This thread is worth a look, if you haven't already seen it.
https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=43330
Chris
https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=43330
Chris
-
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A correspondent has sent me a couple of interesting photographs showing her grandfather, Frank Charles Partlett.
Frank was a talented violinist and a member of a group known as the Kynoch Orchestra. One image shows its members in the 1940s or 1950s. Frank is second from the left. He retired from the Company in 1962 and at the time was possibly in the Purchasing Department.
It would be interesting to know if any Forum member has any information about Frank Partlett during his time at Witton; and also any knowledge of the Kynoch Orchestra. (I have heard of the Kynoch Players - an amateur dramatics group - but not the Orchestra).
Chris
Frank was a talented violinist and a member of a group known as the Kynoch Orchestra. One image shows its members in the 1940s or 1950s. Frank is second from the left. He retired from the Company in 1962 and at the time was possibly in the Purchasing Department.
It would be interesting to know if any Forum member has any information about Frank Partlett during his time at Witton; and also any knowledge of the Kynoch Orchestra. (I have heard of the Kynoch Players - an amateur dramatics group - but not the Orchestra).
Chris
Attachments
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oldMohawk
gone but not forgotten
Hi Chris - That looks like the gate houses in Wellhead Lane - I've just had a look on Google Maps and can see them here https://www.google.co.uk/maps?ll=52...=l0HZbxjZAM3vDCu02MhAkQ&cbp=12,139.99,,0,2.55
oldmohawk
ps. Click along the road a bit the bus will go away !
oldmohawk
ps. Click along the road a bit the bus will go away !
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mike jenks
master brummie
Hi
Yep thats Wellhead Lane Gate. No doubt.
Not sure there was a lot of Personnel Departments around this area.
CV Dodgson was in this area. Clearly the Security had Offices .
Mike Jenks
Yep thats Wellhead Lane Gate. No doubt.
Not sure there was a lot of Personnel Departments around this area.
CV Dodgson was in this area. Clearly the Security had Offices .
Mike Jenks
Di.Poppitt
GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN
Yes Chris, they are the gatehouses in Wellhead Lane, I wish I had a £1 for every time I walked past them in the 50's.
m.whitbrook
brownhillian
yes mike that is the main entrance to kynochs at witton and i also served the last year in the engineering work shops in 1959, then after, moved to the lightening fastener development tool room were i made 2 of the slider assembly machines ,and a guy named johnny grifffiths from the l f drawing office was my mentor in producing these machines,absolutly great days i can never forget all the guys i worked with ,only wished now i had kept in touch with them
mike jenks
master brummie
Hi
Yep I had just started as you were leaving. Four years in the Engineering Workshops. We use to have to Strip those Zip Machine to get at the Die Heads when I was on the Fitting Area. Mr Keeling was the boss when I Joined. Our apprentice Supervisor was a guy called Harry Evans. A den of a thousand trades in there. I enjoyed the Social side a lot. Spent too much time in the Billiard Hall at Witton. Great place for Trainspotting the line ran right at the edge.
Difficult to get a good Office Job there so joined Chrysler at Hall Green on Estimating in 1964. Stay on that Job via Lucas Rover and Land Rover. All taught at the Engineering Worksops Technical Planning departments. Had a stroke of luck broke my leg playind for Kynochs so spent the best part of a year in that complex. Unfortunately no Jobs so I left.
Sad in a way that they taught you everything but no Office Jobs.
Mike Jenks
Yep I had just started as you were leaving. Four years in the Engineering Workshops. We use to have to Strip those Zip Machine to get at the Die Heads when I was on the Fitting Area. Mr Keeling was the boss when I Joined. Our apprentice Supervisor was a guy called Harry Evans. A den of a thousand trades in there. I enjoyed the Social side a lot. Spent too much time in the Billiard Hall at Witton. Great place for Trainspotting the line ran right at the edge.
Difficult to get a good Office Job there so joined Chrysler at Hall Green on Estimating in 1964. Stay on that Job via Lucas Rover and Land Rover. All taught at the Engineering Worksops Technical Planning departments. Had a stroke of luck broke my leg playind for Kynochs so spent the best part of a year in that complex. Unfortunately no Jobs so I left.
Sad in a way that they taught you everything but no Office Jobs.
Mike Jenks
cookie273uk
master brummie
Re: Kynochs or I.M.I., was it not called I.C.I. at some period ? Eric
mike jenks
master brummie
Hi
Yep the Sad end
Company whose results once brought City to a halt officially passes into Dutch hands, reports Philip Aldrick
The curtain comes down today on one of the great eras of British industry. After 82 years, Imperial Chemical Industries - the erstwhile corporate titan which developed the anti-malarial drug Paludrine, invented Polythene and Perspex, and revamped domestic paints under its much-loved Dulux brand - will officially move into new ownership: Dutch rival Akzo Nobel.
Akzo's first tricky decision will be whether to retain ICI's famous brand or consign what has become an emblem of British history to the scrapheap. The decision, an Akzo spokesman said, "will not be based on emotion but on what will be the best value for the company for the future".
In Britain, where Akzo is already established and ICI's client problems five years ago ultimately led to its unravelling, an unsentimental break from the past is likely. Elsewhere, the ICI name still carries valuable currency - particularly in the former Asian colonies where Akzo has no notable presence.
"The brand still opens a lot of doors," an ICI insider said. "There's a lot of value there that they'll want to incorporate."
There will be no hint of a dilemma over Dulux or Glidden, ICI's paints brand in the US. Akzo is already in the process of selling Crown Paints in the UK to clear European Commission competition rules.
The Dulux brand, like the Dulux dog - a marketing tradition started with the old English sheepdog Shepton Dash in 1963 - will be a key part of the new Akzo.
But aside from Dulux, few echoes will remain of the once-great ICI. On January 7, five days after the £8bn takeover becomes effective, ICI's shares will be delisted.
At its height, the company's results announcements to the London stock exchange would bring the City to a halt, so important was its performance to British industry.
ICI's decline can be traced back to 1991, when the acquisitive industrialist Lord Hanson bought a 2.8pc stake. The threat of a takeover galvanised the board and, two years later - after seeing off Lord Hanson - they decided to crystallise the value he had spotted in its fast-growing pharmaceutical arm by spinning it off as Zeneca.
By then, the remaining ICI business was in the low-growth field of bulk chemicals, an area that was dominated by cheaper producers in the Far East.
As AstraZeneca - as it is now - went from strength to strength, ICI languished. A desperate search for growth convinced management to buy Unilever's flavours and fragrances chemicals business, but ICI overpaid horribly, amassing a £4.2bn debt pile that fatally undermined its ability to innovate.
When a computer glitch at Quest, the flavours and fragrances arm on which all hopes were pinned, caused clients to desert in 2003, the writing was on the wall. An £868m pension deficit sealed its fate.
One by one the divisions were sold off until Akzo was finally able to pick up the shrunken ICI, which consisted of the adhesive and ingredient products developed under its National Starch unit, and paint.
But ICI will live on in other forms. AstraZeneca was not the only separate company the industrial giant spawned.
Imperial Metals Industry, today's IMI, was once a part of the great ICI stable, as was Brunner Mond, the alkaline chemicals group now owned by India's Tata conglomerate.
In fact, Brunner Mond was one of the four British chemical companies that were merged to create ICI in the first place, in 1926. Back then the company embodied the growth of new industries after the First World War, making a profitable living from volume chemicals with fat margins that supported both innovation and diversification.
In its glory years after the Second World War, having been vital to the war effort, ICI established itself as a formidable pioneer, testing new technologies and creating innovative products. Its plants and their miles of pipework came to dominate Britain's industrial landscape.
During the 1950s and 1960s, heavy capital investment helped it meet booming demand for the fast-growing plastic spin-offs from the petrochemical industry, while its pharmaceutical arm had breakthrough successes with the likes of beta blockers - one of the most important contributions to 20th Century medicine.
So numerous and important were its contributions that shorthand for describing the company became the all-encompassing and rather clichéd "bellwether of British industry". Sadly, the bell has tolled its final time.
mike jenks
Yep the Sad end
Company whose results once brought City to a halt officially passes into Dutch hands, reports Philip Aldrick
The curtain comes down today on one of the great eras of British industry. After 82 years, Imperial Chemical Industries - the erstwhile corporate titan which developed the anti-malarial drug Paludrine, invented Polythene and Perspex, and revamped domestic paints under its much-loved Dulux brand - will officially move into new ownership: Dutch rival Akzo Nobel.
Akzo's first tricky decision will be whether to retain ICI's famous brand or consign what has become an emblem of British history to the scrapheap. The decision, an Akzo spokesman said, "will not be based on emotion but on what will be the best value for the company for the future".
In Britain, where Akzo is already established and ICI's client problems five years ago ultimately led to its unravelling, an unsentimental break from the past is likely. Elsewhere, the ICI name still carries valuable currency - particularly in the former Asian colonies where Akzo has no notable presence.
"The brand still opens a lot of doors," an ICI insider said. "There's a lot of value there that they'll want to incorporate."
There will be no hint of a dilemma over Dulux or Glidden, ICI's paints brand in the US. Akzo is already in the process of selling Crown Paints in the UK to clear European Commission competition rules.
The Dulux brand, like the Dulux dog - a marketing tradition started with the old English sheepdog Shepton Dash in 1963 - will be a key part of the new Akzo.
But aside from Dulux, few echoes will remain of the once-great ICI. On January 7, five days after the £8bn takeover becomes effective, ICI's shares will be delisted.
At its height, the company's results announcements to the London stock exchange would bring the City to a halt, so important was its performance to British industry.
ICI's decline can be traced back to 1991, when the acquisitive industrialist Lord Hanson bought a 2.8pc stake. The threat of a takeover galvanised the board and, two years later - after seeing off Lord Hanson - they decided to crystallise the value he had spotted in its fast-growing pharmaceutical arm by spinning it off as Zeneca.
By then, the remaining ICI business was in the low-growth field of bulk chemicals, an area that was dominated by cheaper producers in the Far East.
As AstraZeneca - as it is now - went from strength to strength, ICI languished. A desperate search for growth convinced management to buy Unilever's flavours and fragrances chemicals business, but ICI overpaid horribly, amassing a £4.2bn debt pile that fatally undermined its ability to innovate.
When a computer glitch at Quest, the flavours and fragrances arm on which all hopes were pinned, caused clients to desert in 2003, the writing was on the wall. An £868m pension deficit sealed its fate.
One by one the divisions were sold off until Akzo was finally able to pick up the shrunken ICI, which consisted of the adhesive and ingredient products developed under its National Starch unit, and paint.
But ICI will live on in other forms. AstraZeneca was not the only separate company the industrial giant spawned.
Imperial Metals Industry, today's IMI, was once a part of the great ICI stable, as was Brunner Mond, the alkaline chemicals group now owned by India's Tata conglomerate.
In fact, Brunner Mond was one of the four British chemical companies that were merged to create ICI in the first place, in 1926. Back then the company embodied the growth of new industries after the First World War, making a profitable living from volume chemicals with fat margins that supported both innovation and diversification.
In its glory years after the Second World War, having been vital to the war effort, ICI established itself as a formidable pioneer, testing new technologies and creating innovative products. Its plants and their miles of pipework came to dominate Britain's industrial landscape.
During the 1950s and 1960s, heavy capital investment helped it meet booming demand for the fast-growing plastic spin-offs from the petrochemical industry, while its pharmaceutical arm had breakthrough successes with the likes of beta blockers - one of the most important contributions to 20th Century medicine.
So numerous and important were its contributions that shorthand for describing the company became the all-encompassing and rather clichéd "bellwether of British industry". Sadly, the bell has tolled its final time.
mike jenks
Brassed Off
master brummie
Yes, IMI was originally called ICI Metals Division when I joined in 1960.
christopher short
Birmingham Post
I started my working life working in the Autoclave Lab, Corrosion Section, of IMI Research Dept. We tested Zirconium and Hafnium crystal bar under very high temperatures and pressure to measure minscule weight gain. This was part of a contract with Rolls Royce's nuclear dept. The lab was virtually a concrete bunker well away from the main buildings, which meant a long walk to the canteen at lunchtime ! and an even longer hike to the main gates on Witton Rd.
My Great Aunt, Miss Marjorie Short (she lived in Deykin Ave with my Great Grandmother) retired from Kynoch's in 1961 after 40 years service. She was presented with a very splendid Garrard art deco mentle clock which now graces a mantle in our house. Interestingly, The inscription heading reads, "Imperial Chemical Industries".
Christopher Short
My Great Aunt, Miss Marjorie Short (she lived in Deykin Ave with my Great Grandmother) retired from Kynoch's in 1961 after 40 years service. She was presented with a very splendid Garrard art deco mentle clock which now graces a mantle in our house. Interestingly, The inscription heading reads, "Imperial Chemical Industries".
Christopher Short
As others have confirmed, Kynoch was certainly once part of ICI. In fact it was one of the founding companies when Imperial Chemical Industries was formed in 1926. Thereafter Kynoch bore a number of different names until eventully being known as ICI Ltd. Metals Division. In 1962 the split from ICI started and it was then called Imperial Metals Industries, rapidly shortened to IMI as the word "Imperial" became more and more politically incorrect; and, in 1966, there was a partial flotation and the ICI ownership was significantly diluted.
I suppose that in modern jargon ICI's motive for starting to sell off its metals interests would have involved talk of "concentrating on our core businesses" and so on. Certainly it was felt that Metals Division's activity was becoming increasingly far removed from that of ICI as a whole. This was definitely the case when it came to employee benefits, and pay in particular. To generate, say, £1m of turnover there would have been perhaps a handful of blokes turning valves at a huge chemical complex on Teesside; whilst at Witton there would have been dozens toiling in one of the mills, or a hundred or so sheet-metalworkers bashing bits of aluminium at one of the subsidiaries. Those of us at the coalface at the time knew that ICI salaries and wages could never be sustained in a totally different, labour-intensive type of business. And they weren't!
The wonderful thing is that it all worked. Against the odds ICI is now nothing more than a memory, whereas IMI has gone from strength to strength. It is now a highly successful and well-regarded FTSE-100 company, even though far fewer Brummies are now employed, the activities are totally different and the Witton site, created in 1862, has long since been abandoned.
If you want further information about this, look at "1962" in my potted history of the Company here to see how the split from ICI started.
Chris
I suppose that in modern jargon ICI's motive for starting to sell off its metals interests would have involved talk of "concentrating on our core businesses" and so on. Certainly it was felt that Metals Division's activity was becoming increasingly far removed from that of ICI as a whole. This was definitely the case when it came to employee benefits, and pay in particular. To generate, say, £1m of turnover there would have been perhaps a handful of blokes turning valves at a huge chemical complex on Teesside; whilst at Witton there would have been dozens toiling in one of the mills, or a hundred or so sheet-metalworkers bashing bits of aluminium at one of the subsidiaries. Those of us at the coalface at the time knew that ICI salaries and wages could never be sustained in a totally different, labour-intensive type of business. And they weren't!
The wonderful thing is that it all worked. Against the odds ICI is now nothing more than a memory, whereas IMI has gone from strength to strength. It is now a highly successful and well-regarded FTSE-100 company, even though far fewer Brummies are now employed, the activities are totally different and the Witton site, created in 1862, has long since been abandoned.
If you want further information about this, look at "1962" in my potted history of the Company here to see how the split from ICI started.
Chris
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A correspondent of mine has an interest in the Kynoch Cycling Club and its members in the 1960s. Does anyone have any information on this association?
Chris
PLEASE NOTE
This post and subsequent responses have been transferred to a new thread "Kynoch Cycling Club" here: https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=44641
Chris
PLEASE NOTE
This post and subsequent responses have been transferred to a new thread "Kynoch Cycling Club" here: https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=44641
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Gingerjon has asked me to put on these maps showing the rail connections to the Kinoch Works to see if it brings forth any comments. The first c 1886 only has the Witton Wharf rail sidings south of the works, but by the time of the c1950 map it shows a whole rail network round the place.
The map confirms that there was in fact an extensive railway system on the Kynoch site at Witton. I did not recall a previous mention of this and people I have spoken to with experience of the site from the 1960s onwards do not remember it. There is no mention of the system in the two Company histories.
But a family member puts me right; some of his comments are conjectural:
Acknowledgements to JRCM, Britain from the Air and Ribble Steam Railway
But a family member puts me right; some of his comments are conjectural:
Not a great deal has been published about the internal railway system at Kynoch and still less in a form that is accessible online; the January 2014 issue of Railway Bylines published by Irwell Press (P.78 "ICI Witton” by Paul Anderson) whilst sadly quite lightweight on detail, nevertheless gives some information. Certainly, when the photos it contains were taken there were at least four steam locomotives present and, given the numbering, maybe there had been at least two others.
Notes online about the preserved one show it was loaned to the plant in 1914 and purchased five years later; it would have become taken over by ICI in 1927 of course, continued in operation until 1953 when it was declared redundant and donated to the British Transport Commission since when it has been preserved. See: https://www.ribblesteam.org.uk/exhibits/steam/40-lnwr-ramsbottom-1439-1865
There are references in the article to the possible acquisition of replacement diesel shunters towards the end of the 1950s and other ICI owned systems seemed to have completed that process by 1960. Ownership would have changed again in 1962 and, not long afterwards, the steady rationalisation of the city’s freight services would have been underway, aided of course initially by a certain former ICI employee. Perhaps the better steam locos were concentrated elsewhere in the UK for a little while but most seem to have gone for scrap quite early.
More photos of the site are on the Britain from the Air site of course. One is attached. Equally, the fact that sidings served the works and were then still much used can be detected in the slides taken by Harry Myers in 1961 and online here: https://www.staffshomeguard.co.uk/KOtherInformationKynochV2Eimages.htm (image 5) It would be reasonable to assume that these were connected to both the ICI internal railway and the main line network via Witton Goods Yard (I don’t think Perry Barr had any goods facilities).
Another photo I have seen online shows a blue-liveried Class 47 diesel drawing a rake of empty fuel tank wagons out of the yard as late as 1972 and it’s perhaps the case that things lasted a little later still, railway-wise.
The main line alongside was an early fixture as the Grand Junction opened in 1837; it seems that Perry Bar (sic) station opened with the line but Witton was opened quite a lot later: https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/lms/witton.htm The dates in that link show that (public) Goods facilities opened in the 1880s but perhaps the Kynoch works (and others nearby, e.g. Crawfords is mentioned here) had private siding connections earlier. The canals might also have played a part in moving materials inwards and out of the site. The GEC works next door also had rail connections and my brother and I saw those sidings in use in the mid 1960s with AC Electric locomotives in for attention well before such overhead wires reached the city.
For the real anoraks, I noticed references to a book on the ICI-owned industrial locomotive fleet and perhaps that offers a little more detail if a copy can be tracked down via a library.
Notes online about the preserved one show it was loaned to the plant in 1914 and purchased five years later; it would have become taken over by ICI in 1927 of course, continued in operation until 1953 when it was declared redundant and donated to the British Transport Commission since when it has been preserved. See: https://www.ribblesteam.org.uk/exhibits/steam/40-lnwr-ramsbottom-1439-1865
There are references in the article to the possible acquisition of replacement diesel shunters towards the end of the 1950s and other ICI owned systems seemed to have completed that process by 1960. Ownership would have changed again in 1962 and, not long afterwards, the steady rationalisation of the city’s freight services would have been underway, aided of course initially by a certain former ICI employee. Perhaps the better steam locos were concentrated elsewhere in the UK for a little while but most seem to have gone for scrap quite early.
More photos of the site are on the Britain from the Air site of course. One is attached. Equally, the fact that sidings served the works and were then still much used can be detected in the slides taken by Harry Myers in 1961 and online here: https://www.staffshomeguard.co.uk/KOtherInformationKynochV2Eimages.htm (image 5) It would be reasonable to assume that these were connected to both the ICI internal railway and the main line network via Witton Goods Yard (I don’t think Perry Barr had any goods facilities).
Another photo I have seen online shows a blue-liveried Class 47 diesel drawing a rake of empty fuel tank wagons out of the yard as late as 1972 and it’s perhaps the case that things lasted a little later still, railway-wise.
The main line alongside was an early fixture as the Grand Junction opened in 1837; it seems that Perry Bar (sic) station opened with the line but Witton was opened quite a lot later: https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/lms/witton.htm The dates in that link show that (public) Goods facilities opened in the 1880s but perhaps the Kynoch works (and others nearby, e.g. Crawfords is mentioned here) had private siding connections earlier. The canals might also have played a part in moving materials inwards and out of the site. The GEC works next door also had rail connections and my brother and I saw those sidings in use in the mid 1960s with AC Electric locomotives in for attention well before such overhead wires reached the city.
For the real anoraks, I noticed references to a book on the ICI-owned industrial locomotive fleet and perhaps that offers a little more detail if a copy can be tracked down via a library.
Acknowledgements to JRCM, Britain from the Air and Ribble Steam Railway
Attachments
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WWGoing back to other years there are no large scale maps available of the works (except for one marked 1938 where, as is so common around WW2 rail lines come to a dead end at a large open space), but smaller scale maps show (assuming they are accurate and remembering that dates are publication dates and probably then refer to about 2-3 years previously) that the system was very similar in c1921, c1938 and c1966.
Pimpernel
master brummie
These are fascinating! It looks like in 1921 Kynoch's was on the edge of the city, surrounded by fields? I'm trying to get a clearer picture of the Witton area in the first decades of the century as My GGrandfather worked at Kynoch's from around 1900 until retiring in 1929 aged 72, we still have the retirement watch he was presented with (see photo). Sadly he had little time to enjoy his retirement as he passed away later the same year.
Brassed Off
master brummie
I think that the reason that the factory was located there was that it was in the countryside but near enough for employees to get there. Also next to the River Tame there would have been a good supply of water should there have been a fire/explosion.
My Grandmother told me that as a girl she used to watch wagon (horse driven of course) drivers tickle trout from the river where the road crossed the river at Witton, there was a ford there before the present bridge.
My Grandmother told me that as a girl she used to watch wagon (horse driven of course) drivers tickle trout from the river where the road crossed the river at Witton, there was a ford there before the present bridge.
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In the 1850s there were several manufacturers of explosive devices and material in the city centre. A series of explosions caused significant injury and damage. One in 1859, at Pearsall and Phillips in Whittall Street, manufacturers of percussion caps where George Kynoch was an employee, was especially catastrophic, killing 17 employees including children and devastating the surrounding area. It was obvious that such dangerous activities had no place in a built-up area and so the Company, now controlled by Kynoch, moved to a 4 acre site in rural Witton in 1862. The factory grew rapidly, eventually after many decades being surrounded by the advancing city; but by then was so large that any subsequent incident (of which there were a few over the years, despite a generally good safety record) did not impinge on the surrounding area.
Chris
Chris
Pimpernel
master brummie
Forgive me if this has been posted before. The BFI has a fascinating film by Mitchell and Kenyon of workers leaving Kynoch's factory gates in 1901. https://player.bfi.org.uk/film/watch-workers-at-kynoch-ltd-lion-works-birmingham-1901-1901/
My G-Grandfather worked there from around 1899 so should be in the crowd.... somewhere!
My G-Grandfather worked there from around 1899 so should be in the crowd.... somewhere!
Thanks, Pimpernel, there was in fact a thread on this subject last year - here: https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=43330 - but it's good to be reminded of this wonderful footage.
Whilst it is no doubt the presence of the camera which prompts much of the joy and laughing, we do get the impression that working there was not the miserable, unremitting, Victorian hard labour which we might have imagined.
What it would be if someone could identify at least one face in this vast crowd!
Chris
Whilst it is no doubt the presence of the camera which prompts much of the joy and laughing, we do get the impression that working there was not the miserable, unremitting, Victorian hard labour which we might have imagined.
What it would be if someone could identify at least one face in this vast crowd!
Chris
Pimpernel
master brummie
Ah, thankyou ChrisM, I expected there would already be something on the Forum but couldn't find a thread (am I the only one who has problems searching through the vast archive on the Forum?). I tried looking through the film for my Great Grandfather Albert Shelley but it's a very tough call. If anyone else is interested in taking up the challenge here's the only photo we currently have of Albert, taken in the early 1920's in Tame Road. In 1901 he was aged 44 and living in Brixton Place, Priory Road. 
m.whitbrook
brownhillian
i used to make the zip fastener slider machines
m.whitbrook
brownhillian
i worked there from 1960 to 1970 if any body knows someone who worked in there let me know from this period thanks
m.whitbrook
brownhillian
and is still around of course , hahaha
Brassed Off
master brummie
Those we have loved?
I have many memories about my time at Kynochs and some of the "characters" that I encountered during my time there.
The names have been shortened to protect the guilty as well as the innocent!
When at the Apprentice School I tried to pass off one of my test pieces with the instructor. With considerable disdain he held my offering between thumb and finger over his waste bin in his office, not a good sign!
"I tell you what young man" he commented "you take this down to your Old man (he worked in the Witton Workshop), and if he passes it so will I"
He gave me a long look, and then said " or you can have another go".
He knew as well as I that My dad would not have passed off that test piece,
The piece was duly dropped into his bin, a lesson learnt. no more junk was offered again.
Upon leaving the Apprentice School all leavers had to have their tool boxes to make sure that we had not "won" anything, inspected by Billy Y. the chief instructor.
Whilst I was being trained in his area I came across a hand made milling tool holder in one of his cupboards, on it was stamped my Dads name!
Many years previously they had worked on the same section in the Workshops, I decided to "repatriate" it to our family.
I was one of the first to be inspected, Dads tool was on the top of my other tools but with the name face down.
The other instructors were duly lined up to observe the ritual.
Upon opening my box Billy leapt upon the "won" item. Holding it aloft he proclaimed that it belonged to him.
"It can't be Billy, its got my Dads name on it.The look of consternation on his face as he turned it over was a picture.
The other instrutors sniggered, he threw the tool back in my box and told all of us to "bugger off", which we promptly did!
Some more will follow another day!!!
I have many memories about my time at Kynochs and some of the "characters" that I encountered during my time there.
The names have been shortened to protect the guilty as well as the innocent!
When at the Apprentice School I tried to pass off one of my test pieces with the instructor. With considerable disdain he held my offering between thumb and finger over his waste bin in his office, not a good sign!
"I tell you what young man" he commented "you take this down to your Old man (he worked in the Witton Workshop), and if he passes it so will I"
He gave me a long look, and then said " or you can have another go".
He knew as well as I that My dad would not have passed off that test piece,
The piece was duly dropped into his bin, a lesson learnt. no more junk was offered again.
Upon leaving the Apprentice School all leavers had to have their tool boxes to make sure that we had not "won" anything, inspected by Billy Y. the chief instructor.
Whilst I was being trained in his area I came across a hand made milling tool holder in one of his cupboards, on it was stamped my Dads name!
Many years previously they had worked on the same section in the Workshops, I decided to "repatriate" it to our family.
I was one of the first to be inspected, Dads tool was on the top of my other tools but with the name face down.
The other instructors were duly lined up to observe the ritual.
Upon opening my box Billy leapt upon the "won" item. Holding it aloft he proclaimed that it belonged to him.
"It can't be Billy, its got my Dads name on it.The look of consternation on his face as he turned it over was a picture.
The other instrutors sniggered, he threw the tool back in my box and told all of us to "bugger off", which we promptly did!
Some more will follow another day!!!
