Hi Flashone, I was reminiscing the other evening about G.T.E. and saw your letter perhaps the following may help. I started my apprentiship in the maintenance department in 1959/60 the Chief Engineer was a Mr Smith in those days you called them Mr or Sir but I cannot remember his first name, his assistant was a chap named Len Morris who was the foreman, in the department we had a pipe fitting section, a millwright section, welding and tinsmiths sections and the electricians which is where I spent the next 9 years. Although I have fond memories of the chaps in the maintenance department and can see them in my minds eye I can only remember Frank who was our gas welder and had spent all ww2 making silencers for aircraft engines Tom who with his son were the tinsmiths, Sidney Partridge (electrician) John Davis (charge hand electrician) and Norman Clarke who beside being an electrician was also a very skilled motor mechanic and with whom I was to spend most of my time with over the next few years. The factory was set in approximately 20 acres and starting from the left hand entrance (the gate keeper was Sid’s dad) you had a stores department on the right and stairs leading up to the top floor, our department was situated on the top floor at the rear overlooking the cycle sheds following round towards the road was the machine fitters who were very skilled at putting together the machines that assembled the pop rivets, I spent many hours there fitting the electrics on the machines whilst watching them scrape the surfaces to obtain an engine turned appearance, opposite the stairs was the grinding shop which ran the width of the building to the roadside gangway. The tool room ran the full length of the main building apart from a centre section which housed the tool room stores and some offices, we were issued with tokens with your clock number on them mine was 1118 (I still have some) and if you wanted to withdraw a piece of equipment you gave one to the storekeeper. At the end of the building were the start of the offices and the main flight of stairs from the roadside, the office on the corner was the M.D’s Mr Ruddock following round was the drawing office,accounts, wages and other Directors who all seemed to be ex military officers from WW2. The ground floor at the road side was one long machine shop and after 45 years I cannot remember if it was the mandrel shop or rivet shop I do know it was very noisy,the centre of the factory housed the plating and annealing departments, at the rear of the factory was another machine shop again mandrel or rivets?, all of the structures that housed the machines were made by the millwrights and pipe fitters with the electricians wiring them up and the tinsmiths making the guards. In the early 60’s a new building was erected next to the cycle sheds and the maintenance moved into one half of this. At the back of us was the boiler house where the steam to heat the works was generated by three enormous coal fired boilers, the boiler house also contained some enormous Bellis and Morcome compressors which supplied the compressed air for the factory, in the back left hand corner were the electrical stores who were looked after by by a fine old gent( everyone seemed old to me then) Clive,Claude? He was always immaculately dressed, collar and tie,clean bib and brace overalls gold pocket watch and his pipe on the go all the time which had turned his big bushy moustache yellowy brown at the ends, he did not suffer fools gladly we were issued with duplicate books to withdraw items and I can remember not long after starting being sent to get some conduit fittings and I spelt the word saddle wrong, I gave him the ticket 10 spacer bar sadles and he said “ we don’t have any try again” I eventually worked it out and learnt my lesson and made sure it was correct in future,( some may say that he was an old f---t but it’s lessons such as this from the older generations that we can all learn from) I DIGRESS. Behind the boiler house were four or five shed type buildings about 40 x 20 ft in size I think they were erected during the war they housed the Eyelet section and it was all run by women, this was the quietest part of the factory and if I needed to spend a penny which was every day from 9.30 till 9.50 you would find me in number three reading the Birmingham Post .To the left of these buildings was the bore hole where we extracted the water for the factory and to the left of this the pipe fitters and millwrights stores, to the right of the sheds was the Gas house which housed the chlorine cylinders for water purification, to the right of this was the works canteen ( does anyone remember workers playtime coming from there) main section for the workers and a partitioned one for the staff, following round towards the right hand gate were the directors garage ( spent some time in there with Norman repairing engines) and at the end was the personnel department,despatch was underneath the offices. In the early 60’s G.T.E. purchased the factory to the right which I think was Evertaughts who made steel lockers ,it was completely gutted and refurbished I spent about three months in there with some of the electricians completely rewiring it out, we made our own fluorescent light fittings,main busbars and trunking,when it was finished it housed the machines that assembled the pop rivets,at the front a small section was converted to house the toolroom apprentice shop. In 1965/6 I had finished my apprentiship and was asked to take over the maintenance department at Midland Road Walsall ( staff of one) which is where all the tools that assembled the pop rivets were made. In 1968 I got married and moved to Kidderminster and found that it was too far to travel on my 125cc B.S.A. Bantam everyday so I left.On reflection I can honestly say that I have never worked for a better company than G.T.E.the wages were very good,the people great and the training I received from Norman and the others was second to none,if we had moved to Lichfield instead of Kidderminster I would have happily spent my working life there,I only paid one visit back in 1978 and most had moved on. I would like to know what happened to the company after 1978.