Just before I finished school I applied to British Railways at Gorton Tank to take an apprenticeship as a fitter and turner. A couple of weeks after my application I received a letter from the works asking me to attend an interview with my father. The Date was about 20th April 1960.
I remember going to the main offices on Cornwall street and being very nervous as I walked down the corridors to a large office where I was to be interviewed. The office had a very large wooden desk and to a 14 year old it was quite a scary experience as I had never seen an office that large before, this was the start of the transition from school boy to apprentice. I can't remember who interviewed me, it could have been the works manager. The two negative things I remember about the interview was being told that train spotting was totally different than working on locomotives and that the maths section of my school report were was not the best. I think I was about 10th in the class. On the plus side of things my overall position on the school report was first and this swayed the interview in my favour. I was told there and then that I had been accepted for the job, and, that as my Birthday was the 24th of April, only a few days off and as I was about to finish school the interviewer advised that he would would like me to start work as an apprentice fitter and turner on The 2nd May 1960, this giving me about a ten day holiday, One last thing that we had to 'do' after the interview was for me and my father to be escorted to the machine shop to find out if I felt comfortable in the area where I was soon to start work. I only have a vague memory of that short tour but, I remember that I was a little scared of all the machinary and noise, but I put on a brave face and advised that I felt fine.
The next phase from school boy to worker was to go out and buy overalls and work boots, Then I was ready for action and I did'nt have a clue what the action was to be.
On the day of the 2nd May 1960 I reported to the main lodge in Lawton Street and met the gatekeeper who then took me down to the main office of the machine shop.
The main offices of the machine shop were at the South end of the main machine shop, and were literally under the 'birdcage', that famous public thoroughfare that traversed half of the works before it decended into Widnes Street, Widnes Street itself seperated the works from the running sheds.
The machine shop offices were seperated into smaller offices but the larger of them was the realm of Bill Grundy (Mr Grundy to everybody) Machine shop head foreman. Bill Grundy was THE man. He was immaculately dressed in a suite and waistcoat and he looked the part. When he spoke he spoke with authority, firmness and fairness. he was a kindly person who was fully on top of his job. After he had introduced himself he eplained to me the dangers of working on machinary etc and the dangers of horseplay in the workplace etc. Then he asked me if I knew who his son was, to which I said I did'nt know. He proudly said that his son was the television presenter Bill Grundy (jnr) of Granada Televisions "People and Places" and " Scene at 6-30", a family name along with Gaye Byrne in those days as the TV programmes were very popular
'Mr Grundy' then had one of his foremen take me to my place of work. I was put with an older apprentice by the name of Geoff Newton,(Spike) who was working on one of the capstan lathes. Geoff was nearly at the end of his first year as an apprentice fitter and turner, and would soon be moved to the 'brake job'. I was to learn how to operate the lathe for a few weeks before Geoff moved on. I worked with Geoff for about two months before he moved to the brake job. The first year apprentices on the lathes worked under the guidance of two machine tool setters who set the lathes up for us lads to turn out nuts and bolts, pins, studs, set screws, washers etc by their thousand to try to satisfy the thirst of the fitting bays, erecting shop and boiler shop etc
The machine tool setter who I worked for was a Mr. Len Fanning. Len was a good guy and he soon taught me how to set up my lathe, which was a "WARD 7" Capstan lathe, similar to that in the photo below, though 'my' lathe had an air operated chuck and a feed chute at the back of the headstock to feed long steel bars for mass poduction purposes. From what I can remember
of the four knobbed levers above the headstock, the second from the right on my lathe was painted red and the remainder black. The red lever was for starting and stopping the lathe and the other three the gears. I was soon learning to set the lathe up and in no time cutting threads and adjusting "roller boxes" to obtain very accurate diameters in mass production mode.
The remaining Lathes being used by the apprentices were nearly all "Herberts" and slightly smaller than our 'Wards' Except one 'Herbert' which was quite large and was known as the"IRON DUKE". Three women operated capstans' in the same area. To us apprentices they were known as 'Cosy Rosy', Madge and 'Juicy Lucy'. I suspect that one of them was there from the war period when a lot of the men were at war and women had to do the work that was traditionally done by men. I believe that there was also a female machinist in the brass finishing shop. At a guess I think that there were about eight to ten apprentices at any one time in this area, all operating capstan lathes, and all destined for the 'brake job' on completion of their stint working in the machine shop. I enjoyed working on the lathes and I learnt a lot off Len, he was opposed to piecework that some of the lads were on, his argument being that we were there to learn a trade, not to be used for cheap labour. I ultimately went onto piecework (known at the time as contract money) but, this was late on in my time on the lathes and Len had by then taught me a lot and the extra couple of shillings 'conny' in my pay packet helped to pay for my 'Woodbines'.
My first few days at the tank had me suffering from sore feet, this was through wearing my new hob nailed boots, which I had wear to walk to work from Gransmoor road, along Ashton old Road to Ogden Lane, down Ogden Lane, across the Canal, and Cornwall Street, then, through the works to the machine shop.
We 'clocked on' in the boiler shop, where it joined the heavy machine shop, The 'clock' was always under the watchfull eye of an elderly timekeeper, who made sure that people only 'clocked' their own card.