Old Leeds Firms

[blackprince]

Uno Hoo wrote: They used to make what we called "segs" I'm not sure if you can still get themI went for a job there in the early sixties - I didn't get it - my uncle - bricklaying foreman at YDC warned me that they had a reputation as bad employers. I never found out. I think at shop floor level they probably were. They were repetition ironfounders, so the work was dead boring. A lot of the labour force came from South Yorkshire - wives of miners, and men who didn't want to go down the pits. Asian men started to come in large numbers during the early 60s - one rejoiced in the name of Mustapha Baff. But in the offices it was pretty civilised. The firm I worked for was called Tiko Tube Fittings Ltd, manufacturing pipe joints and bends for plumbing & central heating systems.I think you can still get segs, the name being a Blakey trademark. But they're made in China or somewhere now. There's probably a factory in Taiwan or somesuch called "Blakeeees". Sometime ago I heard Steve Wright on Radio 2 talking with his sidekick about "Blakey's" - the studs you put on your cricket boots. They didn't know why they were called "Blakey's". I spent a summer working there as a labourer on the factory floor when I was a student in 1967. They made all sorts of iron studs and hobnails for boots. In summer 1967 ( after the Arab Israeli war) they got huge orders for army boot soles - complete leather soles fitted with hobnails , toe & heel plates. They were shipped to Khoramshah , which I believe is in Iran. I remember stencilling that name on dozens of shipping cartons before delivery. I worked in a building across the road from the foundry, where lots of women and girls took the castings and filed off any flashing, packed them and put together products like the complete boots soles. It was a fairly victorian working environment, all the girls were on piecework, and some of the machines looked quite dangerous, especially a large hydraulic press for cutting leather boot soles & heels.    

[Trojan]

blackprince wrote: Uno Hoo wrote: They used to make what we called "segs" I'm not sure if you can still get themI went for a job there in the early sixties - I didn't get it - my uncle - bricklaying foreman at YDC warned me that they had a reputation as bad employers. I never found out. I think at shop floor level they probably were. They were repetition ironfounders, so the work was dead boring. A lot of the labour force came from South Yorkshire - wives of miners, and men who didn't want to go down the pits. Asian men started to come in large numbers during the early 60s - one rejoiced in the name of Mustapha Baff. But in the offices it was pretty civilised. The firm I worked for was called Tiko Tube Fittings Ltd, manufacturing pipe joints and bends for plumbing & central heating systems.I think you can still get segs, the name being a Blakey trademark. But they're made in China or somewhere now. There's probably a factory in Taiwan or somesuch called "Blakeeees". Sometime ago I heard Steve Wright on Radio 2 talking with his sidekick about "Blakey's" - the studs you put on your cricket boots. They didn't know why they were called "Blakey's". I spent a summer working there as a labourer on the factory floor when I was a student in 1967. They made all sorts of iron studs and hobnails for boots. In summer 1967 ( after the Arab Israeli war) they got huge orders for army boot soles - complete leather soles fitted with hobnails , toe & heel plates. They were shipped to Khoramshah , which I believe is in Iran. I remember stencilling that name on dozens of shipping cartons before delivery. I worked in a building across the road from the foundry, where lots of women and girls took the castings and filed off any flashing, packed them and put together products like the complete boots soles. It was a fairly victorian working environment, all the girls were on piecework, and some of the machines looked quite dangerous, especially a large hydraulic press for cutting leather boot soles & heels.    I once went for an interview there for a sales job I think - and I think it may have been with the pipe fittiings division. Anyway, my uncle who was a big union man (he worked at Yorkshire Chemicals) warned me off - he said they were on a blacklist as bad employers. I didn't get offered the job anyway so it didn't matter.

[Uno Hoo]

There doesn't seem to be much of the Blakey site left. When I go past on the train I can see that the "new" machine shop building across the road from the main foundry has been demolished.

[blackprince]

Uno Hoo wrote: There doesn't seem to be much of the Blakey site left. When I go past on the train I can see that the "new" machine shop building across the road from the main foundry has been demolished. I am grateful to Blakey's for the holiday job 40 years ago. They gave me my first wage packet and a brief experience of working in a small UK manufacturing firm , which probably hadn't changed much in the previous 50 years, and has now gone the way of the dinosaurs. It was fairly labour intensive, hard work, dirty and long hours for low pay. How could firms like that possibly survive when the average wage paid by foreign firms in Vietnam for instance is $30 to $40 per month.    

[Lyndoch]

When I left school I started work at Wilkinson and Warburtons wholesale textiles. in 1956 They were on King St opposite the Hotel Metropole (Where the Bank of England now stands) does anyone else remember "Wilkies" From Lyndoch South Australia

[BLAKEY]

Lyndoch wrote: When I left school I started work at Wilkinson and Warburtons wholesale textiles. in 1956 They were on King St opposite the Hotel Metropole (Where the Bank of England now stands) does anyone else remember "Wilkies" From Lyndoch South Australia Certainly do, and I'm 73 now !! I was a young conductor/driver with Samuel Ledgard buses and our terminus for Horsforth and Ilkley via Guiseley was right opposite "Caressa Hosiery." That brazen huge red neon sign of young nymphs in frolicking poses was a far finer vista than the present hideous Bank building. Do you remember a tobacconist shop half below pavement level in the W & W building ?? It was run by a nice lady, Miss Hunter, who lived at Kirkstall. She closed for an hour's lunch at 1.00pm, and we used to give her a minute to lock up and cross over - we departed on the hour - and drop her between stops, illegally in those days, outside her house just before Kirkstall Lane. It enabled her to attend to her elderly mother and return just within the hour and she appreciated it very much.    

[Trojan]

BLAKEY wrote: Lyndoch wrote: When I left school I started work at Wilkinson and Warburtons wholesale textiles. in 1956 They were on King St opposite the Hotel Metropole (Where the Bank of England now stands) does anyone else remember "Wilkies" From Lyndoch South Australia Certainly do, and I'm 73 now !! I was a young conductor/driver with Samuel Ledgard buses and our terminus for Horsforth and Ilkley via Guiseley was right opposite "Caressa Hosiery." That brazen huge red neon sign of young nymphs in frolicking poses was a far finer vista than the present hideous Bank building. Do you remember a tobacconist shop half below pavement level in the W & W building ?? It was run by a nice lady, Miss Hunter, who lived at Kirkstall. She closed for an hour's lunch at 1.00pm, and we used to give her a minute to lock up and cross over - we departed on the hour - and drop her between stops, illegally in those days, outside her house just before Kirkstall Lane. It enabled her to attend to her elderly mother and return just within the hour and she appreciated it very much.     That's what you call personal service. It reminds me of the memo my wife, who worked in personel dept. at Metro House, Wakefield had to send out to the drivers of the Calderdale section of Metro based in Todmorden. They had to be told that they could no longer take their buses home at lunchtime

[Uno Hoo]

Lyndoch wrote: When I left school I started work at Wilkinson and Warburtons wholesale textiles. in 1956 They were on King St opposite the Hotel Metropole (Where the Bank of England now stands) does anyone else remember "Wilkies" From Lyndoch South Australia My first job was at I J Dewhirst - I posted about it in earlier parts of this thread. We were competitors with W & W. There were quite a lot of wholesale drapers in Leeds in those days. Another large firm was Crowe & Co., a building which features in many photos of buses in Leeds as it was slap bang next to Wellington St Coach Station, so I'm sure Blakey will remember it, altho' perhaps not quite so graphically as Caressa House (which gets him very excited ).W & W relocated to Pudsey and took over a large mill on Cemetery Rd. I'll have to have a stroll on there & see if they're still there. The demise of the small neighbourhood draper has seen off the wholesale houses of Leeds.

[BLAKEY]

[quotenick="TrojanThat's what you call personal service. It reminds me of the memo my wife, who worked in personel dept. at Metro House, Wakefield had to send out to the drivers of the Calderdale section of Metro based in Todmorden. They had to be told that they could no longer take their buses home at lunchtime My word Trojan - I bet that brought enormous relief to the hordes of hungry and "pressed for time" passengers who had to sit outside many a Pennine "des res" waiting for the drivers to finish their dinners

[BLAKEY]

[quotenick="Uno Hoo"][ Wellington St Coach Station, so I'm sure Blakey will remember it, altho' perhaps not quite so graphically as Caressa House (which gets him very excited )./quote]I remember the progressively more scandalous Wellington Street Coach Station very well indeed. How on Earth no intending passenger was ever klled or injured in the place I shall never know. Especially as vehicles got longer and longer the various queues became disorganised and intermingled, and were menacingly forced back towards the rear wall by reversing coaches. Ultimately a long "shelter" was built across the full width of the rear wall - so if you weren't knocked down directly you stood a chance of being wallopped by flying concrete and glass. We often scoff nowadays at seemingly ludicrous "Health and Safety" measures, but there was definitely a real need for some stringent improvements at Wellington Street.