Building The Iron is a story of post war industrial Britain and a way of life which no longer exists when large factories employed thousands of workers to manufacture and assemble product by an individual or depending on its size and complexity as in my own experience, a small gang of men. Machine tools used to manufacture parts were controlled by skilled operators using icrometers for measurement doing hand calculations using paper, pen or pencil. Sometimes the pencil would be hitec with a rubber at the other end for 'deleting'. No digital readouts, hand held calculators were yet to be invented, no mobile telephones and no internet with Google searches. This was what they called 'hands on' engineering with teams of men constantly on their feet unlike so many of todays sedentary tasks. Transportation of finished goods was by British manufactured vehicles like FODEN, ATKINSON, LAYLAND, SCAMMELL, FODEN, AEC etc. Where did they all go? Coal mines were at full tilt all over the country keeping powere stations running, steam power keeping the railways chuffing along; though soon to be superceded by and converted to diesel. We manufactured cars and aircraft with much to come and exported product all over the world as well as looking after our domestic requirements. If anything extra was needed we took care of it ourselves. Engineering was a core subject in education; industry ecouraging schoolboys to reproduce working miniatures of their end product with Meccano for engineering and Balsa wood for model aircraft. Oh how very different from today with thumb dancing on hand held computer tablets with lifeless pictures.

Coming into contact with diggers and tipper trucks around Swansea building sites one name seemed to be more familiar than others with plenty of room to stand behind the driver pulling and pushing the bank of control levers in front of him. The name was Ruston Bucyrus and so impressed was I by its construction and the way it worked that I persuaded my parents to let me to leave home and live in lodgings for the next five years pursuing my dream to build them. My book is dedicated to them. So let me take you with me on that journey back to the 1960's for a walk around the factory in its heyday, rub shoulders and meet the people and components that made it happen. We'll go through the machine shops and see how they set up the main revolving frames for the Richards horizontal borer watching them machine the truck frames before getting your hands dirty helping out in No 3 Bay erecting shop; its like a Cathedral in there it's so high. Can you believe eighty feet? We 'll join 38 and 54 RB build gangs first; then assemble the drum shafts and general deck gear. After that its truck frame and lower works calling Bob and Beano, our resident slingers, to help lift the rev frame for floating across for marrying up with the bottom half. That will be enough to be getting on with and for heaven's sake make sure to stand clear when they track the whole thing up. There's only twenty ton of undercarriage hanging on there. In No 2 bay next door is the Noble & Lund Horizontal Planing machine. Its the biggest in the country with twin fifty foot beds. We'll help set that up for machining some 110-RB side frames and then go over to 5 Bay and see how they generate gears on Sunderland planing machines. By the time you've done all that a few years will have passed and you might be beginning to think like an engineer so I'll take you up to 18 Bay where they are on a roll building nearly twelve 22-RB machines a week. You'll spend three or four months there on the gangs but you haven't finished yet! You have to rope them up and that's going to be a lot of fun especially on test where the real fun begins. Enjoy your visit. I certainly did; that's why I'm telling you about it.

Published In A4 Stiff Paperback