How many businesses can claim to have helped James Bond out of a fix? When 007 found himself under pressure in his last blockbuster it was AMP Wire of Oldham who remained ‘shaken but not stirred’.

In the concluding scene of ‘Casino Royale’ starring Daniel Craig – 2,000 lamps were needed to light the final scenes shot in Vienna, and each one had to be protected by a mesh protective screen. AMP Wire got an urgent call for help on a Bank Holiday Monday and within six days the 2,000 screens had been designed, despatched and installed on site so that the film could be completed on time.

Not exactly all in a routine day’s work for the Chadderton Company, but not untypical for one of the borough’s most unusual engineering businesses.

For a start, the company has a female engineer as MD – Pam Pelham – which is rare in both engineering and manufacturing.

Pam’s whole career has been in engineering from being an apprentice Mechanical Engineer at the Oldham College and working as a Manager at Failsworth-based Matthew Swain; when Matthew Swain Ltd went into decline after a change of ownership, Pam set up AMP Wire.

The company started in Pam’s Dads garage one Easter weekend sixteen years and two moves later Pam and AMP Wire are busy enlarging the Sun Iron Works in Chadderton to accommodate their 22 workers and ever-growing turnover currently £1.3 million.

The firm makes a variety of wire-mesh products for customers around the world, including machine guards and wire trays for airports, hospitals and the food industry, construction products, welfare lockers and of course, light guards for TV and cinema following the James Bond film order. They have also taken on a massive order for storage lockers for the armed services.

Pam is in demand as ‘Woman’s Enterprise Ambassador’ to encourage women to take up manufacturing as career. She regularly visits collages, schools and training centres to promote engineering as a career, and the AMP company in-house apprentice programme has resulted in several school leavers being promoted through the ranks to management positions.