apprentices

We originally dated this photo to 1943 but it seems to have been taken on a different occasion from the other one in the set that's definitely 1943. We now think it is from the 1920 royal visit and have amended the caption.

Now that's a crankshaft!!!

There is an excellent set of colour photos here.

I was just going to link to those. ^^

Good aren't they. Rather begs the question of why such a huge investment in capital equipment and human capital folded?

The images are fantastic. Photos tell a thousand words and to me they say they were done to promote the company - for a brochure perhaps? Almost every one of them has someone measuring or checking quality - again it would look good to prospective buyers. Our industries in the north were destroyed. Literally torn up and thrown away. There were many reasons but probably the same as how nowadays the likes of Siemens shut units at Newcastle and moved production to Eastern Europe. It's went on for several decades now and has left this area with nothing. Yes we have a few small engineering businesses going but still - it's not enough.. I was devastated when my son left school - there's nothing of real value left for those of his age (19 now) but still they struggle on. If only the skills that the folk had in these old photos had been passed down to the younger ones..