A BICYCLE historian wants people to contact him with their stories about working at the original Nottingham Raleigh factory.

Tony Hadland is writing a history of the bicycle company which will cover more than 120 years.

He said he has been interested in the firm since he was given his first Raleigh bike as a hand-me-down when he was nine.

Mr Hadland began writing his history of Raleigh a year ago and has been researching the years before the Second World War.

Now he is starting on the years after the war and is looking for people who worked at the Raleigh Cycle Company.

"I want to hear about product inventions – good things, bad things, when people got things right and got things wrong," he said.

"A product designed by a junior but then the bosses got the glory. Products that never happened and things that never quite came to fruition.

"This is an ideal opportunity for the forgotten heroes of Raleigh to be included in a book that is likely to be referenced for many years to come."

Raleigh founder Frank Bowden was a lawyer who was told by his doctor to take up cycling to restore his health. Six months later he was fit and active again.

He was so impressed by the bicycle on which he had ridden back to health that he traced the manufacturers to a workshop in Raleigh Street, Nottingham.

It was owned by Messrs Woodhead, Angois and Ellis, who were turning out three bicycles a week. Bowden liked the company so much he bought it and turned it into a major manufacturing operation.

It moved to a former lace factory in Russell Street and then to Faraday Road, in Lenton, where the bike-building giant began production in 1896.

Within 20 years, Raleigh was turning out 60,000 bikes a year.

For the next six or seven decades, it was a story of unrivalled success until cheap foreign imports stopped production in Nottingham in 2002.

In 1987 Mr Hadland, 60, had a book published on the history of Raleigh's Sturmey-Archer gears – unique bicycle front and rear brake hubs in three-speed, five-speed, and seven-speed.

He presented a paper on the history of Raleigh at an international cycling-history conference in Osaka, Japan, 10 years ago.

His new book will be a complete history of the iconic Nottingham bike company and its associated products, including motorbikes and three-wheeled cars.

"It's a great subject and such an important one for Nottingham," said Mr Hadland.

"So many people would know of the factory. It's a great tradition and was there for so long."

Anyone who can help Mr Hadland should contact him via Facebook by typing "Raleigh Remembered" into the search box or by writing to him at: 4 Barcote Cottages, Buckland, Faringdon, Oxfordshire, SN7 8PP.

tanya.holden@nottinghameveningpost.co.uk