My first ever work experience was for a small company called Battle Engineering based in Battle, Sussex, England (1066 and all that). They employed just 8 people and I was taken on as a Machine Operator. Battle Engineering was, perhaps, what you might call a jobbing workshop. Carrying out all manner of work for local businesses. I think, at the time I was there, the biggest customer was Guinness Hop Farms.
Like many new starters, I started at the bottom. My working day started in pretty much the same way every day. Collect the tea mugs from around the building, wash up and put the kettle on. While the kettle was boiling I would start to sweep up around the workshop. Collecting the swarf from the floor and also emptying the swarf trays under the machines. This clearing up would be interrupted by making the first cup of tea for everyone. Once the cups were distributed I would carry on clearing up. Once that task was completed I would report to Pat, the boss, who would then give me “real” work. This might involve using fly presses, saws, drills and shaping machines. At around the middle of the 3rd week I was informed that I was being made redundant. One of the contracts that they had bid for had failed to materialise and they couldn’t afford to keep me on. So I was given a weeks notice.
At the end of the 4th week Pat asked if I had found any other work, which I hadn’t. So he offered me the job of painting the exterior of the building. I took up the offer. After all it was summer, sunny, and it meant I would be working outside and I had my transistor radio so I could listen to pirate radio all day.
This job grew and I then re-decorated the interior followed by tearing down the old office which was squeezed into one corner. This was replaced by a new mezzanine floor which I, along with much direction and assistance, installed. Once the modifications were completed Pat kept me on to work the machines again.
Over the next few months I learnt how to operate lathes, turret lathes, linishers, as well as becoming reaquainted with drills, fly presses and metal saws etc. All in all I worked for Battle Engineering for 9 months. I learnt a lot, not just about machines but also about how to get along with folks and also the meaning of adaptability when it comes to work. I liked it there, I had a good laugh and I do wonder where those guys are now.
When did all this happen ? Well it was over the 2nd half of 1968 into 1969. I remember on one of my trips to the hardware store, stopping outside the TV shop in Battle high street and watching at least one live broadcast of an Apollo mission. That would have been between October 11th, 1968 (Apollo 7) and March 3rd, 1969 (Apollo 9).
How much did I make ? Well when I started I was getting £4 per week. Of that I had to give my Mum half for my keep. This job had only ever been a stop-gap as I was due to start an apprenticeship at the Royal Naval Dockyard – Portsmouth. There I became a Fitter & Turner by trade but that’s a much longer story.
WrAnTz 