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Post by eleceng on Jul 11, 2015 17:00:05 GMT -5
The final nail in the coffin for Nottinghamshire mining. A very, very sad day for everyone in Britain. Younger generation's will rue this day for years to come.
What a world our generation leaves to our children !!!!!! |
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Post by John on Jul 11, 2015 17:56:01 GMT -5
I remember in my last year at school being asked what I wanted to do when I left, I had a big choice in Nottingham those days, big companies like Boots, apprenticeships in shopfitting, electrical and mechanical, dozens of large electrical contractors, engineering works, builders, John Players, several rewind companies, breweries, NCB, list was endless. Jobs were dropping off trees literally, no shortage of work. Apprenticeships were ten a dozen.
You didn't have to travel far either to see a pit headstock, Clifton, Radford, Wollaton, and Bestwood on the northern outskirts and Gedling close to Arnold and Carlton Tech college.
I chose a contractor, but switched to the NCB when I was nearly 17, I can only assume they accepted me as I was half way through the first year elec course at Peoples College. I had six months of tech to catch up on with the NCB...
Now from what I gather, apprenticeships are about as rare as hens teeth, and they require the kids to have a Doctorate before they even interview them.
Just think of city's like Manchester with the huge electrical manufacturers, Glasgow with M&Cs and Anderson's plus the ship yards etc.
Sad that a once mighty industrial nation has fell flat on it's face.
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Post by eleceng on Jul 12, 2015 10:26:20 GMT -5
Your early employment mirrors mine. I started at C.S.Taggs (contracting) Jan 1956 straight after leaving school. Left Dec 1957, they wouldn't send me to day release, so I started Bestwood Jan 1958. Wages at Taggies was £2.10s a week, at the pit it was £5. No contest to a 17 year old. But your right, you could leave one job on Friday into a new one on Monday. Nowday's there is no such thing as training on the job as an electrician's mate. These super qualified university guys have no idea how the job works if it's not in the book. I remember at Cotgrave several years later one of the electrician's was bragging about getting his Engineer's papers. During a breakdown on his face he had a problem. He phoned another electrician for advice. He got it allright! Why don't you wave that piece of paper at it LOL !!!
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Post by John on Jul 12, 2015 11:44:25 GMT -5
Your early employment mirrors mine. I started at C.S.Taggs (contracting) Jan 1956 straight after leaving school. Left Dec 1957, they wouldn't send me to day release, so I started Bestwood Jan 1958. Wages at Taggies was £2.10s a week, at the pit it was £5. No contest to a 17 year old. But your right, you could leave one job on Friday into a new one on Monday. Nowday's there is no such thing as training on the job as an electrician's mate. These super qualified university guys have no idea how the job works if it's not in the book. I remember at Cotgrave several years later one of the electrician's was bragging about getting his Engineer's papers. During a breakdown on his face he had a problem. He phoned another electrician for advice. He got it allright! Why don't you wave that piece of paper at it LOL !!!
Then about 1977 they took on a junior elec engineer, only a young feller, straight from Uni, jeeze he was a pain in the butt!! Knew it all and knew nothing!! John Blower and myself made his life a misery when we rotated to day shift, it got so bad, he'd avoid John and myself like the plague, the stuff we'd feed him must have raised a few laughs when he went out the pit to the offices...
John and I couldn't keep a straight face sometimes when we were feeding him a load of BS, problem was, he was so green he accepted it all.
I was in the U/G workshops one day shift, getting ready to do my rounds looking for prospective problems, when the phone rang, it was him, he gave me a job to sequence a contractors belt to our main trunk belts, it had to start with pre start alarm when the trunk belts started and stop when they stopped so as to not have a man on the switch.
I pulled the prints of the Wecol A67's, found what I was looking for, made a few notes, made a stores requisition out for some wecol plugs, got some cable etc and off to the job.
I spent about an hour setting it up, tested it, worked perfect, left it and returned to the workshop, snap time!
Hadn't been there long when the Jnr Eng called me, cancel that job he said, can't be done without modifying the GEB. "Really!! well it's done and running, and I used existing wiring in the box without any mods"
That's when he said " How did you do it, I couldn't see how it could be done"
"Thats for me to know, and you to find out" I hung up the phone after that...LOL
I had to enter what I'd done on my shift report though, bet he kicked himself when he found out how easy it was done!! Most of it was on IS signal/ stop start circuits anyway, the rest was via the pilot circuit of the GEB....
We also were finding some, not many though, ex NCB elecs, straight out of their time could be a problem, some just didn't have much experience, but on the whole, we had some damned good electricians there. |
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Post by eleceng on Jul 24, 2015 6:04:06 GMT -5
I think that young elecs after their apprenticeship were "looked after" so they were supported by the rest of the staff. After all we all had still needed advice on the job. Trouble with college kids, they thought they knew it all, so didn't get advice. At Cotgrave when we were installing surface computer controlled conveyors we had a lovely young guy with a BSc. What he didn't know about computers wasn't worth knowing. One dayshift I had just arrive at PPM office & rang control room as normal to find how the pit was. Brian the young control operator said, " get up here now, both computers are down & pit's standing". We had 100% standby. I rushed over to find our whizz kid hovering about checking out various things. I told him to get 1 computer up & running & get the pit running. He said he just wanted to do some checks to find why they had crashed. Oblivious to the pit standing (all the bunkers were full). Clever & nice lad, would never make a pitman as long as he had hole in his arse!!! |
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Post by John on Jul 24, 2015 10:31:58 GMT -5
I think that young elecs after their apprenticeship were "looked after" so they were supported by the rest of the staff. After all we all had still needed advice on the job. Trouble with college kids, they thought they knew it all, so didn't get advice. At Cotgrave when we were installing surface computer controlled conveyors we had a lovely young guy with a BSc. What he didn't know about computers wasn't worth knowing. One dayshift I had just arrive at PPM office & rang control room as normal to find how the pit was. Brian the young control operator said, " get up here now, both computers are down & pit's standing". We had 100% standby. I rushed over to find our whizz kid hovering about checking out various things. I told him to get 1 computer up & running & get the pit running. He said he just wanted to do some checks to find why they had crashed. Oblivious to the pit standing (all the bunkers were full). Clever & nice lad, would never make a pitman as long as he had hole in his arse!!!
I always remembered the humble beginnings when I had three young out of their time elecs in Oz, under me. It was bad enough being a "Pommie bastard" but earning respect came hard down there.
There was an instance, our swing shift Elec Eng was in hospital having triple bypass surgery, NSW law just required a supervisor, didn't matter whether he was an engineer or a leading hand, nightshift we had just had a leading hand as the Supervisor, and I was he at this time.
The Elec Eng in Charge had left work orders for night shift elecs and myself, they were flexible, I was given full authorization to alter or modify them, as the need arises.
As I came on early to set the shift up and find out from the Swing shift, what work was outstanding, I read all the work orders, talked to the shift U/M's and organised the work with the District Deputies.
Night shift was the maintenance shift, no production once swing shift had finished for the night.
I modyfied a couple of work orders as required, ready for my lads coming in.
One of the young elecs read his work order and neary fainted, "I don't have to do all this tonight, do I"?? It was just general, in case the elec couldn't get a machine that night, to add other jobs. I said no, the Heliminer is the priority job, I've cleared it with the Deputy, you can have it all night. I pencilled all the other jobs out, and as he had little experience, I told him to take his time and do a good job, even if it took him a couple of shifts, not to rush it, but be meticulous. It was an annual inspection., very similar to a UK fully internal inspection, and for an experienced elec a full shifts job.
He did well, he got half of the inspection completed, but was worried what our Engineer would say to him...I told him I was in charge, so don't worry.
I'll give Kerry his dues, (the Elec Eng in Charge), if he had a problem with any of my lads, he'd take it up with me personally. I was filling the reports out one morning, when Kerry walked into the report room, "one of your lads is taking an early shower, can you have a word with him please" I just told him "Next bloody time make sure you don't get caught"!!!
I had another young lad, he was assigned as longwall elec, he had the makings of a first class electrician, he had good judgement, excellent work ethic and very capable. He was taking the Engineers course at the local tech college, but he was losing interest.. I sat down with him one night and asked him what's wrong, the course was getting in the way of his sex life...LOL I think I talked, no I hope I taked some sense into him.. |
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