while looking through the " why are cars so de-valued etc topic "i saw (john 215) t shirt "i would rather push a triumph than drive a mg" ( john 215 can you please put it the picture on this topic)
made me recall the two hardest days work i ever did in the british motor industry..
i personally smashed everyone of the clocking in clocks from the abingdon MG factory.
for twenty years i worked at the longbridge car factory starting with an apprenticeship in 81. finishing managing the conveyor bridge over the bristol rd..the apprentice training involved placement moves round the factory over four years. in 84 i was placed in a department which repaired all the clockin in clocks in the midland BL factorys. one day i was asked to help move a load of old clocks from a store in the west works from an area that was going to be used to build 6R4 rally metro bodies and place them into anther store near the GOB.during this day i was told by the father and son team that repaired the clocks that they had seen grown men crying in the abingdon works when it closed as they removed the clocks. ( o and the son had one of the tr7 sprints... details to follow later ).
18 months later the father was up for retirement and mmmm this looked like a good job to me!!!what with no shift work.. so i made tracks to replace him. by 88 i was the owner of a tr7 and was told to remove the MG clocks from their current store, which was now required for a computer back up system for the GOB. as longbridge was still using clocking in for workers payment, management did not want the print wheels out of these clocks in the hands of the work force.
one sledge hammer and three roll on roll off skips were provided and way i went.. with people working passed with a " can i buy one" smash " sorry no"
by the end of the week i was so tried i fell a sleep on the way into town on friday night.
