Like so many of today’s youth, 20-year-old Alexander Rose has been tragically affected by the gun and knife crime which exists amongst the underprivileged in London.  His 16-year-old friend, Eugene Attram, was stabbed to death by a gang of youths in November 2006. 

The brutal killing had a profound impact on Alexander and provided the impetus for his anti-knife and gun campaign, STOP (Solve The Ongoing Problem).  The idea is as simple as it is clever – working with the Police and the Home Office, Alexander is going to melt down weapons seized from the street and turn them into keys that people can wear around their necks in support of anti-gun and knife crime. 

“For many young people carrying a knife is as commonplace as carrying a key,” said Alexander.  “At the same time, education is the key to solving the problem of knife crime.  I knew immediately that I wanted to create a symbol to show people that there is a way out of knife crime – and I wanted to use the knives themselves to make it,” he said. 

The first batch of 729 weapons was melted down at the beginning of March in the hope that the key-shaped pendants would be ready for the campaign’s launch on March 25^th.  In order to meet the deadline, blacksmith Nigel Barnett had to have the crucial tooling within 48 hours in order to hit the launch deadline.  This is where WHT came to the fore. 

WHT has built up an enviable reputation within the forging industry for being able to produce bespoke tooling at relatively low cost and in far superior lead times than the competition.  The company is renowned for very fast response times when delivering fully machined forgings to a very diverse customer base.  WHT’s in house design team, coupled with its state-of-the-art, fully integrated CAD/CAM facility, means that tooling can be designed and ready for production in rapid time – often overnight! 

“When Alexander contacted me to discuss the possibilities of WHT producing the tooling for his pendants I was genuinely struck by his story – but even more so by his initiative,” said John Tildesley, Managing Director of WHT.  “I’m glad that my company has been able to help in such a worthy cause and hope that, through Alexander’s campaign, more people become aware of the knife culture which exists in Britain today,” he said. 

Alexander is a graphic design student and came up with the initial design for WHT to work from.  The metal pendants were drop-forged and carry the message, ‘Education’ to one side and, ‘This used to be a knife’ on the reverse.  The hope is that young people will aspire to the ‘bling’ jewellery and buy in to its poignant message.