EVER since Dutchman Jacob Gans moved his factory from Holland to premises provided by Rowntree Ltd in Haxby Road, York in 1929, when it was dubbed Gansolite Ltd, British Buttons has had mixed fortunes - most of them favourable.

At that time it was labour-intensive, with hundreds of local housewives down the generations recalling sewing buttons on cards for pin money, a process later overtaken by automation. Then, in a merger with London-based Brandoid Products Ltd in 1981, the firm became British Button Industries. Two years later came the first management buy-out by Ashley Goff and his son Stephen. They decided to sell their three acre factory site in Haxby Road and move it to Sutton-on-the-Forest.

But in March, 1991, just months after the move, the firm - which at that time employed 70 people and produced 260 million buttons a year - went into receivership and was eventually sold on as a going concern.

However, since then has come a turnaround in the factory's fortunes with a huge investment in new machinery and a change in the marketing process to ensure more direct sales.