From the South China Morning Post this week in: 1955
London, February 17
A 44-year-old Manchester umbrella-maker, Mr Walter Mappin, began a single-handed fight against 12 factories in Hongkong turning out 360,000 umbrellas a month. Mr Mappin, who makes about two to four dozen umbrellas a week at home, is angry because he sells his products at around 11s 6d while some Hongkong umbrellas are selling for as low as five shillings each.
So out into the snow went Mr Mappin, carrying a placard which read 'Buy Hongkong goods and junk and put Lancashire on the dole. Remember the 1930s'.
Parading up and down outside the store he said: 'It costs me five shillings in materials to make an umbrella - then there's the 25 per cent purchase tax. How can we possibly compete? I reckon the Japanese are making umbrellas and its time we did something about it. My business is being ruined.'
Mr W. A. Stevell, Chairman of the Manchester Umbrella Makers, said: 'No one can compete against a five-shilling umbrella, although the quality is in no way comparable to home-produced standards.'
The Hongkong Government office in London said: 'Remember Britain sells #25 million worth of goods in Hongkong every year and remember that when the trade ban went up on Communist China, Hongkong lost a third of its trade. Something had to be done.