Three generations of the same family have clocked up seven decades of service at Longbridge.

Chris Brown, aged 26, recently followed in the family tradition to take up a graduate trainee post at the home of MG Motor UK.

The Birmingham University graduate has joined father Martin, aged 58, whose career at the Birmingham plant began in 1971 and who is still working today as a powertrain programme manager.

And adding to the trio of loyal Brown family servants is Chris's grandfather Alan, who worked as a machinist at Longbridge from 1959 to 1976, before taking voluntary redundancy.

The Brown family links with Longbridge date back even further to 1952, when the late John Evans, Chris's maternal grandfather, joined to work as a prototype pattern maker in a stint which lasted until 1988.

And the family set is completed with Chris's mother Janice, who worked in the factory's cost office from 1977 to 1985, meeting husband Martin in the process.

Martin, who returned to Longbridge in January 2009 after MG Rover had closed in 2005, said: I was delighted to come back here I think engineering is in the blood and regard Longbridge as my spiritual home. I was only 17 when I first joined I remember British Leyland, Sir Michael Edwardes and Lord Stokes. I worked on the Allegro, the Princess, the Rover 200 and 400 and others. If the Government had invested in MG Rover, we would still be a mass producer.

Grandfather Alan, 80, said: "I was a machinist in the old East Works. There were around 25,000 people working here then I travelled here by coach from Halesowen.

"We used to have a darts league at lunchtime, and there was a good comradeship. I eventually left in 1976 and went self-employed."

Grandson Chris, one of a five-strong 2012 graduate intake at Longbridge, said: "From a very young age, I always knew I would be an engineer.

"And with MG being quite a small company, there is a real opportunity to make a difference."