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Lucas Works Engineers

Steve elliott

New Member
I was at LES GHSt in 1968. I rember Jimmy Hughes, John Yeomans (we were both late on the first day), Les Hardy, Graham Philips, Dave Barry. Could go on and on. They were good times. Stayed at GKSt til 1986 and set my own business up. Attached photo is WED GKSt based in G7. I'm peeking out at the back. There's Stan Webster, Dave Lucas, Ted Clampin, Freddie Watts, Bruce Campbell, Dave Reade, Ray Reece, Terry Robinson-Cooke (Robbo), Joe Parker, and others who l have memories of but the grey cells are fading.View attachment 44155
 
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Re: Works Engineers. A strange bread.

A strange bread??? Not as strange as the bread my wife bought at Asda last week - it was stale!

Steve, assume you're referring to Lucas at Great Hampton Street when you speak of LES GHSt, but what's WED GHSt?
 
Re: Works Engineers. A strange bread.

A strange bread??? Not as strange as the bread my wife bought at Asda last week - it was stale!

Steve, assume you're referring to Lucas at Great Hampton Street when you speak of LES GHSt, but what's WED GHSt?

It should have read BREED not BREAD> Der! WED stands for Works Engineering Department. The guys who fix the machines. LES stands for Lucas Engineering School. If you worked there you should know.
 
Re: Works Engineers. A strange bread.

My experiences of various works engineers seem to suggest that they are good at 'ducking and diving' as we used to say. We had one who somehow got little 'stickleback' fish to swim in our factory effluent outlet to the River Tame. The lady Inspector from Severn Trent looked at the fish and the River Tame and agreed our effluent must be cleaner.
Another assistant works engineer fell into a bath of weak acid, how it happened is a funny story too long to relate here, but when we heard about it we rushed to the acid area expecting to see a skeleton with flesh burnt off, but saw him hanging on to his underpants after he had been stripped and was being blasted with a powerful water jet...:D
oldmohawk
 
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Re: Works Engineers. A strange bread.

steve elliott, nice to see some one else on this forum, who i know. they still are and still will be some of the best people who lucas employed. kind reguards john bailiff
 
Re: Works Engineers. A strange bread.

I,m glad someone has answered my post. I thought I was the last of the breed. How are you keeping?
steve elliott, nice to see some one else on this forum, who i know. they still are and still will be some of the best people who lucas employed. kind reguards john bailiff
 
Re: Works Engineers. A strange bread.

steve, keeping ok, how about yourself. are you still in touch with cliff pegg, please let me know, ta john
 
Re: Works Engineers. A strange bread.

I'm here too........worked in the WED dept at GKS as a sparky. Probably a bit later than you....I did the first bit of my apprenticeship at College Road between 1977 and 1979 then worked at GKS until around 1983. I still have my 'dice' that all apprentices had to make........Many happy memories.
 
Re: Works Engineers. A strange bread.

I to have my dice and base. I was a Hampton St in 73 then I moved to GKS GK7 to join the Pipefitters. I remember most of their names but decline to publish here. During the cold winter of 1978 (?) I spent most of my time outside struggling to keep the trade effluent flowing from the plating plant (K1?) to the treatment building near U block. Pipes were constantly freezing due to poor insulation and electrical trace heaters not working so we worked flat out trying to thaw blockages. I remember standing on the top of the substation in the big courtyard between G, Gk, H blocks when a pipe let go on me during a heavy snow storm soaking me in zinc cyanide. We had a hosepipe for just such an event so the ( somewhat primitive) safety drill kicked in, I took my clothes off and my apprentice washed me down. My position was rather exposed to the view of anyone glancing out of a window on that side of GKS, I looked up and 100s of women looked back, I like to think I made their day.:courage:
 
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