Hotline Magazine F Hills & Sons Ltd Commemorative Edition 1849 -1974 Maintenance – The Workers Who Watch the Works. Most of the Electrical Team. Left to right: Maurice Kennedy, Derek Cooper, Dennis Smith (Master Technician), Tony Lister (Labourer), Craig Harrison (Apprentice), Gordon Basford, Barry Morgan (Foreman), and Billy McNamara. Photograph courtesy of Roy Connor 
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
I remember it well pictures of myself and my father-in-law Norman Franklin
Frank, Maurice and Ronnie part of the 70+ strong maintenance team, which used to keep the works ‘working’. There were some great people there at that time. The photograph was taken around 1973. The workforce was 1200 or so total. At the time there were three canteens/restaurants, one for workers one for staff and one for the directors. It was a good atmosphere to work in you had a job and got on with what needed doing. At this time there was a boom on the building industry and therefore a lot of investment going on.
Couldn’t Weld for Toffee Left school on the Friday started work on the Monday, 1965, starting pay £2-13s-2d, as an apprentice plater at W T Seymour’s Ltd, Phoenix Sidings in Stockton, just thought I would break the mould away from places like Head Wrightsons and ICI. Tea boy for a year and college to boot, Tuesday all day release and Thursday evenings at Stockton and Billingham Technical College, another night a week at Head Wrightsons for first aid training, no increase in pay just another direction to look at. After a year the firm realised it had enough platers and not enough welders, so change track I did do, put my old course work away and started my new mode of training. College work was fine, had a great time, but as far as work went I couldn’t weld for toffee, must have thought I would get better or kept me on as a cheep tacker. Work got very mundane and boring, I knew it was time to change tack (never been sailing), another direction was sought, one that didn’t involve looking like a coal man at the end of the days labour, arc eye, and the painful molten metal dripping down the side of your boot (on the inside) molten metal travelling between your sock and the inside of the boot and exploding when it reached the toe cap, ouch. Roy.