I am surprised that Frank Mee and others who worked at ICI Billingham have never mentioned that along with the hordes of men cycling home after every shift, there would be a few lucky ones on what was called a “Cyclemaster”. This was a bicycle in which the rear wheel seemed to incorporate some kind of piston engine. I would see them coming from Billingham on th eduel carriageway road to the Newport Bridge. They cruised at an almost constant speed uphill and down. of about 15-18 mph.
The Cyclemaster apparently cost about £25-30, which I would guess was about 3-4 times the average weekly pay at the time. My impression was that only workers from ICI could afford this type of machine. It wasn’t used by people working in the Malleable
The answer could be because it was before my time at ICI. I do remember them but never had anything to do with them as I rode Motor bikes at the time. I always had a car at ICI as did many though buses at every gate still took lots of the workers. The Honda 50cc was a favourite of many workers, cheap to run and never broke down.
I saw lots of German workers commuting to and from work on their Diesel version when I was there and there were Italian bolt on motors but Bicycle was still king for many into the factory.
My Daughter now has one with an electric motor assist for going up hills and swears by it.
Frank.
I can remember having to cycle between the tower and the silo next to it on my way to the gate that was a minor entrance to Oil Works where I worked from 1968 to 1974. I recall women packers loading bags of product from the Nitro-Chalk plant. They used to whistle at you and invite you to “come over” for a chat – I cycled on! There was a canteen just across the road from the Nitro plant where me and others from the Day Gang would feast when we got a chit to have a meal before working a half shift on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. The canteen ladies were very generous with the portions for us lads!
There was a set of single story buildings diagonally opposite the Nitro plant where we would collect our pay chits on a Wednesday and then return the following day for our pay. Many of the men would walk the short distance to the West Gate to give their wives and partners their pay packets (well at least some of it!). I can remember those days as if it was yesterday. I worked with some real characters but two remain in my memory to this day: Terry Nugent and Terry McMahon. They encouraged me to leave ICI and go to Billingham Technical College. I owe them a great debt of gratitude, as it set me on my way to a career in higher education and the Health Service and finally ending up back at Teesside University! Having said this, my time in Oil Works was the most memorable part of my “education.”
This shot shows the ICI Billingham war memorial that was situated in front of Chilton house on Chiltons Avenue, when Chilton house was demolished the memorial was relocated to the memorial garden on Station Road.
The Nitro-Chalk tower was one of the I C I skyline landmarks, seen from several miles away with the setting sun on it. Nitro -Chalk was made at Billingham from 1927 to the C1971 and I C I had for many years a monopoly on this fertiliser, using the anhydrite from the mine under the work”s site as raw material to extract the chemicals to make the product.It was the world”s first granular fertiliser. In 1958 some 275,000 tons of Nitro-Chalk was produced at Billingham, selling at that time for around £18.50 a ton. The busy periods for the plant were March and April and I C I would offer rebates on price at other times to try to even out demand. Deliveries were mainly by rail in the 1950s, to agents who sold the product to farmers, but increasingly road distribution took over and a stream of lorries from the agricultural areas, such as East Anglia, could be seen at Billingham. Competitors were always wary of I C I”s dominant position in the fertiliser market and I remember a tie up between Fison”s and Shell chemicals in the later 1950s to produce a rival fertiliser product called Nitra-Shell. The closure of the Nitro-Chalk plant and dismantling of the chalk tower coincided with the closure of the anhydrite mine in 1971 and the opening of the Nitram Plant, though I believe I C I still made Nitro-Chalk at their Heysham Works in Lancashire.
I am surprised that Frank Mee and others who worked at ICI Billingham have never mentioned that along with the hordes of men cycling home after every shift, there would be a few lucky ones on what was called a “Cyclemaster”. This was a bicycle in which the rear wheel seemed to incorporate some kind of piston engine. I would see them coming from Billingham on th eduel carriageway road to the Newport Bridge. They cruised at an almost constant speed uphill and down. of about 15-18 mph.
The Cyclemaster apparently cost about £25-30, which I would guess was about 3-4 times the average weekly pay at the time. My impression was that only workers from ICI could afford this type of machine. It wasn’t used by people working in the Malleable
The answer could be because it was before my time at ICI. I do remember them but never had anything to do with them as I rode Motor bikes at the time. I always had a car at ICI as did many though buses at every gate still took lots of the workers. The Honda 50cc was a favourite of many workers, cheap to run and never broke down.
I saw lots of German workers commuting to and from work on their Diesel version when I was there and there were Italian bolt on motors but Bicycle was still king for many into the factory.
My Daughter now has one with an electric motor assist for going up hills and swears by it.
Frank.
i can remember these fred i believe there was a similar machine in the late fifties early sixties i think it was called a n s u quickly
I can remember having to cycle between the tower and the silo next to it on my way to the gate that was a minor entrance to Oil Works where I worked from 1968 to 1974. I recall women packers loading bags of product from the Nitro-Chalk plant. They used to whistle at you and invite you to “come over” for a chat – I cycled on! There was a canteen just across the road from the Nitro plant where me and others from the Day Gang would feast when we got a chit to have a meal before working a half shift on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. The canteen ladies were very generous with the portions for us lads!
There was a set of single story buildings diagonally opposite the Nitro plant where we would collect our pay chits on a Wednesday and then return the following day for our pay. Many of the men would walk the short distance to the West Gate to give their wives and partners their pay packets (well at least some of it!). I can remember those days as if it was yesterday. I worked with some real characters but two remain in my memory to this day: Terry Nugent and Terry McMahon. They encouraged me to leave ICI and go to Billingham Technical College. I owe them a great debt of gratitude, as it set me on my way to a career in higher education and the Health Service and finally ending up back at Teesside University! Having said this, my time in Oil Works was the most memorable part of my “education.”
This shot shows the ICI Billingham war memorial that was situated in front of Chilton house on Chiltons Avenue, when Chilton house was demolished the memorial was relocated to the memorial garden on Station Road.
The Nitro-Chalk tower was one of the I C I skyline landmarks, seen from several miles away with the setting sun on it. Nitro -Chalk was made at Billingham from 1927 to the C1971 and I C I had for many years a monopoly on this fertiliser, using the anhydrite from the mine under the work”s site as raw material to extract the chemicals to make the product.It was the world”s first granular fertiliser. In 1958 some 275,000 tons of Nitro-Chalk was produced at Billingham, selling at that time for around £18.50 a ton. The busy periods for the plant were March and April and I C I would offer rebates on price at other times to try to even out demand. Deliveries were mainly by rail in the 1950s, to agents who sold the product to farmers, but increasingly road distribution took over and a stream of lorries from the agricultural areas, such as East Anglia, could be seen at Billingham. Competitors were always wary of I C I”s dominant position in the fertiliser market and I remember a tie up between Fison”s and Shell chemicals in the later 1950s to produce a rival fertiliser product called Nitra-Shell. The closure of the Nitro-Chalk plant and dismantling of the chalk tower coincided with the closure of the anhydrite mine in 1971 and the opening of the Nitram Plant, though I believe I C I still made Nitro-Chalk at their Heysham Works in Lancashire.