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Alf
Gone but not forgotten. R.I.P.
Paul I really can't remember any names but one of the lads was related to a Villa player who was well known but played before the war. I think I was about 17 and the next year it was the National Service and all ambitions were at Her Majesty's Government pleasure. But I do remember the Clubhouse on Holford Drive where I was first introduced to my fellow players.
After that it was courting marriage and playing in the Festival & Coronation & Sunday Alliance. Happy days
After that it was courting marriage and playing in the Festival & Coronation & Sunday Alliance. Happy days
Hi Alf
I know this is of no consequence to you but the lad you speak of may be my dad as he worked and played for Kynochs and played for Aston Boys. His dad (my grandad, Joe Beresford) played for the Villa (and England and Preston NE) in the mid 1930s! Just made me proud to think you'd remembered (if it's him of course). I will pass it on to dad, he'll be chuffed if I'm right.
Jo
I know this is of no consequence to you but the lad you speak of may be my dad as he worked and played for Kynochs and played for Aston Boys. His dad (my grandad, Joe Beresford) played for the Villa (and England and Preston NE) in the mid 1930s! Just made me proud to think you'd remembered (if it's him of course). I will pass it on to dad, he'll be chuffed if I'm right.
Jo
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m.whitbrook
brownhillian
Re: Kynoch's or I.M.I(LIGHTENING FASTENERS)
hi,i was an apprentice,for five yrs.at imi kynochs,my second year was spent in the rod mill next to appr.school,making the extrusion dies,but wasn,t too keen here,then third year in c factory,and finally the last two years in the engineering workshop.when i had completed my app. i was finally transferred to the lightening fastener development toolroom,next to the main toolroom making the slider ass machines.this was a great job,so interesting, i enjoyed my time in this dept and met some great people,denis rushbrook(deceased),harry swift,tony yapp,roy cunningham now living in new zealand,derek fenton,moved up to another plant in the north.ivan atherton (monty) dev toolroom form..as we called him,arthur weat (deceased),great manager(dev toolroom man)norman young,gilbert vaughan,terry taroni,al banner(foreman of the main toolroom) david knight (maintenance foreman),and harry bill foreman (deceased)off the slider ass m/c,section.and finally peter masters (toolroom)union rep,sadly now in a old folks home.does any one out there know /knew,any of these guys.
hi,i was an apprentice,for five yrs.at imi kynochs,my second year was spent in the rod mill next to appr.school,making the extrusion dies,but wasn,t too keen here,then third year in c factory,and finally the last two years in the engineering workshop.when i had completed my app. i was finally transferred to the lightening fastener development toolroom,next to the main toolroom making the slider ass machines.this was a great job,so interesting, i enjoyed my time in this dept and met some great people,denis rushbrook(deceased),harry swift,tony yapp,roy cunningham now living in new zealand,derek fenton,moved up to another plant in the north.ivan atherton (monty) dev toolroom form..as we called him,arthur weat (deceased),great manager(dev toolroom man)norman young,gilbert vaughan,terry taroni,al banner(foreman of the main toolroom) david knight (maintenance foreman),and harry bill foreman (deceased)off the slider ass m/c,section.and finally peter masters (toolroom)union rep,sadly now in a old folks home.does any one out there know /knew,any of these guys.
m.whitbrook
brownhillian
sorry forgot to mention john griffiths lf drawing office.
Re: Kynoch's or I.M.I(LIGHTENING FASTENERS)
Dates, please, MW? (So that we can put it into a historical context!)
Chris
Dates, please, MW? (So that we can put it into a historical context!)
Chris
m.whitbrook
brownhillian
hi miriam the name doesn,t ring a bell at the moment can you tell me more info,thanks,
m.whitbrook
brownhillian
Re: Kynoch's or I.M.I(LIGHTENING FASTENERS)
hi chrism,i realised after id missed the dates out,here they are,i started in the apprentice school 1956 and then after working as an app.i started in the lightening fastener dev toolroomin 1961,and left in 1970.
m.whitbrook
brownhillian
thanks miriam,hope he will be ok,i cant place him ,its been a long time now but he name rings a bell,if you se him again ask him if he knows any one in the dev. toolroom me included thanks.
mike jenks
master brummie
Hi
holford house was the training Centre and Intial Reception training.
Must of spent hours in the House. It was deep in the factory its intial location
tends to be towards the New Metals area berylium plants /Zirconium areas.
It was a fair walk either from the Apprentice School or the Engineering Workshops.
Strangely I spent my last week there on a leavers course in 1959 there.
Mike Jenks
holford house was the training Centre and Intial Reception training.
Must of spent hours in the House. It was deep in the factory its intial location
tends to be towards the New Metals area berylium plants /Zirconium areas.
It was a fair walk either from the Apprentice School or the Engineering Workshops.
Strangely I spent my last week there on a leavers course in 1959 there.
Mike Jenks
mike jenks
master brummie
Hi
I think its the openinf of the New Strip Mill close to the Main Office Block Fire station on the
Right hand side. Huge Place.
Mike Jenks
I think its the openinf of the New Strip Mill close to the Main Office Block Fire station on the
Right hand side. Huge Place.
Mike Jenks
Alf
Gone but not forgotten. R.I.P.
Jean I worked in Holford Drive Amal Carburetors in 1957
A 1947 ICI internal booklet entitled "This is your concern...." (printed of course at the Kynoch Press) gives an interesting overview of ICI's activities at the time. This is the Metals Division section.
THE Metals Division has its headquarters at Birmingham. It employs some 17,000 people - more than any other I.C.I. Division - and is the largest single producer of non-ferrous metals outside the U.S.A. The Division operates nineteen factories, located in or around the chief non-ferrous metal fabrication centres in Britain - Birmingham (Witton, Selly Oak and Smethwick), Manchester (Broughton Copper Works), Swansea and Waunarlwydd (South Wales), Wolverhampton, Leeds, Dundee and Stourport, Worcestershire. Some idea of its productive capacity may be gauged from the fact that in 1943 - the peak of its war effort - it turned out 150,000 tons of non-ferrous metals in various forms.
The Metals Division's existence within the I.C.I, organisation may be traced to the reciprocal trading which went on for years between the Nobel powder-making firms and the Birmingham ammunition trade. It sprang from the enterprise of George Kynoch, who in 1852 began the manufacture of percussion caps in a shed on the site of the present Kynoch works at Witton. Production of rifle cartridges and sporting ammunition followed. Not content with buying the necessary metal from outside sources, Kynoch decided to make it on his own account. In 1888 his firm laid down their own rolling mills, and began branching out into other lines of non-ferrous metal manufacture. This expansion into fields outside the original ammunition trade has continued steadily to this day.
The present Division represents a fusion of many well-known companies. In addition to the ammunition and non-ferrous metal interests of the original Kynoch group, it incorporates the ammunition interests of Nobels and Eley Bros., and the groups of non-ferrous metal companies associated with the names of Elliott's, Allen Everitt, British Copper Manufacturers and the Broughton Copper Company. Other undertakings included in the Division are Lightning Fasteners Ltd. (slide fasteners), Marston Excelsior Ltd. (heat exchangers of all kinds and other metal products), Fyffe & Co. Ltd. (tube joints) and Steatite & Porcelain Products Ltd. (ceramic products).
Many of the Division's products go out in semi-fabricated form for use in the heavy and light engineering trades, in building, and many other industries. Copper and copper alloys - in the form of plate, sheet, strip, rod, tube, wire and sections - are perhaps the most important as regards volume consumed. Large quantities of these products are used for electric generating plant, transmission lines, switchboards, motors and electrical apparatus of all kinds.
Much of the Division's output also finds its way into such automobile fitments as radiators, electrical equipment, windscreen frames, etc. Railway locomotives, too, absorb a large amount, particularly for fireboxes and fire.box stays. Condenser tubes for every kind of steam-producing plant and steam-driven machinery on land or sea are made either of brass, cupro-nickel or one of the special alloys produced by the Division for this purpose. The development of the cupro-nickel condenser tube of international fame was largely the work of Allen Everitt & Sons Ltd. These tubes are to be found in most ships of the Royal Navy and in the largest British liners, including the Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary. More homely objects such as electric wire, fuseboxes, cisterns, hot-water tanks, geysers, curtain rails, hooks, hinges, locks and bolts - to say nothing of kettles and saucepans - bear witness to the part played by the Division's copper alloys in everyday domestic life.
The names of Eley and Kynoch are known to all users of what are called 'sporting cartridges', though the term is misleading, because they are used as much for the destruction of vermin as in the pursuit of game. The Ammunition Departments also make cartridges for shooting galleries, for clay pigeon shooting and miniature rifle clubs, as well as special cartridges for humane cattle killers and engine starting. Railway fog signals are another product of these departments.
A somewhat surprising product for an industry largely devoted to heavy-metal manufacture is the slide fastener, popularly known as the 'zipp'. This, under the name of the 'Lightning' fastener, has been an important item on the Division's production list since 1920.
One further, and at first sight illogical, activity of the Division concerns the Kynoch Press. This owes its existence to a small plant originally set up to print the paper for cartridge cases. In the course of time it has reached its present status as a producer of high-quality printing. The Kynoch Press, besides turning out the bulk of I.C.I.'s printed matter, includes several London pub.lishers and advertising agencies among its clients.
During the war the Metals Division was of great service to the nation. Ten new plants were added to its peacetime undertakings and 30,000 to its payroll. The immense variety of munitions which it produced ranged from semi-fabricated non-ferrous metals and light alloys to such finished products as quick-firing cartridge cases and driving bands for shells, condenser tubes for the Royal and Merchant Navies, periscope tubes for submarines, and fuel tanks, radiators and oil-coolers for aircraft. Ammunition output was equally varied, over sixty different kinds being made, including many for special weapons. In addition, three wartime small arms ammunition factories were operated for the Government, and these, together with the Witton plant, were at one time producing no fewer than twenty million rounds a week.
Witton has for long been one of the largest centres of non-ferrous metal research and development in Great Britain. Many new and important alloys bear witness to its activity. The Division did not seriously enter the light alloy field until 1939, but by 1943 it had taken a leading place among British manufacturers. Today the bulk of its light alloys is going into the manufacture of aluminium houses. What remains is mostly taken up by firms manufacturing aircraft, railway coaches, lorries, cars, and bicycles, but household equipment and fittings - all the more attractive for being dyed in a variety of colours - are a rapidly growing market.
ChrisThe Metals Division's existence within the I.C.I, organisation may be traced to the reciprocal trading which went on for years between the Nobel powder-making firms and the Birmingham ammunition trade. It sprang from the enterprise of George Kynoch, who in 1852 began the manufacture of percussion caps in a shed on the site of the present Kynoch works at Witton. Production of rifle cartridges and sporting ammunition followed. Not content with buying the necessary metal from outside sources, Kynoch decided to make it on his own account. In 1888 his firm laid down their own rolling mills, and began branching out into other lines of non-ferrous metal manufacture. This expansion into fields outside the original ammunition trade has continued steadily to this day.
The present Division represents a fusion of many well-known companies. In addition to the ammunition and non-ferrous metal interests of the original Kynoch group, it incorporates the ammunition interests of Nobels and Eley Bros., and the groups of non-ferrous metal companies associated with the names of Elliott's, Allen Everitt, British Copper Manufacturers and the Broughton Copper Company. Other undertakings included in the Division are Lightning Fasteners Ltd. (slide fasteners), Marston Excelsior Ltd. (heat exchangers of all kinds and other metal products), Fyffe & Co. Ltd. (tube joints) and Steatite & Porcelain Products Ltd. (ceramic products).
Many of the Division's products go out in semi-fabricated form for use in the heavy and light engineering trades, in building, and many other industries. Copper and copper alloys - in the form of plate, sheet, strip, rod, tube, wire and sections - are perhaps the most important as regards volume consumed. Large quantities of these products are used for electric generating plant, transmission lines, switchboards, motors and electrical apparatus of all kinds.
Much of the Division's output also finds its way into such automobile fitments as radiators, electrical equipment, windscreen frames, etc. Railway locomotives, too, absorb a large amount, particularly for fireboxes and fire.box stays. Condenser tubes for every kind of steam-producing plant and steam-driven machinery on land or sea are made either of brass, cupro-nickel or one of the special alloys produced by the Division for this purpose. The development of the cupro-nickel condenser tube of international fame was largely the work of Allen Everitt & Sons Ltd. These tubes are to be found in most ships of the Royal Navy and in the largest British liners, including the Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary. More homely objects such as electric wire, fuseboxes, cisterns, hot-water tanks, geysers, curtain rails, hooks, hinges, locks and bolts - to say nothing of kettles and saucepans - bear witness to the part played by the Division's copper alloys in everyday domestic life.
The names of Eley and Kynoch are known to all users of what are called 'sporting cartridges', though the term is misleading, because they are used as much for the destruction of vermin as in the pursuit of game. The Ammunition Departments also make cartridges for shooting galleries, for clay pigeon shooting and miniature rifle clubs, as well as special cartridges for humane cattle killers and engine starting. Railway fog signals are another product of these departments.
A somewhat surprising product for an industry largely devoted to heavy-metal manufacture is the slide fastener, popularly known as the 'zipp'. This, under the name of the 'Lightning' fastener, has been an important item on the Division's production list since 1920.
One further, and at first sight illogical, activity of the Division concerns the Kynoch Press. This owes its existence to a small plant originally set up to print the paper for cartridge cases. In the course of time it has reached its present status as a producer of high-quality printing. The Kynoch Press, besides turning out the bulk of I.C.I.'s printed matter, includes several London pub.lishers and advertising agencies among its clients.
During the war the Metals Division was of great service to the nation. Ten new plants were added to its peacetime undertakings and 30,000 to its payroll. The immense variety of munitions which it produced ranged from semi-fabricated non-ferrous metals and light alloys to such finished products as quick-firing cartridge cases and driving bands for shells, condenser tubes for the Royal and Merchant Navies, periscope tubes for submarines, and fuel tanks, radiators and oil-coolers for aircraft. Ammunition output was equally varied, over sixty different kinds being made, including many for special weapons. In addition, three wartime small arms ammunition factories were operated for the Government, and these, together with the Witton plant, were at one time producing no fewer than twenty million rounds a week.
Witton has for long been one of the largest centres of non-ferrous metal research and development in Great Britain. Many new and important alloys bear witness to its activity. The Division did not seriously enter the light alloy field until 1939, but by 1943 it had taken a leading place among British manufacturers. Today the bulk of its light alloys is going into the manufacture of aluminium houses. What remains is mostly taken up by firms manufacturing aircraft, railway coaches, lorries, cars, and bicycles, but household equipment and fittings - all the more attractive for being dyed in a variety of colours - are a rapidly growing market.
This group of young ladies, the 1960-61 Secretarial School at Witton, obtained the best results ever achieved in the RSA and Pitman examinations.
They are Lorna Ashby, Pamela Boughton, Jillian Burnett, Helen Cottrell, Christine Jones, Jean Nash, Margaret Roff, Janet Cheslin, Patricia Dickinson, Vanda Hunt and Shirley Hipkiss.
Wouldn't it be nice if one or more of them was now a member of BHF!
Chris
They are Lorna Ashby, Pamela Boughton, Jillian Burnett, Helen Cottrell, Christine Jones, Jean Nash, Margaret Roff, Janet Cheslin, Patricia Dickinson, Vanda Hunt and Shirley Hipkiss.
Wouldn't it be nice if one or more of them was now a member of BHF!
Chris
m.whitbrook
brownhillian
hi holford house was just around the corner from the app.school and next to the oil stores .my dad worked in the oil stores for 10 yrs and i had to pass it when i visited him.or another close loc. was by the holford rod mill
Di.Poppitt
GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN
Chris, in the 50's the Secretarial School was in the main Office block at the Witton end of the factory. Some of the inside dividing walls were like the stramit that builders used in the 70's. Some walls had a gap at the top, and you could always hear the tap tap tap of typewtiters when you walked through the first floor.
Incidentally there was a 'Rest Room' on the same floor, and we youngsters would often meet in there at lunch time.
Incidentally there was a 'Rest Room' on the same floor, and we youngsters would often meet in there at lunch time.
George1468
master brummie
Re: Munitions works
1951 I left school (Deykin Ave) and went to work at I.C.I. This was a vast site. We youngsters who were going to do apprenticeships, hgad to work as
messengers for 12 months. I worked in the wages office for that period and got to every area of the site. There was a Sporting Loading shop which
made the ammunition for the leasure side. Also a shop for the military ammunition. I later workes in the Cap Priming area where they made the
percussion caps for the bullets. These would be made in trays of about 500 caps, which would be filled and then compressed by the operators. Every
now and again the trays would explode. The worker often needing medical attention. At the back of the work area alongside the canal at Brookvale
Road were wooden sheds where the explosives were kept. These were approached by very few people, walking along raised walkways and wearing rubber boots. If ever the Germans had hit this area during the war. It would have been goodby WITTON. George
1951 I left school (Deykin Ave) and went to work at I.C.I. This was a vast site. We youngsters who were going to do apprenticeships, hgad to work as
messengers for 12 months. I worked in the wages office for that period and got to every area of the site. There was a Sporting Loading shop which
made the ammunition for the leasure side. Also a shop for the military ammunition. I later workes in the Cap Priming area where they made the
percussion caps for the bullets. These would be made in trays of about 500 caps, which would be filled and then compressed by the operators. Every
now and again the trays would explode. The worker often needing medical attention. At the back of the work area alongside the canal at Brookvale
Road were wooden sheds where the explosives were kept. These were approached by very few people, walking along raised walkways and wearing rubber boots. If ever the Germans had hit this area during the war. It would have been goodby WITTON. George
michael weston
New Member
daremic was there a guy named john griffiths work in lf drawing office when you worked there?
our kid works there on the gate house hes been there donkeys years from old to knew meaning the new complex
he was one of the orinionals in the old gate house at the front of ici or imi what ever year you wish to choose from when he left the green jackets
and from boy to man and he still stands in the sentry box
astonion
he was one of the orinionals in the old gate house at the front of ici or imi what ever year you wish to choose from when he left the green jackets
and from boy to man and he still stands in the sentry box
astonion
m.whitbrook
brownhillian
hello miriam.i have managed to get my old settings back now .forget the alias name m weston,the M.WHITBROOK is now reinstated,it was a combination of resetting my password and my old email address .i(kept typing my new e mail address like an idiot) have a new one now,and i will try to change a.s.a.p.for my own convenience.