Z1205/016

Male brickwork maintenance worker b. 25.8.1923 Side A (00mins)Family background in Cranfield. Father worked for London Brick Co from 1924. (5 mins)Father's 44 years in brickworks. Wartime work on American tanks at Stewartby, re-enforcing with armour plating ready for war service. Interviewee's first years as a press boy, aged 14 yrs, at Stewartby. (10 mins)Childhood memories of grandparents. (15 mins)Vegetable gardening for father. Favourite teacher. (20 mins)Entering trades at brickwork, through family connections. (25 mins)Special bricks: squints, angles, bullnose, cavity, tombstones (32 mins)End of Side A Side B (mins.00)Rates of pay. Uncles working for Eastwoods brickworks, Kempston & Marston Valley. (5 mins)Cranfield aerodrome, 1930s. (10 mins)Volunteering at 17 yrs for RAF training on airframe and engines, Wolverhampton (15 mins)Work repairing Spitfire aircraft in Hampshire (20 mins)Wartime flying with air observation post squadron (25 mins)Wartime experiences in France (30 mins)Jet aircraft engine course, Weston Super Mare. Marriage, May 1946. Left forces to return to brickworks (32mins)End of Side B(Continues on CS016C2. Side A only Side A (00 mins)Brickworkers returning from Second World War. Use of displaced persons & Italian and German prisoners of war. Introduction of bulldozers (5 mins)Dumpers trucks, earthmoving vehicles (10 mins)Introduction of fork lift trucks. Dangerous workshop working conditions (15 mins)1965 maintenance section strike (20 mins)Pensions (23 mins)End of interview Original interview 85 mins.

30 May 2001

From: 1920 To: 2001

item

London Brick Company,
Marston Valley Brick Company Limited,
Eastwood Flettons Brick Company

World War Two, gardening, toys, air force aerodromes, prisoners of war, trades unions, Germans, Italians, Americans, wages/conditions, CRANFIELD, STEWARTBY, Hampshire, France, Wolverhampton, Weston-Super-Mare