The Night Has Eyes

A genuine rags-to-riches story, with Halifax’s own Percy Shaw making a huge contribution to road safety with his invention of the “cat’s eye”. In a world that produces endless superfluous gadgets, here in Halifax in 1955 we see Shaw’s company, Reflecting Roadstuds, not only making these now ubiquitous objects still using the primitive technology of the pre-war age, but also methodically inserting them into our roads.

From humble origins, Percy Shaw of Halifax used his inventive skills to eventually start his own company, Reflecting Roadstuds, in 1935, the year after patenting his reflecting lens. Apparently Percy used to get his bearings on the road at night from the reflection from tram lines, but when these began to be taken up he sought an alternative. Then, the story has it, one night he was alerted that he was driving on the wrong side of the road by the glare from the eyes of cat, which gave him his idea. The blackout of the war led to his factory in Boothtown, Halifax – where it still runs – employing 130 people making over a million roadstuds each year. In his nearby home he would have 4 TV sets on at once, one for each channel.