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My father Albert Harper used to be the time keeper for events such as this. I remember getting up very early on a Sunday morning to see off the riders from near The Beggars Bush pub at New Oscott. From there the route used to follow the A5 into Wales, I think the riders used to turn around in...

Looking at the photo, I think that this was taken from the top pf the 10 story office block. It is far too high a shot to have come from the roof of research E Block.

I was an apprentice in the Titanium Dept. when this explosion occurred. The explosion did cause the floor above the furnaces to crack open, much to the "delight" of the operators sitting there. Luckily for us it was rainy day, the apprentices usually played football on the space in front of the...

With redevelopment of the Hall Green site of the Velocette factory in York Road, it is a great pity that there is to be no recognition of this once famous motorcycle manufacturer. In their time they were amongst the most famous producers of motorcycles in the World. They won many of the premier...

During the building of the Beryllium Plant, the company at that time had its own builders and allied trades, the plumbers foreman paid a surprise visit to try and catch out his blokes having a skive. They were involved in fitting a shower unit, not your normal domestic type but one that was...

I have managed to "find" some more titbits. While in charge of the maintenance in the Research Dept. I usually had a hard time to get the carpenters to answer their phones, in fact one day I was so brassed off with them not answering that I left my phone still ringing them! I walked up the road...

I have remembered a few more "occurrences" from my time at Kynochs. Outside of the Apprentice School was the cycle and motorcycle shed. Those that had motorcycles were considered the lucky ones, and each lunch break we used to gather to look at and the discuss the various bikes. One particular...

The chap in the back row far left looks like Alan Bailey

I think that the chap in the same row as your Dad, 2nd from the left was the foreman over the garage, Farmer by name?

I am scratching my head for any more, unfortunately most of them are extremely "rude" and would probably get me banned!

I do hope that you find my "doodling" to be of interest and entertainment, those were indeed "happy days".

17 Head Scratching; The manager of the Research Dept. was a very keen golfer, so that when his retirement came up he obviously going to get a gift with a golf theme. At the time a revolutionary method of casting titanium was being undertaken in the Research. This was using a spinning method, it...

16 In Hot Water; At one time IMI (Kynoch) were interested in solar panels, those that heated water, rather than produce electricity. As part of the scheme a director was allowed to have some panels fitted around his swimming pool. All went well until an unusually hot spell had taken place! The...

15 Goings on at Witton Gate; Some little points of interest/amusement that occurred within site of the main gate at Witton may remind some of you of other “incidents”. The first occurred during the “Winter of discontent”, as you may well remember Kynochs was in the enviable state of not having...

14 The Mint; a department that I never worked in was this one. It was a high security area because of the products. Most were for Commonwealth countries, although I know that the UK 50 pence blank pieces were done there, and finished off at the Royal Mint. With the foreign currencies many were...

13 Showing Off ; There were always a lot of visitors around the Witton Site, looking back it was obviously thought to be good publicity for the Company. There was an operative of a fly press that used to show off to the visitors A fly press has a large handle that is swung around to operate it...

12 Means of transport; Because of the size of the factory site, several means of transport were available. I worked in the Central Millwrights which meant that we had to work throughout the whole site. This involved the installation of heavy machines and equipment, for this we had a very low...

11 Betting in the mills; In some of the mills/depts. there was a tendency amongst the men to either discuss drinking or gambling etc. having just left the apprentice school and being very green, this came as quite a culture shock. The laying of bets in company time was against the rules, this...

Daft Doings 10 Titanium blast; Another of the departments that I passed through was the Titanium Plant. Each lunchtime at the back of the melting furnaces there was an open space that we utilised for a game of football. The only time that play didn’t take place was if it rained. One such rainy...

9 Part of our training meant that we had to attend a local technical college, I went to Erdington. Part of the course was in a classroom, in the afternoon we were in the workshop. During the lunch break, we used to go down the High Street, one day a bright spark suggested that we buy some...