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START WORK AND STUDY There were many ex-service people
who, like myself, were now being re-launched into civilian life. Whilst in the uniformed service, we had no
worries as regards the essentials of life. We
were all provided with shelter, clothing, food, and were free from the environment of
family disputes should they exist. A
kind of being encapsulated against the stresses of day to day life. From the years 1946 to 1949, the
pattern of life was dominated by the need to reassert myself in civvy street, both career
and education wise. On the domestic
scene, I was very fortunate that I had, in Gladys, a truly feminine wife who put her
family before all other interests. It
is Gladys that I have to thank if I did attain any academic achievement. Apart from the summer period, it
was three nights at the local Technical College after work, and four nights homework and
completing laboratory reports. There
was a worrying feature about Harry, who was eight months old when I returned home. He was continuously crying both day and
night. The doctor said he was
well-nourished and that his crying would cease once he had been properly weaned. The trouble here was that the only milk that could
be obtained was in the powdered form and this could have been the failure in satisfying
Harry. It had a very distressing effect
on the family to know the child seemed to be unhappy.
Also, there was a continuous tiring effect due to lack of sleep, which could
go a month before having one full night's sleep. My mother spent hours drawing
'cock a doodle doos' to interest Harry. He
had a set of crayons and a slate board and would spend hours trying to copy his Nan's
'cock a doodle doos'. This seemed to
keep his interest more than any activity and in later life has proved to be his chief
calling. Although I was officially
transferred to the reserves until the 7th February, 1946, I was able to combine Christmas
and demobilisation leaves, so that when I returned home for the festive season, this was
the end of my army career. After all
the celebrations associated with Christmas and my return were over, I was anxious to
restart work, be it at the Ever Ready, or elsewhere. I called in at my old firm and
felt that nothing had changed. Margery
was still the receptionist, as she was when I joined in 1935. She gave me a debriefing on the present
staffing of the management. Bernard
Taylor, former head of the efficiency department, took over my post as production
controller; Sam Irwin was now head of the efficiency department; Norman Glaze was still
head of the design and drawing department. Norman
Skidmore, former assistant to Mr Terry was now manager, following Terry's clash with a
director over policy, resulting in his dismissal.
It was the same team with a new captain, apart from Sam, who
seemed to have made it in my absence. I was able to see Mr Skidmore, who
I had found very approachable before the war. He
was well known at Wolverhampton Technical College for taking an active part in its
affairs, being an Old Boy of some standing. I was resolved to restart my
career, as against taking on any kind of mundane job.
This I now expressed to Mr Skidmore, as he shook hands and gave me a
welcome back to the firm. He smiled and
said, "We have been waiting for your return, I shall now send for Mr Glaze." Mr Skidmore continued, "The Ever Ready
had set aside a large budget to replan the factory layout to cater for new- designed
products." Mr Glaze arrived, and after
formalities had been completed, he proceeded to read out the job specification, viz;- 1)
Undertake the pre-production planning of a range of new torch products. Specify equipment, tools and special
processes needed and the number required. 2)
Re-plan the factory layout to cater for new products. 3)
Keep an up-to-date factory model showing the latest state for producing new articles."
Mr Glaze then added:- "To assist in your task, a
junior draughtsman will be assigned to produce drawings for the model maker to make scaled
down models of all equipment and machinery required to place on a scaled floor model of
the factory. A mechanic will be
available for any machinery development." I addressed them and said,
"So all my dreaming about what I was going to do on my return had been sorted out for
me. I am a very lucky man to be a
member of your company. I am most
grateful to you for offering me this work, which I hope will justify your trust." I then left Mr Skidmore's office with Norman
Glaze, to the drawing office, where arrangements were finalised for me to start the
following morning. Again, I felt very bewildered, as
I did when offered the production job. This
time, however, I could grasp the size of the challenge put in front of me. I felt that any failure would be due to my
mistake, unlike any failure in production, which would have been due to an inadequate
control system. So now, I could feel
that my war service did not cause me to lose out in shaping my career. I knew several in the drawing office and had
every confidence that I would fit into their environment. Back home, there was much
satisfaction with the news and that I had found a career post with Ever Ready. During the Christmas period, I visited my
in-laws, including Grandma Morris in Park Village.
She lost her former lodger, Sam, when he married Ella Bennett from
Urmston, the 3rd member of our Urmston gang to live in Wolverhampton. Ella's brother, Jack, met and married a
daughter of Sam's staff while on a visit from Urmston to stay a few days with his sister. It would be interesting to note
the number of lives that had been shaped as a result of my late father's move to this
area. With Attlee taking over as Prime
Minister, as a result of Labour winning the 1945 election, Churchill spent a great deal of
time spelling out that Russia could be a threat to future world peace. Russia had created an Iron Curtain from
Stettin, on the Baltic coast, to Trieste on the Adriatic.
Behind this line, all the capitals of the Communist states of central
and eastern Europe were propped up by the political police, KGB as they were later to be
known. Our own Government, made up of
characters such as Bevan and Beveridge, were working towards a welfare state. The continuous food rationing, including
that of bread, which had only recently been introduced, made life very austere. The American Lease Lend Aid had
disappeared and all goods from the USA now had to be paid for in dollars. However, in July, the American House of
Representatives approved a loan to Britain, thus easing the burden of the dollar exchange. It was with a funny feeling in my
stomach that I found my way to my desk in the drawing office on the first Monday morning
of the New Year 1946. Quite some time
was spent renewing acquaintances, especially with Ernie Proffitt, who I knew would be of
great assistance in the future. Norman Glaze came up to me and
said, "Now you have a chance to put your stamp on the future factory layout. Before we get down to details, there is a need to
tackle the machine shop problems. We
need a way to store items from the Taylor and Challon presses, which produce a month's
supply of items for cycle lamps in a matter of half a day.
Secondly, the annealing of aluminium torch bodies, taking a length of 20
feet, requires a rethink to cut this down to a third."
He had a clean face, looked you straight in the eye and expected you
to come up with the answers. From
my pre-war experience with production queries, he would always refer to his 'bible' when
it came to workshop practices. This
was an American publication on production engineering.
He was later to become the top manager of this factory at Canal Works. David, who had helped to design
the range of new articles put me in the picture on the schedule, setting out annual
production with the priority as to the dates for torches coming into production. Norman Glaze, who had remained
with me during David's exposition, then said, "If you require drawing assistance, or
a workshop mechanic, speak to Ernie Proffitt".
I felt no one could be more helpful in putting at ease in my task and
replied, "You have been busy creating new models and I am very lucky to be chosen to
bring them into production. I would
like you to know I have planned to re-start my technical studies at the start of the new
term at Wolverhampton Technical College, I have been accepted for 3rd year Ordinary
National Certificate for production engineering." Norman Glaze instructed me to ask
his assistant, Ernie Proffitt, to take me round the factory when he was free. This he did in the afternoon. Very little had changed. The nickel plating shop had now been
absorbed into the bright chrome plating shop, having eliminated the need to nickel plate
before chrome plating. This area
brought sad memories of Graham Blackmore, who was the chief chemist's assistant. He and I joined the Territorial Army
together; alas he was to die before war broke out. On completing the tour, I said to
my escort: "Seems to me we have the same key players, playing on the same ground as
before the war. Did you notice we got a
smile or two from the female operators? I
am sure they were looking at me. I
thought I recognised a swimmer who attended on our firm's club swimming night at Heath
Town." "Yes, you are right, the one
who smiled was Dora, who still attends the swimming sessions regularly." replied
Ernie. Before returning to the drawing
office, I was to learn from Ernie that Geoff Bond survived as a pilot of a Lancaster
bomber, but had to leave to help in the running of his brother's garage business, as his
brother had become a war casualty. During the lunch break, I got
up-to-date with the social side of the firm while playing bridge. One of the bridge players new to me was Roy
Sury, member of the drawing staff. He
continued his studies and later became a lecturer at the Technical College and finally
became a professor at Loughborough University. Another bridge player, David
Jarman, joined the Marines and took part in a raiding party on the coast of France,
following the German occupation. He had
only been in the service a matter of months before taking part in this raid. He was captured, along with the others, and
remained a prisoner of war until the end of hostilities.
You could say he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, such is
fate. He was a Wolves supporter, and
vowed he would never take a job elsewhere if it meant missing the Saturday Wolverhampton
Wanderers match at the Molyneux ground. I
was an occasional supporter, but in truth I preferred to take part, as I did at the start
of the cricket season. The Ever Ready sports section
cricket XI played on a local park cricket ground. In
one match, when fielding near the boundary, I made a spectacular catch when running
backwards, with my arm held upright and hand open.
The ball, which should have gone for a six, stuck in my hand. I just managed to stay within the boundary,
so the batsman lost his wicket. By the following season, the team
members, using their contacts, succeeded in developing a cricket ground at Spring Hill
with the backing of the sports section. The
head of despatch stores had a son who owned a bulldozer and offered to level the ground. With Sam's contact, a ground was made
available close to where he lived.
At that time, he was not aware that his house would be
used to store the club's cricket gear. Nor did his wife realise that for a number of
years, in the summer, that she would be their chief caterer and washer-upper at every
match. This cricket ground is still used
by the Spring Hill Cricket Club, having been born by the endeavours of a few who, at that
time, were members of the Ever Ready sports club, more than 40 years ago. In those days, the firm held their
annual dinner and dance at the Victoria Hotel and combined this event with the bonus
announcement for each employee, based on the firm's trading figures for that year. A children's party, held annually at
Christmas, was made possible from raffles organised throughout the year in the factory. Harry attended one of these events and
shook hands with Santa. One of my main tasks in the
machine shop came about as a result of a factory safety officer's report, drawing
attention to the hazard created by a large number of hoppers and bins, blocking the main
machine shop passageways. The white
lines alongside the passageways were being seriously breached. Having been made aware of this
problem, I had given the matter some thought before tackling the task. I eventually proposed that the
dividing wall separating the machine shop and components stores should support a number of
tall silos. These were to be top-
loaded and the funnel shaped base was to protrude through the wall and be tapped, like a
furnace, to feed the components stores after being coated.
The items involved were metal top and bottom caps for cycle lamps, so
that no more than four silos were required.
This scheme was approved and installed. My next most urgent task was to
reduce the space required for annealing torch bodies.
Here I was given an annealing vat to use as a prototype, so that a
mechanic could test and modify where necessary in the test shop. The present practice for annealing
involved inserting torch bodies into spring clips, secured to one side of a 3 foot width
metal frame. This frame, resting
on a pair of rails, bench high, would then be turned over twice to immerse the torches in
the vat. The operator then, after the
annealing period, would continue to turn the frame over in the same direction, to immerse
into a cooling vat. The process became
finalised after a further two turning movements, when the torch bodies would be removed
from the frame by an operator. This
frame would be manually returned to the loading position.
In all a total number of six 3-foot turns, using a distance of
approximately 20 foot. This is when my technical drawing
classes, which I attended before the war came in very useful, not only for this project
but also for the silo scheme. I
proposed that an endless belt, motorised with spring-clips, secured to the belt, be
installed to return above the annealing vat. Thus,
the total length of the space occupied by the plant would be the vat width of 4 feet, plus
a drip tank of 2 feet to collect the cold water spray, reducing 20 feet to about 6 feet. To enable the operators to load and
unload, platforms were installed on either side of the tanks.
So, this became my second drawing board project, which I
had reason to be pleased about, since both prototypes were put into use. It was of great help to have Harry,
the mechanic, to discuss aspects of the design from the practicality point of view. I suppose I could claim to have
achieved three innovations if I include the plotting table for the 'ack ack' command post
at Eston. With the machine shop tasks out of
the way, I could now concentrate on the new articles pre-production project. This was not so much a drawing task, but
rather the introduction of a Kardex system to record the equipment and tools, also special
services required in the manufacture of each torch.
A meeting was held by Norman Glaze, where I was able to put
forward my proposals to his staff, for it would be their main involvement to produce the
necessary drawings. The Kardex record for each torch
included; a) the article; b) basic cycle time per unit, derived from the schedule for
annual production forecast; c) tool number for each operation; d) number of operators per
operation, or vice versa. To obtain
information for d) it would be necessary to simulate the operation using work study. Once the schedule of requirements had been
accepted for each article, a scaled model of equipment additional to existing would then
be drawn and made to install on the floor scaled model. During the summer months, my
sister, Edith came to stay with us to look after mother.
This enabled Gladys, Harry and myself to go on holiday to Weymouth,
where we had booked rooms at a boarding house.
This was a welcome break for Gladys, or should have been. Harry was now almost 18 months
old. When we knocked on the boarding
house door, a Great Dane nearly collided into Harry as it rushed out when the owners
opened the door. This started a crying
session for almost the rest of the day. To
our surprise, as we sat to eat with the owners, the dog also took its place at the table. The landlady, Mrs Morris, told us that the
animal, called Peter, welcomed any titbits that we cared to give him. He did not do very well sitting next to me,
looking at my plate and then at me. He
then found that he got a much better service alongside Gladys, who had now become very
attached to Peter. We daily spent our time on the
beach, sometimes watching huge castles being built by a handicraft beachcomber. But mostly, we made our own castles,
to be kicked down by Harry. From Mrs Morris, I learned that
Whiteheads of Weymouth built torpedoes, which were used in both world wars. Weymouth being a naval port, gave us the We took a trip around Portland
Bill and on the return route, going down onto the Causeway, we had an excellent view of
Chesil Beach, stretching many miles along the Dorset coast.
When on the beach, the pebbles gradually became smaller or larger,
depending which direction you were going.
It gave the appearance that someone has spent years in grading
them. When I began evening classes, I
would have a Welsh Rarebit in the college refectory.
On the same course as myself were a number of ex-servicemen, who had a
need to catch up with those who stayed behind.
It is always helpful to feel that there are others in the same
boat as yourself. I must have been
tired on reaching home on those three nights attending college, and yet I do not recall
being tired. Put this down to a short
memory. I do not know how my wife put up
with this routine, coupled with the fact that I spent most of the other nights on homework
and making up laboratory reports. Gladys was
also looking after my mother, whose arthritis never ceased to be painful. Sunday afternoons were sacrosanct and were
reserved for walks around Bushbury Hill. I
did a bit of weeding, sufficient to keep weeds under control, together with cutting the
front and back lawns. The wedding of Princess Elizabeth
to Philip Mountbatten was the highlight of 1947.
Philip, son of Prince Andrew of Greece was given the title of Duke of
Edinburgh just before the wedding in Westminster Abbey.
Now, when it comes to Pomp and Circumstance, there is no other country
to beat Britain for royal weddings and funerals, even more so a Coronation ceremony. At this event, the London
pageantry was watched by crowds waving their flags and cheering as the royal coach and
attendants passed by. At the wedding
ceremony, Princess Elizabeth's hand was held by her father, King George VI, as she slowly
walked to the altar with eight bridesmaids holding her wedding dress train. This occasion was a bonus for those
possessing television sets. Many houses
were filled with friends, who had been lucky enough to have been invited to watch this
ceremony. Due to the Russians reaching
Berlin and surrounding it at the time of Germany's surrender, there had been difficulties
between the western Allies and Russia on how to divide Berlin. It was finally agreed to divide the western
half into zones, administered by a western power in each zone. The Russians built a high wall separating
the eastern sector to prevent the Germans in their zone The
nearest western ally frontier to Berlin was the US army on the Elbe at the end of
hostilities. To supply the western
zones of Berlin, it was necessary to pass through Russian frontiers. On the 1st July 1948, the Russians closed
the borders preventing further supplies from reaching Berlin. A huge allied airlift was organised,
which finally beat the Russian blockade. Churchill's
warning about Russia's threat to world peace was now being taken seriously. On one of these airlifts, Geoff
Bond, who had not yet left the RAF brought back a cuckoo clock from Berlin and gave it to
Sam and Ella as a souvenir. It is said that where there's a
will, there's a way. My will was forged
as I lay on my bed at Dorney Common awaiting demob.
As 1949 approached, both my assignments were reaching their final
stages, they were my work project and my technical qualification. With regard to my pre-production
planning, this was now an on-going process, as new articles were continually being
introduced using the Kardex system. When I passed the third year
Ordinary National for Production Engineering, I was accepted for the two year course on
the Higher National Certificate for Production Engineers.
This certificate was awarded to me on 14th September, 1949. I had a first for five out of six
subjects over the two years. The tutor
of the subject for which I got a second, told me that I had 'scraped through on my belly'. This was the second time this
expression had been used on me. The first had
been when I passed my trade test at Middlesborough to become a radar operator, which
brought me an extra five shillings a day and helped me to save £500 at the end of the
war. This time, I now had a piece of
paper which I valued more than any other achievement which I can claim to be academic. Within a matter of days after
receiving this award, I applied for a draughtsman's post with the Royal Naval Scientific
Service and received an invitation to attend an interview at the Empire Hotel, Bath. There were no tricky questions to
answer, it seemed that all that mattered was that I had that 'piece of paper'. When asked where I would like to
work, I was given two places to choose from, Teddington or Portland. I chose Teddington, I think, because it
sounded a pleasant place, but also I had heard this place mentioned in the meteorology To my surprise, it was only a few
days later that I received a letter instructing me to start at the Admiralty Research
Laboratory, (ARL), Teddington on the 10th October, 1949.
At home, I knew that Gladys would welcome the move. She
had been very tense, looking after mother all this time, without a real break. Now I had a guilty conscience, as
to justify my resignation. There was general
consternation when my superiors learned of this resignation. I do not know what future they had in
mind. All I do know, is that they gave
me every opportunity to progress. On the final day of departure, I
was presented with a briefcase, cricket bat and a few other small items. I felt very embarrassed in leaving my
colleagues of my own free will. What
made things worse was when Norman Skidmore made the presentations, he remarked, "I
did not realise he was so qualified." If
he had known that I was joint top of my course and that I had been awarded the Boulton
Paul Aircraft Prize, perhaps he would have bribed me to stay. As it was, I felt flattered my
employers should express their sadness at my departure.
If my services were held in such regard, there had been no
indication wages wise. Occasionally, a new recruit into
the drawing office would be found to be receiving a higher salary than an existing
draughtsman, causing a lot of dissatisfaction in the office. After I had been in the Civil Service some
while, I appreciated most that each person's wages were set out in annual pay awards,
according to the specialisation and grade.
Each person would therefore be earning the same salary, like for
like, thus avoiding unpleasantness on account of wage difference doing the same job. At home, it would be like
repeating the war days, for I had decided to commute at the weekends to Teddington,
leaving home each Sunday evening and returning each Saturday afternoon. At that time, it was standard practice to work each Saturday
morning. This left me barely 24
hours at home. Before moving
house, I did not want to go into rooms and then find that we could not afford a house of
our own. Where I worked was to regard as my
HQ battle front in the fight to secure a house of my own. |
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© Alan Rayment 1998
Last revised: January 14, 2001