Gloucester has a long history in the aerospace business.

The outlook for its commercial aerospace business is quite good because of the current boom in airplane building.

The sale was the result of a decision by Ford last year to leave the aerospace business and focus on the increasingly competitive automotive business.

But now - also like the aerospace business before it - the golf-club industry is enduring a serious retrenchment.

A survey then of leading companies in the aerospace business found it would take 12 to 24 months to reach wartime production levels.

But by 1989 the company recognised that the interests of the aerospace business and its commercial businesses would be best served separately.

Boeing's latest, and usually conservative, study of the aerospace business predicts that this surge in growth will continue into the next century.

The company decided last year to leave the aerospace business and focus on the increasingly competitive automotive business.

And the company was not even in the aerospace business in 1985.

He said the market was forgetting that General Dynamics used to be in the aerospace business.