These workers turned up trumps when they were asked to complete an order in double quick time.

A customer in West London had run out of casts for large central heating pumps.

Normally, it would have taken two or three weeks, but staff at Walter Wilder Iron Founders, of Crowmarsh, near Wallingford, pulled out the stops in 1980 and delivered the order in a few days.

When the van turned up to collect the casts, the driver brought with him his company’s thanks – an iced cake for the foundry men.

Company secretary Mien Stokes is pictured cutting it before it was devoured by the superfast workforce.