I stayed in the house on the right side of the Church of the Nazarene in Stockton from August 1964 to July 1965 when I was employed by The Power-Gas Corporation as a trainee engineer after my graduation from the then Hong Kong Technical College (now known as Hong Kong Polytechnic University) with sponsorship from the Education Department of Hong Kong Government.
The house was the company hostel for overseas employees of Power-Gas. On my first day at Power-Gas, I was received by the Personnel Manager Mr F.A. King who was a very nice fellow. He told me that he had been to Hong Kong when he served in the Royal Navy and that he enjoyed Chinese Dim Sum very much. My training schedule in the company was arranged by Mr. King, which included 6 months in the design office, and 6 months in the fabrication workshop at South Works, followed by one year as an assistant resident engineer at the construction site of East Greenwich Gas Works near London. During the two years period with Power-Gas, I also completed an advanced course at the Middlesbrough Polytechnic which helped me to qualify for corporate membership of The Institution of Mechanical Engineers. I enjoyed the time with Power-Gas very much and still remember everything at Stockton and London.
Image and details courtesy of Kwok Wong.
Picture Stockton Archive 
Power Gas were certainly a good firm for training. I served my apprenticeship with them, first in the drawing office training school at South Works. This was supplemented with craft appreciation training at the ICI Wilton training school. My assigned design department on return was the Instrumentation office. They sponsored me through college at Constantine College in Middlesbrough to my HNC qualification. Summers were spent at various sites, Isle of Grain, Coleshill, Leith, and Govan. When the firm moved to London, I left as I couldn’t afford to live there.
All in all, an excellent employer, perfect education, and skills that I still use at 73-years of age.
You certainly had good training with them.
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Kwok, I enjoyed your story. I’m glad your memories are happy ones. I went to Holy Trinity on Yarm Lane until age 11. Power Gas was a big name on Teesside.
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Amazing story thanks for posting x
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Thanks kwok Wong these indeed bring back memories for me my friend lived near here when we were children
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