Scope and Content
PART ONE
(00 mins)
Born in Queen Charlotte’s Hospital – special delivery – then back to 6 New Road, Linslade, Leighton Buzzard where he grew up. Mother had a son two years before who died shortly after birth. Trevor became only child. Father – born near Tring; mother –a Harrison – from Solihull in Midlands. Lots of uncles, aunts, cousins – very close family community – went round to each others’ houses, played cards, went on outings, coach trips – still have family “do”s [get-togethers].
Childhood – not much money or many toys – made own entertainment – played in countryside around Tiddenfoot – climbing trees, building ‘camps’, damming streams. Disused sand pits – small lakes. Adventure playground when no adults watching.
(05 mins)
Sand extraction procedure – using Caterpillar machine to scrape the ‘overburden’ [top soil] away to store in a mound to put back later after extraction completed. Use of dragline machine to reveal the sand – water filled hole according to the water table [natural water level]. Pontoon – flat-bottomed boat – held pump which used 8-inch pipe to suck the sand off the bottom – then screened and dried sand ready to sell.
Late 1950s – Second World War still in people’s minds – children played war games – hiding and pretending to shoot each other. When not doing that – birds’ nesting – collecting birds’ eggs for personal collections [then not illegal] – mainly blackbirds, thrushes, sparrows’ eggs.
Never any adult supervision of play in those days – you went out in the morning, on a day when not at school, and came back hours later for a mealtime. No mobile phones to enable you to contact parents or vice versa. There was not the same fear factor as today. The only swimming pool was at Cedars Schools [now Leighton Middle School] in centre of town, so children us the local rivers – Parson’s Close recreation ground – or canals. Slight fear of catching polio before polio vaccinations were available. One friend, Ronnie Baxter, fell off his bike and was knocked unconscious, but no serious accidents of drownings among his friends.
Played informal football games if sufficient friends around to set up matches. Had core group of friends – met in Mentmore Road playing fields – frequently flooded in summer.
(10 mins)
Frequent flooding from canals and rivers – taken for granted – just made playing more fun. Up to around ten years of age – played locally – later moved further away to Tunnel Hills, over the railway tunnel outside Leighton Buzzard – steep slopes – met in the dark after school. Would tie torches to their sledges and slide down the slopes. When 11 or 12 – allowed to go camping overnight in Old Linslade in a small tent. Once allowed to stay for a week there during school holidays – with food and torches – given permission by local farmer – used to get milk and eggs from him each morning. Great fun – no adults. Went with Roy Gibbs and John Grime. Didn’t think that parents worried. Perhaps father came over to area and spied on them from time to time without them knowing – to make sure they were OK. Parents wanted children to have a good time which they did.
(15 mins)
Litchfield white cotton tent – folded and put away by Trevor – forgot about it until he had his own children many years later – Mother produced it from the airing cupboard and still in perfect condition. He had even washed the tent pegs and put them in a brown paper bag. Tent bought from Linney’s hardware shop in Lake Street. Trevor went along as an adult helper when his son joined the Boy Scouts and went off camping.
Father worked at Redland Tiles in Grovebury Road [firm later moved to Vandyke Road]. Earlier his father had worked in the sand industry, for Garside’s. Father developed lung cancer and died in 1976. aged 60.
Mother had only small jobs when bringing up Trevor – a leather works on the corner of Victoria Road and Waterloo Road was one. Another job was at Foundry Equipment [where Tesco’s now is]. Mother died in 2007.
(20 mins)
Started school at St. Barnabas Church School in 1957. He had a cousin, Valerie Harrison, 18 months older, there to talk to, but the girls’ and boys’ playgrounds were separated by white line and they had to meet there. Classes were mixed boys and girls. There were very strict old-fashioned teachers, stern with horn-rimmed spectacles. You weren’t allowed to talk without permission. Teaching was very much ‘chalk and talk’.
After a short period he moved to the Linslade Annexe in Church Road, where it meets Wing Road [now a youth club]. There was no playground there so teachers had to walk to the recreation ground and back again at playtime. He then went to Stoke Road for a short period – an old-fashioned but proper school building with a slate roof and a tarmac playground. It had a bell in a tower. The building, near Dillamore’s, is now no long there. Trevor then went for a short period to Leopold Road School before moving, following the 11+ examination to Linslade Secondary School, opposite Cedars School, in 1963. It was a new [1961] school with new furniture, a gymnasium, canteen and science laboratories, purpose built art rooms and woodwork workshop.
(25 mins)
Trevor liked woodwork and science – practical experiments – Maths and, later, History. He didn’t like French – he didn’t see the point of it, since he was unlikely to go abroad. Discipline was still quite strict – you weren’t allowed to talk or chew gum in class and if you didn’t do your Homework properly, you got detention. A spelling mistake led to you writing the word correctly ten times. He liked a couple of his teachers particularly, Alan Radford and his sports teacher, Eddie Bates. Later in life, he found himself attending Parents Evening, talking to Alan Radford who taught Trevor’s son at Brooklands School. They reminisced about the old days.
There was no parental pressure to do particular work after leaving school. “It’s up to you. You must make your own choices; what you feel is right for you.” There was pressure to remain at school when he reached the minimum school- leaving age of 15 but he left in July 1967. He looked for work locally and spoke to a cousin who was working at Foundry Equipment.
(30 mins)
Trevor didn’t have a long-term career in mind – he just wanted to earn some money. In those days there were no credit cards – you couldn’t buy anything until you had the money to buy it. An uncle, Walt Harrison, said he would speak to the General Manager of a sand pit in Ledburn Road. His name was Stan Pritchard and he invited Trevor to turn up one Saturday morning and offered him a Trainee Engineer place in the firm’s workshops. Trevor accepted it, not knowing what it was he was agreeing to. After two week’s holiday, he started on 7 August 1967 on the Monday morning at 7.30am. He had to buy his own overalls and some boots, which he got from the Army and Navy Stores in Bridge Street, Leighton Buzzard. His first task was to take an engine to bits.
(35 mins)
Then he was asked to put it together again and couldn’t – the idea was to teach him to always label each part, so that you knew where it went when you re-assembled it. Learned by doing a wide range of jobs in this small firm, including driving a range of vehicles, at the age of 15. Near-miss experience driving a Dodge lorry and also with a tipper truck when he got trapped by his legs but was saved by a colleague, Fraser Gause (?) He also worked in the office.. His mentor was an old-fashioned engineer who set high standards for himself and expected them of others. Trevor was there for 9 years.
(40 mins)
Trevor was taught how to fix things – repair rather than replace. He was told he was expected to attend Luton College for further education – one day and one evening a week for up to 5 years, from September 1967. Trevor had no idea that this was expected of him and was not very keen but later realised that it would be good for his career. His boss, Mr Pritchard, expected Trevor to show him his homework before submitting it to college so he couldn’t get out of it. Even his spellings were corrected. Stan Pritchard was the General Manager employed by Jones Sand Ltd and Leighton Buzzard Brick Co. – a family firm owned by a Miss Jones, with two nieces (Ann and Jan Gatesford) on the board. The world of quarrying was changing – the Mines and Quarries Act and the Tips Act which came in after the Aberfan tip disaster of 1969 led to the need for increased Health and Safety skills – the company was looking for someone who could come through the ranks of both engineering and management.. Under Stan was the foreman, Cyril Thorogood, who was in charge of the Workshop.
(45 mins)
The firm had 3 pits: one wet pit at Ledburn Road, Linslade, producing concreting sand; the other two in Heath and Reach - one at Fox Corner producing dry building sand used for mortar and the other further up the A5 (where the Anglian Water pump house is), called the Watling Street pit, which was also pumped, but produced more expensive specialised sand, used in water filtration. The offices were on the site of the former Tiddenfoot pit, opposite the then-operational Ledburn Road pit.
Trevor’s job at the Workshop was to help maintain and repair the equipment for all 3 quarries. His fellow mechanic was Martin Thorogood (son of Foreman Cyril Thorogood) who became his friend and, later, best man at his wedding. They had good times together as teenage workers. They worked on drag-line face shovels, loading shovels, pit lorries, screening plant, pumping plant, engines, company vehicles, cars and Landrovers – anything mechanical. Wide variety of work – welding, cutting, taking an engine apart. As Stan Pritchard said, “A skilled mechanic is one that can strip the engine down, find the problem, buy the bits, put it back together, start it up and put it back in”. If it was a big job, they worked as a team; at other times you worked on your own.
(50 mins)
The firm paid for all Trevor’s expenses in attending college – books, travel expenses. After a foundation year’s studies at Luton College, he completed a two-year part-time City and Guilds course in General Engineering (1968-1970), followed by a two-year part-time City and Guilds Motor Vehicle course.(1970-1972). Trevor had realised that, if he played his cards right, he had got himself a career, so he worked harder at his studies and got a distinction in his exams. The college awarded him the Best Student title in the engineering section (1971-72). This was achieved against students from Vauxhall Cars engineering company.
Having successfully completed the 5 years of study, Mr. Pritchard said, “Would you like to start the first sort of rung on Junior Management?”.. He was sent to a specialist quarrying college in Doncaster on a two-year block-release course, six months of the year, to become a Member of the Institute of Quarrying.
As part of the course, he had to choose an ancillary subject, in addition to sand and gravel – he chose to study the technology of concrete.
His job title changed to Assistant Production Manager. His Doncaster course director told his firm that Trevor needed some experience of bigger firms so it was arranged for him to work in a laboratory with the Technical Manager of RMC [Ready Mixed Concrete] in London Colney for a few weeks. He then had some experience of blasting hard rock in Wales and experience of a limestone mine in Derbyshire. The highlight was a trip to Belgium and Germany at the end of his course – touring cement works and quarries. These were a bit more automated in their processes.
(60 mins)
Ironically, the first vehicle he saw when he was in Zeebrugge was a Dawson Freight lorry from Leighton Buzzard. He was now a qualified quarry manager and was asked by his firm to look at planning permissions and future reserves. One of the men from the pit, Mick Webb, went over to work in the Workshop in place of Trevor, but without taking on the studies.
Trevor felt very lucky that he had got a job where and when he did and could not have expected that high level of support with any other small firm. But people changed at the firm and Stan retired.
They moved from the Fox Corner site, which was running out, across the road to Home Farm, producing building sand.
(65 mins)
The Watling Street site was also running low, so they moved across the road and Trevor got planning permission for that pit. He decided, after 9 years with the firm, to move on – his mentor, the Manger, has gone, his best friend and the Foreman had gone. He was ready for a new challenge.
(70 minutes)
END OF PART ONE
Summarised by Stuart Antrobus (15 November 2009)
PART TWO Trevor WILKINS SOT R26
(00 mins)
Trevor got a new job as Regional Production Manager with Mixed Concrete, running 4 plants at Heath & Reach, Dunstable, Slough and Denham. He didn’t like the job or the person he was working for but stayed there 2 years.
He then moved to RMC where he had had previous work experience at London Colney, near St. Albans, and became their Area Operations Manager on 10 July 1976. The area included plants around Hatfield, Watford, Rickmansworth and Luton. Whenever possible, the Ready Mix plants were put in quarries, so that the only ingredient from outside, if you had sand and gravel there, was cement. The normal mix was 1.2 tonnes of stone, 800 kg of sand and 200, 300 or 400 kg of cement, to produce each cubic metre of concrete, depending on the strength required.
(05 mins)
Tiles or pre-cast blocks for driveways only required sand. RMC also had limestone from a Derbyshire quarry, brought down by train to its Bletchley plant.
Once there were many independent cement companies – Blue Circle, Rugby, Castle – there were ones at Pitstone and at Dunstable. Now, Lafarge, a French company, owns British cement companies. RMC was the biggest ready-mix company but owned no cement works, which made them vulnerable – so they bought three cement works at Rugby, South Ferriby and Barrington and aimed to use all its own material.
Trevor’s main work was on Operations and Transport, with 8 plants to run efficiently. Stock control and the correct labour force were vital. Each plant has a Plant Manager and there were monthly management meetings.
A large potential tender arose – to build the northern section of the M25 motorway. RMC was awarded the job but had to open up mothballed plants and bring in mobile plants in order to produce the enormous amounts of concrete. They had to supply companies doing piling, tunnelling and bridge making.
(10 mins)
Jones Sands – his first firm – was taken over by RMC.
After looking after the operations side from 1978 to about 1986, he took on a very large project in London to manage – a company called Olympia had been given permission to build a tall skyscraper building on the Isle of Dogs by the River Thames...He had to establish plants on a ship to supply concrete for the building. He had never tackled such a project before.
(15 mins)
He researched similar designs for ship-based plants in Germany and set out to plan how he was going to buy all the sand and cements etc, for the biggest order ever. He needed 2 million tonnes of cement. A special ship with tanks of water like a submarine was needed to allow ballasting. Further barges with cranes on board were also needed and a conveyor to move materials from ship to land.
(20 mins)
Two specially-built ships which had been designed to help build oilrigs in Norwegian fjord were brought over the North Sea to London and moored by Canary Wharf on the River Thames. Plants were set up in each. Especially-strong cement – 70-90 Newtons in strength – was needed and was brought over from a Baltic island called Sleeta (?). Work started on the foundations of No 1 Canada Square. After a year, with the project up and running, he moved back to the Bedford office
(25 mins)
2.4 – 2.4 million tonnes of cement were used to produce the 17,000 cubic metres of foundations for the one building of 50 floors. Lytag – a coal-ash product from power stations – was used in the concrete mix, together with slag from steel works – to produce a slimmer but safer, more-fire-proof columns to support the building. Lytag was supplied by a firm in Nijmegen, Holland, by ship, and unloaded at Bellamy’s Wharf and then by barges to Canary Wharf and pumped on to the site
(30 mins)
They were able to pump the material up as high as the 44th floor – a UK record.
Trevor was invited to the ‘topping out’ ceremony – 800 feet up in the air on top of the building in 1989 (1990?). That was the highlight of his career.
Trevor moved within the company, RMC, to manage Procurement from 2002 – buying materials and equipment for the company most efficiently world-wide. RMC has now been taken over by Cemex.
(35 mins)
RMC was one of the first construction companies to seriously manage procurement – now all major companies do that to produce efficiencies.
He works with the Capex team which is given a pot of money to invest in the future of the business – going out to tender to produce the most cost-effective outcomes. Trevor travels all over Europe but he has passed over jobs which require him to move – he values his family (he met his wife in 1974), including 3 grandchildren, and living in Leighton Buzzard. His career all started at the pit in Linslade and his lucky breaks in being taken on and supported by the local firm.
(40 mins)
Recently he has paid return visits to the sites of his first quarry firm but all is derelict – he has happy memories and has taken photographs and videos of the sites.
(48 mins)
END OF PART TWO
End of interview
Summarised by Stuart Antrobus (15 November 2009)