My WIP book about Red Robbo, and Longbridge stuff.

[Scruffy Bodger]

Is the clue in the name then?

[somewhatfoolish]

2 hours ago, motorpunk said:

Found this. He stood three times in local elections. There’s no doubting his devotion to the communist cause.

Did he ever acknowledge how tragically shit every communist state has ever been, or was he one of those special ones who just reckon it wasn't done properly?

[Dobloseven]

12 hours ago, motorpunk said:

Found this. He stood three times in local elections. There’s no doubting his devotion to the communist cause.

Wasn't that was before he became Convenor.He's certainly got more hair there!

[Lord Sterling]

@motorpunk - Please let us know, especially me, when the book is ready. It'd make for interesting reading. I am Rover fan if you hadn't already worked out. But I also the mess that it became having heard from many different sources. 

I did know someone some time back when I lived in Birmingham. He worked there when it was Austin. He used to drive a Mini Van and lived in Harborn. Although it's been many years since I spoke to him. I'm not sure if he is even around anymore, but I'll try and find out. 

My Mum's next door neighbour Jim,  I believe, was a trade unionist. I'm not sure what firms he worked for, but he's told me a lot of stuff about the issues he had at work, I can have a word with him, maybe get some contact details?

23 hours ago, N Dentressangle said:

I started my working life in the mid 80's. I worked in the UK and in Germany, mostly in casual manufacturing jobs.

German factories were clean, well-organised and well-equipped. Machinery was up to date and well looked after, and even then there was an awareness of health and safety. I worked as a quality controller for a while: everything we produced was measured and had to meet DIN norms, which I remember looking up in a massive book of tables and figures. Although the pay was nothing special, you were treated with respect. People were polite to each other: the office based staff and 'management' treated shop floor staff as colleagues and friends, and there was no particular hierarchy. You were mostly left to get on with your job, and trusted to do it well. You were expected to put the work in, but the feeling was that we were all in this together - it was a good place to work, I made many friends and had good times.

The UK workplaces were a different story. A couple stand out: Express Dairies in Crediton, and the Royal Mail. I don't remember working anywhere especially nice. Facilities were usually decrepit, dirty and sometimes dangerous. The dairy was horrible - no H&S at all, a dirty, stinking and dangerous place to work and the pay a pittance. We were treated like shit - shouted and sworn at by foremen, allowed hawkishly-watched statutory minimum breaks which we had to spend in a fag smoke filled portakabin in the car park. The machinery was knackered and production relied on humans doing repetitive, boring tasks for 12 hrs a shift rather than buying a relatively simple machine. Everyone there seemed angry and dysfunctional: no-one spoke on their breaks; just sat, smoked and read the Sun.

Royal Mail was better, but only because the nastiness was tempered by overwhelming bureaucracy. The facilities and equipment were still dilapidated, dirty and a mess. We were still seen as dispensable workers, but management mostly took no interest as long as the job more or less got done. I quite liked it, mostly because it was a far less oppressive place to work and with less risk of being killed or maimed, but it was crazily inefficient. No-one had really thought about the easiest and most effective way to do anything, and the impact of Thatcherism seemed mostly to have come in everyone's total lack of pride in their job and workplace along with zero investment in anything.

Later on, as a graduate, I did some casual interpreting. One job was for a firm in Kidderminster who made trailers for articulated lorries. They were meeting with a client or agent from Germany, and one major issue was the way the trailers were delivered from the UK to him. The British company insisted on stacking them 3 high for transport, which led to the bottom trailers being damaged. The German agent or customers were expected to carry out the necessary repairs, and obviously they weren't very happy with this arrangement. There was no way I could make the UK company boss see the German's point of view - the savings made by the stacking outweighed everything else. I think the trailer company might have been Lawrence David, but can't find any record of them being in Kidderminster.

So there you go. The fate of BL was no great surprise to anyone who'd worked in UK manufacturing in that period, I suspect.

@N Dentressangle - That is very interesting what you have mentioned, especially the dairy. I also now work for a large company dairy. Very little has changed. What you mentioned about the facilities, break times and staff relations vis a vis office vs shop floor all still happen now.

I do remember a time when firms were a little fairer with their staff. However, its seems that through buyouts and takeovers, many large companies end up over stretching themselves and stop actually investments into things that doesn't directly produce profit.

[N Dentressangle]

10 hours ago, somewhatfoolish said:

Did he ever acknowledge how tragically shit every communist state has ever been, or was he one of those special ones who just reckon it wasn't done properly?

I spent a day in East Berlin in summer 1989, just before the fall of the Wall. Given the centre of E Berlin was the showcase of the DDR, built to impress, it was epically shit. Even as a lefty student type, I was happy to get back through Checkpoint Charlie without being arrested. The food was crazy cheap but disgusting, as were the fags. Beer was OK though. Had my collar felt by the Stasi because of overly loud criticism of the place whilst visiting the TV tower. Every moment there we were under surveillance from both cameras and pretty obvious Stasi people.

Not sure even Derek would have liked it.

[motorpunk]

11 hours ago, somewhatfoolish said:

Did he ever acknowledge how tragically shit every communist state has ever been, or was he one of those special ones who just reckon it wasn't done properly?

He did not. His Longbridge predecessor, Dick Ethelridge, visited Russia (on works time!) and loved it. I have some lengthy reports. It’s fascinating reading.

[motorpunk]

1 hour ago, N Dentressangle said:

I spent a day in East Berlin in summer 1989, just before the fall of the Wall.

I was studying German then, and my teacher was from East Berlin, first time abroad for her. She was staggered that as a scruffy young student that I could own a car (Vauxhall Chevette). 

[artdjones]

26 minutes ago, motorpunk said:

He did not. His Longbridge predecessor, Dick Ethelridge, visited Russia (on works time!) and loved it. I have some lengthy reports. It’s fascinating reading.

I doubt if they took him on a tour of Siberian labour camps. Or maybe they did, but he was so steeped in political dogma that he thought the people in them deserved it.

[N Dentressangle]

7 minutes ago, artdjones said:

I doubt if they took him on a tour of Siberian labour camps. Or maybe they did, but he was so steeped in political dogma that he thought the people in them deserved it.

They were very good at presenting a view of themselves which was attractive to those who wanted to see it. Let's not forget the Cambridge spies and plenty of others who were taken in by their propaganda and bribery.

These were murderous, dangerous states which tolerated no dissent. Of course, when I visited E Berlin there was a certain KGB Liaison Officer posted to Dresden to work with the local Stasi. He was only a Lt Colonel then. Wonder what became of him?

[Floatylight]

@motorpunk

A few more suggestions for sources of info for you.

Peoples History Museum

https://phm.org.uk/

Working class movement library

https://wcml.org.uk/

Professor Mary Davis

https://www.peoplesworld.org/authors/mary-davis/

(If interested i might have an email address)

Bob Kelly

https://www.keywiki.org/Bob_Kelly

(Again got his email)

Also try TUC West Mids regional office.

 

[artdjones]

14 minutes ago, N Dentressangle said:

They were very good at presenting a view of themselves which was attractive to those who wanted to see it.

Like this:-

They certainly knew how to write an anthem. The East German anthem is way superior to the Deutschlandlied.

 

[comfortablynumb]

3 hours ago, N Dentressangle said:

These were murderous, dangerous states which tolerated no dissent.

Still are, from what I can see 😱

[artdjones]

16 minutes ago, comfortablynumb said:

Still are, from what I can see 😱

Yes, a lot of "Communist" oppression in the USSR was traditional Russian oppression, it was just carried out by the Communist Party instead of the Tsars.

[comfortablynumb]

Not just USSR either 

[St.Jude]

@motorpunk gets a phone call from Ken Loach, the man who directed Kes, and all anyone is doing is talking about communism?!

We're not even half way through January and we get the best claim to fame in a long, long time!

[artdjones]

1 minute ago, St.Jude said:

@motorpunk gets a phone call from Ken Loach, the man who directed Kes, and all anyone is doing is talking about communism?!

We're not even half way through January and we get the best claim to fame in a long, long time!

This is Autoshite, our ethos means we are far more interested in lames to fame.

[N Dentressangle]

41 minutes ago, St.Jude said:

@motorpunk gets a phone call from Ken Loach, the man who directed Kes, and all anyone is doing is talking about communism?!

We're not even half way through January and we get the best claim to fame in a long, long time!

You're right, that is pretty amazing.

@motorpunk what's Ken driving these days?

[motorpunk]

7 minutes ago, N Dentressangle said:

You're right, that is pretty amazing.

@motorpunk what's Ken driving these days?

Dunno! Didn’t get to ask him.

I spoke to Alan Thornett today (Marxist at Cowley) and asked him what he drove…. an Austin Maxi, apparently. 

[artdjones]

8 minutes ago, N Dentressangle said:

what's Ken driving these days?

Probably a lovingly restored 1974 Moskvich.

[wuvvum]

4 hours ago, N Dentressangle said:

Of course, when I visited E Berlin there was a certain KGB Liaison Officer posted to Dresden to work with the local Stasi. He was only a Lt Colonel then. Wonder what became of him?

I believe he left the KGB and became a cowboy.

[Dobloseven]

Wonder how long Derek was on "gardening leave" for?I suppose if he was being paid to stay away,the support for going on strike and losing pay would fade away quite quickly.Surely a man of true principles would have refused to take the money though?All interesting stuff.

[motorpunk]

9 minutes ago, Dobloseven said:

Wonder how long Derek was on "gardening leave" for?I suppose if he was being paid to stay away,the support for going on strike and losing pay would fade away quite quickly.Surely a man of true principles would have refused to take the money though?All interesting stuff.

I have the answers to that stuff, he was absolutely a man of principle, I can tell you that much already!

[Dobloseven]

1 minute ago, motorpunk said:

I have the answers to that stuff, he was absolutely a man of principle, I can tell you that much already!

So bloody bored stuck at home, I've been doing a bit of looking things up myself!Really this all needs to be documented as even the youngest person to have "been there" will be well into their sixties.Been thinking about just how much control the Unions exerted in those times.Used to drink with a guy who worked in a printing factory in Leicester around that time.He reckoned if he saw a printing job advertised, he'd first have to ask his union man,who would then contact the union who would decide who was best suited to apply for it.Thinking about it,his firm produced street maps,car price guides and gentlemens relaxation magazines,all of which became redundant with the internet.When the firm closed,he got a job in a camera warehouse which went the same way,with everyone having a phone camera.My brother in law, who's a bit of a leftie,always claims his proudest moment is when he worked in a Leicester film processing company which went on strike in support of the Grunwick workers and he refused to let a lorry through the picket line.They famously went on strike for two years in the late seventies.Another industry that eventually became unneeded.

[somewhatfoolish]

They got another 30 years out of roll film though. That's a career.

[Sigmund Fraud]

4 hours ago, wuvvum said:

I believe he left the KGB and became a cowboy.

Not sure about that, but I'm pretty certain he's a member on here ?

@Vladimir Putin

[Dobloseven]

1 hour ago, somewhatfoolish said:

They got another 30 years out of roll film though. That's a career.

Good point.And Longbridge carried on making cars for another 25 years,to around the time Ford and Peugeot gave up as well.That's at least a long  service award.

[motorpunk]

Longbridge plant Managers daily diary, c.1975. Another day, another BL employee caught stealing parts possibly to fund the IRA and still asking to keep his job. 

[somewhatfoolish]

My neck's not that bendy.

[Floatylight]

Remember a story which was probably folk lore and told xxxx hand about someone who had a knackered old mini, drove it to work one day, parked it in the car park, took the plates off, put them on a new one of same colour and drove home, never got caught apparently..

[Dick Cheeseburger]

OP - are you aware of the last Mini out of Longbridge? Some interesting comments on this thread! 

https://forum.retro-rides.org/thread/211117/longbridge-tunnel-mini