I had been trained at Longbridge at The Austin, the ‘largest self-contained car plant in Europe’, with 26,000 staff on a single site. I knew the inside workings of a vehicle manufacturer. In 1962 I started as a Trade Apprentice and in 1965 I was sent to the University of Aston in Birmingham, as Student Engineering Apprentice on a four year sandwich basis. Six months at Aston: six months in Longbridge.
I spent many apprentice ‘moves’ throughout the vast site: tool-making, operating complex tool-room machine tools, maintenance, demonstrating new machine tools, repairing office machinery, renovating machine tools and later product engineering, production engineering, works engineering, jig and tool design, conveyor system maintenance, PA to works superintendents and especially in Industrial Relations. I even organised the Chest Mass X-Ray unit visit to Longbridge, increasing the number of employees X-rayed by 300% to 15,000.
I worked as PA to the IR Manager and dealt directly with Dick Etheridge and Derek Robinson (Red Robbo), the respective Chairmen of the Work Committee and many senior managers/supervisors at all levels throughout the business. My apprenticeship spanned seven years!
I fought (the system) to become a first-line Production Foreman aged 22. I was appointed Senior Foreman at 23, in the Bar Automatics Factory, literally a ‘business within a business’. 299 employees and 1.75 million components were produced a week for a range of BL customers.
Later, I was appointed as Senior Foreman, at the Engine Factory, which was plagued with regular wildcat strikes and told to “Sort it out, son. We’ll see how clever you really are!”
During this period, I was continually seconded from my Senior Foreman role to resolve major potential and actual IR issues, always accompanied by the challenging comment “We’ll see how clever you really are!”
In 1972 I was appointed O Series Engine Project Manager, helping implement the new 1700cc-2000cc engine production facilities (buildings, plant and machinery), spending £55m in the process.
In late 1975 I was appointed Manufacturing Manager, Alford and Alder Ltd, Hemel Hempstead, still within BL. 850 of the 1100 employees were my responsibility. I was 29 years old. I was sent there on similar terms that I had been sent to the Engine Factory, following an 11-week strike, which crippled a high percentage of the UK motor industry. Namely “We’ll see how clever you really are!”
A&A designed, developed and manufactured Independent Front Suspension Systems for Jaguar and Triumph, Power and Manual Rack & Pinion steering for Rover, Austin-Morris and heavy/medium front axles for Leyland Truck & Bus, Scammel, Leyland, AEC, Guy, Albion, BMC trucks plus non-BL customers such as Dennis, Chrysler truck. Very profitable and very independent.
In Oct 1978, I was appointed Director and General Manager, Rearsby Components, following three days of psychometric tests in Harley Street. The tests were designed to identify BL leaders of the future, ordered by Sir Michael Edwards, then Chairman of BL. BL at this stage was intent upon conformance. Supplant the brands (which had taken decades to build!), extinguish anything individual or local in the interests of the ‘greater (corporate) good’.
I succeeded Bill Bradshaw, an ebullient character and a smart dresser, prone to occasional dickie-bow wearing. He would have been in his late 50s, early 60s. He replaced the GM at Alford & Alder, a much bigger, much more complex operation with a very different employee culture to Rearsby. In fact there were two cultures: East-Enders from the Elephant & Castle area and the Hertfordshire folk. BL didn't have the courage to give me the A&A GM role. In the event, it proved to be a good decision, for me.
I was to serve alongside Bill at the SU-Butec ‘Board’ level. Bill was a strange character, possessing a high degree of self-worth bordering on arrogance. A sort of Boris Johnson, without the classic education, with some charisma but limited humour.
One management ‘principle’ Bill expounded in an open meeting was to keep his immediate subordinates in the dark, so they wouldn't be able to guess his next move.I said "You surely aren't serious Bill?" Regrettably, he was!
Well, to quote the Welsh ‘There we are then’. Sadly A&A, despite being profitable, didn't last long under his tutoring. Someone revealed to BL, the long and closely guarded A&A secret; it sat on a 1954 property lease purchase agreement, which was worth millions. The latter was triggered, the site sold and the products distributed to other BL plants and external suppliers. A sad end to one of the oldest established automotive companies, with its links to Malcolm Campbell's record breaking cars and the development of IFS for SS Cars to the Jaguar C, D and E-Types right up to the XJ series. And the one thousand jobs that were lost.