goldy
proper brummie kid
Hi, I’ve been reading through all the posts related to the BB&M and thought I’d add my recollections:
In must have been in my late teens/early twenties when I worked as a lab technician in the downstairs laboratory. I was there for a couple of years or so from around 1967. It was shift working (3 shift system) and you had to clock in and out on an antique contraption that was always running adrift of the actual time! They refined copper from mainly scrap, and produced many types of brass alloys. I vividly remember ‘Ally Brass’ (Aluminium Brass) that looked just like pure gold when it was cast!
The downstairs lab had an uneven blue brick floor and small cast iron framed windows and it was always filthy dirty, that is apart from where the electronic analysis was carried out. However, this fitted right into the ‘Dante’s Inferno’ / Dickensian conditions of the rest of the factory.
Ian Watkins, Vic Gumbley and Bill Bevan were all shift-leaders at the time, but the only other ‘techie’ co -worker I can remember is Micky Heaney, who was always cheerful and laughing. ‘Mad Derek’ I recall, was a general gofer who was on days and worked for both labs. We used to refer to him as ‘Derek the Menk’ due to his behavioural problems and general demeanour.
Harry Kay was a likeable chap and boss of the downstairs Lab. He was really into electronics and he made a device that attached to the spectrometer which automatically moved a photographic plate into position ready for the next sample’s spectrum to be photographed, and it maybe even controlled the exposure time!
The upstairs Lab was where the more ‘esoteric’ Lab work was conducted and was headed by a crotchety old geezer (Mac Calhoun?) who wasn’t too bad once he got to know you. (And you, him). The techies in the lab there always struck me as being a bit weird, so perhaps Mac was only reacting to the situation there?
I can only recall that a Mr Lacey being the boss of the foundry(s), ably assisted by a likeable Irishman called Johnny O’Neil. The furnacemen used to finish their night-shift a half hour or so early on Saturday mornings and most of them got involved in a large card ‘school’.
Like several other posts, I remember the shop sized window in the Personnel Office bordering Bristol Road South that featured a slowly rotating copper spring in the form of a helix. This must have been there for decades as I used to be mesmerised by it as a four year old when we were living in Dawlish Road.
One tale I heard was that at Christmas time long ago, one of the Gibbins(?) brothers who owned the place : Mr Anthony, chalked ‘A Merry Xmas to all our Staff’ on the big blackboard outside the Security Lodge. As the brothers had a reputation for being penny-pinching scrooges a wag chalked underneath ‘Bo****ks’. Needless to say the Xmas sentiment was never repeated by Mr Anthony!
Apparently during the war a woman who was loading one of the narrow boats moored in the canal wharf (which used to run into the factory) accidentally dropped a copper ingot into the water. Without hesitation the person in charge made her jump fully clothed into the water and retrieve it.
Whenever I hear Cat Stevens’ song ‘Matthew and Son’ I always think of the BB&M, as there was such an air of despondency and decrepitude about the place when I was there. This isn’t to say that I didn’t feel a little sad after discovering that there is no longer any trace of the place – after all, Auschwitz was saved so that people would not forget the place! (Also, another chunk of Brum’s history has gone.)
In must have been in my late teens/early twenties when I worked as a lab technician in the downstairs laboratory. I was there for a couple of years or so from around 1967. It was shift working (3 shift system) and you had to clock in and out on an antique contraption that was always running adrift of the actual time! They refined copper from mainly scrap, and produced many types of brass alloys. I vividly remember ‘Ally Brass’ (Aluminium Brass) that looked just like pure gold when it was cast!
The downstairs lab had an uneven blue brick floor and small cast iron framed windows and it was always filthy dirty, that is apart from where the electronic analysis was carried out. However, this fitted right into the ‘Dante’s Inferno’ / Dickensian conditions of the rest of the factory.
Ian Watkins, Vic Gumbley and Bill Bevan were all shift-leaders at the time, but the only other ‘techie’ co -worker I can remember is Micky Heaney, who was always cheerful and laughing. ‘Mad Derek’ I recall, was a general gofer who was on days and worked for both labs. We used to refer to him as ‘Derek the Menk’ due to his behavioural problems and general demeanour.
Harry Kay was a likeable chap and boss of the downstairs Lab. He was really into electronics and he made a device that attached to the spectrometer which automatically moved a photographic plate into position ready for the next sample’s spectrum to be photographed, and it maybe even controlled the exposure time!
The upstairs Lab was where the more ‘esoteric’ Lab work was conducted and was headed by a crotchety old geezer (Mac Calhoun?) who wasn’t too bad once he got to know you. (And you, him). The techies in the lab there always struck me as being a bit weird, so perhaps Mac was only reacting to the situation there?
I can only recall that a Mr Lacey being the boss of the foundry(s), ably assisted by a likeable Irishman called Johnny O’Neil. The furnacemen used to finish their night-shift a half hour or so early on Saturday mornings and most of them got involved in a large card ‘school’.
Like several other posts, I remember the shop sized window in the Personnel Office bordering Bristol Road South that featured a slowly rotating copper spring in the form of a helix. This must have been there for decades as I used to be mesmerised by it as a four year old when we were living in Dawlish Road.
One tale I heard was that at Christmas time long ago, one of the Gibbins(?) brothers who owned the place : Mr Anthony, chalked ‘A Merry Xmas to all our Staff’ on the big blackboard outside the Security Lodge. As the brothers had a reputation for being penny-pinching scrooges a wag chalked underneath ‘Bo****ks’. Needless to say the Xmas sentiment was never repeated by Mr Anthony!
Apparently during the war a woman who was loading one of the narrow boats moored in the canal wharf (which used to run into the factory) accidentally dropped a copper ingot into the water. Without hesitation the person in charge made her jump fully clothed into the water and retrieve it.
Whenever I hear Cat Stevens’ song ‘Matthew and Son’ I always think of the BB&M, as there was such an air of despondency and decrepitude about the place when I was there. This isn’t to say that I didn’t feel a little sad after discovering that there is no longer any trace of the place – after all, Auschwitz was saved so that people would not forget the place! (Also, another chunk of Brum’s history has gone.)
