Stop Press!
There's a site that has started to group Lucas Memories that is worth a viewing. Please note that it is still currently under development and some of the links aren't fully functional so my advice would be to go have a look at it and then revisit it at regular intervals.
If you can help fill in some of the details Jackie would like to hear from you and her contact details are shown on the page.
Introduction
I've been thinking of putting a page together for the old stalwarts of Lucas Aerospace based primarily in Birmingham at York Road, incorporating those based at Shaftmoor Lane and Marston Green who later moved to York Road.
I personally moved into York Rd in 1977 as one of the first in there as I was involved with setting up equipment in the Clean Room, which used to be based in the far left corner of the original building when viewed from the front entrance.
When I first joined Lucas, I was part of Test Development, working for Bob Russell in the Clean Room in Shaftmoor Lane, where I remained for a couple of years before transferring to Marston Green. It was whilst at Marston Green that I became involved with some test equipment for testing substrates that I ended up in Concord, Mass., 2 weeks before Christmas 1977 performing acceptance testing on the equipment we'd bought from a company called Genrad.
During my time at York Rd., I became frustrated with the lack of information that disseminated down to the workforce and so became a union rep and I also started the TASS Newsletter, with a hope of passing on information to fellow union members and employees. The initial copies were produced at home with the use of my BBC computer and a dot matrix printer. It started as a single page introduction edition in September 1981 to a multipage A4 document, and contained business and union information and an element of humour and cartoons. The humour became known as "The York Rd Saga", written by Tony Ebden and the Cartoons by John Chance and Kevin O'Rourke. nbsp;The cartoons were topical of the events happening on site at the time, from 1981 through to 1990 or thereabouts.
Although all the characters contained with the magazine were fictitious, a number of the managers believed they were modeled on themselves, and they would attempt to get a personal copy for themselves! One of the managers actually showed it off to the customer!! We were threatened on more that one occasion with not having any copying facilities available to us because of the contents, but when we explained we'd reproduce it at Union HQ the managers capitulated.
This became so popular that eventually I was invited to extend it to the site for all employees and given proper facilities to produce it, with it actually being processed in house but printed in full colour by an external printing company. One General Manager, having taken me aside and given me a right dressing down for one cover and said he would remove editorial responsibility from me until I said that I would than no longer be involved, actually then turned round and offered me an issue payment and put the production of 'The Gazette' as it had been named, on a formal footing.
The sad part was that as time progressed, the magazine became quarterly, and eventually, on a change of General Management and HR staff, I decided I'd had enough of their interference and so decided to call it a day. Needless to say, once HR took it over, it became a "voice of the management" and lost it's way somewhat and hence folded altogether.
The Saga's, along with the articles by Bill Williams, were in general compiled during the 1980's through to 1990/1991. They bring back memories for me and hopefully for some of you!
I have nearly every single copy produced, although more recently I have removed any business references and once I have scanned in anything I consider worth keeping, I will destroy the paper copies! Trying to de-clutter the house!
"The York Road Street Saga" - as told to Uncle Tony E'Benn
We had amongst us a writer of short stories, and these became known as "The York Road Street Saga - as told to Uncle Tony E'Benn". These stories were much sought after by all, including the management, who for some reason seemed to be able to associate the characters in the stories with themselves! Strange that as all characters within these stories were ficticious and hence any association was in the mind of the beholder!
I have unearthed these collector's pieces and have begun to scan them in and post them up on the site for all to share. If you know anyone that might like to read these through again, then by all means point them to this page!
The Saga's are now on line so go to the Saga page and click on the Issue to read it!
These are in pdf format so you will need a pdf reader! I had considered putting them up as one HTML file but left them as separate files in pdf format. Maybe we should produce a book of them!! nbsp;Feedback please.
The next stage is to scan in other humourous articles along with the cartoons and maybe at a later date I'll get to the A3 versions of the magazine and the articles submitted by Geoff Slack!
Watch this space!
A Lucas Aerospace York Rd Web site
At the moment these pages are hosted on my site and hence I have sole editorial ownership, etc., over said pages. However, if there's an interest in a site then I could set one up on Google Sites and we can have limited or open access for all interested parties to edit/create pages.
I have created and maintain a couple of sites on Google if you want to take a look at the sort of thing one can do - Spital Bowls & Tennis Club and an Over 50's Club.
Another reason for using Google Sites is that you only need web access and don't have any files stored on your system nor do you need any special software on your system. This makes it more versatile and user friendly. You can just type in English but if you do want some effects it's useful to have a basic understanding of HTML, but it's not essential. If I can do it then I have no doubt you can too!
Following retirement
I hear there's one or two of you out there that seem to have a 'limited' retirement. Have you not thought of joining a club or otherwise? There are quite a few different types of clubs around and you can get details from the library for example. Have a look at the U3A - University of the Third Age - for a club that usually has many varied activities.
We belong to 2 clubs, an "Over 50's" club where we go on rambles, play 10pin bowling, both followed by lunch. We also belong to a green bowls club for the warm sunny days!! Gets us out in the fresh air away from the keyboard!
You can find links to local friendship centres via the AgeUK website and look in your local libraries to see what's on offer near you. Get out and enjoy life whilst you can! Life is too short and who knows when the end will come!
If you are interested in a re-union, please email me via Contact Us with the word 'Reunion' as the subject matter.
We're looking at a decent number of participants to make it worthwhile so if you know of anyone who might be interested tell them about this web page and get them to sign up!!.
All the best for now and hope to hear from you in the near future!
Alan.
