In the first of five features drawn from the EDP library files and celebrating the library's 75th birthday, EDP Librarian ROSEMARY DIXON delves into our region's industrial heritage.

Norwich and the surrounding area possess a fascinating industrial heritage, chronicled by the EDP over the decades in text and photograph. In today's feature, I have selected some fascinating images of our working lives from city to country.

Tomorrow: Iconic events.

1. My first photo is of gunsmiths at work in the recently-opened workshops of CS Rosson & Co. in Bedford Street, Norwich; the picture can be dated to the early 1950s.

2. Dereham clock factory Metamec were being kept extremely busy with orders in 1954, as this assembly team testifies.

3. Still in Dereham, Hobbies were well known in the area for producing plans, kits and tools for making wooden models and toys. This stockroom scene gives an impression of the various lines the company produced. The picture is from the early 1960s.

4. Mr Lenny Randall had been employed by Taylors of Cringleford as smith for 46 years when our photo was taken in 1961. Here Lenny is seen putting the finishing touches to a fine example of wrought iron work.

5. This splendid photo from 1962 depicts Mr Alfred Ross varnishing the backs of silvered mirrors in his Norwich workshop. He kept the varnish in old-fashioned china chamber-pots, in preference to tins which might taint the varnish.

6. Cricket bats await despatch at Bungay Willow Works in 1964.

7. Assembly lines converge in the packaging area of can manufacturer J Billig & Sons of Salhouse Road, Norwich, in 1968. At that time, the firm was the second largest producer of paint cans in the country and had been in existence since 1890.

8. Women workers were the backbone of Pistor & Kronert at Thetford. The company made switches and neon signal lights for electrical equipment and employed many women working from home, as well as at the factory. Our picture dates from 1973.

Tomorrow: Iconic events.