Working Experiences

 

This page contains people's working experiences.

 

If you worked in Clydebridge or Clyde Iron Works, or other Scottish steelworks, and have a story you would like to share, send it in to the e-mail address on the Contact page.

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Contents

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1887 - 1920, Lee Carbonne

1900 - 1953, Alex Barrie, Storeman

1917 - 1920 John Murray, Chief Engineer

1916 - 1958 James Annand, Plate Mill Roller

1917 - 1955 William Crombie, Melting Shop

1950s Archie Edmond

1964 - 1966 William Cowan, Cooling Floor

1972 - Colin Findlay, Melting Shop

1977, Terry Young, ELVIS IS DEAD

1977, Graham Mitchell, 200 Ton Crane Driver

1981 - Colin Findlay, Plate Mill

1982 - Jim Neill, The Fires are Dead

1974 - 1991 - Peter Smith - Chemist

2000 - Roddy MacKenzie, When The Iron Was Hot

2004 - Colin Findlay, revisit

1887 - 1920, Le Carbonne (extract from Colvilles Magazine 1920)

In those early days, before the introduction of electricity as a motive power, the methods of production were somewhat crude. All the furnaces were hand charged, the Ingots from the charges being handled by means of a 15 ton Portable Steam Crane, which also did duty in pushing the ladle carriage along the casting pit. The Ingots cast at that time weighed from 25 to 60 cwt and were taken from the pit and dropped down on a sand bed, from where they were lifted by a 10 ton Steam Crane operating in front of the Cogging Mill. The heating arrangement at the Cogging Mill consisted of two Vertical Reheating Furnaces, the underground Live Soaker not then being in vogue. From the sand bed, the site of which is now occupied by Dead Soakers, the Ingots were conveyed by the Portable Steam Crane and placed on the sill of the furnace, to be later worked into a suitable position to ensure their receiving the proper heat. When sufficiently hot for rolling, they were drawn from the furnace, the Ingot being gripped by a huge pair of tongs, to which the crane chain was attached, and placed on a roller rack. There were three live rollers on either side of this Mill; while the screws for setting the rolls were operated by a small horizontal steam engine direct coupled to the worm-gear.

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At the Cogging Mill, after rolling, the slab was cut into lengths by Steam Shears or Guillotine, loaded on iron bogies by a Steam Derrick, and drawn by squads of men to the Plate Mill Heating Furnaces. Here were two furnaces, in front of which was a hydraulic cylinder, termed in the vernacular "The Polisman." In charging these furnaces, the, loaded bogie was run alongside the sill, the slabs being levered off into the furnace with "chippers" or crowbars. The slabs, when heated to the necessary rolling temperature, were drawn out again on to the iron bogie by the same laborious method as adopted at the Cogging Mill, the hydraulic cylinder serving the purpose of the Steam Crane. There were no roller racks at the Plate Mill, their place being taken by steel plates, which had ribs cast on them to serve the purpose of heels or fulcrums, whereby the workmen were enabled to lever the material forward towards the Rolls. The screws for this Mill were operated by a small horizontal steam engine, erected on a bracket on the side of the Mill housing. The change over from soft to hard rolls was effected by the use of bogies, the screws for the finishing rolls being hand operated. In addition, there was a loose roller which served to support the end of the plate during rolling.

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Since that time the Works have gradually extended; in later years a large tonnage of plates manufactured here being used in the construction of the Mauretania, The Empress of Ireland, and many other large liners. Electricity from the Clyde Valley had been introduced and machinery and plant brought more up to date; and since Messrs. Colville purchased the Works in October 1915 a great transformation has been effected.

1900 - 1953 Alexander Barrie, Storeman

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Mr. Barrie, Engineers' Department Storeman, if not the longest serving employee, must come very close to that distinction. He entered the Works on 5th March, 1900, as an apprentice engineer, and retired at the end of 1953. In his early days, he remembers when a pony and cart was used to take rubbish away from the valve pit. The Melting Shop at that time was a battery of nine hand charged furnaces. There were neither chargers at the Plate Mill, nor an overhead crane in the Works. Lighting was made by naptha lamps.

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1917 - 1960, John Murray, Chief Engineer

My entry to Clydebridge was made in the month of May, 1917 and I have been employed therein ever since, except for a period of 8 or 9 weeks when I worked in Clyde Alloy Works, Wishaw, during part of the time Clydebridge was entirely closed down in 1922/23.

Mr. J. Gillespie Chief Engineer, called me into the Dalzell Engineer's Office and offered me a Foreman's job at Clydebridge and I reluctantly accepted same on the advice of Mr. Wm. Hamilton, Works Engineer at Dalzell.

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The journey to Clydebridge was made in the afternoon in the Firm's Motor Car driven by "Watson", ex coachman to the late Mr A. Colvil1e. We had a puncture necessitating changing a wheel, and between "Watson" muttering to me about "Gillespie" and "Gillespie" telling off "Watson" in a voice which was never pleasant to listen to, but this day "The Voice" was completely out of tune and believe me it was anything but a pleasant outing.

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We ultimately arrived and I was taken over to the then No.2 Plate Mill where I met George Anderson who had been there for six weeks and his salutation was "Thank Heaven I am getting off this job". I commenced work next morning at 6 am on a Plate Mill which had been out of use for some time. Parts of Machinery were missing - No Mill Engine but foundations were being prepared for a new Engine. No overhead crane, there never had been one on this site and all heavy machinery was handled by a Steam Portable Crane which was obtained on "Loan" from the Melting Shop Pitside. Fortunately John Ingram with a squad of Riggers was busy erecting Columns and Girders as the foundations for same were completed and we had a Gantry with a 30 Ton E.O.H. "Delburn" Crane (still working in 1960) in the month of August.

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After many trials and tribulations this (No2) Two Stand Plate Mill, driven by a first class Markham Steam Engine was producing Mild Steel Plates for the Shipyards, etc., on the l2th December, 1917. Shortly before that date Mr. John McCracken, with a number of other Staff and Workmen, arrived at Clydebridge augmenting the number of ex Dalzell men (Incomers).

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In 1917 the approach to Clydebridge was via a Farm Cart Road with a grass verge about- 4ft. wide on each side. Mr. J. Young was the farmer, his house and steadings were much as they are to-day with minor alterations and on the site of the present Office stood a terrace of four houses belonging to Clydebridge and tenanted by Officials of the Works.

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The railway bridge was only half the present width and passing under the bridge to the right was the offices, on the left was a stable and a coach house. Passing the Time Office, placed at the South End of the General Office, the works were at the East End - West and North were green fields with cattle grazing and crops growing.

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The Works comprised - Melting Shop - Cogging Mill - Three Plate Mills with Two Mill Engines - Shears Bay - Loading Bank Battery of Lancashire Steam Boilers - Engineering Shops.

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The old Cogging Mill had been renovated under the supervision of James Annand and put into operation rolling Shell Bars during the month of September 1916.

 

The Mill was supplied with 3 Ton Ingots handled by Steam Portable Cranes from the six 30 Ton Furnaces A B D E F G and three 50 Ton Furnaces H J K.

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The West End of the Shop was altered and became Machine operated from around early 1917.

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The Steam Portable Cranes were important units carrying out all the Pitside duties. After the steel was tapped into the Ladle these Cranes with a long Steel Bar attached, pushed the Ladle Carriage along Pit to allow teeming the Steel into the Moulds placed in the sunken Pit. The Slag Hill was where Scheme B Weighbridge now stands and all the Slag Pots were carried by the Steam Cranes to the Slag Hill and emptied there, then carried back to the Pit for the next tap. Stripping the Moulds off the Ingots and running the Ingots to the Cogging Mill was the next job.

The personnel were very interesting to me because Colvilles had taken over the Works and the new Management were gradually taking over from the old Clydebridge Company. Where Colvilles desired changes, same were made and conditions were not always pleasant for the very Minor Foremen such as I, nor were the personnel very helpful to the resented "incomers" and as a young Foreman of 21 years old I soon made enemies but I also made friends and friendships which exist to the present day.

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1916 - 1958, James Annand, Plate Mill Roller (extract from Colvilles Magazine 1958)

 When I was 14 years old I had the choice of getting a job or going back to Dalziel High School, and I was quite sure I didn't want to go back to DaIziel High School. Two interviews were arranged for me at DaIzell on the same day, one with the office manager and the other with the engineering manager, and it so happened that the engineering one came first. I got a job there, and started as an engineer.

The timing of these two interviews had nothing to do with me. It was just luck, the way they went. I've often wondered what my life would have been like if the office one had come first.

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For most of my time I suppose I've thought I made the best bargain, because I've enjoyed my work; but when you come to my age you look at things differently. If I had it all to do again I think I'd choose the office, for one reason it's a superannuated job, and mine isn't.

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I've had two employers in 53 years, and nearly all the years have been with Colvilles. I served my apprenticeship and was put on as maintenance fitter on No. 2 Plate Mill for some years, getting 8 1/2d an hour for a 54 hour week. Then I was on No. 4 Bar Mill and in the shell shop, and after that I was transferred to Clydebridge in 1916 in charge of the old Cogging Mill, rolling shell billets and slabs. Then the day came when we converted that mill and made it a section mill, and of course I was working on that as an engineer; but when the job was done, the boss said, "What about taking the roller's job, Jimmie?", and that was how I got started on the production, side of steel rolling. Then the work finished and the need for shells was a thing of the past, so we converted the mill back to a slabbing mill.

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After a while the bad times were coming on, and I could see that the outlook was not going to be too good, so when I happened to get an offer as a plate mill roller at the Tata Works in India, I took it. Several of us went out, all on a three years' contract; but when we got there something bad gone wrong with the planning and there was no work for us. They kept us hanging about for a year, and then the whole thing fell through.

I was glad when the job folded up, because out there we had nothing to do and nowhere to go. We were just stuck out there in the wilderness. It was the most boring year I've ever spent. All the same, things were grim when I got back home, with unemployment everywhere and the works closed down. I had to do something, so I started a newsagent's business in Motherwell. The only alternative was the Dole, and that didn't appeal to me.

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There's a good deal of talk about the value of the small private trader, and about how handy the wee shop round the corner is: but if you watch you'll notice that these shops change hands a lot. The truth is that it's a precarious living and a hard one to make a go of. And it's hard work. You see, the only thing the wee shop has to offer is its hours of opening. Every single thing you buy there you can buy somewhere else, but the thing is that they're all in the same wee handy shop and the chap who runs it stays open when other places are shut. He has to stay open. It's the only advantage he has.

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I used to open at 5.30 in the morning to catch the men going in to work at 6.00 and if you're a news agent you have to sell evening papers. That meant 6.30 most nights. I stuck at it because it was better than drawing the Dole, but I wouldn't have done it if I'd had anything else.

Then in 1923 they started up the new three high plate mill and I was asked to come back as cogging mill roller at No. 2 Cogging Mill. I was 9 years on that mill. In 1932 I was transferred to the Plate Mill and I've been there as plate mill roller ever since, 26 years at it.

Looking back over it all, I can see a tremendous number of changes from my first days at Clydebridge. There was a big mansion house where the new office is (the chief electrician lived in it), and the Engineering Shop is about the only building anyone would recognise from the days of the first war. It's hard to believe today, but through the bridge you came to the coachman's house, because the manager had a gig to take him in to the Exchange. There were only a few electric lights, and everything was driven by steam engines. And that wasn't so long ago, either. It was in 1916.

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I'll tell you another thing. Everybody at Clydebridge knows that signpost at the road end that says "Bogleshole Ford Now Closed". The council keeps it well painted, and it had a new coat not so long ago. Well, that signpost was there all the days I've been at Clydebridge, and I believe the ford has been "now closed" since 1908. The story goes that a van driver and his horse were swept away in a flood in 1905, and that was why they closed it down.

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I suppose that in an article like this I should remember rolling the plates for the Lusitania. I did roll them, and the plates for most of the other ships built on the Clyde in my time; but that's not the sort of thing you do remember much about. I think perhaps the most vivid memory I have of the past 60 years is of the night we got the news that Mafeking had been relieved.

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They built a bonfire in the middle of Motherwell Cross that night and there were about 1,000 folk out in the road shouting and singing, most of them in their teens, roaring away at "Soldiers of the Queen" and "Farewell Dolly Grey". Boys had carried timber from all over and it was a rare fire, but the trouble started when the crowd tried to make it bigger. They broke into Willie Stewart's butcher's shop and lifted up his counter and trailed it 40 yards to the Cross. The police were letting almost anything go that night, but they couldn't have that; so there was a fight, and a man had his head split open.

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Our house overlooked the Cross and I was at one of the windows. It was a night to remember all right!

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Old stagers like myself usually talk about how different things are now in the steel trade, and how machinery has taken a lot of the labour out of the job; and of course that is true. In those days we had no burners or welders, no pneumatic hammers, chisels, drills. Everything was just hard work. But looking back I'd say the most remarkable thing in my time is that in all these years we've never had a strike. There's not many industries can equal that.

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1917 - 1955 William Crombie, Melting Shop

Looking back I've a lot of things to remember, and some of them have precious little to do with my job. There's the Battle for the Cross, for instance that wasn't about steel at all. it was more the Town Council and the police and the Salvation Army; but if you want to know what that was all about you'll have to read on for a bit, because I'm going to talk about my job first.

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Some of you young fellows don't know what it was like in the old days. Now, when Istarted at DaIzell that was away back in 1912 - I was taken on as a scrapper, and that's a job you've never beard tell of. You might call a scrapper a boxman, but there weren't any boxes then. The furnaces were hand charged, and all the stuff had to be wheeled up to them in a big barrow. The scrapper was the man who wheeled the scrap and the pig iron.

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Now, you may think there wouldn't be much to that, but let me tell you, you wouldn't get the men coming forward to day the way they did then. That barrow was some barrow. It was a big, square, two wheeled affair, and it weighed five hundredweight empty. You piled anything from ten to fifteen hundredweight of scrap into it, and you wheeled it up to the furnace single handed. And what's more, between that and the pig iron you wheeled at least 27 tons per man per shift. And what did you get for it? You got 6/6d.

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The pig iron, of course, was more compact than the scrap and you could pile in more at once. We used to put anything from two to two and a half tons into the barrow, and then three of us would get on to it one man in the trams that's in between the handles ... and the other two one to each handle, and we held tight to each other, and away we went. We were proud of our strength, too. We used to see who could lift most.

The last time I saw that done was in January 1918, at Clydebridge. I tapped the first furnace in No. 4 Shop at Daizell in 1914 - I can still see Mr. David Colville and a lot of the old generation standing round waiting for it - and then in December 1917 eight of us went to open up Clydebridge. You might say I was in with the bricks at Clydebridge. It was a queer looking place then. There was only one wee bit of the roof on the melting shop, and the "L" furnace was the only one built. We started in on the Tuesday night bottoming that furnace, and we had it ready by Sunday morning for charging with 60 tons of scrap and pig-iron, all to be lifted off the floor. We worked it that way for a month until the chargers were ready, and that was the last I saw of hand-charging.

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After that ... well, you know how it goes. Fourth hand, then third, then second. I was up to first hand on the "O" furnace when they opened it in 1922 and I've been a sample passer these past 16 years.

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But that's enough about the job just now. The thing I want to tell you about is the Battle for the Cross. It happened in 1910 when I was just a laddie, and though religion comes into it I don't want you to make any mistake about the title: the Cross was Motherwell Cross.

It happened to me like this. I've playing the bass and the G trombone for 49 years: I was at the Salvation Army Sunday School, and all the young boys were keen on playing, and most of us graduated into the local Salvation Army Band. In fact I've played in it most of my life. And of course one of the places where we played was at Motherwell Cross on a Sunday morning.

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Well in 1910 Motherwell Town Council passed a by-law saying all playing in the streets had to stop. All the other local bands - and there were a lot of them in those days - knuckled down, but we reckoned we'd a job to do and we were going to do it. So the next Sunday we went along to the Cross as usual, and formed our circle, and started to play; and after a while I looked over my trombone and there were ten policemen and an inspector. We stopped, and they came into the circle and took our names, and then we carried on playing.

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It turned out I was too young to go to jail, otherwise I'd have a police record to-day: 18 of the band got 14 days apiece.

Well, that wasn't good enough. We weren't going to lie down to it, but there wasn't much we could do about it the next Sunday with most of the band in the clink. However, the word went round the other Salvation Army bands in the district and reinforcements poured in. Next Sunday we were at the Cross as usual, and this time the odds came down a bit - three days without the option.

There was such a row about it that before the third Sunday came along the Town Council decided it had had enough and withdrew the by-law. And that's why the band plays near the Cross on Sundays to this day.

The other thing I remember is the time the television broad cast was done from Clydebridge and I was in it. Yon was a queer sensation right enough: I think I was happier with the ten policeman and the inspector. It wasn't so bad at the rehearsals, but when the thing started, and there you were, in the shop like you'd been half your life, but knowing that about four million people were looking at you ... ay, it was a queer feeling all right. I was fine when I got started, but the first few seconds were bad, and the waiting was terrible. There was a breakdown, you know. They said: "Everybody stand by", and I got all set, and then the transmitter broke down for about five minutes and I had to work myself up all over again. I was in a sweat - and it wasn't just the heat of the furnaces, I can tell you.

1950s Archie Edmond

I served my apprenticeship as a fitter turner, I was hired in Sep 1950 and had to work in the blacksmiths shop till I turned 16. I worked with Abie Hunter operating the pneumatic hammers.

John "the bull " Murray was the engineering manager, he was a fair man and despite his appearance had a good sense of humour.  Charlie Urquart, who ran the double bull and would have the machines running but not cutting, would be studying racing paper for his daily bets. John Murray would walk past and remark, “I see the wind mills are working well”.

I served my time alongside a very smart apprentice named Bobby Blue. Both Bobby and I went to sea when our apprenticeship ended as there was still national service.  Years later I found out he had attained his chiefs ticket and on returning to Collvilles they sent him back to collage to get his BSc. He went on to be a manager at Ravenscraig.

Even though 56 years have passed I still remember the great training I got.  Men like Bob Young who repaired all the steam engines and Jimmy Stuart who looked after all the diesel engines.

A few stories I remember -- removing the chimney stacks in the old (No 1) melting shop when one got loose and fell across the main Glasgow to London railway line. Another incident that amused me was when they were transporting a huge stern frame they could not get it passed the lab so they cut the corner off the lab. Another one that comes to mind is in the 1950s when war weapons were being scraped live shells blew the roof of the furnace and a scrap cutter with an oxy acetylene cutter set of a rocket that skipped over the slag hill and landed on Tollcross road.  There were also tragic accidents like whilst cutting out the concrete floor for the new Q furnace a worker hit an unexploded charge with a jackhammer killing a few workers.

1964 - 1966, William Cowan, Cooling Floor

My father John and my mother Mary, myself and my two brothers, John and James, all worked at Clydebridge at different times.

We lived in the shadow of the works in Cambuslang road and went to Eastfield school which is at the top of Bogleshole Road. It was a big part of local life, which no longer exists; the community has gone the same way as most of the steelworks. I worked on the Cooling Floor with the markers and did the gauging worked in the Light and Heavy Shears on Angus Smith's shift. I loved working there. I followed my father and mother in, and became part of the steelwork family.

My father worked as a fitter's mate from after the war till about 1959 when he was injured by a heavy bolt dropping from a crane and bursting his hand. I have some photos, one of him in the works and another of him with work mates at a retirement, I think this was in the Clydebridge Vaults which was very popular with the workers. My mother was an office cleaner. I don't know when she started but she finished in July 1958. My brother John was a crane driver at the Cogging mill in the late 1960's, and at about the same time my brother James worked at the ultra-sound testing but left to go to Glengarnock steelworks. My father-in-law, William Mclellan was a first hand smelter as was one of our neighbours, David Totten.

Three of my mates also worked there. We could only see each other at weekends as we were on different shifts. Some local councillors, like Andy McGowan were there. The deputy provost of South-Lanarkshire, Russell Clearie, was no 1 guillotine operator on my shift. There are so faces to remember, some I still see around, but most no longer with us. Did you know two workers were members of the band 'The Poets', who had a number one hit called 'Now We're Thru'? I have the record in my juke-box.

There are many stories. Bobby Auld, who died some time ago, is a man I am for ever grateful to. He saved me from serious injury when I had an accident under the Cooling Floor pulleys at the start of the night-shift. A labourer had lifted one of the grates up and did not put it back. I did not see the gap and fell down breaking my left wrist. I was holding on with my right hand, and was about to pass out, when Bobby grabbed my right arm and pulled me up. He had seen where I was, but when I disappeared he walked over to check where I went; a very special man.

My best mate, Bill Morrison, worked in the stores with Gordie Graham, and John Morrison (not related to Bill) worked in metal testing. My brother-in-laws Pat and George Mclellan worked at the Cogging Mill and Floor-Crane. Another brother-in-law, John Mclellan, worked at the Heavy Shears where he got one of his fingers chopped off with the guillotine.

A dear friend Sam Wallace worked with me on the same shift on the cooling floor. Just after he was married he was fixing a electric kettle and was electrocuted. At one time you could travel in a twenty mile radius and you would meet people who worked there. People you did not know but they knew you, or one of your family or mates.

1972, Colin Findlay, Melting Shop

I joined British Steel Corporation Clydebridge Works on Monday 16th October 1972 as a Mechanical Engineering graduate trainee and first arrived for an interview on the 2nd October 1972, having driven through from my home in Edinburgh.

As I approached Cambuslang on the London Road, my first sight of the industry in the area was the huge clouds emerging from the cooling towers at Clyde Iron Works. I could see the smoking chimneys of the steel works beyond as I drove down the dusty, rust coloured road, that passed through the middle of the Iron Works, underneath huge black dusty pipes that criss-crossed the road.

As I was early for the interview I drove round the centre of Cambuslang and stopped in the Car Park at the back of the 'Precinct', a dreary 1960's concrete wilderness.

My interview was in the blackened red sandstone Main Office, with Laurie Wintle the Chief Engineer, and Ian Dickson, the Works Mechanical Engineer. My main impression was of being told that, despite the rumours (which I hadn't heard) of falling markets and possible closures, the future of Clydebridge was looking good. I passed the interview and started shortly afterwards.

The day I started I thought I had better wear a suit. However this was soon replaced by a boiler suit, as I was immediately dispatched to work with the Melting Shop maintenance engineer, Jimmy Cassidy. I was taken to meet him by the Melting Shop Chargehand, Charlie Morrison.

He was up on a crane at the far end of the melting shop. To get there we walked up a ramp to the furnaces charging floor. I had to adjust quickly as we had apparently arrived at the gates of hell; Charlie was disappearing and a red hot box on a what looked like a gigantic jousting pole, hanging from a crane, was swinging right at me.

A row of furnaces, stretching as far as the eye could see, were belching flames, as the jousting pole and its box swung on towards a door that was opening in a furnace. The box tipped its contents into the furnace and I could immediately see that something had gone horribly wrong. The roar of flames that shot out of the door completely engulfed the furnace and cranes, and went right up to the roof of the building some 60 feet above. Everything seemed to be in slow motion and I realised that I had been the first to notice the disaster. I was about to warn Charlie but the box that had been emptied into the furnace, by now red hot, was swinging back towards me.

I ran to get out of the way and still no one was paying any attention. By this time the door of the furnace was closing, and as the flames began to die down I noticed that no one was paying any attention, because to them this was normal!

As I hurried after Charlie I never knew which way to go to avoid the 'Charger' cranes at each furnace as they swung wildly around with their boxes of scrap and millscale to feed the roaring, hungry furnaces. But Charlie and everyone else seemed to have a sixth sense about where they were.

Eventually we reached the far end of the melting shop and the floor ended at a huge drop down to the 'Valve Pit' and the 'Teeming Bay Floor'. The height from the floor below to the roof above was awe inspiring as Charlie headed up an iron ladder towards the cranes above. On the way up, the sun shining in through the vent slats in the side of the building caused long sunbeams in the dust in the air.

When we arrived up on the crane rail at the end of the building, Charlie pointed out Jimmy Cassidy on the nearest crane, about halfway back along the melting shop and high above the furnaces. This was one of the cranes that lift the ladles of molten iron transferred from Clyde Iron Works to charge the furnaces and it was capable of lifting 60 tons. I thought we were going to walk along the girders to the crane, some hundred feet above the ground, but Charlie said we didn't need to as the crane was coming this way. I realised he was right as the massive structure of the building that I was standing on had started to sway. As the cranes rumble and bulk increased I began to think that another disaster was unfolding and the building was sure to collapse. But Charlie wasn't in the least concerned and I realised that the crane and the building had been here for many years, so the chance of it collapsing right now, despite the wobble, was low so I might as well just enjoy the experience.

We climbed onto the crane and went for a ride along the building on it to check a lubrication problem. Then it was time to return to the Melting Shop office for the morning mug of tea.

After the roar in the melting shop I could now hear what was being said in the office. Jimmy had scooped out an excess of floating tea leaves from the top of the tea pot on to the floor, when Charlie walked in and said "Whurrahellpeedonraflair". I then realised that as well as coming to terms with the excitement of the place I would also have to learn a new language - "Glaswegian".

As a trainee I spent 4 months in the No 2 Melting Shop with the Section Maintenance Engineer (Jimmy Cassidy), where I did develop the sixth sense necessary to avoid the Charger Cranes.

1977, Terry Young, ELVIS IS DEAD

The year 1977 was a very traumatic period in my life. It got off to a good my wife Theresa being confirmed pregnant in April and possible birthdate sometime in December. I booked a flatlet for us in Blackpool for the Glasgow fair, and sent of a deposit. We intended to go down and just take it easy. Also my team Celtic won the 'League and Scottish Cup double'. On top of all that Scotland cuffed England 2-1 in their own midden at Wembley. That was the game when our over

inebriated fans celebrated by invading the field at the end and pulled the goal posts down.

So the year was passing quite nicely so far. In the week leading up to Fair Friday my wife Theresa was rushed to Victoria Infirmary threatening a miscarriage. They decided to keep her in for 3 weeks rest and observation. I phoned the chap in Blackpool to cancel the holiday and told him to keep the deposit. Then he came on about who was going to re imburse him for a lost booking. We both ended up in some real heavy phone rage. Here was my poor wife in hospital trying to hold on to our baby and this clown only interested in his lost booking, needless to say I ended up in some heavy duty phone rage. My father was also taken in to the Victoria Geriatric Unit about the same time, so I spent the holidays running between both of them visiting. Theresa was discharged in the second week of the holidays but was told she would be brought back near her time because she was what they termed an 'Older Mother'.

On the morning of Tuesday 16 August 06.am, I was coming, of the night shift at Clydebridge Steelworks where I worked as a melter on the open hearth furnaces. I was making my way to the local shop where we bought all our sundries coming and going to work. I was going for early morning rolls and cigarettes and a paper. There seemed to be an extra bit of cackling going on but not the usual light hearted banter of men changing over shifts. As I got near the counter it was as if it jumped up and hit me on the face. There on the counter spread out all the tabloids, those awful banner headlines "ELVIS IS DEAD". I was dumbstruck, as were many of my comrades. I think that I was in a half trance on the way home, I just could not absorb it. The man who had Rock&Rolled me through my wild youth and brought joy to millions of fans was dead; a sad sorry state of a man who was once nicknamed Elvis the Pelvis because of his slim appearance. When you finish a night shift stint it is the norm to have a two day rest, I'm afraid those two days were spent irresponsibly. I went on an alcoholic bender with lads from work, buying up Elvis records as if they were going out of fashion. Worst of all I was taking drink home putting on the record player and loafing around crying into my drink, completely forgetting my wife's condition (Theresa I am so sorry). Just as I was getting over Elvis my father died in Mearnskirk Hospital, another sad ending, to the man who was responsible for my being.

Two weeks after my personal grievance Theresa was taken in to Rottenrow Maternity to see out the remainder of her pregnancy, she still had 3 month's to go so we were in for a long haul. About the same time it was announced that there was to be a partial closer of the steelworks that directly involved me. The open hearth furnaces were to be closed down, considered too old to cope with modem steelmaking. These mighty furnaces that breathed fire and molten steel, the furnaces that produced the steel for our shipyards and industry and of course the M.o.D. I had been in the melting shop a little over three years. When I first put my foot on the melting shop floor. I was gobsmacked by the enormity of the place, six big giant furnaces in a row and you couldn't see from one end to the other. It was a very dirty dusty dangerous place. Also we had to wear special clothing, heavy wool shirts and trousers and a hopsack apron, this was to protect us from splashes when you worked up against the furnace.

Inside the big fire the heat really was unbearable and we were encouraged to drink lots of fresh orange juice or take salt tablets which were provided, in order to make up for weight loss through heavy sweating. There were four men to a furnace and they were a very strange breed of man. You had to sort of pick up the tasks to be done yourself by self initiative almost. But strangest of all I began to notice was that nobody on my assigned furnace spoke to me. I asked other fresh starts and they were all experiencing the same. It turned out that this was their way of weighing, you up, sounding you out to see if you had what it takes to work alongside them. I'm glad to say I passed their test. And so it was to be no more, and when the day came it was gut wrenching. Here were these big tough men, many who had spent their entire working life in that plant and most of it on the furnaces about to be thrown onto the scrapheap that is redundancy. Many of us took sample pins from the last 'TAP' as it was called. Some cried inwardly trying, to keep up appearances as the fire went out for the final time in No 2 Melting Shop Clydebridge. Shut down by a Scot's born American industrialist Sir Ian McGregor 'the mad axe man', aided and abetted by an equally mad English Prime Minister, Baroness Margaret Thatcher 'scourge of the working classes and the woman notorious for stopping, free milk to school kids'. Between them they achieved what Hitler's nazi f***ing bombers couldn't do. I took up an option to remain at the plant and was, along with others, awarded a £500 loyalty bonus. In all my years of employment before and after I have never met with the camaraderie that I experienced with those men.

And so I took up my new duties with the maintenance department. In between shifts I was running, back and forth to Rottenrow. The ward that Theresa was in was also a very harrowing experience for me. Its main function was to look after women who were suspect and vulnerable to miscarriage, and this brought enormous pressure upon me. Some days I would visit and she would divulge to me that someone had lost the child they were carrying; it was really taking its toll of me. I'm afraid that I began overdrinking again. I was advised to curb it both with my employer and with the hospital as I was putting my wife through unnecessary states of anxiety. Things eased off and I was told to be at the hospital early on the morning of 13Dec 1977. I

arrived at 09.30, all smart and Bristol Fashion as they say. But this baby was not in a hurry, and finally at 11.00 that night our son Terry decided to honour us with his presence. The joy of it all is that he was born on his mother's birthday, so we would soon be leaving 1977 on a high. Somewhere along the line the family circle broke up but Terry is now a strapping lad of 21 and comes to visit me once a week and I cook him a nice tea. He can drive me round the bend at times but what the hell he wasn't in a rush to get here in the first place. A nice wee reminder of '77! was the hit Christmas record at the time, Johnily Mathis singing 'When A Child Is Born'.

THE FOUR HIGH

It would be inappropriate for me not to mention my time spent with the boy's of the 4'H maintenance squad after the closure of the melting shop. This team comprised of power resources, electrician's, plumber's, fitter's and their mate's. All stripped and raring to go in an emergency or breakdown then watch the bastard's dive like deepsea divers when the Wallace came in with a line. Funny anecdote, when I was sent over to my new mates Jock Wallace was my new boss who's namesake was the Ranger's manager at the time. Everybody was winding me up saying that he would give it to me for being a Tim. Well funny enough my first job was carrying sandbags because the River Clyde was in high spate and was in danger of flooding out certain area's of the 4'H. And as for Jock he wasn't fitba minded although like any Scot he loved it when we stuck it into the English, a hard but fair taskmaster but then when I look back on it he f***in well had to be. So the roll of honour read something thus.

Jock Wallace:Boss Chiefie: Starter up Bob Gartshore: Chargehand Joe Gall: Elec Tam Fat: Elec. Freddic(nof***ingworking)Davies: Elec Quinton(the feet, and my big pal) plumber extrordinaire.

Leo and Wee Joe (trapeze artists)

Wee WuIlle (waste heat or canteen washer upper)

Frank: Elec and football player and many more sorry if I have left anybody out.

Good luck to anybody who is still working in there, look after this Joe So.'

TERRY

1977, Graham Mitchell, 200 Ton Crane Driver

Your photos of the last tap in 1977 - I was the 200 ton driver that night shift. The furnace was not suppose to tap till 9.00 am but the roof caved in and the sample passer blew for me at 5.00am and it tapped at 5.30am. So I tapped it and the day shift teamed it. Looking back sad its all gone, still the air round here is much cleaner.

1981, Colin Findlay, Plate Mill EngineerAn impression of the 4-High Plate Mill

The plate mill was exciting to watch in operation. We would often take visitors via a back route so that they would start at the two pusher furnaces where the slabs from the cogging mill were reheated for rolling. The pusher furnace was a long gas fired furnace full of slabs end to end. The slabs were pushed in from one end and, when the furnace was full, pushing one in would push one out at the other end for rolling. The slabs slid through the furnace on rails supported on steam pipes that generated steam for the works.

We would position visitors above the pusher exit door. The door would open and the blast of heat from the furnace would be a first surprise to draw attention that something was stirring to life. The rollers on the table below would also start turning in anticipation. Suddenly a red hot slab would woosh out below the visitor, with a loud "doing" as it hit the buffer on the roller table; then it would be carried away to the hot wash box, where high pressure water jets would blast off the scale accumulated as the slab had been slumbering in the heat in the furnace.

You could hear the deep rumbling of the slab, as it trundled along the roller tables, quickly accelerate as it rushed towards the mill, followed by a thud that you could feel through your feet, as the piece hit the rolls and the mill took its first 10,000 horse power bite. There was a pause in the noise, then a clang as the slab was centred on the rollers between the manipulator heads, and the mill reversed, picking up speed again, then another rumbling and thud as the slab came back through the rolls. The slab could be quickly rotated 90 degrees on the asymmetrical roller tables in front of the mill, for a side-on pass through before rolling the plate out to length. As the slab was elongating, like red hot pastry being rolled in successive passes through the mill, high pressure water jets would blast the surface to remove scale and prevent it being rolled back into the surface of the plate. This was accompanied by a blast and hiss, and a very distinctive smell as the water turned to steam on contact with the plate, while water droplets ran sizzling and dancing along the plate. If you were crossing the bridge over the outgoing side of the mill to the shearline at the time you would be enveloped in its warm mist.

By now, the lengthening and cooling plate would be less red and it would be ringing as it crashed along the roller table, still with the dancing water droplets, towards the hot leveller for a flattening pass, then on past the cogging mill to the cooling floor for marking and shearing to size.

When the mill stopped, and we were checking parts close up, you could feel the heat it had picked up from the slabs. You couldn't stand on the ingoing or outgoing rollers until quite some time after rolling had finished or the soles of your heat resistant boots would start to melt and you could slip and burn yourself. Usually and old plate would be placed on the rack but it could get pretty warm too. The main 39 inch diameter work rolls, and the 60 inch diameter back up rolls had a ground polished surface, smoothed by rolling. These rolls were water cooled to help maintain their shape for rolling flat parallel plates but they were still, huge, hot and somehow brooding with enormous power just after the mill had stopped rolling.

A Smash Up at the Plate Mill

Thursday 21 May 1981, called out by shift foreman at 2.30am. Plate Mill bottom work roll drive spindle broke. Two slabs had come out together from the pusher furnace, one on top of the other and both slabs entered the mill. The two mill spindles each weigh 27 tons and are each driven by 5000HP motors. The jaw of the bottom spindle broke off and threw the broken piece, weighing about half a ton, right up the bay past the hot leveller. The bottom spindle bearings were smashed and their frames bent open. We were told that a similar accident had happened at the roughing mill at Ravenscraig (which had identical spindles) and the mill there was off for two weeks.

We started stripping the mill out at 3am and started looking for spares. There was an old spindle that had been removed because it had cracks round the steps in its shaft at the journal bearing locations. Each spindle had unique sized jaws at each end, for the motor and work roll drive, because they were occasionally machined to clean up the wear they got in service. This meant that unique sized brass spherical ends had to be made for the jaws. Normally the spindles were only changed or machined at Fair Repairs so maximum sized brasses were kept and only machined down to fit when the spindle jaws had been machined and their size determined. We found a set of brass castings in the store, over at the old side of the works, and luckily the jigs for machining these were in our machine shop (they could have been at Ravenscraig or at the main machine shop at Mossend). Using large sets of micrometers we sized up the spindle jaws to decide on the sizes the spherical brasses should be machined to.

There had been a lot of cutbacks in tradesmen so some of the night shift stayed on to help. We sized up the damage at the spindle bearings and realised that we could not repair the damage or make new frames quickly. We therefore decided to keep the bent frames and make up packers and wedges that could be welded in place to fill the gaps and create new faces for holding the bearings. We took our measurements to the machine shop and started looking for suitable sized pieces of steel. The machine shop only had two tradesmen but still had many machines. They soon had two planes, a lathe and a shaper all going to make up the wedges. With everyone pitching in we got the mill started up again 3 days later, on Sunday 23 May 1981.

In the meantime I had received a job offer from YARD Ltd on the Saturday and had decided to accept this as I was fed up with working so many weekends and being called out so frequently at night. It proved rather difficult to hand my notice in as I was asked to go night shift for the next week to help keep production up as there was a backlog of orders due to the problems we had been having with the pusher furnace alignment.

The production that week turned out to be the best we had had for the last two years, due to Willy Curley, the assistant Plate Mill Production Manager also going night shift and scheduling the backlog of slabs for rolling to minimise slab heating delays.

I eventually handed my notice in, on Friday 29 May 1981, and was asked to work one months notice. We had some problems that month with the smaller slabs bouncing on the roller table on their way to the mill and then dropping through between the rolls and damaging the scale wash pipes below. We stopped this by fitting dead plates between the rolls to stop the slabs dropping through.

1982 - Jim Neill, The Fires are Dead

The fires are dead, the steel is cold

young men of today will soon be old

if not in years, then in thought and deeds

as Clydebridge dies beneath rust and weeds.

Gone are the days of fire and spark

when molten steel lit up the dark.

And in the day to black the sky

smoking chimneys reached on high

Those days are gone when our fathers sweat

soaked their backs, and glistened wet

feeding scrap and iron, the furnace meal

to bring the charge to liquid steel.

When ingots bathed in the fiery maw

of soaking pits, that burned them raw

then mangled in the mills great grabs

to spew them out a glowing slabs.

No more plates from Clydebridge mill

in brooding silence, all is still

the heart has stopped, no pulse you feel.

All dead.....the Clydebridge ''Men of Steel.''

1974 - 1991 - Peter Smith - Chemist

I started work in the lab at Dalzell in Aug 1974 straight out of school at the age of 16, the laboratory at that time was the large three story building down in Meadow Road next to the Central Research Laboratory Buildings.

The Chief Chemist was Mr. Grierson (Willie or Wullie) with his assistant being Don Mather, the senior chemist in charge of the steel lab was Hutchy (Hutchison) Burt, with Charlie Thorburn running the oils and waters lab and Joe O'Raw running the shift lab tucked onto the end of the Central Research Lab.

The laboratory carried out chemical analysis on all the metal produced in Dalzell, with a chemist being in charge of the Degassing Plant in the melting shop, we also analysed samples from the mills, especially material that had maybe lost it's identification somehow along with water samples for contamination levels and oil to ensure it was of the correct calorific value for the furnaces etc. many chemists moved on over the years to supervisory roles in different parts of the work.

When No.4 melting shop was closed down, we were conned into amalgamating with the laboratory at Ravenscraig, we were told that it was the only way we could save our jobs when in fact it turned out that it was all the work coming from the mills at Dalzell and Clydebridge that was keeping the steel laborartory at Ravenscraig open, they had very little work from Ravenscraig to do and only a handful of stuff coming in from Gartcosh compared to what Dalzell and Clydebridge sent up for analysis..

I worked in the lab at Ravenscraig right up to June 1991 when I was finally made redundant, although by then I was working in the shift lab.

2000, Rod MacKenzie - When The Iron Was Hot

From "The Scots Magazine", December 2000

Back then you could see it long before you got there. By day, against the smoke-filled skyline, the tall, stark silhouettes of the blast-furnaces, something unto themselves and those who knew how to control them; by night, the red flickering glow in the sky as those same furnaces were "tapped" as a matter of pyrogenic routine by men whose forefathers had probably done the same for generations before them. And by day or by night, you knew where you were by that all-pervasive smell; a unique gaseous mixture formed from the fumes of sulphur, iron-ore, coke, and an unhealthy cocktail of benzene-based by-products.

Little plant life grew in those vast acres of land that used to be Clyde Iron Works, and the few patches of threadbare grass that did exist were always coated with an indeterminate dirty grey dust.

For those who earned their living here over a period of a century and a half, it was a harsh existence: a mixture of heat, cold, smell and noise. And in addition there was the ever-present danger with, from time to time, the spectacle of accidental and horrendous death. For 24 hours of every day, 365 days a year, the process continued, and inexorably it was to leave its mark on the surrounding communities: socially, economically, physically and ecologically.

Clyde Iron Works was producing "scotch pig", a basic iron intended for onward sale and subsequent refining as early as the 1830s. Then, 100 years later in the 1930s it was acquired by the then mighty Lanarkshire iron masters, Colvilles, to be nationalised (twice) in the 1950s as part of the British Steel Corporation. The beginning of the end.

In its heyday, Clyde Iron Works played a pivotal role in Scotland's booming iron and steel industry. Its location halfway between Tollcross in Glasgow's east end and Cambuslang could have served as a textbook example of a vast, integrated industrial network. To its east lay the huge Lanarkshire coalfield, essential in providing the endless day and night supplies of coal required for the manufacture of coke which was needed to reduce iron-ore to iron. To its west lay the deep-water docks of the Clyde where the huge carriers could unload their cargoes of iron-ore from around the world directly on to long freight trains bound for Clyde Iron Works.

And that journey from the Clyde was a return journey. When the ore became the finished product, a huge proportion of it made that same journey in reverse. What could have been more fortunate in economic terms, than having a constant demand for iron and steel from the enormous, vibrant engineering and shipbuilding industries of Clydeside?

Now, more than 40 years on, I return to walk the site of that once infernal landscape. It is steeped, some would say, in more than history. Waste chemicals perhaps. But, on the surface at least, it has changed beyond recognition. The past has been obliterated. The planners have been and gone, and the land is almost green and pleasant in places, now. Young trees and shrubs grow. There is colour in the plant life in summer.

I am finding it difficult, however, to orientate myself. There is only one remaining marker which I attempt to use as a reference point and get my bearings. The marker is the old gatehouse - a red brick, bungalow-sized structure with circular port-hole windows on each side, front and back. A white arch on the front of the gate-house completes its curiously modem form considering its function, place and time. Perhaps that is why it was allowed to remain as the sole reminder of a time long gone.

The site is now one vast, low-rise business park, all flat-pack architecture and company buildings called "units". The work park doesn't sit easily with my memories of the place, and all those well surfaced roads and pavements tend to lead me in directions I don't want to go.

Most of the units seem to be devoted to light or small-scale manufacturing, or simply function as distribution depots or storage warehouses. None of them look as if they are particularly labour intensive. Most have car parks to the front and the predominant reds amongst the cars add a further dash of colour to the pastel shades of the unit facades with their eye-catching corporate logos above glass-fronted entrances.

Again, I try to get my bearings. Over there, by the Units To Let sign, must be where number three furnace stood. To my left, a distribution depot for a national household name in the dairy trade. Its pasteurised modernity is the antithesis of the hot, dusty, smelly sinter plant that once endlessly heat-fused the powdery remains of iron ore into clinker-like lumps suitable for charging the blast-furnaces. For some reason the site of the old coke ovens has not been developed. It is an empty expanse of overgrown weeds that catch and trap a plethora of discarded plastic food containers and beer cans.

Directly opposite, where the by-products plant used to spew out its nasty benzene-based, tar-like liquids, nothing stands and little grows. I take a photograph of its bleak, unwholesome emptiness and the driver of a JCB looks at me with suspicion as he bounces past.

To the right of the old gate-house there used to be a large works canteen. Now, parked by the kerb on one of the internal business park roads is a mobile caravan. It sells burgers, hot dogs and crisps to a steady trickle of customers from the surrounding units. Even the prevailing smells are different these days. No more the sulphurous reek of the past. Now it is the aroma of hot food.

As I leave the site, I suddenly notice one other remaining landmark. Not an integral, physical part of the old Clyde Iron Works, more an associated, social landmark. A pub, "The Bushes", still stands nearby. It was the nearest pub to the works and the place where furnacemen slaked prodigious thirsts. It was said that those drinkers who were off-shift could glance out of the pub windows over the rim of their pints, and tell by the strength of the glow in the night sky whether or not a furnace was pouring too cool or too hot.

I decide to stop by for a pint. But change comes to pubs, too. "The Bushes" is firmly chained and padlocked. The plywood curtains are in place.

2004, Colin Findlay - revisit in January 2004

After setting up the web site I was offered a visit back to Clydebridge one Sunday in January 2004. It felt a bit odd going in to my old workplace on a day off from my present workplace! The Heat Treatment plant was much as I remembered it, except for the addition of fencing as an additional safety aid to keep people away from moving equipment and roller table chain and sprocket drives. It's also now a requirement to wear a yellow reflective vest, of the type worn for railway track maintenance. This is to improve visibility of staff to overhead crane drivers and operators of other moving machinery. The furnaces were off on the Sunday when I visited, so the place did not have its usual live feeling, or heat.

Looking over to the Heavy Shears area is where I began to notice the difference. There is a flat concrete floor where the cooling floor used to be. To the West, the bay ends with a roller shutter door where the Cogging Mill used to be. There is a shot blast machine at the top end of the Heat Treatment bay, which looks similar to the one that used to be in the old side No1 Melting Shop bay. All of the shears and roller tables in the Heavy Shears bay have gone. They were removed in the early 1990s and replaced with plasma cutting machines at the East end of the bay. These were later found to be unsatisfactory, and overcomplicated for the needs, and have been replaced with oxyplane cutting machines. The Heavy Leveller is the one original piece of plant still in the bay, and it has been joined there by the Demag Leveller, which was moved there when the ultrasonic department at the old side of the works was closed (note: John McDougall, Clydebridge 1967 to 1980 and now living in Texas, has just written in to the Guest Page to say that the ultrasonic scanner was the the first continuous scanning machine in British Steel).

The Light Shears bay and its cranes still exists but all equipment, the Rotary Shears and No 3 End Cut Shears and the roller racks, were all removed when the Plate Mill was demolished in the 1980s. It is used as a dispatch bay. After the still busy Heavy Shears bay it seemed particularly empty. There had been plans for a steel stockholder to move into the building but this had fallen through. My mind kept trying to superimpose the Rotary Shears and the people who worked there over the emptyness. A transfer car has been added about halfway along the bay to move plates from the Heavy Shears bay to the Light Shears bay for dispatch. This has been constructed from the cross travel of a redundant overhead crane.

The following weekend I returned and walked round outside the building to where the Plate Mill had been. This is now a flat grass and shrub covered area, where up to seven deer have been spotted. There is no evidence of the might that once existed on the spot. I found a flat steel solid surface where the grass had not taken a hold and stood on it imagining red hot plates crashing from the mill. Future activity is likely to involve the M74 extension, which is proposed to pass over the site of Clyde Ironworks, across a new "hot metal" bridge, round the back of the existing Light Shears building and pass over the end of where the Plate Mill bay was.

I had returned that weekend to view the drawings retained when the Main Office, containing the Drawing Office, was demolished. Current drawings have been removed and the redundant drawings are stored in drawing cabinets. I had worked in the Drawing Office for a while in the 1970s and knew this was the engineering knowledge base for the whole of the works as I had known it. It was strange to see the neatly filed drawings with their meticulously kept record books, once so vital and capturing a hundred years of work by engineers, draughtsmen and tracers but all now with their purpose gone. As I wondered if I might be the last to look through them, I came across sketch books of smaller drawings traced onto linen sheets in the 1940s, and still looking new. Many were initialed MEM and I realised they were the work of Margaret Hawthorne who has helped me with her own recollections, and information about her father John Murray (see above), so I was at least able to reunite her with a few samples of her earlier work.

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