Back to Work

LYONS HYTHE ROAD HOGARTH PRESS

After the Christmas I went to the union offices to sort out a job. I explained that I had only experienced work at Weatherby and Sons, the chairman said if I did not like where I was: to come and see him and he would find me another job. The job they suggested was J Lyons and Co. I got a green card and went to have a look at the job. It was about half a hour away from Ladbroke Grove where we lived. The building was glass-roofed garage, it was nice and light and airy. I was to start on a small demy hand fed mehlie two rev. doing bread and butter work at first. Mr. Smith the machine room manager said the basic wages was not great but there would be quite a bit of overtime, I looked at the variety of machinery they had and accepted the job start Monday morning next.

The first morning I was introduced to my Natsopa assistant Albert De Feu. Mr. De Fue was also known as Darky I innocently thought it was due to his jet-black hair and swarthy complexion. I afterwards discovered it had other connotations to do with his actions in the dim past. Darky was very good and assisted me well. The first jobs were all proformers that is bakers round sheets etc. Mr. Smith examined each pass sheet looking at the back for impression as well as the front for excess ink. On the second day I was asked to work overtime and was put on a small automatic machine (stream feeder and pile delivery) I managed!. In the next few weeks I had to learn very fast. One job was Ready Breck wrappers. When I started to run the newspaper kept tearing out of the grippers. Mr Casemore the F.O.C. Father of the Chapel, came over and sorted me out. I was very surprised at the thinness of the ink he mixed and the amount of waste sheets he used up before the solids were nice and solid and the small print was clear and clean. I was also impressed with his method of setting the ink duct by running a finger over it to help judge the amount of ink coming out across the duct roller. After a month, which concluded a trial period, I asked for a raise and got an extra five bob a week in my wages. At this time Mr. Smith did not check every sheet for passing but just ask if it was O.K. if I said yes he would just sign it without looking.


LONDON FOG BEFORE THE CLEAN AIR ACT
At that time London Fogs happened every winter because every household had coal fires to keep warm, and all factories could belch any amount pollutants they liked. The fog on occasions was very thick and you could only see two yards in front at which point a grey- green mist would bar your vision (a pea soup). The fog usually only lasted a day or two but the affect on the throat was not good. By this time all the trams had been replaced by Trolley Busses and routemaster busses would soon replace Trolley busses. This was mainly due to rising coal prices and cheap oil. One morning I had started to walk to work down Cambridge Gardens when a large black dog came at me out of the fog it growled loudly and came as if to attack me but then trotted around me in a circle with mouth open as in a big smile. The owner followed the dog out of the mist and asked what had happened, when I told him of the dog’s behavior he said that the only person he did this to was hi sister. He had me stroke the dog while he watched. After this I saw him and his dog fairly often and each time the dog would try the same trick, and if I was on the other side of the road watched me while pretending to sniff at a lamppost or another doggy distraction. I came to the conclusion that he was a very intelligent dog . I did not see the dog and this master for quite a time. Then one morning I saw the man without his dog ; when I asked where it was he said. “ I had to go on a business trip; It meant an over night stay so I had my sister feed the dog and take him for walks but when I returned the kitchen was torn to shreds and the dog had bloodshot eyes. So I took him to the vet .The vet said he had a brainstorm, and suggested that it could be a one off, but might return unexpectedly and cause the dog to go berserk. So in the interest of safety I had him put down”. He sold me this with tears in his eyes.

UNION MEETINGS
At work the F.O.C.came to tell me it was my turn to attend the Quarterly Union Meeting, I was given fair money and enough for a snack and a cup of tea and set out after work on the designated day to find the meeting venue. These meetings were generally held in differing places around central London. I remember being a bit confused as I had been instructed to write down a full report of the proceedings. This amounted to four or five pages to put down the general direction of the debate some of the delegates expressing their views in the vernacular (very expressive). I had never herd so much swearing in public but that was at a time when we had no woman delegates. The chairman ignored it: years after they were very strict about bad language. The first meeting I went to was quite difficult as all of the delegates were new to me but after a time I began to recognize the Fathers of the prominent Chapels Odhams press and the Radio Times man Reg Prosser who I remembered from a short spell as a casual machine minder at Weatherby and Sons, where I was Apprenticed. On return to work on the following morning I handed my notes to the F.O.C. who also asked me for my opinion of the meetings feeling on various subjects. During the time after coming back from Cornwall I went to art classes at the Kensington Men’s Institute to do life drawing and portraiture in oils and large landscapes. Also did a wood caving class at fox school. After joining Lyons I did not do so much art but I still kept painting on holidays and weekends. At the time after Dad retied and we moved to Bentworth Rd I acquired an allotment. and spent all my spare time growing vegetables and fruit.

At work I gradually progressed to bigger and better classes of work. I was eventually asked If I would cover the dinner break on the gravure press, this meant an extra two and a half hours on my wages each day because of a double deferred dinner break. J.Lyons was a huge firm their basic wages were not high but if you were willing to work they were very good. One of the Lady feeders Flow entered the competition to name the new hotel at London Airport.. The Arial she said. We all laughed but she won and went to the topping out ceremony and met Norman Joseph and had a good time

WASGOOSE
The firms’ outings were not as many or as elaborate as the Weatherby ones but we did go to Southend a few times to see the lights! This was before it was taken over by the Mods and Rockers, in any case firm outings were beginning to become a thing of the past. On one occasion we went to the Southend Kersal for the day I remember Peter Conovchu who was a big Rumanian .He was dressed in a suit with a large cigar in his mouth and was watching the young lads attacking the ring the bell with the wooden mallet “.Look at them he said hitting it like mad men” so we asked if he could do better . He paid his sixpence and calmly hit the bell three times and got his money back. The showmen said have another go and he said I can do it with one hand and he did. Peter was the reel hand on the gravure we got on well but on one occasion I upset him and he lifted me straight of the floor and held me suspended in the air for what seamed quit a long time. Peter said he was going to be nationalized; we said no you mean Naturalized. He changed his name to Peter Peters. The gravure machine was originally bought with the Idea of printing very long runs of bread wrappers on it, there was some mistake in the size and was unsuitable. The machine was just right for all of the tea labels, but the longest runs was on waxed Swiss roll wrappers. By the time I got to be on the regular staff of the gravure the Swiss rolls were all printed on cellophane, This was more tricky and the pull rollers had to be built up to make the cellophane pull through straight. The first time they set this up it took a whole day to get it to work correctly. It also re-reeled onto two separated spindles. To change over a complete job might take a whole day, so it was beneficial to do all Swiss roll wrappings then all tea: labels, and so on. The machine A Gobel Regina had an entire switch room filled with electronics made by Cross- fields Ltd. To control the register each of the four printing cylinders had a register mark on to which a scanner was set, as long as this was printing well the electronics would pull the sheet forward or retard it to keep it in register. The side register was Manual and was adjusted by moving the cylinder across the machine by the screw on the larger. All though the machine would run for long periods without attention you did not dare leave it un watched Usually one machine minded watched the ink and the other did the register.

MINATURE RADIO
The first time we saw a minature radio a Cross-fields engineer had it. He was traveling all over the world and bought it in Japan it was twice the size of a matchbox, and was making an awful din.
The Firm ordered a new gravure machine, which was designed to print in four colours and to cut and trim and produce separate tea labels ready for the tea packing machines. They recond it could produce a million labels a day when running. Derrick Beckham was put in charge and another minder brought in to replace Alf Gower who had left to open a pub at Neller Hall. I was a bit put out at this as the new minder had the senior position. I afterwards discovered I was receiving more wages than he was.

The new minders name was Cliff; I found out that he was a relative of Derricks. He was OK. And I got on with him very well but I had more practical experience than he had. One an occasion when I had been in charge the cellophane rolls for the Swiss rolls had slipped on their stocks I had them all put to one side, reporting the fact to Mr. Smith. He was a bit gruff but said he would get the rep in. When the rep arrived he agreed with me that the re reeling was irregular and agreed to take them back; they were up to a dozen in all. When Cliff went on holiday to a holiday camp we decided to send him a present we picked out the pretty birthday paper then John went to a shop and hunted their stock of Swiss rolls until he found one, which was seriously out of register and of the sort that Cliff hated to print. The parcel was wrapped up and tied with ribbon and addressed to him at the camp. When he came back off holiday he said they had him stand on a chair at breakfast while the camp band played happy birthday and he had to undo the present in public. He knew immediately who had sent it and although he professed profusely that it was not his birthday. They were not having it.

DERRICK JOHN& BLACK TOM (UNCLE)
Derrick used to drive all the way from Richmond every day on his Lambretta. After a while when he had built up his bank deposit decided to get a car. I think he got a good deal from some one he knew who did not like the modern automatic gearbox. Derrick was rather small in stature and very evenly tempered and it did take a while to get him wound up. He told us this one morning that over night he had picked up his mother in law in his car and it was raining heavily. There was a Lambretta on the crown of the road, who he gave a toot to make sure he had been seen that he was going to turn right. At the next set of lights there was a knock on his window. On winding the window down a stream of bad language came at him from the Lambretta cyclist. When he remonstrated with the man saying he had a Lady passenger the man threw a fist at him through the window. Derrick said that’s where he made his mistake he had to hold on to his scooter while I clobbered him to the ground. This must have been a very early incident of road rage. John Kerins was the first one to coin the fraise Uncle! This was in reguard to the assistant manager Tom Field otherwise known as black Tom. John was eating a sandwich with one hand while winding up a reel with the other. Mr. Field asked him if he was concentrating fully on the job. John asked him which task he meant and continued to do as he was doing. All the other overseers were referred to in the same way.eg. Uncle Albert, Uncle Tom Uncle Frank etc. In later times, at Ward and Foxlows someone actually asked me if I was the Governors Nephew. Although I account many incidents of larks at work the main thing was we always produced a good body of workday in day out. I was just finishing an after time wash-up one evening: The main machine switches were outside of the machine room ,for safety reasons( mainly Fire as the inks were spirit based).As I walked in Ken Ransom The waxer, was standing blocking my entry with a finger to his lips, while he said” No Miss Pierson yes Miss Pierson “. I thought he had gone mad. I pushed past him to find John standing stark naked in a small washing up bowl of water holding his main parts. He was in the process of having a wash down be fore going out on a date. Miss Pierson was the company personnel officer; the company did act very quickly in cases of accidents. When washing-up the gravure machine the doctor blades could be a hazard. We had an unwritten rule that no person would speak to you while you were handling them (They were razor sharp after running on the machine) and cuts from them were usually deep and needed Hospital treatment ie. Stitches.

THE TILES
Cliff lived at Richmond and at the back of his house was waste ground and then a very old large house which he heard was going to be demolished. He had a look around the property out of curiosity and found some very nice tiles in the bathroom. So one Sunday morning he decided to acquire the same. He was working away with a chisel and hammer when he heard a noise down stairs. Then a steady plod on the stairs thinking it might be a policeman he was in a flat panic, when the door opened and a man producing a large screw driver started to unscrew the door hinges, while starting up a conversation about what else could be gleaned from the old property.

ACCIDENT
One day we were printing on cellophane and the register would not hold so Cliff said slow it right down and he went down the units to check on the state of the impression rollers, we had tried to convince him that it was bad cellophane. The machine cut out and the web broke. Cliff came towards me holding his hand .It had been pinched in the machine and the nails were all there but flattened. I shouted for Peter to wrap it up in a clean rag and get Cliff up to Miss Pierson the personnel officer immediately. Cliff was off from work for a couple of months and received quite a bit of compensation I believe the accident was one of the reasons that Lyons eventually sold the machine back to Gobels . I remember their Chief engineer coming in to conduct a test run. It all went well and he said we buy. During the time the machine was still in the firm, it staid idol for about a month I realized we might get put off, so asked to return to the letterpress shop to familiarize myself with the Heidelberg cylinder. Unfortunately the Union had decided that I was in the gravure department and when it closed I would go with it by that time I had worked for Lyons about twelve years. I got a redundancy payment of about five hundred pounds

JOBING THEN CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT
. Jobs were a bit thin on the ground I was very disappointed with the Union Officer who told me to look out for jobs in the paper. I got upset with him and asked to see his senior, after waiting about I was offered a weeks jobbing at Harrison’s at Bedfordberry, Covent garden while there I used to escape at lunch time and have a walk about the area or go into the Flag and Lamb and have a pint and a piece of game pie. After three weeks they asked me if I would like a regular job, but I did not fancy working there as a regular thing as it was all rush with very little make ready. My next job was at Ward & Foxlows They had a number of their own magazines which were either weekly or monthly They were mainly short runs, and mostly in colour. They also printed the Academy Cinema posters, which were to be mounted up on parker boards, before printing. The machine was double demy size aproximately22 1/2 inches x 35 inches. The first poster I had to print was Chimes at Midnight with Orson Wells. I remember that it had not dried by the time it was taken away for putting up on the London Underground. When I saw the poster on Nottinghill Gate Station. I had a quick feel of it and some of the ink came off in my hand. The next poster I printed was well dosed up with driers especially the last printing (there were usually Four).

HARCOURT STREET
Ward and Foxlows was in Harcourt St.The mews behind it was where Shelibeers the first London Omnibus Company had started from it ran from Marylebone to Euston originally horse drawn. The Swedish church was opposite (we did a lot of their brochures). The area was littered with unusual shops at this time, a tropical fish shop, a tailors where he sat on the table top cross-legged sewing a paper shop which sold all the foreign papers it was possible for them to inquire several little art gallery’s including the Spinx; which later moved to St James, s.it was also possible to walk to Tyburn, Regents Park or just stroll around the shops during lunch break. If we worked on a Saturday there was also Chapel St. market to visit before going home. The Firm W&F .Ltd bought out a small local printers sold their premises and moved their staff and machinery in with us. This was arranged in conjunction with the union, and I got voted in as father of the Chapel.

UNION BUSINESS.
A team of men with clip boards arrived and looked like time and motion study I phone the union to tell them about this and the managerial consultant the board of managers had installed their comment was a rose by any other name would smell as sweet ,and to tell the management that either the consultant should leave or all staff would. I was stuck in the middle of this battle for about a month until it all got sorted out. Apparently the board had tried to oust Mr Foxlow from the board as chairman but in the end he was re-installed. I was at the firm for about 16 years. In the end the firm closed. Mr Foxlow was retirement age, lithography had taken large steps forward, and was cheaper and faster for certain jobs, I got a redundancy payment , and was looking for another job. Having filled an application form for the national papers I checked one the state of my application but I was about a year off gaining a place.