All things £:s:d....open to all.

[anacortesdamp]

Started work at EE-Warton in 1958. Bus fare all the way from Leyland added up to 3/6d return, even on the Express back from Warton in the afternoon (non-stop to Tithebarn St., usually one of the "Gay Hostess" Atlanteans). It made a big hole in my apprentice's pay-packet of less than £3 a week!

When I first started driving, towards the end of that year (Vespa), petrol was about 4/3d a gallon for the middle grade, including the added 2-stroke oil. When I got the Austin 7 in early 59, I went for the cheapest grade, which was 3/10d a gallon.

Actually, Lynne, I think the thing in the middle of the aniseed ball was actually an Anise Seed, which gave all that sugar a flavor.

John - I think the shop at the bottom end of Lune St., that sold the oatcakes, moved into the Friargate side of St. Geroge's Center, but I don't know if it still exists.

Frank

[Alan Marsden]

Frank, the shop at the bottom of Lune street did indeed sell the large thin oval oat cakes, they had them in their low level shop window next to the ceramic porky sat on it's hind legs and carrying a white marble display tray ! Crumpets too - mounds of them !

I saw some sealed packs of Hebridean (quarter of a circle) Oat cakes in a couple of the local British food stores here last week.

I too started work at EE- but the Strand Rd factory , what a shock that was after school hours , working from 7.30am to 12.30 pm and 1.30 pm to 5.30 pm five days a week ,blistered hands from spending all the time filing metal ,then night school three nights a week !

[anacortesdamp]

Alan:

I was lucky to get taken on by EE as a Student Apprentice rather than a craft apprentice, based on my O-levels and my strong interest in engineering. I started out in Flight Test at Warton, on the tail end of the Canberra program and the start of the P1B/Lightning program.

Initially (autumn 58), I went on day release to Harris Tech, one day from 08:30 to 21:00 in classes. This was for an Ordinary National Certificate in Engineering. The other 4 days, I was an instrumentation and data analysis tech in Flight Test. We'd spend a couple of days a week loading the instrumentation packs into the upper gun bays of the test Lightnings, and the other two days doing data analysis of the results of the tests.

I got my first look at computer-based data analysis, using EE's "DEUCE" computer. The programming was all done in binary and the data came out the same way.

It took up a room about 75' x 20', needed incredible amounts of air conditioning to stop it blowing up and couldn't do what a $15 "scientific calculator" can do these days.

After the 58-59 school year, the company got together with Blackpool Technical College and funded a course for the Ordinary National Diploma in Engineering, which was what we then called a "sandwich" course. TRhere were 8 of us on that first course - talk about a favourable student to staff ratio! We did 6 months at school five days a week (with pay at £4/week) and then 6 months in industry five days a week at the same rate. The industrial section's curriculum was governed by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and had specific skill requirements for each session.

We did our "file bashing" in an Apprentice School in the old Hangar 13 at Warton. The instructors were Bill Halsall and Ronnie McMahon. Those guys were two of the most innovative machinists I've ever seen. We did stuff there, under their tuition, that seasoned machinists in other industries could only gawp at. Ronnie emigrated to the US, first at Boeing Vertol (helicopters) in Philadelphia and later at Bell Helicopters in Fort Worth, Texas. He retired about 1990 and, last I heard, was living in the Texas hill country. He may not be around any more. I don't know where Bill Halsall went.

After getting a State Scholarship to go to what is now the University of Salford (back then it was the Royal College of Advanced Technology), I ended up with a Diploma in Technology, a four year program. Back then, most folks equated it with a German "Dipl. Ing" or a US Master's Degree. Unfortunately, Harold Wilson's lot decided to change the college to a University and made the degree a B.Sc.(Eng).

My Strand Road time was just before and just after Eileen and I were married (August 1964). It included time on the "other side" (locomotive works) where I learned gas welding. Apprentices were real pariahs, as we took up time from the union guys to explain what they were doing and they missed their piece-work bonuses.

About the only thing I can remember clearly was working in the plating shop. We used tanks of highly toxic substances in which the items being plated were dipped, in sequence. There was one tank that had a highly concentrated arsenic solution into which the parts were dipped.

One of the union guys was an amateur operatics buff and one day, he was in the middle of a G&S aria as he dunked a rack of parts into the tank. They splashed, and he swallowed a couple of ounces of the arsenic solution. The company ambulance was there in the middle of the shop within 30 seconds of the alarm sounding and got the guy to PRI in time to pump him out. He survived OK as far as I know.

My main memories of Strand Road are the incredibly stupid work rules and the amount of skiving off that went on. Story goes that one union guy went for a haircut during works time. The foreman challenged him "where the hell have you been?" The reply was "for a haircut". Foreman's response was "on works time?". Reply - "it grows on works time, doesn't it?" Foreman - "not all of it". Reply "I didn't have it all cut off, did I?"

Then we wonder why UK industry got such a bad reputation in the 1960's.


Frank

[Spycam]

Sounds like a case of "hair today, gone tomorrow" (think about it).

[katb]

They sell oatcakes at Tesco near the bread. I can remember buying a mixture in a bag from Boundary Street chippy. Uncle Les used to buy me an orangillo from the social club and give me some money for chips after guides. It was a bit messy eating them out of a bag though and the peas always ran through the paper. Happy days indeed.