More: Charlie Cottle - Last Mumbles Lighthouse Keeper > 

More: C.E.Tucker and The Mumbles Press >  

ALL his Working life Tony Cottle has followed instructions to the letter. He is one of the few craftsmen still able to use the methods employed by William Caxton, the 15th Century father of British printing.

But now Tony is calling it a day, closing a 100-year chapter in the printing tradition of the colourful Cottle family of Mumbles.

From now on, his wife Dinah will run the Cottle Printing Company while he obeys doctor's orders to slow down.

The business was started by his uncle Richard Cottle, who began his apprenticeship with another famous Mumbles firm, Christopher Ernest Tucker's Press Office, in the early years of the last century. Richard was the son of Charlie Cottle, last keeper of the Mumbles lighthouse.

Charlie was a legendary character who was sometimes marooned in the lighthouse for a week at a time when the weather was rough. For company he had a pet cat, Mackie, who liked swimming in the sea and regularly came home with a mackerel he had caught.

Tony still has Richard's indentures which lay down his wages as 5s (25p) for the first year and 14s (70p) for the seventh.

"Uncle Dick stuck it until the First World War, then got out of his apprenticeship by lying about his age and enlisting," said Tony.

"When he came back he turned to Catholicism and decided to be a monk. He went to Caldey Island for a year, then realised the monastic life wasn't for him, so came back home and married."

Dick, who filled out to become a massive 22 stone, and Lily Cottle became known for their regular habits.

"Every night at exactly 9.30pm they would go to the Rock and Fountain," Tony remembered. "And every night at exactly 10.30pm they would go home.

"Every Saturday they would go to the Tivoli cinema and sit in the same row, and probably the same seats."

Meanwhile, Dick had set up the family printing business in Slade Road, Newton. At 16, Tony started his apprenticeship there.

"I didn't really want to become a printer," he said. "But I didn't know what I wanted to do. Once I started, I loved it."

Some jobs were farmed out to firms which had Linotype machines, but much of the work was still done by hand. In this laborious process, each word is assembled letter by letter, back to front. When the metal page is complete, it is secured in a frame, inked and printed.

In this way the firm printed nearly all of schedules, the published documents of Mumbles magazines, booklets, pamphlets, posters, catalogues, tickets, electoral cards and menus for all the local hotels which then included the Langland Bay, the Caswell Bay, the Langland Court and the Osborne.

"You can imagine how time-consuming the work was and how careful you had to be not to get the letters jumbled up," said Tony.

"We had one character who would set up a really long job, think it had been printed, and take it all apart. Another character would come in on Monday morning and if anything went wrong would get up and go, saying he wasn't coming back for the rest of the week."

But when things went well, the arcane world of printing with its religious connotations of fonts, chapels and stones -printing was once the province of the Church was magic. And the firm's faithful, German-made Heidelberg press never let them down, turning out a steady 4,000 copies an hour.

“We went through two Heidelbergs," said Tony. "Afterwards they went to India, where as far as I know, they’re still working."

Tony took over the limited company when Dick died 30 years ago, in 1974, becoming not only boss but buyer, designer and book-keeper, dealing with five taxation systems. And all this has been the least known of his activities.

To many people, Tony Cottle is Mr Mumbles, champion of the area's business and tourism appeal.

As the tireless chairman of the Mumbles Train Society he has to date given 200 talks and made 150 TV and radio broadcasts, arguing that a revival of the train would give the public a much needed service and the city of Swansea a great tourist attraction.
He was among the pioneers of the Dylan Thomas festival, before it became a city council project, and he also does valuable work for the Save the Children Fund.

Some years ago he produced a book telling how various people, from royals to rogues, spent Christmas Day. It raised £8,000, but to his lasting regret, one of his most interesting interviewees, a Dartmoor prisoner, was refused permission to attend the launch.

A server at Oystermouth Church for 50 years, Tony taught the young Rowan Williams. He still sends the monthly church magazine to the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Thirteen years ago Tony moved the business to Mumbles, concentrating on printing and colour copying, and it's as the friendly face in the company's Castleton Arcade shop that he has made many international friends.

Talking to two New York visitors recently, he discovered they were trying to find the house where they were born. Their only information was the house had a monkey tree in the garden and overlooked some cottages.

Tony immediately pinpointed the house in Overland Road and two happy tourists were able to take pictures they will treasure for life.

Far from putting his feet up, Tony is already helping the volunteers who run Ty Hanes, the House of History, in The Dunns.

More: Charlie Cottle - Last Mumbles Lighthouse Keeper > 

More: C.E.Tucker and The Mumbles Press > 
More: Ty Hanes Local History Centre at Dunns Lane >