1947/1952
By Trevor Sidaway
Girls, Girls, Girls
But this is one I can’t even remember
Dick Dallow /Trevor Sidaway/Uknown girl/Don
Tilley/David Whitehouse/Peter Noot/Peter Stokes
Saturday night at the
And a few more of the girls (and
one fella) on stage at the BTH
Second left is Rita Adams, she married my
cousin David Whitehouse in 1958
And
a few more
But most of the girls were found in
The Winding Departments
The Winding, as the Departments were
known, got their name from the process of winding the copper coils
that were assembled into the rotors and
stators of the very large range of motors
Originally the coils were wound by hand;
it was relatively light work requiring a degree of dexterity
and the process was deemed more suitable
for female workers. During WW2, some female workers were
re-directed to essential war work and
some of these found themselves in the Winding Departments
Main AC Stator Winding
The largest of the Winding departments with more than
a hundred girls of all ages shapes and sizes
Christmas time with the decorations draped over the hot water pipes
The top half of the Stator Winding with Elsie Priest in the foreground, (more about Elsie later)
Behind Elsie is
is Miss Fox—a
Supervisor
The other half of the same AC Stator Winding Department
Some girls sitting, some standing—don’t know why
Armature Winding
A
Department, specialising in rotating assemblies, built on the site of an old
wartime air raid shelter
Left to right Iris, Marlene, Anita Joyce, Moreth, Alma
Self contained Small Motor
Factory Unit and Stator /Rotor factory Unit
During my training, in the Planning
Department Drawing Office, I was involved in the early planning
stages of self contained factory units
for small motors ands stator/rotor units and the following pictures
show the units in full production in the
mid 1950’s
They were separate factory units built
in some of the spare ground alongside the Sports Field
Winding Section of the Stator/Rotor Factory Unit
The Supervisor, seen standing, is Cyril Southall, although by now a few years older I
recognise him as the
man I trained under on the
machine shop in 1947
Winding Section of the Small Motor Factory Unit
Winding stator coils on semi automatic machines took a
lot of labour out of the operation.
The coils are then transported on an overhead conveyor
track to the far end of the factory to be
assembledinto the finished motors
This factory was “state of the art” unit
with a capacity for 2000 motors a week and it pioneered the use of
light alloy die-casting for its main components
But it wasn’t all work!
Ken Troman, a Winding Dept Supervisor, is pictured here
saying goodbye to two of his long serving staff,
including a “full frontal”
with Edna Derby who started work in the Winding
Dept straight from school
and a more formal
handshake with Doris Woodward. Doris’s
sister, Ida,
is on her left
Ken joined the BTH in 1937 as a fifteen year old and
worked there until he retired 47 years later
He spent the whole of
his time in the Winding dept and although he wasn’t an apprentice he was
encouraged to pursue
his technical education by Chick Atkinson—the
Winding dept Superintendent—and
finished as a Winding
Dept Supervisor
He married a girl
from the Winding Dept--Nellie—and for most
of their married life they lived in a house
In
Both are now in their
87th year and are living comfortably in a bungalow in Reddall Hill
So the Winding Departments were chock full of girls and were a treasure
trove for us
apprentices, liaisons were formed, some of them became serious and more
than a few
resulted in marriage
I was eighteen when I worked in there and failed miserably to take
advantage of most
of the opportunities that
came my way!
But my story would be incomplete without a cautious mention of a couple
of the less
controversial ones that, fifty odd
years later, I think it’s now safe to recall!
Double trouble one
I was dating a girl from the Winding who lived in Whiteheath
Saturday night was usually spent at one of the local
cinemas—Rex, Kings or the Quinton Odeon—so
that by the time I had walked her home the last bus
back home to Old Hill had gone
Around about 11;30 one Saturday night, having taken
her home and walking back down
I got to the Mission Hall, at the bottom of the hill,
and with dance music coming from within I poked my
head around the door
I immediately locked on to a girl that I recognised from the Winding
Dept.,
she was a keen supporter of the first eleven and even travelled with us
on the
team bus to away games
I was 18 and an established first eleven player, she was quite a bit
older and
after a couple of dances and the last waltz I took her home, she lived
in
Victoria Street Old Hill
She was Elsie
Priest pictured earlier standing at the front main Stator Winding
Department
The friendship with the Whiteheath girl ended forthwith!
The Mission Hall pictured in
2007
I think that the Mission Hall was called the “
and the front of the building, including the entrance,
has been bricked over
I am told, by his daughter, that the
Dance Band Leader at that time was none other than Frank
Richards—the
“Basso Profundo” centre
lathe operator from the Toolroom
Double trouble two
My cousin, David Whitehouse
and I were dating a couple of girls from the Winding Dept
David’s date was Eileen,
she was the younger sister of a rather
flighty girl who worked on a centre lathe in the
Machine Shop and had recently been
demobbed from the ATS
My date, Molly, was
blonde and petite and we had arranged to meet them over the Easter weekend
But on Good Friday, with cousin David and my best mate--Don
Tilley (not a BTH apprentice)—we
cycled down to Stourport
On a river boat trip we chatted up some Old Hill
girls, one of whom I recognised as Pat, a
hairdresser
from Mrs Bowkleys in Reddal Hill, I had noticed her a few
times walking to work—I lived around
the corner in
I dated her and so failed to turn up for my date with Molly
First meeting with Pat on Good Friday 1952 at Stourport on Severn
( We married six years later)
Me
Pat
June
Mary Don David
As with the Whiteheath girl, my friendship with Molly also ended forthwith and the rest is history, I
married
the hairdresser Pat Johnson
in 1958 and 50 years later we are still going pretty strong but, in recalling
this
episode, I find that I have pangs of conscience so,
Sorry Molly!
Eurasian Sisters
There were three other girls at the BTH
that caused more than a stir amongst men and boys alike.
Eve, Florrie
and Shirley were sisters recently arrived from
south East Asia, they were Eurasian and
gorgeous lookers and all worked in the
Winding
Their Dad was a Chinese accountant and
their Mom was English however, they failed to settle in the
UK and eventually returned to Singapore
I understand that the youngest—Eve—finally returned to the
Holidays
Every August, the factory shut down for one week and
we had a paid holiday and in 1947 we changed from
our usual Blackpool trips and ventured much farther a
field—on to the
.
This meant four train journeys;
Up to Snow Hill station
Down to Paddington
Across
Down to
We went with cousin David
Whitehouse and family, his Dad, Uncle Hubert,
had lived in
awhile so he shepherded us across the city otherwise
we probably would never have risked it
We stayed at a Guest House called the Four Winds not
far from the beach and although the food was
awful the rest of the holiday was idyllic
The weather was absolutely glorious and we made the most of it:!
David
and me in my ex WD Naval shorts and a girl called Pip
on the Back
to
Cliffetonville beach
Complete with regulation
she slipped off the
hook—well almost
gabardine macs
The
Apprenticeship Schemes, into the Machine Shop and the vision Mary Gadd
Into
the Millwrights, the Toolroom and the Canon Dynasty
The
Planning Department, Final Test and Sport
Dudley Senior Tech and my fellow
apprentices