Page 111 - WHO'S WHO OF DUDLEY ROTARY

357 Keith Harold WATSON (1918- ) (Inducted 25.3.1957; left in 1985/86.)
Adhesive Dusters (Manufacturing). Managing Director of A D Tack Rags
and Adhesive Dusters Ltd, which (perhaps unsurprisingly) changed its
name to Anti-Dust Services Limited in 1958. In the early 1960s he
developed a range of ‘Tak’ products and formed Takdust Products
Limited, Tak-Clens Auto Products Limited, and Tak Chemicals Limited.
By 1971 all the operations appear to have been merged into Tak
Chemicals Limited and he became group chairman. The firm’s
manufacturing facility was first in St John’s Street, Kates Hill, then
Stafford Street, Dudley, and from the 1960s in Lye and Cradley Heath. In the 1970s a cotton mill
in Colne, Lancashire was added, plus joint ventures in Holland and Spain. Keith’s companies
manufactured impregnated dusters, filter cloths and dust-removing ‘sticky’ chemicals for
industrial, medical, office and domestic use. Tak Chemicals progressed into a wide range of
chemical products including cleaners, descalers, dewaxing agents and sterilisers. Tak was
bought out by the Laporte corporation and finally wound up in 1998.
Keith was highly inventive and obtained numerous patents for his products. He had a paper
published in The Lancet in 1959 on Hospital Dust. He lived in Dudley until 1978, then briefly in
Kinver and West Hagley before retiring in about 1982 to Chaddesley Corbett. However he soon
moved to Belbroughton where he is still living. In 2020, at the age of 101, he achieved national
fame by surviving the Covid-19 virus after two weeks in intensive care. His brother Tony joined
the club in 1975 (member #471).

358 Gordon Henry PARRY (1917-1999) (Inducted c.26.8.1957; resigned 20.1.1958 due to new
appointment in Birmingham.) Government - Employment Exchange. He was briefly Manager of
Dudley Labour Exchange following the death of C F Jones (club member #276), but was soon
transferred to the regional office of the Ministry of Labour where he was liaison officer for the
resettlement of regular servicemen and officers leaving the Forces. He had previously been
manager of the Tipton Employment Exchange and a member of the Tipton Rotary Club. He lived
in and around the Stourbridge area all his life and joined the Ministry of Labour as a clerk straight
from school.

359 John Richard TAYLOR (1898-1994) (inducted 10.2.1958 but already a Rotarian, perhaps in
Birmingham; left about September 1960 on retiring to Somerset, where he joined the Minehead
Rotary Club.) Government - National Insurance. He was Area Officer of the National Assistance
Board, based at 65 High Street, Dudley, which provided means-tested benefits to the poorest
unemployed and pensioners. At that time his home was at Ward End, Birmingham. He grew up
in Canterbury, Kent. While he was a student there the First World War started, so in October
1915 he joined the Royal Flying Corps claiming to be 18 but actually not much over 17. He was
promoted to sergeant and served as a wireless observer with the RFC and RAF in France and
Egypt. He then joined Kent County Council and through the 1930s and presumably also the last
War was a ‘Relieving Officer’ in the east of the county providing ‘public assistance’ to the needy.

360 Ernest James EVANS (1916-2003) (Inducted 23.6.58; left in early 1963 when work transferred to
Wolverhampton; rejoined in 1973 - see member #455.) Government - Employment Exchange.
Manager of the Ministry of Labour Employment Exchange in Parsons Street, Dudley.

361 Arthur Case DODMAN (1911-1995) (inducted 23.6.58; left during 1960/61.) Education -
Secondary Technical School. Headmaster of the Sir Gilbert Claughton Grammar Technical
School, Blowers Green Road, Dudley, from 1955 (when it was known as the Dudley Intermediate
School) to about 1962. (He followed Walter Worthington, club member #219, and in turn was
succeeded by Reg Hackett, member #385.) He left Dudley to become deputy Headmaster at
Maltby Grammar School, Yorkshire, taking over as Headmaster when it became a