Echoes of the past: Handmade spectacles feel Shop Talk’s wrath

This week’s Echoes of the past looks at the May 1964 issue of Manufacturing Optician, a monthly supplement published alongside Optician for frame, lens and equipment manufacturers.

The Shop Talk column was likely to have stirred up some debate at the time, with unwavering views on the manufacturing side of the optical profession. In May’s editorial, the writer fired from the hip on topics such as eyewear, children’s lenses and opportunistic publicity angles for frame manufacturers.

Unregistered dispensing also caught his eye, no doubt inspired by the case of a market seller that had lost his appeal against a conviction for supply of an empty spectacle frame that would later go on to have ophthalmic lenses fitted. While this may have pleased the columnist to an extent, he went on to highlight the practice of patients purchasing sunglasses with the intention of removing the lenses and replacing them with corrective items at a cost to the NHS – something which the organisation said it could do nothing about.