their continued hard work. I read the the combined number of years of knowledge and experience of people on the team was huge.

Yeah. It's over 300 years. One of our longest serving employees has just done his 53rd year with the company, he came here straight from school. A lot of our employees have served past 70 years old.

We had Sandra, Sylvia and Judy who have recently left the company only because they couldn't do it anymore. They were all in their seventies. And it was simply a case of 'if we could carry on, we would’. In the building alone, we've got Royston, who's done 53 years. Steve, our cutter, is 49 years this year. I think for a lot of that generation, they can't think of anything worse than being in the house all the time. So I think that’s where their mentality is, once they've entered a workplace, they're quite loyal, they don’t plan on leaving. Which, I think for us is great because you hope they'll then pass on that sense of loyalty and work ethic to the younger generation.

I think with younger generations, you don't necessarily get that company loyalty so much anymore, so to have somewhere that you can rely on for 50 plus years is a great incentive.

I think being with them for so many years, it has been instilled in me now where it doesn't really matter how much of a bad day I've had at work or if I've gone home and moaned about the job. I know the next day I'm getting up and doing it all again. I'll retire here.And we've got a lot of good younger people here that I’m hoping are slowly starting to see the importance of having that loyalty.

What was the first bag you ever made and what skill took the longest to master?

As an apprentice in a factory you sort of get passed around like a piece of meat. You’re at everyone’s beck and call, this person wants a cup of tea, so go make a cup of tea, this person needs the floor sweeping, so I’d sweep the floor. I was put into Brady and I was hand cutting the webbing straps that go on each bag,literally using a pair of scissors, a ruler, pull the webbing along and then cut. Then I learned how to prepare, which was staining the leather, edging and veining.

I think the first bag I ever prepared was a stour bag. I never learned how to machine until a couple of years ago. The old machine trainer, she was sort of like a headmistress where you either know how to do it or you don’t, and if you don't get it in the first five minutes, you're fired. So she tried to teach me and within the first five minutes of me sitting down at a machine, she was like, ‘you're hopeless this isn't going to work.’But then in recent years, we had another trainer who was a bit more like the school nurse, much more nurturing, ‘it's okay, we'll get there, baby steps’.So,I ended up machining a stour - I'm not saying that I'm ever going to have a job as a machinist, there was definitely some bits that could be improved, but it looked like a stour by the end of it, so I'm going to take that as a win.

Can you talk me through the process of creating a bag - from beginning to end?

So, the orders will be emailed into us. I process the work to order tickets, hand typing the details of each bag that needs to be made. That ticket then will go through every single stage. It'll go to the cutter who will then hand press the canvas and then the leather parts. Some bags are cut by hand, but the main products that we sell a large number of are done by press knives. This is still a hand operated machine, but it's a much cleaner cut. Once all the parts are cut, it then goes to a preparer who cuts the webbing, marks the fabric for where levers are positioned, where the label goes, those details. They stain, edge and vein the leather parts, which gives a nice round finish to the leather and a little bit of shine. Once it's stained the bag is then sealed to make sure that the stain doesn’t run if it gets wet. It’s then given to a machinist and, depending on the bag, goes back and forth between a preparer and machinist up to six time for the details. For the aerial trout, the machinist will machine around the pockets, give it back to a preparer to put the studs in, then machine around the buckle parts, then back to a preparer to have the buckles put in, back to a machinist to machine the inside and then turned and finished by a finisher. From there it’ll go to the packing department to be packed, tagged and quality control checked. Then it’s into a box and out the door!

And so is it one person that follows these processes with the bag, how does that work?

You'll have one canvas cutter and one leather cutter dedicated to the bag and the same preparer, machinist and packer throughout the entire process.

We're dictated by how many bags one person can physically make. So, with aerial trout’s we work on 10 per person, per day. So, if Labour and Wait order eight aerial trout, then one preparer and one machinist will handle those eight bags.

It all depends on the style. So for a leather cartridge bag for example, because they are so detailed and intricate, one person can only make two or three of those a day.

There’s been a conscious effort to maintain traditional making processes throughout Brady’s extensive history, what are the challenges of that?

One of the main challenges at the moment is trying to ensure that the quality of the raw material is maintained. So if every month a new law gets passed where a certain material or chemical is no longer permitted to be used in the EU, and therefore the UK, that then means that our raw material suppliers will have to relook at how they can still achieve the same finish. The chemical in question can be 0.01% of the makeup of the product, but if you remove it, it sets off a domino effect of how they can ensure that our waterproof inner lining of the canvas can still keep its longevity.

A larger challenge is teaching those skills to the next generation, which is difficult because as the old generations get older and they fall out of the business we have to then ensure that the next generation are ready to be able to pick up those hand tools and know exactly what they're doing.

You and I both know that we're somewhat the ‘technology generation’ - if you give us a computer, video game or mobile, we can tell you how it works within minutes. Whereas the older generation, they can pick up any tool and know exactly how to use it.

Trying to keep ‘Handmade in England’ alive is one of the hardest challenges that we're coming across at the moment because nobody under the age of 35 really knows what ‘Handmade in England’ actually means. They're just totally unaware and until we get that story out there, they're not going to be able to walk into any store and look at a Brady bag and say, ‘that was handmade by the same person.’ It's hard to translate a finished product with such a huge backstory. I think that's one of the biggest challenges - keeping it alive, making sure that everybody knows about it, why it's so important and the beauty behind it.

You mentioned you go into schools and colleges. What's the reception you’re getting from the younger generations?

I offer work experience and once a year I work with the local college and schools where we hold a design a bag competition where, as part of the students coursework,they design a bag.I will then select two designs normally and those students will come and work with me for a week and actually have their design made. I try to get them involved in the actual manufacturing process as much as possible so they learn the skills, but mainly so they gain a respect for the process. I think it makes their bag a little bit more special to know that they get to walk around with something that they've made and created. We've done 10 years working with the college and two with the local schools and they do tend to leave here really positive. I think maybe because they're so used to going to work experience in a place where they've not really had hands on experience. It's ticking a box for their school and the educational side of things whereas I try to get them as involved as possible.

The way I see it is, it's my job to encourage and inspire them because I wouldn't be where I am if somebody didn't give me a chance. If you don't have the right people around you to keep throwing things at you and keep challenging you, you sort of stay stagnant. So I think a lot of it is looking at where I can pass that on to younger people and give them a shot, where others perhaps won’t. I think if we don't start giving them a chance and giving them an opportunity to grow, not only in themselves but in the role that we need them to do, the industry is just going to die. There's not going to be anything left. So I think it's really important to start trying to tip the scales the other way.

What does British manufacturing mean to you?

To me it means quality. When I joined the company at 17 I did have the attitude of ‘I'm not going to spend my life here’, it didn’t mean anything to me. But when you see, when you actually have to sit back and see each of the processes and the effort that one person has made to create this beautiful product, it opens your eyes.If we're having customers send bags back that are 35 years old and all they want is a new web strap, there’s got to be something behind that. There’s a beauty and a respect that has to be given to that because the world is changing a little bit now where we need and are accepting sustainability, and English manufacturing is exactly that. If you buy something that's been made by somebody's hard work and not by a machine, it's going to last you 30+ years. You can give it to someone else in your family as you get older. It's the heritage, the tradition. I get so many emails where people have their grandparent's bag and are looking to give it a new lease on life.

I think English manufacturing for me is the exact opposite of what I think, for many years, the world loved to see, the quick and easy, the cheap and immediate. We're 140 years old next year. There's got to be something behind that.

And I think again, English manufacturing means my team. It means every person downstairs that comes in rain, sun, snow and sits there, complains about their arthritis and their bad knees but still turns out these amazing products. And the fact that they're doing it because they've never known any different.Yes, they're a bit more tired these days but it doesn't stop them. They don't phone in sick, they don't say, ‘we’re not coming in today, we don't feel like it’. They come in and turn out these beautiful bags. So for me, English manufacturing is the 37 people that are in this building right now who are pretty much the heart of English manufacturing, in my opinion, because they are everything it stands for.

What hopes to do you have for the future of Brady and the craft of bag making?

My hope for Brady is that I'm in a position to still give my team a job each year, to continue to grow the sales and the products and not betray our heritage and our traditions.I never want to be in a position where I'm buying a fancy robot because it can do a job a little bit quicker, that’s not what Brady is. I hope we're never going to be that. It isn't us. So my hopes for Brady's future is to maintain our tradition and our history and always respect it. To continue to grow, maybe open a few flagship stores and really start supporting English manufacturing. So keep doing what we're doing, keep seeing the younger people understand this industry and join it and make sure that we're in a position where I can retire in 40 odd years and still leave Brady's doors open. My hope is for Brady to still be here long after I'm not. I hope we're still here in another 140 years.

Labour and Wait are delighted to be hosting Brady in a pop up at our Covent Garden shop from Thursday 17th - Wednesday 30th of September. There will be many of our typical range of Brady Bags, plus several additional designs available. Drop by to have a look at these beautifully made bags, an icon of English manufacturing and purchase a piece of ‘Made in England’ heritage.

Pop Up Shop

12 Dryden Street

Covent Garden

London

WC2E 9NA

11.00am to 7.00pm

Thursday 17th - Wednesday 30th September 2026

Reserve a spot for the evening talk here