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Delta Metal Dartmouth Street

Welcome Clarke I remember the factory opposite the Dartmouth Arms after it closed down it became Hills Glass i never worked there but did turn out for the football team their sports ground and social club was in Holly Lane erdington iwent there many times i was there training when the Spanish football squad tiurned up in 1966. geart memorie4s. Dek:cool::cool:
 
I have a friend who worked at Delta Metals his name was Arthur Hartland sadly no longer with us.
 
A few people here worked at The Delta Metal Company. The sports field in Holly Lane was well kept up and a new pavilion was built late fifties I think. There is a bowling green there and excellent wicket. The old changing rooms used to be back right of the field where the shooting range was at one time. It's all still there except for the tennis courts seemingly.
The company became TSX or some such name. An Indian group I think. Had no idea that they did not still extrude brass sections.
That area around there might have been the brass centre of the world at one time perhaps.
 
I lived in Holly Lane and our garden backed onto the sports field right by the goalposts on one of the football pitches.
 
Hi all. I had relatives working there back in the 1970s, By the names of. Leslie, and James Roach. Sadly both now deceased. Strange I should go there a few years later, into what is now a Cash Centre, when I was working for Brinks.
 
hi reg;
i remember delta metals.it was a huge company with departments around the country
thee is one or two members on this site that worked for them
including myself .
our friend mossy . whom i am sure will not mind me mentioming him from our site
here on the forum ;he worked at the one on dudley rd depot .for many a years
he started there when it was Barker @ Allen Metals .
then they changed to delta metals limited
I Myself was a foreman at delta .down at the nechells plant , ARGLE STREET,for a couple of years
working in the electro plating department,
they payed decent wages and looked after the employee,s
reggie ; merry christmas to you ,and may you have a healthy ,and prosperous new year for 2010.
Astonian ;;
 
Reg Cook you mention Les and Jimmy Roach I remember them well we all drank ion the Little Brit in Procter St i played in the same team as Jimmy he was one of my mates even 40years on i can not forget his sad death the whole team turn out for both the funerals some things just don,t leave youre mind a sad loss for all. Dek
 
Hello Dek. Nice to hear from you. I would have seen you playing football then!! I used to go and watch our Jim play, he taught me a thing or two, took up playing sunday football myself, played for about 20 years. you mentioned the funeral, Jimmy's dad is buried next to him, and next to him. is my first daughter we lost her back in 74. next to my daughter, is my mom and Dad. Its our little family plot. Val's ashes were put in jimmy's grave too. Regards Reg.
 
I worked at Delta Metals, Dartmouth Street, for about 8 years from 1968 until 1976 when they moved to West Bromwich. It was a wonderful, happy company to work for there were many tears when it closed. I worked for the Sales Manager, and I still keep in touch with a few workmates from those days. We also had many good times at the club in Holly Lane. I still have the last Delta Magazine somewhere, I will look it out after Christmas.
 
For reasons never explained, my old company could never get any sales at Delta in West Brom. There was a senior buyer there (name forgotten) who seemed to take a dislike to anyone associated with my then-employer. I never did find out why. Quite a few of my colleagues had a go, but no success.

Big Gee
 
dek carr said:
Reg Cook you mention Les and Jimmy Roach I remember them well we all drank ion the Little Brit in Procter St i played in the same team as Jimmy he was one of my mates even 40years on i can not forget his sad death the whole team turn out for both the funerals some things just don,t leave youre mind a sad loss for all. Hiya Dek. You wouldn't have any photographs of the old football team would ya.?
Click to expand...
 
Reg i,ve been looking for them i have found the ones from earlier we started of in the under 18 league Jimmy came in the middle of our 3rd season after he left the Villa i think my son may have nickied them i will have to E-mail him as he is a fully fledged aussie if he has them he can post them back. Dek :)
 
Thanks Dek. I'd love to see them if possible! You know!! I'd forgotten about Jimmy and the Villa, why did he leave there anyway.? Did he get kicked out.!! LOL.............I see you're virtually living next door to me then.I forgot to tell you, I named my son after him. Regards, Reg.
 
It is incredible - the journey one can understand and applaud but operating a Capstan Lathe with such a disability seems impossible...
 
Amazing piece of film what an inspiration, I would love to know who he was?
 
Yes he certainly is an inspiration, what an effort to get to work and then work a full day with a disability and facing the long trek back home. He puts to shame the legions of layabouts these days who could work but won't and the rest of us have to keep them and their families. I do not include the people who have always worked but have lost their jobs due to the recession, but the "career layabouts".
 
Hi I've just found out that my grandfather George Greer used to work here in 68. I have found one of his old wage slips. Unfortunately he's be passed for 34 years and I'm just finding thingss out after my mom found some old paper work
 
Hello to everyone
My mum Gladys Jenkins worked at the Delta, Dartmouth street (in the canteen) from the early 1960’s. She actually organised my interview in 1963 for an office junior. I worked there until 1966 with such great characters. The company organised for a once a week day release to Garretts Green college for me. It was a really good company to work for.
 
Hi, my get grandad worked at delta metals in 1922 I’m sure I read he was there for 25 yrs , just looked on the 1921 census and it’s written that’s where he’s working, he committed suicide in 1931 after losing his job and a bad wife , are there any pics ?
 
Hi, Although the thread appears to be pretty old I thought that I would add my 'twopennerth':
In 1966 I transferred here from United Non-ferrous, Adderley Road which was part of the Delta Metal Group of companies. (Unfortunately, this company also no longer exists.) For my sins I was working shifts in the small laboratory based in Star Works, Heneage Street – a few hundred yards from the main factory which occupied both sides of Lister Street. You would not believe how dirty, decrepit and noisy the place was - it felt like stepping back into Dickensian times. The mould dressing used to prevent the cast metal from sicking to the moulds appeared everywhere as a black dust, including the Lab..
There were six or seven furnaces in operation whilst I was there and they all produced various brass mixtures - mainly from a mixture of scrap brass, copper ingots and spelter (zinc). Once this had been loaded into the furnace and it had got up to temperature, the Caster took a small ingot sample and sent it upstairs to the Lab using a wind-up ‘dumb waiter’ contraption. It was then up to the Lab staff to analyse the sample and issue instructions over a tannoy to (eg) add more spelter (zinc), or we’d switch on a lamp that indicated it was okay to pour the metal. As you can probably imagine, the dust and tannoy system going 24 hours a day did not go down too well with the local residents!
On a particularly hot summer evening I opened the pivoting cast iron framed window in the Lab to let more air in – to my horror the pivot bolts broke, the window gave way and crashed onto the pavement below. If anyone had been walking past at the time they would have been killed stone dead!
I also remember the time where literally tons of ‘used’ bullet casings were being used as part of the furnaces’ loading mixture – very often a ‘dud’ would explode in the furnace and the casing was shot out of the molten mix, or a fountain of molten metal would erupt!
Health & Safety? No such things at that time!
On one occasion the tannoy was left switched on all over the weekend, which caused much anguish to the locals as passing traffic noise was picked up, amplified and broadcast all weekend to them. I discovered that although its switch was in the ‘up/off’ position, its innards had not actually moved enough to break contact !
After a year or two in the Lab. I passed an aptitude test and moved over to the main offices as a Computer Operator. This was situated in one of the floors above the Midland Bank at the corner of Lister Street and Dartmouth Street.
For any of you that are technical ‘geeks’ the computer was an ICL 1901A with 16kb hard wired core-store (memory), paper tape input, a line printer and two magnetic tape decks. Oh, and a paper tape punch! All directed via a central console – no operating system! Over time the computer was successively upgraded to an ICL1903T running under George II operating system and incorporating some EDS8 (8Mb), and later, EDS16 disks. I remember that we did some processing for the Evening Mail to help them out with their introduction of an ICL computer.
I later moved into programming and was moved across to the Love Lane offices there. I believe the area was called ‘New Side’, which was probably appropriate when it was first built.
The Delta seemed to own the section of Love Lane for a few hundred yards from its junction with Dartmouth Street as it was gated off to prevent public access.
We very often used to frequent the Pot o’ Beer at lunchtime, but I preferred the Old Union Mill, which had a better pint of Ansell's’. There was also a little pub along the public stretch of Love Lane called the General Wolf. I only went there a couple of times as it was pretty decrepit, and empty most of the time. I used to enjoy a occasional forage through the mountains of stuff that ‘Fletchers – Home of the Motorist’ used to have. A lot of it must have come from the Austin motor works as there were always lots of Austin bits and pieces for sale at knock-down prices, which helped me keep my Austin 1100 on the road.
I only went to the Holly Lane sports’ ground a few times, but was impressed by how nice it was, and what a good pint of beer it sold!
Both the Delta company and the people who worked there were really great and it was a real body-blow when I learnt that the company would be closing down. They did offer people alternative employment at Delta Rods, West Bromwich, but I just could not bear the thought of commuting backwards and forwards there and decided to leave for pastures new. I attended the ‘Last Extrusion’ ceremony that took place and still have a piece of the extruded brass pawl. During the ‘clear out’ period before the actual closure, it was really heartbreaking to walk through silent, empty buildings and through the rows of vacant workbenches where several generations of people must have been busily engaged in earning a living at one time.
 
goldy said:
Hi, Although the thread appears to be pretty old I thought that I would add my 'twopennerth':
In 1966 I transferred here from United Non-ferrous, Adderley Road which was part of the Delta Metal Group of companies. (Unfortunately, this company also no longer exists.) For my sins I was working shifts in the small laboratory based in Star Works, Heneage Street – a few hundred yards from the main factory which occupied both sides of Lister Street. You would not believe how dirty, decrepit and noisy the place was - it felt like stepping back into Dickensian times. The mould dressing used to prevent the cast metal from sicking to the moulds appeared everywhere as a black dust, including the Lab..
There were six or seven furnaces in operation whilst I was there and they all produced various brass mixtures - mainly from a mixture of scrap brass, copper ingots and spelter (zinc). Once this had been loaded into the furnace and it had got up to temperature, the Caster took a small ingot sample and sent it upstairs to the Lab using a wind-up ‘dumb waiter’ contraption. It was then up to the Lab staff to analyse the sample and issue instructions over a tannoy to (eg) add more spelter (zinc), or we’d switch on a lamp that indicated it was okay to pour the metal. As you can probably imagine, the dust and tannoy system going 24 hours a day did not go down too well with the local residents!
On a particularly hot summer evening I opened the pivoting cast iron framed window in the Lab to let more air in – to my horror the pivot bolts broke, the window gave way and crashed onto the pavement below. If anyone had been walking past at the time they would have been killed stone dead!
I also remember the time where literally tons of ‘used’ bullet casings were being used as part of the furnaces’ loading mixture – very often a ‘dud’ would explode in the furnace and the casing was shot out of the molten mix, or a fountain of molten metal would erupt!
Health & Safety? No such things at that time!
On one occasion the tannoy was left switched on all over the weekend, which caused much anguish to the locals as passing traffic noise was picked up, amplified and broadcast all weekend to them. I discovered that although its switch was in the ‘up/off’ position, its innards had not actually moved enough to break contact !
After a year or two in the Lab. I passed an aptitude test and moved over to the main offices as a Computer Operator. This was situated in one of the floors above the Midland Bank at the corner of Lister Street and Dartmouth Street.
For any of you that are technical ‘geeks’ the computer was an ICL 1901A with 16kb hard wired core-store (memory), paper tape input, a line printer and two magnetic tape decks. Oh, and a paper tape punch! All directed via a central console – no operating system! Over time the computer was successively upgraded to an ICL1903T running under George II operating system and incorporating some EDS8 (8Mb), and later, EDS16 disks. I remember that we did some processing for the Evening Mail to help them out with their introduction of an ICL computer.
I later moved into programming and was moved across to the Love Lane offices there. I believe the area was called ‘New Side’, which was probably appropriate when it was first built.
The Delta seemed to own the section of Love Lane for a few hundred yards from its junction with Dartmouth Street as it was gated off to prevent public access.
We very often used to frequent the Pot o’ Beer at lunchtime, but I preferred the Old Union Mill, which had a better pint of Ansell's’. There was also a little pub along the public stretch of Love Lane called the General Wolf. I only went there a couple of times as it was pretty decrepit, and empty most of the time. I used to enjoy a occasional forage through the mountains of stuff that ‘Fletchers – Home of the Motorist’ used to have. A lot of it must have come from the Austin motor works as there were always lots of Austin bits and pieces for sale at knock-down prices, which helped me keep my Austin 1100 on the road.
II only went to the Holly Lane sports’ ground a few times, but was impressed by how nice it was, and what a good pint of beer it sold!
Both the Delta company and the people who worked there were really great and it was a real body-blow when I learnt that the company would be closing down. They did offer people alternative employment at Delta Rods, West Bromwich, but I just could not bear the thought of commuting backwards and forwards there and decided to leave for pastures new. I attended the ‘Last Extrusion’ ceremony that took place and still have a piece of the extruded brass pawl. During the ‘clear out’ period before the actual closure, it was really heartbreaking to walk through silent, empty buildings and through the rows of vacant workbenches where several generations of people must have been busily engaged in earning a living at one time.
Click to expand...
I remember Delta Metal in Dartmouth Street. I would pass it on the way to school (Bloomsbury Girls Annexe) and then on the way to work at Benton & Stone in Aston Brook Street, my first job. Regards Sue
 
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