Your first job in Coventry

Have a look under who here remembers real parties and hello hope you are well. Colin.

Thanks Colin, I have replied on the 'party' topic

Although this was not my first job I left the Coventry Council when I came out of my time and retrained as a Periform grinder with Precision Gears and Machine Tools Ltd in Bodmin Road. I really loved this job. There was 12 machines of this type in the country and this factory had 10 of them, the other two were mothballed in Luton as the firm who owned them could not find anyone who could work them. They were very specialized and the people who worked them had to be half mad anyway. This is a confession in my part of the downfall of Industry in Coventry. I was never very good at getting up in the morning, so I was late for work. After a couple of warnings I decided I would get on permanent night shift, I could not be late on there could I, lol. Things went well for the first few months, bingo, I was late. How on earth can you be late for a 9 pm start? I was always up at 2-30 pm to pick our two lads up from school and never went back to sleep but I liked to push the time that I left for work to the last minute. My undoing. With the dilemma of clocking in I had a brain wave, don't have many but this was one of them, I would stick a piece of tissue paper over where the minutes would be clocked. The minutes would change from blue to red at four minutes past the hour so as the let the wages clerk know at a glance if you were late. Clocking my clock card, I now had only the 9 pm on the card but no minutes but not to worry as the red minutes changed back to blue in two hours time. Going back two hours later I stuck another piece of tissue paper over the 9 pm side and reclocked my card. You only had two minutes to do this in . Looking at the card it now said, all in blue, nine o one 9-01 pm and I was now not late. At this point I think you can now realise I was never late for work again? The only thing was the tissue paper had vanished. After about one year, arriving at work the foreman was signing everyone into work because the clocking in machine had packed up. When the maintenance men stripped the machine down they found that it was bunged up with tissue paper and could not work out where it had come from? Now I knew, but the thing that mystified me was, I was never late that much, but considering there was only a gap of two minutes to be able to do this, I never ever seen anyone else do the same thing. Half the night shift must have been doing it for years. There are other things I did as well, but really I was a good boy. I worked nights for 12 years and really enjoyed my time there and it was a brilliant firm to work for.

Hi scrutiny, When would that be, and what kind of products were you making? Specialised gear wheels? What happened to the company in the end?

Hi Rootes66, Where I worked was a small long building at the back of the main factory over looking Caludon Park. We produced Gear Shaving Cutters for shaving massed produced gears as in cars or anything you can think of with a gear in it. Our tolerance was 1/10000 of an inch and on several of my jobs 0 tolerance. The main factory produced gear shaving machines, which when shaving the gears would spit them back out in seconds, 1 cutter could shave up to 28,000 gears before being sent back to us for regrinding. Then you had the "fab-tech", they produced spiral conveyors for things like pistons which stacked up in a spiral and were fed down to the track (car factory) by gravity. The spiral saved space as they could hold hundreds of piston's. Then another section produced "ball screws" "worm screws". These come in all sizes. They are to be found in Hydro electric power stations, the nuclear industry for raising and lowering the pile-rods also even in opening shutting garage doors. All done to a very fine tolerance. The factory was family owned and became part of the Red Ring group, the parent company being in Detroit. I worked for them from 1969-1982. As I said nice company to work for our wages were second only to Rolls-Royce which says some thing for a small company. They had a loyal workforce, no strikes. The section I was in worked seven days a week, 52 weeks of the year except Christmas Day and Boxing Day. The demise of the factory came when the family sold out to "asset strippers" who broke the factory up and moved the different sections into their own premises. These were later sold on to other companies. The machines I worked are now in mothballs because none of the workers would move with them. They are funny machines to master and you cannot learn without being taught the principles of the machine. I left when I could see the downfall of the company, no loyalty to the asset strippers only contempt. Hope this helps

Hi Matash I had two Brothers, an Uncle and a cousin who all worked for PGM Ballscrews a few years ago. Would this have been the same company as yours. I know it was in Bodmin Road. The names of my Brothers are Geoff and Ted West,my Uncle is Len Ingram and my Cousin is Rod Baker. Would be interested to see if you knew them. I know they worked there for a number of years.

Hi Mayjan, i knew your brothers. The firm built a new ballscrew factory on the carpark across from the main factory. If my failing memory serves me right, i worked with your brother, Geoff, delivering cars for Rover from Lawford Heath as well. I prob knew your uncle and cousin as well but only on first name terms only, prob would know them by sight. Small world.

Well it certainly is Matash. Yes I remember Geoff delivering cars at one time,he is now living in Lincoln and retired. Will tell him about you next time we speak. My Uncle Len was 85 years old last Sunday and still looks great for his age. Best wishes to you Matash,Jan

Garry and the glass Many tales to tell not only about me but a very good friend of mine who worked at the GPO as it was then. This little story is about him and some of the scrapes he got into. He lived in Dugdale Road with his wife. He was in the kitchen when he noticed a cat was sitting on his window sill (being an old house the kitchen was attached to the rear forming an "L" shape with the back room) the cat began to annoy Garry, so he knocked the window in order to move the cat away Only problem, he hit the window a bit too hard and broke the glass, now he was really vexed, and even more so when he saw the cat now sitting on the back window sill, he ran into the back room and banged on the other window, he smashed it. Well he was a bit disgruntled to say the least. Having measured up for two new panes of glass he set off to the glaziers to get two new windows panes cut. Once he arrived back home with the glass he then removed the old putty and offered the glass in place to check it fitted . The glass seemed to have fitted ok so he then moved to get some nails to secure the glass in place prior to puttying, just then the door bell rang, he checked the glass was secure then he answered the front door, but as he opened the door he heard a loud crash from the back room (while the door was shut the pressure was equal but once the door was opened the pressure became unequal). When he returned to the back room he knew what to expect, broken glass all over the floor. Guess who was sitting on the window sill?

Baginton Airport raid This may amuse you. This little saga took place at Baginton Airport a long time ago, before the airport was modernised. The Control Tower which I think was built during or before the Second World War to facilitate the movement of aircraft from the Whitley Plant (maybe someone will confirm) I was installing a new landline communication system in the old ATC (Air traffic control). As I was into aircraft in general I loved it and got to know all the staff really well, in fact I was invited to their Christmas party. During the lunch break I used to sit in my van just outside the old airport reception building and eat my lunch, this way I could see the aircraft landing and also see the taxiing area. Needless to say I had my radio scanner tuned into the tower freq (119.25) it has to be said that the installation time was well over budget, I was enjoying myself too much. All was well and on this particular day the sun was shining I sat in my van eating my cheese on Ryvita and watching the world go by when all of a sudden the van shook violently, spilt my coffee and frightened daylights out of me, "What the heck was that?" I thought but I soon calmed down when I realised it was going to be my work mates trying to frighten me, well it was not going to work, if they think they had got me, no chance. I continued to have lunch as if nothing had happened (how wrong could I be?) After a short while I noticed three men crouched down at the side of my van, I started to laugh. Looking in my mirror and seeing these men made me laugh even more, as if they think I would fall for that stunt, then one of the men stood up, knocked on my window and beckoned me to wind it down, which I did, smiling all over my face, as he was now not obstructing my mirror view I could see that one of the three men had a holstered side arm. If this was a setup I began to think they have taken this rouse a little too far, it was all very surreal . As you may have guessed it was not a joke but the real Bodie and Boyle. "It's a film set, yes that's what it is" I thought. The man at my window said "Stay calm, just carry on as normal, you are not in any danger" he said, my mouth was already dry with the Ryvita but now I could not swallow, I replied spraying bits of Ryvita all over dashboard. "What's going on?" I splashed (asked), his reply was "We are going to arrest some persons arriving on a flight from one of the Channel Islands" then he asked me the most bizarre question! "What are you eating?", without being able to answer I heard "Go Go Go" and they were gone, storming the doors to the reception lounge. "The lads are never going to believe this one" I thought. After a short while and watching people walking in and out of the lounge totally unaware of what had just happened the Police and Customs men re-emerged from the lounge frogmarching two or three men to the awaiting cars. "Was it a dream?" I thought "Will I see a big rabbit run down a hole next?" No, it was spread across the newspapers next day. Wow, too close for comfort. I was a little disappointed in the headlines I was expecting to read "Hailed a hero, BT employee used as shield", still can't win them all. Colin PS My wife's remarks, "Did you have a nice day?" Answer,"You will not believe what happened today"

Hi RKid, long time no read ! It could only happen to you, never mind, your day will come.

Pain in the Glass In the years working for, or should I say playing for the GPO we had some fun. So many things went wrong. Too many to list but I have to tell you this little tale, it involves my old mate Garry (we have not been in touch for over 35years ish, and he is now on this site). I am sure he will correct me if I don't get all the facts right. He had a job at a double glazing firm. Having arrived at the factory he was told what he had to do, from memory as he told me he began to run a cable around the office on the skirting board then through a partition wall and into another office that was not used at the time, he needed to get into the next office, that also appeared vacant but was used for storage of completed double glazed units. Having run the cable halfway round the room he was about to drill a hole into the storage room but noticed a door that was not used anymore, "I think it had not been used for years", so rather than drill a hole he decided that because the door was not used he could push the cable through the keyhole, having checked the hole was clear and nothing was obstructing the passage from the other side he began to feed the cable into the keyhole (must point out that he did not go into the storage room, his observations were made via the keyhole). Having poked and pushed the cable into the hole it was not going through, something was blocking its passage? He then took out of his tool bag a long screwdriver and pushed it into the hole "that's funny" he exclaimed to himself, it was hitting something, he took the screwdriver out and had another look, he could see the hole was clear? So he pushed the screwdriver back in and gave it a clout with a hammer, an almighty crash was heard? He quickly ran round to see what had happened, as already stated the room was used for storage (yes for storing completed double glazed units) The units were stood against the door and being made of glass you could see through them so to Garry the hole appeared clear. The units were in a smashed heap on the floor. Now Garry being a quick thinking sort of a bloke realised he could be in a real lot of bother so without much ado he started to re-route the cable away from the door in order to cover his tracks. Once the cable was re-routed he then reported the broken units to the manager who could not explain why they had fallen over? Garry said "I thought you should know that they were broken before I started work in the room, don't want you thinking it was me that did it". The manager was most pleased that he had pointed it out as it could have caused an accident. Garry walked away thinking "phew that was close" We had a good laugh when he told me next morning, "how do you sleep at night" I asked? Just one of the many mishaps. Colin.

You both sound like two peas out of the same pod to me !

Taught him all I know, lol. Have to say he came up with a few good ones. Colin.