A FAMOUS old clothing name is gone. For Sale boards on Sharp House, Tovil Green, Maidstone, spell the end of Sharps Freeman, another victim of cheap imports.

Sharps Freeman is a fable for our troubled manufacturing times.

Many others have gone the way of James Dyson, who recently announced he was switching vacuum cleaner manufacturing to Malaysia.

Sharp House is quiet now, boxes of files lie on the floor. Three racks of corporate clothing give a clue to what was once the stuff of daily life there. A few years ago, the place was a hive of bustle.

Sharps Freeman made ties and corporate uniforms in Walsall, but orders, selling and distribution were handled in Maidstone. Around 30 staff worked in Sharp House, with a further 200 in the Walsall factory.

While ties were not longer made in Herne Bay - that side had switched to Walsall - at least they had stayed in Britain. But Walsall closed in April 2001 and Martin and Christine Sharp have had enough.

As with many business families, their children had no interest in carrying it on to the next generation. Mr and Mrs Sharp just could not match the low costs enjoyed by overseas competitors.

Mr Sharp said: "The future is very bleak for the textile industry. All the manufacturing is going abroad. The day rate for a good blouse worked in Sri Lanka is 95p as opposed to £40 here. It is just staggering and we cannot compete."

It's grim news everywhere. Five specialist clothing manufacturers he used closed within a month. "We couldn't get caps made," he said. "There were only two places in England that could make certain types of cap whereas 20 years ago, there were 50."