,The old big house called [FAWSLEY PARK] is a big private gymnasium ,club now
. I think he was as surprised as i was, I had not been offered the job yet it was up to foreman ,well that was soon sorted and the job was mine [another big mistake].
I got along with the training very well in fact I enjoyed it as I had been used to cranes and fork lifts and just getting into the rhythm of being in a factory and not being able to just clear off and have a tea or ■■■ there was always some one waiting on your next move as your job was a material handler and that is what I became after a few months training I held a fork lift certificate and a 20 ton crane handlers certificate within the company, that was the new word for me to get my head around everything was the Company. I had never been a company’s man before but I was drifting that way.
If you have never been inside a large factory I will try to explain what the size is like also the crane==
If you can imagine that you are in a oblong room ,look up to the ceiling and look where the wall meets the ceiling and come down 2 foot with your eye and imagine that there is a massive steel beam or girder going from one end to the other both sides on the walls, held up by straight steel girders about 10 foot apart ,and on the top of the steel is a rail, like a railway track all the length of the girder …with me ?next, there is a steel beam going across the space from one side to the other, and on that is two steel beams joined together ,in-between the 2 beams is a massive cotton reel type engine ,with a steel cable hanging down to the floor with a big hook on the end also a electrical cable hanging down to just above the floor that is the control cable with a box at the end with buttons on it to use for all types of movement of the crane .
The crane works the same as =in a amusement arcade there are grab type machines that will go forward or back and left and right to pick toys up ,that you control ,that is the same actions as the works crane.
Also if you see the size of a Olympic swimming pool. That is the size area of this factory.[analogy]
right
so after 2 months of getting used to all the workings I think I have got the job sorted in my head I am ready to go on to a shift, although I have 3 months probationer .and I have now joined the engineering union. That is a must from the company you have no option. but I did not get a new
shovel, as I was the new man I spent a lot of time clearing all the shavings up, it is called [swarf]
steel or metal fillings [scrap].
I got into the rhythm of shift work, I soon realised that there was competition between the
shift foreman with each other and the machinist on each shift , who gets most production done on each shift. but there was ,and the person who would determine the end of shift performance was the lowly material handler .
Engine block size [analogy] if you look at a ordinary bath in a house and see it as a square. imagine another bath the same size placed on top of the first one upside down ,so you now have a steel box, hollow. Imagine that now that looks like a oblong steel engine block ,but inside there is like tunnels and caves moulded within the steel ,and rough edges, all around it so you can see through it from all different angles .and you wonder how did they mould it together as looking like one whole structure they had one end as a open bottom .
if turned upside down you would see how it was done, a labyrinth of galleries that took the different parts of the engine to be assembled later on ,also the channels for the lubricant oils and they had machines that would drill, and refine all the inside .i do not know how much weight the block lost,once they were working on them but it was a lot for the amount of [swarf ]that used to come of them .steel shavings.
When the block first arrived in the factory it must have weight 1,500 kilos or one and half tons. when it left the machine shop it looked slim ,slick,i am not sure of the weight loss but substantial .
It was how many complete engine blocks would have been machined and finish and ready for the other part of the build. And that was done by clearing blocks from the stations where the men were working, trouble was some men held back with production while some had none,as the blocks were not ready ,so that would start the foreman off ,throwing wobbles and it was us handlers would get moaned at as we were not keeping production up and who was the worst at it my new friend, my old friend the one who give me the job so we clashed,i would not take ■■■■ of no one ,I would say ,look at that chap,he is the one who held us up excreta he was holding on to his block he was working on ,he finished what he had to do and did not want to start another block as that meant setting all machine up and by the time he had done that he would not have time to start working and it would be ready for the other shift,[■■■■■■■ It went on and on pure silliness.
The rivalry even crept into our small band of handlers,the fork lift would be left with flat batteries and not changed over for the next shift, you would then be playing catch up all shift. and we were always last to be finished when it was time to go,all because of the men on the shop floor not playing the game,after every shift you had to change your c overhauls ,they were black with machine dust and your hands were like a coal miners. most of the machinist there always got cleaned up and ready for the off at least by a quarter of a hour before home time that ■■■■■■ me off as a lot could have been done to help us out, but they never did.
After about a year there I was one of the team,well my own team ,i had got the job sorted, and checked things before I started work ,like make sure the batteries are charged,[silly I know but it worked] finding the wheelbarrow and brush ,daft yes ,but necessary as your so called mates would just abandon gear you needed, the Foreman would be on the ball as the shift started, I would be one step ahead,and it worked also I would work through my dinner break [no one would know,or even notice,]just to get out of work clean and on time ,as I was now sharing a car with 3 men from the same village [we were all on the same shirts different jobs though] and it worked ,as I could eat my dinner at any time [ the dinner I had at the time was very small and low in calories ,as I was on blood pressure tablets + 1000, calories a day ,it was a ladies diet, however I was overweight ] as we were like butterflies everywhere on the shop floor I soon got the weight down.