THE boss of one of Hampshire's oldest printing firms today spoke of his heartache after making 26 people redundant in a bid to save the company.

Managing director Malcolm Kennedy said: "I am bitterly saddened but I am trying to save the other 28 jobs, and if I had not done that the consequences would have been really dire."

Brown & Son, a 200-year-old firm with big-name clients like the RNLI, the British Medical Association and Oxford University Press, suffered an unusually lean winter.

Mr Kennedy blamed an unexpected industry-wide dip in orders which coincided with a massive and costly investment programme.

According to him, the hi-tech company had forecast a growth of £1m in turnover, but the collapse in sales hit all-important cash flow.

Mr Kennedy said: "This has knocked us sideways."

He spent all day yesterday ringing customers and suppliers to reassure them the problems were a short-term blip.

Mr Kennedy told the Daily Echo: "We've had total support from our customers and suppliers, and at times I was quite emotional after the phone calls because they said they were standing by us.

"Ironically sales in the past three days have really picked up. There are people out there saying things about us that are not true."

Brown & Son is based at Ringwood, with another new premises at Ferndown, near Bournemouth.

It prints literature and promotional material from full colour glossy magazines and hardbound books to corporate stationery and brochures.

Turnover had risen from £2m in 2002 to £3m in 2003 and was understood to be on course to reach £4.5m last year.

Brown & Son was purchased by Mr Kennedy and his wife Miriam in a management buyout in July 2003. He was director there for four years prior to that.

Tom Hawkins, a journalist on trade magazine Printing World, said of the redundancies at Brown & Son: "This comes as a surprise because they looked to be doing well.

"They had invested heavily in new equipment and taken on new staff so this has come out of the blue."

The firm had recently bought £1.4m of new equipment and, last July, had taken on seven new staff in response to increased sales.

Mr Kennedy is the fifth owner of the company, which started as a shop-fronted business in Ring-wood High Street.