A great set of photos from the factory by Howard Grey
I like the photos of the girl doing the offset while building a rear wheel - I must make one of those. Note the zinc teapot, cuppa and fag on the bench while working - how things have changed.
Little did they know what was coming as Umberslade Hall was being set up at that time.
What a fantastic set of photos. Thanks for posting them. An invaluable record of the way things used to be by the photographer.
Agreed, a great set of photos.
A great record of a sadly vanished time of skilled manufacturing jobs. Thanks for posting.
The lady painting the tank badges makes me think of a lovely lady who worked in the drawing office when I moved up from the shop floor. She was called Maureen and was a former tracer who used to neaten up the draughtsmans drawings before they were issued. Our guns had identity tags for grease points etc and she used to write the details on them. I have never seen such beautiful neat writing. Proper skill.
When I started work in the design office there were lady tracers. They produced fantastic finished ink drawings after receiving the pencil design drawings from the engineers.
The tracers used those adjustable ruling pens that needed to be filled with ink with each line drawn. The beautiful drawings and lettering were produced on blue linen paper.
Yes, I agree, proper skill.
Hence the term "blueprint"
