My first full time job was at a factory in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire where I joined as a graduate trainee. It was a steep learning curve going from a happy go lucky student to a salaried employee. Relatively recently I’d found a page on Facebook talking about the company, Aveling Marshall. Sadly, the company is long shut and the factory in Gainsborough is now a shopping precinct! No doubt the size and reach of the global construction and agricultural manufacturers was always going to see off a little player. In following the Facebook page I got into a conversation with the author/administrator (Ian Palmer). He asked if I’d write up my time there for a quarterly magazine he published. See below.

To make this remotely interesting for the readers of the magazine I’ve peppered it with the names of staff I worked with. Unfortunately I never did get to know the names of the two strippers…

“When Ian asked me to write about my time at Marshalls I really hadn’t thought a great deal, for 46 years, about those two years at the Britannia Works, I now realise how much that time was integral to my growing up and an early education in business. I graduated from Manchester Polytechnic in the summer of 1976, at the tender age of 21,  I had no idea what I’d do but my then graduate girlfriend signed up with a recruitment agency; so I did! They found the opportunity with Aveling Marshall and I trundled down to Gainsborough to meet the Training Manager, Peter Watkins. All I knew was that they were part of Leyland Special Products. This group contained the makers of refrigeration, military personnel carriers, dump and fork lift trucks and construction equipment. He asked if I was interested in Finance or Purchasing? With little thought but aware I’d taken three attempts to pass O Level Mathematics I plumped for the latter! From here I had a second successful interview with the Purchasing Director, John Walker and on October 4 (after a telegram advising of my successful application) I turned up for work on the princely sum of £2,512 pa.

The product portfolio was the Challenger, road rollers and Track Marshalls AM 100 and 105 although new products were coming. Overall in the Purchasing Department I had three jobs: Purchase Analyst, Buyer and Senior Buyer. My recollections of the first job were the pricing up of many pages of A3 size Bills of Materials. These Bills related to machines being transferred from Aveling Barford, namely the articulated wheel loaders/shovels. The hundreds of sheets bore down into exceptional detail and I well remember pricing thousands of fasteners! Doing this today with a laptop and spreadsheet would have been easy and relatively fast. With a biro and Tippex I just about got there although I’m sure the accuracy of all these manual entries would have been dubious. Not all the time was spent in the office I had a couple of several week blocks away at a college in St Helens doing a qualification in Purchasing. I must thank Aveling Marshall for a post graduate qualification from the Institute of Purchasing & Supply.

Shortly after I joined a Purchasing Manager was recruited, David Forman. David loved a document and I well remember his spending what seemed weeks designing dedicated Kalamazoo cards that kept all the detail about components on them. These were stored in a special filing cabinets. I think the administrative staff in the department kept them up to date. This must have been either Pearl, Shirley or Sandra. I’m still in touch with Sandra today who is a proud grandmother who still lives local to Gainsborough. When we worked together we’d have been amazed to envisage ourselves now as grandparents! I was sat next to Lennie Auckland. Lennie was in his sixties and was a kind and helpful guy who was fiercely proud of the town and drove a three speed Ford Popular. This car seemed ancient even then! I had been given a Triumph Herald by my parents a few years earlier but using the Leyland car discount I bought a Triumph Spitfire. I’m not sure how I found the money: no doubt a lot of debt.

Other staff included David May, Steve Tonks, Dyer who delighted in answering the phone with “Dyer here”, Cameron, a Scotsman, who could have three lit cigarettes on the go as he moved around the office from desk, to filing cabinets to other offices, Neil, a Jehovah’s witness and Alan who looked after non-production purchases.

It was an era of high inflation and suppliers sought regular uplifts. In line with the Government’s Price and Incomes Policy there was a lot of bureaucracy and justification sought. (Frankly, ask a supplier to justify an increase then they can!) However, I remember being sat in John Walker’s office as he often put suppliers to the sword trying to get the increases reduced. Also, in John’s office Cathy would appear with a memo from her boss the Managing Director, Fred Clem. All Fred’s memos were on green stationary. He was an elusive figure but I well recollect a dinner where he posed all the graduates the question ‘if you had one component in stock and you had a request from a customer via the Spares/Parts department for it or you could fit it to a new tractor and sell that unit what should you do?’ The correct answer, in an industry that depended on service and equipment to work 16 hours a day, was to sell it as spares.

As I got used to turning up for work five days a week I also got used to wearing a suit and tie. I recollect trying to make the same shirt last three days before I might disappear back to Leeds for my mother to do the laundry. Eventually I moved from week day digs in Torksey to a flat in Gainsborough where I moved in with Mike Gordon, another graduate recruit. This Scot joined as a Profit Analyst. He ruefully commented, after several months, that a better title would have been Loss Analyst! The week nights seem to have been spent listening to vinyl at the top of this two storey abode and I think I wore out Boston’s first album along with Peter Gabriel’s first solo album. However, the weekends could see us drive to the metropolis that was Retford to a disco. Alternatively, it could be a trip to Cleethorpes to see The Stranglers. It was the height of punk rock and I still have all my Sex Pistols 45’s. Sunday morning saw me often donning a white shirt and any other kit and striding out to play for the mighty Real Aveling football team. I only scored once from full back and I think I can remember the exact move and how I stroked it under the ‘keeper. Clearly I never scored many goals! If that was memorable so was the night at the Social Club when two strippers were on the bill. It just seems inconceivable that today a company venue would be used for such entertainment!

After a couple of years I became restless and started to look for a move away. I wrote to Ford Tractor Operations in Basildon to join as a buyer and was successful and departed to Essex. I eventually left Ford to study for a Master in Business in Administration full time at the University of Bradford. I didn’t return to Ford but took a job as a Purchasing Manager at a furniture manufacturer in Yorkshire. I spent 23 years here rising to be a director and moving eventually into sales, marketing and then running their nationwide cabinet installation. The company had sales in excess of £100m and was the subsidiary of an American company. Today I’m very much retired and apart from family responsibilities I like to spend time riding my bike whether in the Yorkshire Wolds, across the USA, around Australia or all over Europe.

Wonderful memories. Thank you, Ian, for this trip down memory lane.”