bathgate

Transcription

bathgate

BATHGATE
ONCE MORE
The Story of the BMC/Leyland Truck and Tractor Plant, 1961-86
PAGE 00
BATHGATE ONCE MORE TELLING THE STORY OF THE BMC/BRITISH LEYLAND TRUCK AND TRACTOR PLANT AT BATHGATE, 1961-86
Opportunity, Pride,
Sweat and Tears...
Contents
INTRODUCTION
Professor Tom Devine
CHAPTER 1
The Political Context
CHAPTER 2
It’s Bathgate
CHAPTER 3
The Beginning of the Beginning
CHAPTER 4
The Jobs We Did
CHAPTER 5
Training and Apprenticeships
CHAPTER 6
Working Conditions
CHAPTER 7
The Leyland was a Community
CHAPTER 8
The Trades Unions
BATHGATE ONCE MORE:
The Story of the BMC/
Leyland Truck and Tractor
Plant, 1961-86
This book is the result of an 18 month
social history education project to research,
record and preserve the story of the
Bathgate BMC/Leyland Truck and Tractor
plant from the point of view of the people
who worked in the industry. Many of the
project activities took place during 2011
– the 50th anniversary of the opening
of the plant and the 25th anniversary
of its closure. More than 200 people
have contributed to the project activities
including 59 former workers who shared
their personal, first-hand knowledge and
experiences of the plant through taking part
in an oral history interview.
The project was funded by the Heritage
Lottery Fund and led by the Workers’
Educational Association with the support
and active involvement of the Bennie
Museum, the Royal Commission on the
Ancient and Historical Monuments of
Scotland, the Simpson Primary School, the
STUC archives, West Lothian Local History
Library and West Lothian Trades Council.
The oral histories, written contributions,
photographs and documents gathered
through the project will be preserved in
the West Lothian Local History Library for
future generations to learn from and enjoy.
CHAPTER 9
Bathgate No More
CHAPTER 10
Looking Back
Acknowledgements
FRONT COVER PHOTOGRAPHS,
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT:
THE FIRST TRACTORS OFF THE
PRODUCTION LINE ARE LOADED
ON TO LORRIES FOR EXPORT
FROM GRANGEMOUTH DOCKS
© THE SCOTSMAN
PUBLICATIONS LTD LICENSOR
WWW.SCRAN.AC.UK; HUGH
MITCHELL, SETTER OPERATOR;
BIG TRACK SECTION COURTESY
OF RAB MARSHALL; BMC
DANCE COURTESY OF TOMMY
MORRISON; APPRENTICE
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY
OF GORDON CAMERON.
Founded in 1903 to
open up education for
working people the
Workers’ Educational
Association is a
national voluntary
sector provider of adult
education in workplaces
and communities
across Scotland.
ISBN 978 0 902303 74 4
Published by the Workers’ Educational Association, Riddle’s Court, 322 Lawnmarket,
Edinburgh, EH1 2PG. The Workers’ Educational Association is a charity registered
in England and Wales (number 1112775) and in Scotland (number SC039239)
and a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (number
2806910). Registered address is WEA, 4 Luke Street, London, EC2A 4XW.
Compiled and edited by Elizabeth Bryan, Area Tutor Organiser,
Workers’ Educational Association © Workers’ Educational Association (2012)
DESIGN BY www.theroundroom.co.uk
BATHGATE
ONCE MORE
INTRODUCTION
by Professor Tom Devine
I have read Bathgate Once More with great interest. It tells the
story in microcosm of a crucial part of Scotland’s industrial and
social history from the 1960s to the 1980s which is essential to
understanding the economy and society of the nation of today.
That was the era of the great schemes for
Scottish manufacturing regeneration, the
Ravenscraig steel mill, the major car factory
established at Linwood in Renfrewshire
and, not least, the foundation of the giant
British Motor Corporation truck and tractor
plant at Bathgate in 1961. All were born
in an atmosphere of enthusiastic hope
for the future. All are no more, their very
physical existence removed from the local
landscape by redevelopment, landscaping
and rebuilding.
It is because of this vanishing history that
booklets such as Bathgate Once More are
so valuable. Communities exist and thrive
for many reasons but one fundamental
is a shared sense of their past, how they
came to be and the influences which have
moulded them into what they are. History
is the social memory of the people and of
the community, a powerful force in shaping
identities whether they be local or national,
providing the glue which provides for the
development of social connections.
All associated with this project deserve
warm congratulations. I was particularly
struck by the careful work which has
been done on oral history with the aim of
preserving the experiences of those who
actually worked at the Bathgate plant and
without which their memories would have
been lost forever. History from above can
often be easily recorded in official papers
and newspaper sources. History from below
is more difficult to access and needs the
patient application of the kind and range of
expertise among members of the team who
were engaged in this project. Also impressive
was the involvement of the children of the
local primary school. Initiatives such as these
not only connect them to their own heritage
but also with a world of work experienced
by their parents and grandparents but which
has now passed away.
The Bathgate story has to be seen against
the context of British and Scottish political
and economic policy in the second half
of the twentieth century. In the postwar
era, from the 1950s to the 1970s, all
UK governments, whatever their political
colours, were committed to the goal of full
employment. There was to be no repeat of
the social evils of the 1930s. As Scotland’s
traditional industries began to falter in the
winds of international competition, the
Tory administrations of the late 1950s
and 1960s put their faith in encouraging
the transfer of some ‘new’ industries from
CONTINUED >>
PAGE 00
I
TOM DEVINE
BATHGATE
INTRODUCTION
ONCE MORE
CHAPTER 1
THE POLITICAL CONTEXT
CONTINUED >>
the Midlands through huge support and
investment in large-scale prestige projects.
This was the background to the ‘state of
the art’ strip mill at Ravenscraig developed
by Colvilles Ltd and the opening of the
two large vehicle manufacturing plants at
Linwood in 1963 and at Bathgate two years
earlier. It was hoped that they would produce
a dynamic and interrelated new industrial
complex in central Scotland geared to the
markets of the future as the old staples of
mining, shipbuilding and heavy engineering
went into terminal decline. Ominously,
however, the leading figures in Britain, in
both steel-making and car manufacture
at the time, were sceptical about the
potential for the long-term success of these
ventures because of their distance from
markets south of the Border and the lack
of easy access to suppliers and an existing
neighbouring infrastructure of technical
support. As both the political and economic
landscapes were transformed from the late
1970s these concerns proved prescient.
The contributions in Bathgate Once
More document the intrinsic problems
experienced by the plant which eventually
led to the death of vehicle manufacturing
in the town. But the forces which killed the
development were not only national but
global in scale. The steep fall in world oil
prices following the Yom Kippur war in the
Middle East triggered the worst economic
recession since the 1930s. It coincided with
the election of a Conservative government
under Margaret Thatcher whose priorities
were not any longer the maintenance of full
employment but the control of inflation and
and reform of public finances. The full rigour
of monetarist policy was imposed on an
economy already mired in the most serious
depression since the Second World War.
Interest rates rose inexorably to control the
money supply which was seen as the main
cause of inflationary pressure. The results
of this policy were catastrophic both for the
old industries of Scotland and some of those
more recently conceived by the regional
policies of the 1960s and 1970s. Crucially,
this time the state was not prepared to
shelter ailing businesses from the harsh
winds blowing through the market economy.
The locational disadvantages of Bathgate
were now cruelly exposed. But the plant
was not alone. In the course of the 1980s,
Goodyear, Monsanto, Massey Ferguson,
Caterpillar and Burroughs were just some
of the other major companies which went
to the wall in Scotland. An era of bright
hopes for the manufacturing future of the
country passed away into history.
TM Devine
Personal Senior Research Professor in History,
UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH.
Tom Devine is the author or editor of some thirty
books and numerous articles on Scottish History including
the best selling The Scottish Nation 1700-2000.
The British Motor Corporation (BMC) set up its truck and tractor assembly
plant at Bathgate as a result of a Government regional development policy
which sought to direct investment out of the congested English Midlands, where
full employment and high wages created inflationary pressures, to the depressed
‘Development Areas’, which included Central Scotland, Merseyside and South
Wales amongst others. The news that the BMC would be moving to Scotland was
welcomed, as it was hoped that a Scottish motor industry based around Bathgate,
the steel strip mill at Ravenscraig and the Rootes car plant at Linwood, would
provide stable and well-paid employment for thousands of people. However, the
company itself was reluctant to move out of the Midlands, where it benefitted
from easy access to its suppliers and main markets, as well as economies of scale
in an area dominated by its metal manufacture and motor assembly industries.
The BMC’s experience at Bathgate was
being watched closely by other motor
manufacturers as, with the introduction
of Industrial Development Certificates
(IDCs), it was becoming increasingly
difficult to build or expand capacity
in the Midlands. A company would
no longer be allowed to build without
a Government-issued IDC, and the
Government was using this scheme to
compel manufacturers to invest in the
Development Areas, leading to some
lengthy negotiations over what would
be allowed and where.
As part of the deal which eventually
took the company to Bathgate, the
BMC also sought to expand its giant
plant at Longbridge, to the south
of Birmingham, as well as build new
factories in Llanelli and Kirkby, near
Liverpool. Initially, the company
proposed to build a tractor plant in
Scotland, employing around 1,200
people, while creating around 9,000
new jobs at Longbridge and in Oxford.
However, these plans were rejected
by the Board of Trade following the
recommendation of the Scottish
Development Department, who
argued that ‘a tractor factory (and
a relatively small one at that) would
not be regarded by Scottish opinion
as a satisfactory substitute for a car
factory’, particularly as tractors were
already being manufactured in Scotland
and thus a new tractor plant would be
unlikely to breed ancillary component
manufacturing industries. Furthermore,
it was felt that if these proposals
Prime Minister
Harold Macmillan
visits the BMC
Bathgate plant
to meet managers
and workers
(1961). BMC
Bathgate Managers
Keith Sinnott
and RT Rudd
are also pictured.
©The Scotsman
Publications Ltd
Licensor www.
scran.ac.uk
were to be accepted, it would set the
precedent that motor manufacturers
would be allowed to expand in their
present areas, provided that they
made relatively small gestures in
the designated Development Areas.
In spite of reservations about the
distance between Scotland and its
supply networks in the Midlands, and
about the suitability of the Clyde for
vehicle exports, the BMC amended its
CONTINUED >>
PAGE
II 00
PAGE 01
BATHGATE ONCE MORE THE POLITICAL CONTEXT
CHAPTER 1
©The Scotsman Publications Ltd.
Licensor www.scran.ac.uk.
The railway came right up to
the plant. There was a pit at
Blackburn, Riddochhill they
called it…When the BMC
started to build the trucks they
just put a rail connection on
the Riddochhill branch line
for the transport of the trucks.
I took this photo from up above
the golf course entrance before
I went into British Leyland
while I was still working
on the railways.
Alex Binnie
CONTINUED >>
proposals and instead decided to move
all of its production of tractors and
heavy commercial vehicles to its new
factory in Scotland. The company
also agreed to increase its investment
in both Kirkby and Llanelli, and to
forego its expansion at Longbridge.
The BMC’s Engineering Director was
then shown fourteen potential sites
around Renfrewshire, Lanarkshire,
West Lothian, Grangemouth,
Glenrothes and Dundee. Of these,
it was decided that sites at Bathgate,
Grangemouth and Johnstone would
be the most suitable with the company
expressing a preference for Bathgate
due to its transport links to both the
Clyde and the Forth.
Transport links played an important
part in the eventual decision of
the BMC to establish its factory at
Bathgate, as it was hoped that the
ease of export from the Forth
especially would help to off-set the
increase in transport costs to the home
markets in the Midlands and South of
England. Furthermore, it was hoped
initially that any pressures caused
by increased transport costs would
ease as component makers set-up
in or moved to Scotland in order to
supply both the BMC at Bathgate,
Rootes at Linwood and other motor
manufacturers who were expected
to invest in Scotland as well. Both
Ford and Vauxhall were known to be
planning to expand their production
and would have to move away from
Dagenham and Luton respectively in
order to do so. The Scottish Council
(Development and Industry) argued
that Scotland had a strong economic
case for further motor industry
investment, due in part to its high
levels of unemployment and therefore
its potential for long-term growth.
Moreover, it was felt that Scotland
represented a better proposition than
Merseyside or South Wales as the
increased distance from the Midlands
would encourage a greater dispersal
of the supply industries, and therefore
ease the congestion stifling the motor
industry in the Midlands.
PAGE 02
However, these views were not
shared by the motor manufacturers
themselves, as Ford, Vauxhall and
Standard-Triumph were all eventually
to choose sites on Merseyside over
Scotland. With the Scottish motor
industry remaining restricted to BMC
at Bathgate and Rootes at Linwood,
there was little incentive for Scottish
engineering companies to move into
the manufacture of component parts,
and no reason for existing suppliers
in the Midlands to move production
to Scotland. In spite of Bathgate’s
advantageous position close to main
road, railway and shipping links, it was
therefore to suffer from its relative
isolation from its main suppliers and
markets in the Midlands, as problems
in accessing supplies caused difficulties
for management and workforce alike.
Catriona Louise Macdonald
Postgraduate research student
in Economic and Social History,
University of Glasgow
Archive material from National Archives of Scotland,
SEP4/1658 – Scottish Development Department,
Specific Industries – Motor-engineering – General.
THE BRITISH MOTOR
CORPORATION (BMC) was
formed in February 1952 when the
two former competitors The Austin
Motor Company and The Nuffield
Organisation merged to become
the largest motor manufacturing
business in Europe, and the third
largest in the world.
The Austin Motor Company had
been founded in 1905 by Herbert
Austin. The Nuffield Organisation
was the umbrella title for the group
of companies associated with Morris
Motors Ltd. William Morris, later
Lord Nuffield, had set up Morris
Motors in 1913.
The joint experience, purchasing
power and ability to rationalise
meant BMC products were very
competitive and the Company
enjoyed a huge market share in the
UK and many parts of the world.
On the 14th May 1968 British
Motor Holdings merged with the
Leyland Motor Corporation to
become The British Leyland (BL)
Motor Corporation, the largest
motor manufacturer outside the
United States of America. As
well as the manufacture of trucks
and agricultural tractors at the BL
Bathgate factory, BL’s Commercial
Vehicle Organisation was well
known for its manufacture of
buses and coaches.
Geoff Fishwick
SOMETHING HAD TO BE DONE
In 1958/9 not, I think, for reasons narrowly
related to electoral advantage, Harold Macmillan
and his Cabinet decided that something had to
be done for an area where the shale oil industry
was being put out of business by the then,
cheap and plentiful Middle Eastern oil.
Five Sisters shale
bings at West
Calder ©Royal
Commission
on the Ancient
and Historical
Monuments of
Scotland. Licensor
www.scran.ac.uk
Shale cutting
at Breich pit
©Almond Valley
Heritage Trust
Licensor
www.scran.ac.uk
The result was that, albeit 3 shale
mines were near exhaustion and
would have had to close anyway,
often mines, particularly the
productive Deans and Philpstoun Pile,
were forced to close prematurely and
while there were ample reserves, once
a padlock is put on the pit entrance,
likely flooding and dangerous air
pockets make it impossible to reopen.
A lot of men in the areas of Broxburn,
Pumpherston, Seafield and Uphall
in their forties and fifties found
themselves confined to the proverbial
scrap heap.
Although in retrospect it was against
the economic interest of Britain, that
the shale oil industry should be forced
to close down I must confess I was not
angry. As a teenager I had been taken
down the Whitequarries pit, and made
to crawl through a long passage which
the miners were obliged to negotiate
every working day. By its value, shale
is a very jagged mineral, and serious
cuts to the skin and knees could be
debilitating in the long term. Industrial
injury was common.
Tam Dalyell
Extract from Tam Dalyell’s autobiography The Importance of Being Awkward
PAGE 03
CHAPTER 1
BATHGATE
ONCE MORE
The History of Bathgate
The town of Bathgate has come to prominence
in significant ways throughout its history. The
settlement began in 1160 when King Malcolm of
Scotland instructed Uchtred Sherif of Linlithgow
to grant land in Bathgate to Holyrood Abbey for
agricultural use and for the building of a church.
In 1315 King Robert the Bruce gifted
Bathgate Castle along with the Barony of
Bathgate to Walter Lord High Steward on
the occasion of his marriage to Bruce’s
daughter Princess Marjory. After Marjory’s
tragic death Walter returned to Bathgate
with their infant son Robert the Steward
who was raised in Bathgate Castle. Walter
died in Bathgate in 1328 having founded
the Royal House of Stewart, a lineage that
would produce many Scottish monarchs,
notably Mary Queen of Scots. Bathgate’s
Annual Procession celebrating its royal
history takes place on the first Saturday of
June each year when local schoolchildren
reenact the royal story ensuring Bathgate’s
place in royal history is never forgotten.
Bathgate continued to grow in size and
population during the Middle Ages. Natural
deposits were discovered in abundance
as time went on leading to coal, limestone,
shale and even silver mining flourishing
in the area. In 1606 silver was discovered
and mined in the shadow of two local
landmarks, the Knock Hill and the ancient
Neolithic burial site of Cairnpapple Hill.
Although the silver ore was of varying
quality some of it was used to make the
Scottish Crown Jewels on the request of
King James VI. This spectacular silverware
is now on display next to the Stone of
Destiny in Edinburgh Castle.
By 1850 Bathgate was starting
to resemble the town we see today.
Bathgate’s first claim to industrial fame
came in 1850 when pioneering Glasgow
chemist James “Paraffin” Young chose
to site the world’s first oil refinery in the
town. Young discovered that oil could
be extracted from certain types of coal
and with the demands of the flourishing
Industrial Revolution oil was needed to
lubricate factory machines replacing whale
oil which had been used previously.
With abundant local pits providing
Young’s factory with oil rich coal (later
shale) supplies the industry flourished.
Indeed Young’s patent gave him (and
Bathgate) a worldwide monopoly in the
production of oil for the next 14 years.
The medical world was blessed in the
year 1811 with the birth in Bathgate of
James Young Simpson. After attending
Bathgate Parish School and at the age
of only 14 Simpson studied medicine at
Edinburgh University becoming a Professor
of Midwifery at St Andrews University.
He began experimenting to find an
effective anaesthetic for use in childbirth
or even surgery. A chemist named David
Waldie (originally from Linlithgow) heard of
Simpson’s quest and sent him a phial
of chloroform which he felt may be suitable
for anaesthesia. Simpson famously asked
PAGE 04
Postcard courtesy of John Bell’s family
his dinner guests to inhale the substance
and one by one they passed out briefly!
Simpson knew the breakthrough had
come and he had found a safe anaesthetic.
Very quickly Simpson’s discovery led to
a revolution in surgery and childbirth the
world over.
In 1892 Bathgate Golf Club was
established, the course is situated where
Bathgate Castle once stood. Bathgate Golf
Club provides the town with two Bathgate
Bairns whose achievements are known
throughout the globe this time in the world
of sport. Eric Brown was Scottish Amateur
golf champion in 1946 before becoming
a touring golf professional. Eric was part
of various Ryder Cup teams and in 1969
became Captain of the Great Britain and
Ireland team - a great honour which was
made even more special by the inclusion in
the team of another Bathgate Bairn, Bernard
Gallacher. Bernard Gallacher also learned
his golf over the Bathgate course forging
a successful career as both a touring and
club professional. In 1991 he was appointed
Captain of the now European Ryder Cup
Team thus making Bathgate Golf Club the
first and only golf club either side of the
Atlantic to produce two Ryder Cup players
and subsequently two Ryder Cup Captains.
Harry Cartmill
CHAPTER 2
IT’S BATHGATE
In January 1960 news broke that the BMC would site its new £9 million
factory on Mosside Farm on the outskirts of Bathgate. The new factory
was built to produce heavy commercial vehicles and tractors, as well as diesel
engines, gear boxes, transmissions and axles. There was no history of vehicle
design and manufacturing of this kind in the area. This was a predominantly
farming and mining community but the closure of the pits and foundries had
created high unemployment. The prospect of new industry and the jobs and
prosperity this would bring to the area was warmly welcomed locally, and
enthusiastically reported in the newspapers. Local Councils supported the
coming of the BMC factory with a number of infrastructure projects including
the provision of new social housing, the upgrading of the A8 dual carriageway
and the development of Livingston New Town. Shops, hotels and local
amenities grew up across the area.
IT WAS OPPORTUNITY,
OPPORTUNITY, OPPORTUNITY
I would be 19, 20 years of age.
I went into the paper shop to buy
a paper before I got the bus to
my work and there were banner
headlines on the newspaper and
if memory serves me correctly it
just said two words ‘It’s Bathgate’.
There had been speculation,
of course, because there were
a lot of sites that were up for
consideration but then it was
confirmed it was Bathgate.
I remember at the top of the
hill going up from Blackridge
to Harthill, between the football
ground and the chip shop, there
was a big notice board erected
not long after this announcement
was made and it gave you the
numbers around this plant.
The number of trucks they were
going to be building, the number
of countries they were going to
be exporting to, the number of
tractors they were going to build,
the number of people they were
going to employ. It was something
we just couldn’t envisage, it was
mind boggling at that time. So
it was opportunity, opportunity,
opportunity and I wanted to be
part of that opportunity.
Guthrie Aitken
PAGE 05
BATHGATE ONCE MORE IT’S BATHGATE
CHAPTER 2
IT’S BATHGATE
They were
comin’ from
near and far
It was definitely a big boost to
Bathgate, no just Bathgate. I
worked wi’ boys that come from
Coatbridge and Airdrie, Glasgow,
Edinburgh. They were comin’
from far and near. The majority
was Bathgate because the pits
were dying at the time. When we
come here this place was pits
galore… It definitely was a boost
to employment. It employed six
and half thousand men which
was a hell of a lot of bodies.
People used to say to you ‘but
you’ll know ma man’. I’d say ‘…
do you know there’s 6000 men
in there!’
it was a
new house,
new job
… Blackburn was all Leyland.
All these hooses were built for the
Glasgow Overspill. Where I stayed
in Glasgow it was just a room and
kitchen and I had two kids at the
time. The toilet was out in the stair,
on the landing. So I applied for this
house in Blackburn. It was a case of
saying yes right away because it was
a lovely house. Three bedrooms! The
kids were just coming up at the time.
My third one was born there and they
were all brought up in Blackburn.
It was a new house, new job.
JIM BILSBOROUGH
I’d heard in the Albion
there was recruitment taking
place in the Bathgate BMC
and there was houses going.
At the point in time in 1964
when I applied I was staying
in what they called a room
and kitchen in quite a run down
part of Glasgow, Whiteinch.
So anyway we had two children
at that point in time and I
was desperate to take the
opportunity that was offered.
I came out here in January ’65
and I was with the plant until
it closed.
IT WAS A SIGHT TO BEHOLD
Bathgate Town Council built 200 new
houses at Boghall in Bathgate for the
incoming workers and their families.
New housing developments were created
in Blackburn, Whitburn and Armadale
too. ©The Scotsman Publications Ltd.
Licensor www.scran.ac.uk
John Moore
There were people there with bowler hats and they had
lined the bulldozers up in sort of stagger formation and
the guy gave the signal with the flag and the whole
earth moved. When these bulldozers moved forward
the earth moved. You could feel it under your feet. It was
unbelievable. From that day on until about a year later
or thereabouts everything was uprooted and filled in with
blaze. There was coal taken out, peat taken out because
of course it was a bog area. They dumped the waste in
an old quarry in Broxburn.
TAM BRANDON
Survey work gets underway on Mosside
Farm site. ©The Scotsman Publications Ltd.
Licensor www.scran.ac.uk.
It was a dairy farm
I was born on the farm where the
factory was built. My dad was the
ploughman on the farm and I was
actually born in the farm cottage. The
farm at that time was 212 acres and it
was owned by a farmer called Richard
Russell... My first recollection of the
factory coming was when I was about
15 years old and I was helping my
dad on a Saturday morning ploughing
the field where the factory was built
and when we looked up Dick Russell
was coming out and he stopped the
tractor and I heard him saying to my
dad. ‘You better just pack up, Jimmy,
I’ve sold the farm.’ So basically that
was my dad out of work on the farm
but Dick Russell had stipulated to
the purchaser that whatever
happened my dad had to get a job.
In fact when the factory started they
sent for my dad…
It was aosbeudsayys
hotel in th
Construction of the Golden Circle
Hotel close to the BMC factory.
Lord Craigton CBE,
Minister of State for
Scotland, cutting
the first sod of earth
at the inauguration
ceremony of the
BMC factory site on
1st June 1960. He
is using a Bathgatemade spade, forged
especially for the
occasion by George
Wolfe & Sons Ltd,
and is accompanied
by BMC Directors
and Executives
including George
Harriman and
Keith Sinnott.
Afterwards a line
of bulldozers started
preparing the site
for the construction
of the factory.
Image courtesy of
Geoff Fishwick
The Golden Circle was just across the
way from the BMC… Some of the Leyland
people used to come for meetings. I’d look
after them and give them their teas and
coffees in the morning and then service
the room before they went back in after
lunch to finish their meeting off. It was
mostly management meetings. Some of
the workers used to come up on a Friday
for their lunch… It was a busy hotel in
those days.
Gordon Chalmers
The BMC was welcomed,
very much welcomed because
of the number of pits that
were shutting down and all
the miners finding themselves
on the dole. It introduced factory
work and the different skills that
were needed. Men had to retrain
and found themselves doing
different things.
Jim McCulloch
I knew about the car manufacturing
down in England and that the
BMC made the Mini. It was
a real novelty to have cabs and
truck building in Scotland.
John Fleming
It gied us hope
It was a good thing. It gied
us hope, it gied us a job, got
us out o’ a rut, and a bob or
two in wages. It was a good
thing.
Tony Kizis
John Weir
PAGE 06
THE BMC WAS VERY
MUCH WELCOMED
PAGE 07
BATHGATE ONCE MORE THE BEGINNING OF THE BEGINNING
BATHGATE
ONCE MORE
CHAPTER 3
THE BEGINNING OF THE BEGINNING
C Block under
construction,
June 1961.
Photograph courtesy
of Geoff Fishwick.
FACTS AND
FIGURES
Top soil removed
25 acres
Reinforced concrete
5,000 cu.yds
Roads
40,000 yds
Fencing
4,000 yds
Glazing
400,000 sq.ft
Structural steel
7,500 tons
Paint
20,000 gallons
Completion date
JULY 1963
Factory area
1,250, 000 sq.ft
Initial cost of building
£5,250,000
Cost of plant and equipment £6,000,000
The BMC (later Leyland Vehicles Ltd) factory in Bathgate was enormous. It stretched
over 260 acres and at its peak in the 1970s housed the largest concentration of machine tools
under one roof in Europe. The factory was built to have the capacity to make 1000 lorries
and 750 tractors per week. Incredible figures which were sometimes achieved. The first BMC
Bathgate workers remember the construction of the factory buildings, the installation of the
machinery and Lines coming up from Longbridge, organisational procedures being put in place,
and production of the first Bathgate built trucks and tractors. By the end of July 1963 the
production of the whole BMC range of heavy commercial vehicles had been transferred from
the Midlands to Bathgate.
They transferred complete Lines to Bathgate… over the weekend
What happened was the Bathgate
plant, machine tool wise, was set up
with probably two thirds used machine
tools. Over a period of two years they
transferred complete Lines up
to Bathgate. They would do it over
the weekend. It was amazing how
they managed it. The Lines had been
running at Longbridge and they had
dismantled the machine tools and
brought them up to Bathgate… Some
of them were wartime machine tools.
They still had the Ministry of Aircraft
Production (MAP) oval brass tags on
PAGE 08
them with the MAP number.
In addition to that there was a
committee met at Longbridge every
Thursday at which time the Bathgate
Planning Department submitted
what was known as Requests For
Authorisation (RFAs) and the RFAs
CONTINUED >>
CONTINUED >>
were made up of information taken
from quotations from machine
tool companies... These RFAs were
approved on a weekly basis and
as soon as they were approved
they were transferred to the
Buying Department. The Buying
Department then processed them.
In other words they raised orders
from the Machine Tool Companies
and then they were responsible
for progressing the building of the
machine tools to ensure that they
met specific delivery dates.
I put in systems to cover that type
of thing where they filled in forms.
It was a critical path analysis of the
various stages they went through ie
scrutinising the order, the design of
the machine tool and then the building
of the machine tool and the delivery.
Included in that we would run off a
machine tool in what was known as
a Demonstration Department before
it went into production to ensure that
the machine tool met the criteria that
had been specified.
David MacPherson
It was eye opening to see the
work that was getting done
I was there before the factories were
up and running. I saw each of the
factories being developed… October
was the first time they actually started
to produce lorries and they were built
on the side of what was to be the
conveyor belt. They were built on
trestles to begin with and that was
the men undergoing their training.
Jim McCulloch
(centre) pictured
in BMC Bathgate,
1962. The Work’s
ambulance and
Austin Gipsy fire
engine can also
be seen. Jim was
the first hourly
paid worker to be
employed in the
factory. Photograph
courtesy of Jim
McCulloch.
They would eventually go on to the
conveyor belt system. So I saw all that
evolve in the time I was there. The
same over in B Block with the engines
and the gear boxes. It was quite eye
opening to see the work that was
getting done.
Jim McCulloch
It was just like a big empty barn
There was men all over the place and
literally thousands of pounds worth
of tools lying all over the place. You
just went ower and helped yourself
because it was all big, heavy spanners
that you needed for to put in the big
bolts to hold the machine down of
course. There were whitewashed lines
drawn on the floor with alphabetical
letters. So you would go to K and
you got a drawing for K and you had
to put fixtures in for a machine to
come in and then they would lower
the machine down to be fixed in.
Big turning lathes, presses, drilling
machines, boring mills – anything
to do with engineering – that’s the
machinery that was coming up. We
got the hole dug, drilled down and
put in big heavy bolts. The end of
the bolt had a flat plate welded on
so that it couldn’t come up through
the cement.
A lot of the machines were
second hand coming from the old
factory in England. They measured
the machines up in the old factory
and they measured up the floor
in Bathgate but when they lifted
the machine up the hole wasnae
PAGE 09
anywhere near the bolt! Whoever had
done the calculations and measured
up the machine… well they just
didnae fit!
I was maybe there 3 or 4 month
but then to dig the hole, fill it with
cement, then it had to lie for a week
or two weeks for it to solidify so that
when you put the machine on and
you tightened it doon it didnae come
up through the floor. You had to wait
until the floor was right hard before
you could do anything.
Jim Love
BATHGATE ONCE MORE THE BEGINNING OF THE BEGINNING
CHAPTER 3
THE FIRST OF THE MANY
I CREATED ALL
THESE SYSTEMS
I came up from Longbridge to be the
Superintendant in the Machine Shop B
Block but when I came up the machines
weren’t in place so I went to A Block.
A Block was the first part to operate,
that was in 1961, that was the actual
track making the trucks. We were
sending the parts up from Birmingham
and the Morris were sending engines
up and we got people assembling
them… I couldn’t believe it when I came
up nobody was recording anything
that was being done…
In a few weeks I moved into B
Block the machines were in situation.
Every major component on the truck
– engine, gear box and back axle - I
created a cost centre number for it
and as the people were coming in for
jobs I allocated them to these different
sections and to a Foreman. I slowly
built it up ‘til B Block was running as
a big shop with four or five hundred
men in. I knew exactly who was what
and where they were. Everybody was
filling in a daily worksheet. We knew
what they’d done.
I complained about people being
allowed to walk in and out the factory.
I had all these different things made
by a firm in Bathgate – Pass Outs
and things like that. The Managing
Director sent for me one day and when
I went in his office he had got all these
things I’d created on his desk. He said
‘What’s this?’. I said ‘it’s a worksheet
You’re running a factory with nothing nobody knows what they’re doing and
who’s done it’. ‘What’s this?’ ‘A Pass
Bill Raine
©Workers’ Educational Association
Out. It’s so we know who’s gone
and when they’ve gone and why
they’ve gone’…
So what he did, he started a guy on as
an Organisation and Methods Systems
Engineer and they started doing
these things properly. But I didn’t care
because all mine was on the wall I could
just look at it. I could tell exactly how
many men I’d got, where they were,
how many Foremen, 6 or 700 workers
and machinists and everybody knew
what job they had got to do each day.
We knew exactly what they’d done
during the day. It
was reported and
there was a value
given to it…
Bill Raine
BMC Factory
(1961) ©The
Scotsman
Publications Ltd.
Licensor
www.scran.ac.uk.
A Block was the first building built
and the rest were in progress,
being built. The first people in,
trainee people, were taught to
build trucks on a couple o’ trestles
so they got to know where the
parts went, how the axle went
on, how the engine was put in.
In the meantime the actual
Assembly Line was being built.
By the time we were ready
to open it wasn’t quite finished.
The actual control block should
have been in and the Electrical
Workshop but it was still sitting out
on the shop floor so for the press
photographs we pushed a truck
on to the conveyor backwards
and I was at the end actually where
it came off. We put a tape across
it. Sinnott and Rudd, the two
managers at the time, they were
sitting on the truck and they drove
the truck off. It was a running truck.
We started the conveyor up and it
moved and the truck with it and the
truck run off and broke the ribbon.
Billy Steven
WOW, THIS
IS SOME SIZE
OF PLACE!
The first Bathgate built tractors are loaded onto
an Austin Commercial FFK360 for export.
Photograph courtesy of Geoff Fishwick
I was working in the tractor factory, C Block as they
called it then, and that was where they were building Nuffield
tractors. We hadn’t even started building tractors at that time.
We were in a situation where we were taking in supplies to set
up the stores area to feed the production lines. The very, very
first tractor that was being built in Bathgate - it wasn’t being
built on the assembly line, it was being built on trestles, off–
line just to make sure that all the components were available
and fitted together.
I was given the responsibility of working with a guy called
John Briffit. John eventually became the Works Manager.
He was a technical apprentice so I was feeding the parts
into John and he was building the very first Nuffield tractor
at Bathgate by hand. So I’m quite proud of that. That was in
1962. Tractors went into production later that year and the
assembly line started…
Guthrie Aitken
THE JUNGLE
It got that name because it was so large and so many
types of machines were employed in it going from high
drills to low machines. It was just like a forest and it
was always packed solid, so it was like fighting through
foliage. You had gangways but beside each gangway
you had pallets full of components and then you had
another wee gangway and a guy was working machines.
So it really looked like a jungle, in its wildest sense.
As the factory developed the Jungle moved from
A Block to B Block.
The motor industry requires a tremendous number
of machines to do the different functions especially to
meet production standards. There were rows and rows
of machines up the one side… and all different types of
machinery too. Then you came to the Heat Treatment
Department which split B Block in half.
Then the next area was machines again, right up
to the very top on the other side it was all machines
- a great big row of machines, what they called Transfer
machines. The cylinder block and the cylinder heads
came in as a casting, they went into these machines
and came out machined at the top end, passed,
checked, ready to get taken to the bottom end of the
factory where they were loaded on to the Engine Build
Track. They put the cylinder head on, put the studs on,
screwed it altogether and then it came up as a finished
engine at the top. Then it got whipped down to the
test beds. There was a series of test beds and, of
course, they put them on a special bed and bolted
them down. They were diesel engines, they put diesel
in them, started them up and again they would check
the temperature, check the amount of air, check for
the engines working in freezing conditions.
Fred McCormick
Ian Tennant
PAGE 10
When I went into B Block… I thought, ‘Wow –
this is some size of a place’. When you were
at the top of the factory floor and you looked
at the bottom a man was the size of
a matchbox. It was really quite wide as well.
PAGE 11
CHAPTER 3
BATHGATE
ONCE MORE
BL Bathgate Factory, circa 1980. Photograph courtesy of John Bell’s family.
Mosside Farm Yard showing demonstration tractors, the mobile training unit and
a truck for carrying demonstration tractors. Photograph courtesy of John Paterson.
John joined the Leyland Bathgate plant in 1969. He worked in Tractor Quality
Control for a year before taking up the post of Service Training Instructor in the
Tractor Training Centre at Mosside Farm.
THE VIEW FROM THE ACADEMY
YOU WENT TO BATHGATE FOR EVERYTHING
The plant itself was huge. The trucks were all piled up towards the
west end of the plant ready for distribution. From the Academy you
could actually look over the golf course and see the plant. I always
remember one of the art classes was high up in the building so you
had really quite good vistas across the green of the golf course to
the physical aspect of the plant and the gleaming windows of the
trucks and the tractors parked up and ready to move wherever.
When I was young Bathgate was really, really busy. You went
to Bathgate for everything… to buy a telly or for a haircut
or anything you needed to have. We came from Fauldhouse
which was a small village which had a pub and a post office
and a Co-operative. Any big items you needed for the
house, or clothes, shoes anything like that everybody
went to Bathgate.
Vince Moore
Eric Mutter
CHAPTER 4
THE JOBS WE DID
Thousands of new skilled and semi skilled jobs were created at the factory
attracting workers from across central Scotland and parts of England. At its
peak more than 6000 people worked in the plant. The range of jobs in the factory
was large and varied and each had its own challenges. Most of the workforce was
men but significant numbers of women were employed too, largely in Packing,
Office Work, and the Canteen.
For the male workers there were
opportunities to transfer to
different departments within the
plant and for promotion to senior
positions in production
and management.
The Planning
Engineer
A Planning Engineer in those days received the
drawings from the Drawing Department. You
then had to sit and work out how the part was
going to be machined. So you had to work out how the part
was held in each machine that it was going to go through. You
had to work out the feeds and the speeds of the drills or the
mills, and work out an estimated time of how long the part
was going to take to load, how long the job was going to take
to machine, how long it was going to take to unload. Then you
took the total time and multiplied that by 1.2 and that was the
time for the job so it was worked out at 80%. Nobody could
work at 100%, everything was done at 80%.
We had to liaise with everybody. You basically liaised with
the Buying Department to a degree, with suppliers, with Jig
and Tool. You were obviously liaising with the shop floor,
with the Superintendants and Senior Foremen and Foremen.
One of your best pals were the Setters - the guys who set
the machines up. You were always in and out the stores with
John Duncan pinching tools to try new tools because at that
time there were quite a few modern tools coming out.
You were always trying to get your hands on them. You
were not responsible for the ordering of the tools but you
were responsible for seeing that everything came in and
worked, and the part was ready when it was needed on
the assembly lines.
The Office Junior
CKD drawing
reproduced
courtesy of West
Lothian Local
History Library
Margaret Mutter
Ian Tennant
PAGE 12
We worked in B Block beside the
Planning Department and the Jig and
Tool Department and the Planning
Engineers used to write layouts. Every
job in Leyland on the shop floor had a
layout. It gave you a list of components
and it showed you how to put the
things thegither, how to build an engine,
how to put an axle together, how to
completely build a tractor. There were
all the different part numbers and there
were drawings that went along with
the layouts. We used to type up all
the layouts, print them off and send
them out. We used to keep a copy of
every drawing. They were all folded in
a particular way and kept in files and
every time they were updated they had
to be printed off again, folded and kept
in these drawers…It was always busy.
There were always lots of things to do.
PAGE 13
BATHGATE ONCE MORE THE JOBS WE DID
CHAPTER 4
THE JOBS WE DID
THE STOREMAN
The Estimator
The Estimating Department was a
section of the Planning Department
and our responsibility was to receive
engineering modification notes from
the Engineering Department on
proposed introductions of a vehicle
or changes to a vehicle, and we had
to assess what that would mean
financially to the cost of the vehicle,
or to the cost of the part. Now
based on that a decision was then
made - would we make the part
or, would we buy it?
In some instances it was better
to purchase – the volume of the
part was too low as to justify
spending a lot on tooling and
stuff. So the decision was made in
Routing and Estimating to determine
whether you were going to make
a part or buy a part. Once you’d
established that you were going
to make it then you had to do an
estimate of what the financial cost
would be and if it was going to be
purchased the information would
be passed over to the Buying
Department and they then went
on an enquiry to establish a source
for the part, or parts.
It was an exciting experience
to get involved in estimating a
commercial vehicle, or a tractor,
or a diesel engine. It was really
thrilling. I was very pleased with it
and I enjoyed the work very much.
We would probably be stocking something
like 20,000 different parts in the Stores to
make a tractor so obviously it was important
that we had enough materials on the
assembly lines when these tractors were
coming down because every one wasn’t
the same so we had to make sure that we
had the right components on there at the
right time to make sure it corresponded
with the Build Programme. These supplies,
of course, were coming primarily from the
Midlands so every day we had half a dozen
or ten trucks arriving with components getting them off the truck, getting them
on to the loading bays, getting them
unpacked and getting them into what
they called the Storage Location.
At that point in time the stock control
system was all manual. You had for every
individual part of those 20,000 what was
called a Bin Card. Now on that Bin Card it
gave you a part number for each individual
part, and it gave you a maximum stock and
a minimum stock so you had a running tally
of how many of each part you had in stock
at any given time. The maximum stock was
important because you never wanted to hold
too much stock at any given time because
that was money at the end of the day, but
more importantly was the minimum stock.
When you got to that minimum stock level
it meant that you had to call in extra supplies.
So we in Stores would call Material Control.
In fact, we did a daily report of all the parts
that were at a minimum stock level and they
would say ‘yeah, they’ll be in on Tuesday,
they’ll be in on Friday, they’re on order’.
So that was how the stock was controlled
and it worked pretty well. Tractors used
to come off the Assembly Line with parts
missing - that wasn’t such a big problem.
It was when the Line stopped that it was a
big problem because that was real money
when the Line stopped. So we had quite an
important function in terms of keeping that
Production Line moving.
Guthrie Aitken
©The Scotsman
Publications
Ltd Licensor
www.scran.ac.uk
Andy McKeown
The Electrician
The Storekeeper
John Duncan,
(front row,
second left) after
receiving a gold
watch marking
25 years service
in BMC/Leyland
Bathgate. Bill
Forsyth, Alec
Lawson and
Tommy Morrison
are also pictured.
Photograph
courtesy of John
Duncan.
Photographer:
Alex Binnie
I was Chief Storekeeper in the Tool Stores.
I had the knowledge of hand tools from the
places I had worked in before but most of the
tools were special and had drawings related to
them and these I had to get from the Planning
Department. I was asked by the shop floor to
supply the tool. I had to request it and drawings
from the Planning Department to present to
the Buyer. So that he could buy the tool that
I wanted and I could give it to the man on
the machine.
My fear all the time was that we would run out
of something. All the special tooling that we were
using was a delivery of 6, 10, sometimes a great
many more weeks before we could maybe get
the tools made for us, because they were being
made especially for us, and of course if we ran
out of tools you stopped a particular part being
made and you stopped the vehicle in itself being
complete. When building a vehicle very often
you had to put on one part before you could
put on the next part so all the other bits were
delayed as well.
John Duncan
PAGE 14
PAGE 15
In each block there was an
Electrical Workshop which had
its foreman, its workers and
electricians’ mates. B Block,
which was the engine and
machining factory, had two
workshops because of the
size of it and A Block had
the one workshop.
The Assembly Lines were
actually controlled from the
Electrical Workshop because
it took the onus of stopping and
starting the line off the production.
It was done by somebody not
involved in the production lines.
They phoned up and said
‘Stop the Line’, ‘Start the Line’.
In the morning when they maybe
discovered they didn’t have
enough manpower they would
want the line run at a slower
speed so they sent word ‘Reduce
the speed of the Line’. And
electricians were on hand, of
course, if anything happened.
We kept a record of the speeds
of the Line and the number of
times it changed in the day. There
were approximately 8 electricians
in each workshop, and probably
about 3 or 4 mates.
Billy Steven
CHAPTER 4
THE JOBS WE DID
The Craftsmen
In the Tool Room, because it was
a 24 hour factory there’d be
maintenance jobs come in overnight,
off the production lines. You’d maybe
have to re-bush a capstan head or
make up fitments for drilling jigs and
things for production machines that
had broken down overnight, or just
general maintenance or upgrade. So
you’d go in the morning and you’d
clock in and you’d go to your machine,
set up your stuff for the day, and
go down to the work bench. You
wouldn’t usually be allocated a job
you could select a job you wanted to
do, take it back to your work station
and carry out the work required
to be done or whatever had to be
manufactured in the time that you
were allocated to do it in. There was
Time and Study people in there and
the job had to be completed in that
time specified by the Time and Study
man. I’m a Universal Tool and Cutter
Grinder to trade. The grinding was
very precise, it was a tight tolerance
for you to work to. Maybe that’s what
I found interesting being a Grinder.
You were finishing a rough machine
part for a specific job so it had to be
precise. It was a tricky wee job.
Graham Bennie
Bonderising process to prevent rust.
The job is being timed. ©The Scotsman
Publications Ltd Licensor www.scran.ac.uk
THE FIELD
TESTING
ENGINEER
Photographs courtesy of Tony Moore
I spent a lot of time outside
in the fields supervising the
tractor tests. The tractors
were all designed and built
and then before they even
saw the Production Line
they had to go out to a field.
We had lads who could drive
the tractor, although they
were maybe mechanics
they could also drive the
tractors, and they could
plough. They used that
tractor and ploughed that
tractor as a farmer would
and they may have to do it
FG Cab hoisted into the paint dip.
©The Scotsman Publications Ltd
The area that I worked in, the
Millwright Department, we dealt
with everything with the exception
of machine tools. There wasnae
really a typical day – every day was
different and this was one of the
good things about it. We looked
after all the lifting equipment that’s cranes, hoists, things like
this, we looked after the conveyor
tracks, we looked after the Heat
Treatment plant where the gears
and things that had to be heat
treated in the furnace and then
processed, and the structure
of the buildings.
In the winter time some of the
times you were outside. I can
remember one time they had trucks
and tractors outside. To keep the
plant going they built them on spec,
they didn’t have orders for them, so
what they did was they built them
and they put them outside. It was
a cold winter,1963, and when they
put them out in the yard outside
they were on frozen shale and, of
course, when the Spring came along
and the snow and ice disappeared
these things sunk into the muck.
We used some of the tractors and
made up lifting gear and we literally
had to pull the trucks and tractors
out of the ground. It took weeks.
So the job I had in the Millwright
Department was very varied!
Andy Kidd
PAGE 16
The Design Engineer
The work was very interesting, very exciting
in some ways because Tractor Research
at that time was transferring all their
knowledge to Bathgate. We had a full set
of drawings for the tractor but we didn’t
have the engineering test reports that
explained why the particular hydraulic
system worked in the way it did, why
the cooling system was like it was, why
the gear box was like it was. A lot of the
historical test engineering information
wasn’t available so if something went
wrong in the Production Line that wasn’t
just a production control, or a quality
control, or a process buying problem,
or a progress problem we’d end up getting
a call. One of us would go down… and try
to sort that out as best we could.
There were hundreds of things we’d do.
We worked on the hydraulic systems and
Quiet Cabs and the other fairly major task
which involved a lot less analysis but quite
a bit of work wondering what to do about
it was when they started selling tractors to
South Africa where it was hot. The tractors
have what they call a limiting ambient
temperature (LAT) so if you have an LAT
of 42˚ it means you can run up to 60˚
for weeks, months and then
if it survives 3,4,5 months
with whatever they’ve
done then they come back
and say ‘it works’, then it
gets the go ahead to be
made properly and then put
down the assembly line. If
it comes back after 2 or 3
months and it doesn’t work
then we’ve got to start from
square one so it doesn’t get
produced, which happened
a few times. It was a joy to
be there and do the job I
had. I enjoyed every minute
of it because it was a very
interesting job.
John Gray
The Machine Operator
I was in C Block, in what they cried
PrePaint. I would say there would be
about 30 men on that side of the Line.
The work was fine. You got to know
the guys you worked with, you had
good patter with them. It was putting
the brake rods and things like that on
the tractors. It was strange to dae
the same job. A tractor came up on a
jig every 7 minutes and you done the
same job… It was just the repetition,
simple as that. The more you done it,
the more you got used to it. The thing
that I noticed about it, a’ the guys had
their own sort of wee tools that they
had made for certain jobs you know
to make it easier for them and to make
it faster for them. If they could get
an implement made to make that job
easier, that was very acceptable. If you
could cut a minute aff yer jig you were
quite happy.
before the tractor boils. In England, Scotland,
Ireland… it’s never really an issue for the
tractors overheating. As soon as you go to
the African Continent you don’t have this
thermal capacity. Initially we did some tests
and we then did what turned out to be two
very simple things. One, we made the fan fit
better inside the radiator in the tractor and
we immediately got an extra 5 to 10˚ bonus.
We then found we could run the fan faster
but that didn’t make as much difference as
we thought. So we then just looked at where
the air came from and we discovered the
way they attached the side panels on the
tractor really blocked all the air off so we just
changed the way they welded them on and
that was enough.
Bruce Davies
Walter Taggart
PAGE 17
CHAPTER 4
THE JOBS WE DID
The Production Grinder
THE MACHINE OPERATOR
I started on what was called the Big
Track in A Block. The cost centre was
F11. At its peak we were building
74 trucks a day, 9 or so an hour…
You went in, tried to get a cup o’
coffee or cup o’ tea, and then as soon
as the horn went at 7.40am the Line
started. The truck you finished on the
day before was sitting waiting on you
the next morning. So you would just
go and get the parts from the bin or
the trolley that was supplying your
parts that you were fitting on to the
Line, go and pick them up, pick your
wee tool box up. I was doing some
work externally on the cab and I did
some work internally on the cab.
Now you would work away on, let’s
say it was a Terrier at that point in time.
You might come off that and it would
be an FG you’d be going on to. So you
had different parts to pick up to go on
to the FG. And then you could maybe
go on to a Boxer. These were different
types of trucks. You also had the
Mastiff, the Super Mastiff, WFs and
Scuttles. It was rare, unless there was
a big, big order for maybe Terriers or
Boxers that you worked on the same
model all day. They usually staggered
the models so that it wasn’t totally
repetitive work that you were doing.
Andy Hunter
Photograph
courtesy of
Tommy
Morrison
The Cab Trimmer
At first it just took me hours to put this rubber round
about the window of the cab because it was just
springing off. Really, it was terrible to start with. You
thought you’re never going to manage this. And then
you’ve got to put the glass in, and then you’ve got to
put stuff in round about to seal it. But then see before
we were finished it was just too easy…You knew all
the quick ways to do it but at the self same time you
had Inspectors there to make sure it was done right –
it wasn’t shoddy work, and rightly so. We had to do 20
cabs a day and then they came out with a scheme that
you’d get an extra bonus if you can dae an extra 2 per
day, that was an extra 2 cabs added to your shift. And
at that time when you were Time and Studied it was
hard to dae the 20 a day as it was and then dae another
2 but eventually you managed it.
I enjoyed it because they gave me 2 or 3 different jobs
on the track. I finished up being the Rectifier. It was at
the front of the Line. A’ the boys daein the different jobs
on that line before they push the cabs off their Inspector
comes and checks every one and puts all the faults on
the glass. It was my job to rectify them. Or if it was a big
job I had to bring the guy back doon so they wouldn’t
keep doing the same mistake. He had to do it. You had
one Inspector who was really, really strict - he always had
an average of 14 faults on every window… but it was
good for the trucks.
We worked on a production line making
components for the Engine. In our section,
that was G63 the Engine Gear Section,
there must have been about 60 people.
This was the highest paid job on the
Production Line. We made so much of
the components, we done a certain part
of them and they were then passed on to
another part of the Line, and they added
to them or done something else to them,
until the component had finished its work
in the section. Then it would be taken
away to another section and continue
its process until it was completed. It was
always interesting work.
You had a tally to make for your day
and you always had to try and get it out
because your wages depended on it. If you
didn’t make that tally you would have to
have a reason for that, you maybe
never got enough components to
make that tally. There would be
people coming in during the day
and assessing the tally. They would
time the machines so they would
reckon you would be able to do so
many during the day but it didn’t
always work out like that because you
couldn’t always get enough components
to be able to do that.
You got a break during the day, you
just sat beside your machine during your
10 minute break. You got a break at
lunchtime as well. You could go to the
canteen or you could just stay where
you were – most of us just stayed but
the canteen was handy if you needed it.
Lenny Walker
THE SLIP MAN
I got started at the very top o’ the tractor
line and what we had to do was join the
body of the tractor together and put a brake
on. We started at 7.40am and the minute
the horn blew for the shift to start the track
moved and basically it was going all day ‘til
you finished. On the Line they would have
what they called a Slip Man so he would
come and relieve you so you could have a
cup of tea or something or if you were really
desperate for the toilet he would come and
do your job so he knew a number of jobs on
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the Line so you got ‘slipped’ in the
morning and ‘slipped’ in the afternoon.
After that I went on to put in the
clutch… I worked every third tractor.
There were three of us. When I started
they were building roughly 70-80
tractors a day which meant I was only
working on a third of them. When
you were working the brake you were
working on every tractor. I was on the
clutch assembly for a number of years.
JOHN HASTINGS
TOMMY MORRISON
PAGE 18
PAGE 19
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The Inspector
In the truck and tractor detail section
there would be over 100 Operatives
and maybe about 7 Setters. There
would be what they called a Junior
Foreman and a Senior Foreman in
that area. A normal day would be
come in and the Foreman would have
a sheet. If you were night shift you
would have the sheet from the day
shift and there would be a list of the
jobs that must run for that day and
the targets that had to be achieved. As
soon as operators got that information
you just got on to your machine and
you produced whatever you had to
produce.
An Inspector would have a section
of maybe about 80 machines and
maybe about 40-50 operators
operating these machines. Your job
was what they called AQL (Acceptable
Quality Level)… Say we’d produced
100 components, you would check
25% of that. How you checked that
would be through the day, once an
hour, once every two hours, so that
the component was maintaining the
standard either for the next operation
or the final assembly.
John Moore
CHAPTER 4
THE JOBS WE DID
The Mechanic
Ian Reid and I worked as a pair
on the actual Assembly Line. You
worked in two sets of two. As a
lorry came down you sorted all
the minor faults that you could;
the two of you worked on that
lorry until it came to the Spray
Paint place and then you went
back. The other two guys who
were following were in the
lorry behind that so you were
continually going up the Line…
You could be starting up trucks,
you could be doing adjustments.
It’s not a case that you had to
do anything that technical but you
had to know exactly what was
wrong. You had to know that if
such and such a thing happened
what was the cause and you got to
know that. It was very typical that
a common fault would come down
so you got to the stage
that you could
actually do it
quite quickly.
I liked
working with
the people I
was working
with. The
work got a wee
bit monotonous at
times but working with
people made it less monotonous
because there would be a bit of
banter between the two sets,
one trying to beat the other –
‘We’ve done that!’
Glen Munro
Glen Munro
©Workers’
Educational
Association
THE
BOILER MAN
THE ENGINE
RECTIFIER
The summer of 1962… there were
four of us started – George Clark,
Jimmy Crombie, myself and Jimmy
Wishart… were the first four people
that started in Engine Assembly.
There was no Engine Assembly at
that time; there were only holes in
the ground. All we did for the first
5 or 6 weeks was take a 6 cylinder
or a 4 cylinder diesel engine,
stripped it down, built it back up
again, stripped it down built it –
everyday we did the same thing
‘til you knew every part o’ that
engine fae the shells on the
crankshaft tae the tappits...
Foremen came up from England
to show us what to do.
As far as I was concerned
everything was new to me and I
was very interested in what I was
doing so I really, really liked it. I
got myself involved. I got stuck
in to try and improve my lot and
maybe get myself promoted. It
was really, really very interesting.
Once other people got started
we helped them identify parts of
the engine…There were cards went
with each engine and on parts of the
track there was an Inspector who
would inspect the work that had
been done before it came to him. He
noted down the parts of the engine
that needed changing or rectified or
tightened or that had been missed.
And we did that work. We were
called Engine Rectifiers
John Cooper
PAGE 20
Dougie Miller
The Pipe Fitter
We were involved with all the supplies
of liquids and gasses, maintaining the
furnaces, maintaining the ovens they
used for paint drying. The test beds
was a big job for us as well. People
say ‘what are plumbers doing in the
test bed?’ You need water to cool the
engines, you need oil for the engines,
you need fuel for the engines, you need
compressed air as well. The job in the
test beds was split between pipe fitting
and engineers and millwrights. There
was a lot of very complicated work in
the test beds for pipe fitters because
every engine had to have fresh oil.
I did quite a lot of gas welding and
the heat treatment was challenging.
Just before I left, I was on night shift
and there was a pipe blew… I was in
the paint plant working at the time and
they couldn’t find me because I was
working away inside the paint pumps.
By the time they got me it had been
going for half an hour and you couldn’t
see anything for steam. We had to
hunt for lights, then hunt for valves
and finish up we had to shut the
boilers down.
Dougie Miller
I was in the boilerhouse…We
looked after the heating system
or the place couldnae run. It was
heavy work at times because it was
all coal fired and you had to work
with the coal summer and winter…
I remember Ted Heath’s 3 day
week they had to shut the heating
off to save coal and it was the
wintertime. There was tremendous
complaints. They had to hand out
donkey jackets. A factory like that
is like a big tin box… and every
time a roller door goes up the cold
air comes back in. Guys used to
come to their work in the morning
and the Management wanted the
heating on for them coming in so
you put the heating on the back
of 6 or 7 in the morning afore they
come in. Then they start work, the
doors are up, the doors are doon.
Nothing but complaints. The heat’s
going oot.
So I went to Management, I says
‘There’s a better way a daein it than
this’. ‘What do you think we could
The KD Manager
Semi Knock Down, you would take the
tractor and you would take all the axles off
it, put it into a packing case with the front
and rear axles and linkage…. Complete
Knock Down (CKD), the tractor was never
built - it was just given to you in bits and
pieces for packing.
The ladies packed the fasteners for the
KD kits to be exported... This was perhaps
one of the first sections in the shop floor
of ladies working, and they were all young
ladies... They all had what they called a
packing sheet which gave them the part
numbers and the quantities. They had
to retrieve the parts from store bins and
put them into polythene bags, seal the
polythene bags and then I had to put them
into hessian sacks. I had to identify which
pack number they belonged to, which
type of KD, and then I had to put them
into separate pallets by pack number and
make sure they were taken to the packing
area when required.
That was my first job.
Chassis packs, engine packs,
axle packs, cab packs, wheels
and tyres would be marshalled in
the area between C Block and B
Block and the Dispatch Department
would come in for them when shipping
approved them to go to the docks to be
loaded on to the ships to go overseas.
A lot of the packs went from
Grangemouth, a lot of them had to go
down south to the Hulls, to the Liverpool
area. Some of them even went to London
depending obviously on which country
they were going to go to whether it be
South America, Mexico, Iran, Australia,
South Africa, Rhodesia and Finland.
When I first started it was only chassis
parts that were being done in Bathgate,
all the rest were still being done down
south in Birmingham and it was a
PAGE 21
dae?’ I says, ‘what we could dae is
shut the heating off during the day
when the workers are in but put the
heating on at night when there are
only a minimum number of workers
in the place, and only a minimum
opening and shutting of doors so
the plant’ll get a chance to heat
up ower the 10 or 12 hours it’s
running during the night and they’ll
come in the morning and it’ll be
reasonable for them’…So
it worked.
CHRIS BETT
progressive transfer from Birmingham
to Bathgate. (When Photograph
the cabs came
up all) I got for that wascourtesy
a bunch
of Geoff
of photographs and packing
sheets saying ‘this is Fishwick
how you
did it’ and it was huge fortified
timber packing case and I had to just get
on with it. We employed a lot more men
and I was training them on how to do the
cabs but I also had to keep an eye on
the pre pack section for the ladies. The
axle packing came up so I had to give a
hand with the axle packing as well. So my
job was multi tasking. But it was a great
learning curve for me and I just took it in
my stride.
Harry Mckay
CHAPTER 4
THE JOBS WE DID
CONTINUED >>
The Fleet
Service Manager
The Warranty Claims Administrator
My parents, John and May MacDonald were Glasgow people who
had moved south to Oxford for my father’s work. After losing his job
in road transport he started in the Service Department of Morris
Motors in Cowley. In 1969/70 Leyland were offering employees in
other factories the chance to transfer and relocate to Bathgate. As
we still had family ties in Glasgow my father took up this option and
so we relocated to Armadale.
My father became a Warranty Claims Administrator and worked in
the Service Department beside Geoff Fishwick. My sister also worked
in the offices and my mother spent many years in the canteen. She
used to serve the Directors their dinner. My father’s main role was to
collate and gather together information from big fleet operators such
as Royal Mail, British Bakeries, Rank Hovis McDougall - all these big
companies that used Leyland vehicles such as the Leyland FG model.
If they were experiencing lots of problems in use in the field then that
information would have to come back to my father’s department for
him to collate and pass to the technical correspondent and engineers
out in the field to rectify the problems.
In those days there were a lot more corner shops which were
serviced and supplied by the big bakeries using the type of vehicles
being built at Bathgate. Leyland had models like the FG, Bedford had
the TK and Ford the D series. These vehicles were the mainstay of
distribution fleets up and down the country at the time doing multi
deliveries to corner shops and high streets but as the years have
gone by the large out of town supermarkets have taken their place
and the smaller vehicles aren’t used as much.
FG Cab coming off
the production line
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John MacDonald
It was considered necessary to have a
Fleet Service Department to maintain
good relationships with the major fleet
operators of which BMC had many,
a huge 40 odd percent market share.
Bakeries, for example, at any one time
would deliver bread to the corner
shops of that period in FG 3 tonners,
FGK 60s which became 550 FGs. They
proved the most economical delivery
vehicle. Although they were getting a
bit dated by 1970 they were still being
produced at the time the plant closed…
primarily, I think, for ABF Sunblest
Bakeries.
I used to arrive in the morning with
CONTINUED >>
Geoff Fishwick (far right) together with John Braid, Stuart
Clark, Bob Muir, Jimmy Whitelaw and John Young from the
Technical Service Department, Bathgate Office, 26th February
1982. Photograph courtesy of Bob Muir, Tractor Service Liaison
Supervisor 1964-1982.
a plan of priorities but the phone
would start ringing about 8.30am
and various things had gone wrong
so I had to just decide how best
we could help… I had to attend
regional meetings with Fleet
Engineers of the big operators…
Getting to know these people,
these Regional Engineers of the
big fleets, did help. You knew
they weren’t pulling your leg
when they phoned up asking for
a replacement engine outside
warranty, free of charge.
They were all pretty
straightforward people.
Another big operator was, of
course, the Post Office. I had to
visit them at Gresham Street in
London quarterly - sometimes
more often if they were having
serious problems although I had
two engineers permanently
attached to them. At any one time
they had about 21,000 vehicles
of BL manufacture – minor
mail vans, post office engineer
vehicles. We took over the build
of the EA from the Midlands in
the early 70s primarily for the
Post Office... They had to be
inspected by the Inspectorate of
Fighting Vehicles – all Post Office
vehicles had to be inspected
by the IFVME before they were
delivered and we had a resident
Inspector in the plant.
The Employee Services Manager
A typical day would start quite early. Part of my job was to meet the
unions. We would have meetings to try to manage changes within the
plant. This was a big part of the job. It was also to run the Job Evaluation
Scheme that existed for four groups of white collar workers. So that
essentially was it but more often than not you wouldn’t know what
the day would bring you because someone would say ‘I would like a
meeting with you’… or conversely I would have to take some suggestion
to trades unions and I would call them in for a meeting but more often
than not it would be at their instigation unless we wanted to introduce
something new or discuss something from our point of view. Then there
were disputes between the Trades Unions and the Management about
interpretation of, say, a job description. There would be formal monthly
meetings with certain Trades Unions with a fixed agenda.
I did the first job for about 3 years ‘til ’77. It was regarded the kind
of job that you shouldn’t be in it for too long because it was generally
regarded that you burned yourself out.
Then in ‘77 Leyland in Head Office decided they would devolve a lot
of the powers held at the centre and a lot of the functions that were done
at Head Office were transferred up to Scotland, and in fact it became
known as the Light Vehicle Division of Leyland Truck and Bus and that
included Bathgate and the sister plant, Albion in Glasgow. We had an
office block in Edinburgh, in Wester Hailes, and I had a good function
there looking after Terms and Conditions, running the Company
Grading Scheme which covered several thousand people in Scotland,
including the Albion Plant, and I was also the Office Manager and the
Personnel Manager for the people that worked in that office. I was in
Edinburgh but I spent a lot of time on the Bathgate site and at Albion.
In June ’84 the announcement of the closure of the plant came. The
first three months we dealt with a lot of people wanting to leave because
they had redundancy packages and we were bringing people in to help
the workers to find jobs and deal with the consequences of the closure
of the plant.
Berian James
Geoff Fishwick
PAGE 22
PAGE 23
The Fireman
Photograph
courtesy of
Dorothy Hunter
The story behind the photograph
I worked in the Design Department
within British Leyland, Bathgate
between 1967 and 1972. At the
time the photo was taken I was
17 years old and the head of our
Department was Mr Bob Beresford
(who went on to become Plant
Director at Bathgate).
It all started one afternoon with
me being asked by Mr Beresford
if I could come into his office. As I
would take shorthand for him when
his secretary was off work I thought
nothing of it although I knew that
he had visitors from our Longbridge
plant in his office at the time so
maybe alarm bells should have been
ringing. I wore specs at the time
for typing and the first question he
asked me was could I remove them
for a moment. I took them off and all
the gentlemen in the office nodded
their heads as if in agreement. I
thought this a little strange and I
hadn’t a clue what was going on
but then Mr Beresford asked me
if I would like to be the model for
the launch of the new Leyland
tractor. Of course I agreed and
the rest is history.
I will never forget the moment
I told my mum and dad. They were
so proud. On the morning the photos
were being taken our home was
buzzing with excitement as Mr
Beresford was picking me up to take
me to the site where the new tractor
was located. At 1.00 pm a large
black chauffeur driven car parked
outside our house and Mr Beresford
came right to our door and spoke to
my mum and dad, then he escorted
me to the car. I felt really important.
At this point I didn’t know where I
was going as the site was a secret.
Eventually we arrived at a farm
PAGE 24
somewhere around the Bathgate
hills. It was a drizzly wet day and was
not good for me as I hated getting
my hair wet, hence the bad hairdo!
After the photos were taken a picnic
and drinks were supplied by The
Golden Circle Hotel, Bathgate. It
was like a dream. Afterwards I was
chauffeur driven back home.
On the Monday morning back in
the office I was just plain Dorothy
Aitken, shorthand-typist and Mr
Beresford was “my boss”. In those
day we knew our place at work.
Many years later my husband and
I met Mr Beresford at a Classic
Car rally at Culzean Castle. He was
retired but kept himself busy running
his own small garage business in the
Borders. It was really nice speaking
to him again as an old friend.
Dorothy Hunter (née Aitken)
left to right:
Alex Binnie,
Robert Anderson,
David Benzie,
Davie Nimmo
Front row,
left to right:
Eddie Hartley,
Michael Lawrie,
Tom McDonald,
Peter Rankine,
Alex MacMillan
Photograph courtesy
of Alex Binnie
The railway work was actually declining
because in this area ninety percent of our work
was pit work and all the pits were shutting
down so I said well I’ll have to find employment
because I had a family. I left the railway on the
Friday and started in the BMC on the following
Monday, 1964. The BMC had advertised for
firemen because at the time they had only one
man on each shift as a fireman and they needed
four firemen on each shift.
We had an Austin fire engine. The Austin
was the precursor to Landrover. The fire engine
carried a tank of water and there was a hose
reel on it. On the roof you had a double ladder
extender and two water uplifts.
We were based behind the Personnel offices at
the main gate… There were four gates in British
Leyland, No 1 gate opened on to the A8,
No 2 was the Main Gate, why they didn’t name
it No 1 I can’t understand, No 3 was the nearest
gate to Bathgate town and No 4 gate was away
up where the farm was.
If any pipefitters, fitters or anybody like that
worked outside their own compound and they
were doing any welding or burning they had
to have a fireman standing behind them with a
fire extinguisher in case they set fire to anything.
If they were working up a ladder we would
sometimes foot the ladder for them. Although it
was concrete floors and the ladders maybe had
rubber rings round the bottom of them so they
wouldn’t slip but you stood there with your foot
on the bottom rung just to make sure, especially
if they were burning or welding up high.
ALEX BINNIE
Tam Dalyell at the
BMC factory gates.
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PAGE 25
BATHGATE
ONCE MORE
E Block Assembly – 1985
Norman Binnie, Dougie McIndoe,
Rab Jack, Peter Stewart.
Photograph courtesy of Dougie McIndoe
THE RECTIFIER
B Block Engine Assembly circa 1979. Photograph courtesy of
Jim Bilsborough (back row in the centre). Also pictured are
John Orr, William Reape, John Steel and Jimmy Wishart.
Working on Engine Assembly
I worked in a great team. The best lads you
ever worked with. You all helped each other.
I worked on Track 1 in B Block building the
6 cylinder engines. There were about 15
different operations on the Line. I started on
No 1 and 2 operations but after 15 years on
constant nightshift I could build a full engine
myself! I worked myself up to be a Slip Man and
could do all the different jobs on the track.
Engine goes through the wash
(1)Remove bearing caps, blow water out of
holes, fit crankshaft and fit rear oil seal
and pump
(2) Fit rear timing cover and fit camshaft
(3) Fit bellhousing and fit flywheel
(4)Turn engine on its side, fit piston liners
and pistons
(5)Turn engine upright, fit cylinder head
studs and cylinder heads
(6) Fit diesel pump and front gears
(7)Fit cam followers and push rods and rockers
(8) Fit ejectors and set rockers
(9) Fit fuel pipes and exhaust manifold
(10)Fit front cover on front of engine
(11)Fit air manifold and rocker cover
and alternator
(12)Fit mounting brackets and water pump
(13)Lift engine and fit sump
(14)Push engine on to the Test Bed Line
Engine goes to the Test Beds
Jim Bilsborough
I started in 1969 in Truck Rectification. They were
under pressure at the time for mechanics. You went
into the work you clocked on. You walked down to
your bay. Each mechanic had his own bay and in that
bay was a truck. The truck wouldnae be completed.
You got a job card for every truck. You would look
down the job card. The night shift mechanic would
maybe have done a lot of the jobs and other ones
would be left so you completed the jobs on that
card. Then an Inspector would inspect the truck.
The truck was away and another one pushed in.
This was non stop.
They weren’t really great big jobs, there was the
odd one or two, but they were mostly wee things
that were faulty like cables in the wrong place or you
had to sort out rattles. It was more or less wee jobs.
They were classified as ‘minors’ or ‘majors’. A minor
you were allowed so many minutes to do the job and
a major you got so much time. Really big jobs such
as changing an engine there would be a special time
for that.
…The Line would stop for nothing. They couldnae
stop the Line for to wait for parts coming. So a lot of
our work was actually fitting shortages on. Shortages
were when the parts hadnae come up from England.
A shortage in one part could lead to us fitting quite
a few bits. There were that many things used to go
short but say there was a shortage of an alternator.
That could stop the Line fitting different parts round
about it. Later on they only made trucks if they’d
been bought but at that time they were making
them for stock so they had stacks of them out in
the field so what they used to do was sometimes
salvage parts from those trucks to get other ones
ready if they had bother getting the shortages from
suppliers. They’d take the part off one truck put it on
another. The mechanics were working non-stop. The
overtime was massive.
George Waddell
PAGE 26
CHAPTER 5
TRAINING AND APPRENTICESHIPS
Many of the workforce were time served mechanics, electricians, plumbers,
engineers and craftsmen when they started work in the factory. For others joining
from the pits, bakeries, brickworks, the railways and other local industries there was “on the
job” training to learn new skills. Some of the first workers remember being trained by Foremen
who had come up from the BMC plant in Longbridge to show the Bathgate workers how to
operate machinery on the assembly lines. Then in 1964 the company launched an important
apprenticeship scheme for school leavers to gain training and skilled employment in the factory.
ON THE JOB TRAINING
There was men up from
Longbridge. They showed you
what to do… That was my training.
Arthur was his name. He was a
proper gentleman… We got on
great. Of course, he’d been
30 odd years at the job. He
knew the machines backwards.
Malcolm Black
I worked on the brake drums.
It involved drilling and grinding.
You worked with an experienced
worker for two days. Then on
the third day you done a quarter
of the tally yersel, then the next
day you done half a tally, the next
day you done three quarters o’ a
tally, then the next day you done
a hundred percent So it was really
about a week before you were
on your own.
A boy called Willie Cross and
me got started at the very top
o’ the tractor line and what we
had to do was join the body of the
tractor together and put a brake
on. Then it went down to the next
stage. So me and Willie were there
for maybe 2-3 months. It was
the type of job that everybody
did when they started… it was
relatively easy, you could learn it
relatively quickly. So what they
done was after that we got other
jobs and then the next ‘new
starts’ would start up there. It just
depended how often new people
were starting – some of the time
you could be there for 6 months.
But I think from memory, Willie
and me were roughly 2-3 months
and then we got moved.
John Hastings
The first day you started you were taken
into the canteen, maybe about 50 of you at
a time, and you were all allocated different
sections. The Foreman from the section that
you were allocated tae (for me the flywheels)
came down and got you. He took you up
to the section and he showed you a’ the
different machines fae the flywheel came
into the section ‘til it went out finished. So
he explained every machine to you and he
showed you how they worked. Then you
had men called Setters who used to set the
machine. If there were any broken tools in
the machines they would reset them. One
of them would show you how to work the
machines for maybe about an hour, half an
hour, then leave you to get on with yourself.
See how you got on and gradually you just
worked up to the speed that was required
to dae the job.
Harry Bradley
Rab Marshall
I worked in the pit, on the tables – that’s
taking the dirt out from amongst the coal
at the pit head. I started at that and after
that I went down the pit. I’d be about 17
or 18 years old. I had nae option. I had nae
skills, nae trade. When the pit shut down
in ’62… I was offered a job in Easton
Colliery but I didn’t take it. The age I wis
I decided I wouldn’t go back to the pit
again. It was strange to me being in the
pit a’ they years, then going into a factory,
working in there and on your feet a’ day.
Whereas in the pit I was on my knees.
You had to pick up the engine, turn it,
put it doon on the trestle, put the bearings
in, then the liners, then the pistons. The
Operator showed me the job for a wee
while and then I was put in the job myself.
PAGE 27
It was kinda monotonous. On the moving
track you had to keep goin’. I started out
as an Operator and as time went on I got
a Slip Man’s job. If you needed the toilet,
I let you away and I done your job. I’d learn
all the jobs on the Line. When I started
I couldn’t put a nut on a bolt! I learned
all these things in there.
Tony Kizis
BATHGATE ONCE MORE TRAINING AND APPRENTICESHIPS
CHAPTER 5
Bathgate Technical College
The BMC worked very closely with the College.
In fact the BMC gave Bathgate College a lot of stuff to
get them set up. I remember they gave them engines for
the Heat Lab. They gave them a Triumph engine chassis
and backend – just a shell without the body work - for
the motor lab, and they gave them a lot of metal work,
and tools so that they would take us apprentices in and
get us started on our course work.
John Weir
The first apprentices – we grew up with the factory
When we left Lindsay High School at
Bathgate our form teacher at the time
submitted our names into the brew
office. I got a letter to come for an
interview and as we later discovered
there were 500 applications for that
first year as an apprentice. They cut
it down to 250 and I remember sitting
in the big canteen down in the factory
with 250 others doing this entrance
examination and from that they
picked their apprentices.
The apprenticeship actually started
on the 14th September 1964 so the
exams were sometime previous to
that. The first intake that year there
were 5 Technical Apprentices, 15
Craft Apprentices and 4 Commercial
Apprentices and that was really the
size of the intake each year thereafter
for quite a time. The 5 Technical
apprentices were expected to study
for the Higher National Certificate.
The Craft Apprentices did the
Mechanical Engineering Practice
course and the Commercial guys
studied commercial subjects as well.
When we started the factory
wasnae really up and running
and wasnae really ready for the
apprentices if the truth be told. They
knocked up a big compound in the
middle of B Block for us with 12 feet
high fences round about and a wee
office for the boss. Our apprentice
Instructor at that time was a guy
called Charles Frederick Low. He
was a real star. The boys loved
him. And, of course, he just lived
for the boys. He had worked in the
shipyards and had actually designed
the loading bay for the QE II but
he was just a quiet, unassuming
guy and he just loved his job as
Apprentice Instructor.
It was very basic inside
this big compound.
We had a couple
of old production
machines… and
we had a couple of
vertical drills. There
was an old radial drill
that was ancient but
they had stuff on order
which hadn’t been
delivered so gradually
the machines started
coming in. I remember
we got a couple of
PAGE 28
shaping machines. We got some
surface grinders as well, we got new
drills in and we got some lathes for
letting us do our turning work and
we had a wee welding section beside
the office. So that really was the start
and we would do our first year in
that compound.
Thereafter there was a programme
marked out for us where we would
go through all the departments in
the factory. The Technical lads would
take a slightly different direction from
the Commercial lads. We used to go
and maybe do 6 or 8 weeks in each
department. We did production
as well; we made cylinder
blocks and cylinder heads
and crankshafts. We were
actually working with the
machines and the rest of
the men in the factory. It
was a great time because
we grew up with the
factory. We were in all
the different departments
so we had contacts
everywhere we went
thereafter.
John Weir
The boys all went to the
Apprentice Training Centre
and the girls went to the
typing and shorthand class
I left school in March 1967 and I applied for two jobs
– one in British Leyland and one in Armadale – and
I was fortunate to be offered the two jobs at the same
time…I decided to take the one in British Leyland
because it seemed to offer more opportunities… When
I started, aged 15, there were only three young girls
in the factory. The first day I was sent up to the Print
Room and I wasn’t expecting that was where I was
going to be working but it turned out I spent a year
working in the Print Room which involved printing
drawings for the factory floor and filing all the different
Draughtsmen’s drawings.
When I was 17 they opened up a Training Centre
and we went twice a week and we were taught typing
and shorthand. We had a teacher called Mrs Bowman.
That was for the girls. The apprentices had Mr Duncan
and Mr Low. They were the Training Officers. The
boys all went to the Apprentice Training Centre and
the girls went to the typing and shorthand class. That’s
where we were taught touch typing and shorthand
and then we all sat Pitman Examinations... So I learnt
my skills through the Training School. We went from
Elementary stage typing to Intermediate and then the
Advanced stage.
I THOUGHT THIS
WILL BE A GOOD
GROUNDING
FOR ME
Photograph courtesy of Dorothy Hunter
With shorthand we started doing 50 words a minute
and I think I went up to 100 words a minute. They
had an annual prize giving for the girls who had passed
their exams and for the apprentices, where you were
presented with your Certificates. For the apprentices
there was an Outstanding Apprentice of the Year.
Joyce Brogan (née Love)
I thought the plant was massive. I’d never been in anything like it before in my life
but I wisnae long in orientating myself. When you’re an apprentice the first year
you got to stay in the workshop - it was dedicated to learning aspects of engineering
- and then the rest of the time you got to go about, but during the lunch breaks you
could wander about wherever you wanted so long as you weren’t tampering with
anything it was okay so you actually got to see how big the place really was. I was
just quite amazed at all the different types of things they were doing… I thought
this will be a good grounding for me. If I can learn good skills here I’ll no have a
problem later on in life.
ALAN MARR
PAGE 29
BATHGATE ONCE MORE TRAINING AND APPRENTICESHIPS
CHAPTER 5
APPRENTICES
THEY TAUGHT YOU EVERYTHING YOU
NEEDED TO KNOW ABOUT ENGINEERING
My first job was as a Craft
Apprentice which meant that you
were taken into the apprentice
compound which was essentially
a machine shop for learning.
There were 3 dedicated training
supervisors who took care of
you and showed you what you
had to be shown from a safety
point of you and they became
your teachers. They taught you
everything that you had to know
about engineering that was
relative to British Leyland. So you
spent your first two years doing
broad based training - learning
how to operate lathes, drills,
milling machines, everything
you would need to use up in
the factory. You were taught
how to use them safely in the
training compound.
At the start of your third year
you had to either go into the Tool
Room and become a Machine
Operator, Turner, Miller, Horizontal
Borer or you became a Machine
Tool Fitter or a Jig and Tool Fitter.
I became a Machine Tool Fitter.
These guys were responsible for
the maintenance of the machinery
that produced the parts for the
engines or the trucks or the
tractors. So that was you had left
the apprentice compound and you
spent your final two years on the
job training.
After the two years you became
a fully fledged tradesman, then
you got released into production
to go and fix machines and you
moved up to a tradesman’s wage
which was nice. The apprentices
were paid the going rate for
apprentices but it was a huge step
up in salary from an apprentice to
a tradesman… You got your Union
card updated from apprentice to
tradesman… and that was you off
and running. You just became the
same as everyone else in the Tool
Room after that. The big thing in
Leyland was that the apprentices
in those days used to wear a dark
green overall that signified you
as an apprentice. When
your apprenticeship finished
you moved to a blue overall,
and that was the big thing!
Eric Mutter
It was the start
of friendships
I left school in 1978 and started my
apprenticeship at British Leyland in 1979 and
that was the first time that I met people from
Whitburn, Pumpherston, Livingston, Broxburn –
a whole range of different folk from all over the
central belt. There was the serious side because
obviously you were working machinery and
that was always to be respected but because
there was such an eclectic bunch of folk, I just
remember having a real good laugh… It was
the start of friendships.
The people who trained us were completely
committed. By the time I went to British
Leyland the place had maybe got a bit of
a reputation in industrial relations but on
reflection I have to say it was a really, really
good apprenticeship. They looked after us
incredibly well and it has left an abiding memory
in me in terms of actually how positive it was.
There was a mixture of practical and theory
- college based work. Some of us went to
West Lothian College - day release. Some of
the Technical Apprentices went to Edinburgh’s
Telford College. In the apprentice compound,
you were given a variety of different projects
to do. Essentially one aspect of a project could
be working a piece of metal to a completed
product and it would incorporate all the various
machinery. You would start by maybe shaping
a piece of metal on a centre lathe or milling
machine and then if it required you would grind
it to give it a smooth surface or you would cut
threads into it - so, basically demonstrating all
the skills of all the machinery. All of this required
you working from a drawing and incorporating
the measurements required using various
measuring devices such as micrometers.
Vince Moore
PAGE 30
The Apprentices
The apprenticeship was
absolutely second to none
We decided we were going
to put two entries in and we
did the Magic Roundabout
and Fred Flintstone’s Car.
We had the mini moke that
used to run about the plant.
We commandeered the mini
moke and stripped all the
stuff off it and built the car
round about that. We had
great success at Linlithgow
Marches, the Bo’ness Fair,
Bathgate Procession Day.
We were even up at Forth.
It was brilliant. I remember
working in the middle of
the night, maybe 2 in the
morning, spraying it all wi’
paint, sticking stuff on it,
cutting trees doon of course
though you weren’t supposed
to do that! But we needed
the wood.
The first year of our Technical Apprenticeship, was spent in the Apprentice
Compound in B Block, where we learned how to use a lathe, a mill and a grinder
as well as welding and fitting. Before we were allowed near a machine, our Training
Instructors demonstrated the use of the equipment and made sure we understood
all the safety features. We had to wear our safety glasses at all times - mine made
me look a bit like Hank Marvin! Because my hair was long, I had to wear it in a cap
with a net attached to it. We were issued with safety shoes and it was mandatory
to wear them in the factory. It was a very clean, safe environment. At the end of
our shift, we apprentices had to clean our machines, sweep up the floor and put
all our tools away. That Compound was spotless and tidy before we went home!
When we began our apprenticeships, we really didn’t have any understanding
of the various engineering roles open to us, so we spent 18 months working in
all of the technical departments to give us an appreciation of what was involved.
We spent time in the Quality Department, Production Engineering, Power Train
Design, Jig & Tool Design and Tool Room Estimating where we were mentored
by the engineers.
There were also periods when we worked with the operators on the shop floor.
I remember assembling gears on the axle line, having the intricacies of a cam shaft
explained to me on the engine line and learning to use a spanner on the chassis line.
I also had a spell in rectification, repairing transmissions on finished trucks which failed
inspection when they came off the assembly line. All in all, I believe it was an excellent,
all round experience. When we had completed this general training, we selected
the area we preferred to specialise in, subject to the discretion of the department
manager. Technical Drawing was my passion and so I was delighted to get a
placement in the Tool Design Office.
Our apprenticeship also involved one day a week at College. During my first two
years at Leyland, I attended West Lothian College of Further Education in
Bathgate where I studied for my ONC in Production and Mechanical
Engineering. I then went on to Bell College in Hamilton to complete
my HNC.
The apprenticeship at Leyland was absolutely second to none,
in my opinion. Having spoken to people who have completed
apprenticeships with other companies, I don’t think I’ve come
across anyone tell me of a more comprehensive and thorough
training programme than the one we experienced in our factory.
When the plant closed, the Company made every effort
to ensure that we could complete our apprenticeships. They
found placements for us with various companies in and around
central Scotland. I left Leyland in May 1985, 3 months short of the
requirement for a 4 year apprenticeship, and so was fortunate to be
offered a position with Terex Equipment Ltd in Newhouse, and was able to complete
my qualification as a Jig & Tool Design Engineer.
Alan Marr
Elaine Harvey (née Swan)
used to do the Gala Day float
for Bathgate Procession Day.
Photograph courtesy
of Alan Marr
PAGE 31
BATHGATE
ONCE MORE
CHAPTER 6
WORKING CONDITIONS
For many the working conditions at BMC/Leyland were significantly
better than they had experienced in other industries. Others, however,
describe the conditions as basic. Health and Safety was taken seriously by both
Management and Trades Unions. The Company employed full-time Fire Safety
and Health Care staff and there was a Trades Union Health and Safety Group.
The canteen is remembered by many former workers but there were few other
onsite facilities.
I’d go back again!
It was one of the best places to get an apprenticeship… you
were trained in engineering – turning, milling, grinding. I turned
out to be a Grinder at the end of the day. I enjoyed my training,
and mixing with different people. The quality of machining and
the machine shop equipment was second to none. It was a
good training. I’d go back again!
It was really good. Completely
different from the brickworks and
places like that. Unless you worked
in a brickwork people don’t realise
how it was. You were working under
tremendous heat, you weren’t allowed
to strip to the waist, you had to wear
a blue vest but the heat in the kiln was
horrific. You went into the kilns in the
morning with a navy blue vest and
when you came out at night it was
pure white just with the salt and sweat
out your body. All you had was a wee
billy can sitting outside the kiln with
salt water because you had to drink
plenty salt water for the heat.
So the Leyland was a completely
Leyland Bathgate
Apprentices pictured
with their Instructors
including Harry
Anderson (far left)
and Charlie Low (far
right), August 1977.
Photograph courtesy
of Gary Vines
Graham Bennie
I would still
be working
in there
if it was
possible.
Gordon Cameron, BL Bathgate
Craft Apprentice, is presented
with first prize in the Turning
Competition at the Engineering
Industry Training Board Craftex
Competition (1981). This was
a national competition involving
apprentices from a range of
companies including John Brown
Engineering and Ferranti. This
was the first time that Leyland’s
Craft apprentices had entered
the competition. Another
Leyland Craft Apprentice, Robert
Finlay also won an award that
year; he came second in the
Milling competition. Afterwards,
BL Managing Director Tony
PAGE 32
Jordan and the Apprentice
Manager, Eric Mutter (senior)
presented Gordon and Robert
each with a special plaque from
British Leyland. The plaque is a
mount of the centrepiece of the
Albion Trucks Steering Wheel.
Gordon
Cameron
Photograph
courtesy of
Gordon Cameron
different situation. You were
reasonably well attired, your footwear
was fine, you werenae working in the
heat, it was all air conditioned. And, I
suppose for the people in the pits it
was a completely different situation
as well, not having to go down mines.
In the Leyland, you had toilets, you
had washing facilities…you knew the
hours that you were working, and had
better wages, better conditions, you
had unions, better conditions all round.
If anything was wrong you could go
and see a Foreman or a Manager and
they were very good at listening to
you and helped you quite a lot.
Alex Moffat
Wages
I started off earning £2 a week more,
then went up to earning £3 a week
more, than what I had been earning
as a baker. So for me it was brilliant
and because of the situation in the job
I was doing I could get overtime on
Saturday morning doing rectification to
try and clear up the backlog of maybe
engines which were lying about needing
rectified. So the overtime involved
allowed me to earn more money.
John Cooper
I actually went to British
Leyland for less money…
it worked out about £2.50 a
week less for my basic wage. But
the difference was after a wee
while you got certain bonuses,
and you also got the opportunity
to do overtime so that it actually
made it more. So after a short
time I was slightly better off.
Ian McFall
PAGE 33
THE CONDITIONS
WERE EXCELLENT
The factory was clean and tidy.
The toilets and washing facilities
were very, very modern. You
didn’t get that standard in
foundries I can assure you.
The only thing was you never
got a break between 7.30am
and 12.30pm. You could eat
something and drink something
but you had to move at the
same time. That was the only
thing I found unusual until you
got a properly agreed break.
Lots of people used to sit down
and they were disciplined for
sitting down in the very early
days. You weren’t allowed to
sit and have a cup of tea during
working hours. You had to wait
‘til your proper break and there
was only one a day and that
was from 12.30 to 1.15pm.
Harry McKay
Harry McKay was born in Armadale.
After school he trained as an
Apprentice Moulder in the Wee
Foundry in Armadale before joining
the BMC on Boxing Day 1961.
The BMC introduced the first
Christmas public holiday in Scotland
- up until then Harry had worked
every Christmas Day.
BATHGATE
HEALTH + SAFETY
If you were on the mills and drills, you were drilling steel all the time.
Well drilling steel causes stoor and it causes a lot o’ smoke and it
causes a lot o’ noise. On the Engine Line it was noisy tae because
there was a lot of things getting bumped together going into these
machines. My section there was a lot of noise in it but it wasn’t that
difficult - you had ear plugs if you wanted to wear them and, of course,
you always got gloves for your hands. Some people didn’t like to wear
gloves in case their fingers got caught in any of the machines or in the
lifting tackle but to protect your fingers from getting burnt or scratched
you were better wearing the gloves.
Temporary
kitchen, BMC
(1960)
© West Lothian
Council
Canteen
On the day shift if you
wanted to you could go
to the canteen… or you
sat in your section, you
got some truck seats,
maybe four in a circle,
so you could have a wee
game of cards at dinner
time and you just sat
there and blethered away,
had a wee game o’ cards
and ate your sandwiches.
H A RRY BRA D LEY
stuff, but it was basic…
It was a big canteen. It used
to have to take hundreds of
people at once so it had to
be a big canteen.
Alan Marr
The working conditions
were on the whole very
good. You weren’t asked
to do anything that was
dangerous although you
maybe crossed the line a
couple of times. They could
have had better facilities
for noise, I think, because
I do suffer from tinnitus
and I believe that’s where
I got it. There was a bit of
dust, carbon and stuff like
that, from cast iron and
that was never deemed a
problem but you must have
breathed tons of that stuff
in over your life. When
the sun came through the
windows you could see
this stuff hanging about
in the air.
ONCE MORE
CHAPTER 7
THE LEYLAND WAS A COMMUNITY
Trucks and Tractors weren’t the only products of the plant. Marriages
were made, lifelong friendships were formed, social events were organised,
and opportunities were created for workers and their families to take up a wide
range of hobbies, interests and sports, and get involved in community and
charitable activities. This helped to foster a great spirit of camaraderie in the
workplace. Social events, sporting achievements, promotions, marriages and
retirals were reported in the BMC World magazine Scottish Edition published
monthly throughout the 1960s.
Certain areas were
dangerous… but most
areas were okay. When
it came to fire security
the whole plant was
dangerous. I did the Fire
Service side of it. I was
always there on standby
when they were welding
in case a fire started, and
the machinery being old
and no being replaced the
fire potential was there for
the electrical equipment.
Even the paint plant was
a volatile place. Because
the plant had been up for
years there was a lot of
stoor and dirt in the rafters
and on the steel beams.
If that caught light fire
could travel right through
the block.
CREATIVE USE WAS MADE
OF THE FACTORY SPACE
Ian McFall
“THE MUSCLE MAN OF B BLOCK”
Hobbies & Sports
Caroline Bennie
There were some perks
We could get motor cars. You got quite a discount off the price of
a car roughly 15-20% off the list price. If you ordered an Austin the
Company would process the whole order and it would be delivered
to Bathgate but if you ordered a Morris vehicle you had to register
the car in Linlithgow and you had to go to England to collect it.
I got a job as a Clerkess in the Buying Department. I never worked
inside the plant. The office I was in was just outside the gates. It was
a wee prefabricated office. I got a discount off buying stuff. I got a
discount off my washing machine and a got a discount off the fire.
You got a sheet to go to this warehouse in Edinburgh to pick what
you wanted. It was about a 20% discount on mainly electrical goods.
the factory they’ve got big wheels that fits to the
engines, fly wheels and things, and all you needed
to dae was get one o’ them, a wee touch of a welded
collar on it and we had a wee bar bell goin’ and
we had a crowd of fellas, 10 and 20, I remember
training with the bar during the dinner hour.
A lot of the guys during
the break - they played
at darts, some of them
played at dominoes, some
of them played at cards,
some of them played at
chess. There wisnae many
things that didnae go on.
You had a’ the different
sports. Some of the guys
went away running, some
of the guys went out and
played at football.
My friend and I,
we were both in the
Badminton Club. We
used to play during our
break in a made-up court
inside the factory. It’s
amazing what you can dae
wi’ pieces o’ a tractor! You
know, exhaust pipes for
stands for the net...
Andy Kidd
Jean Kidd
Frank Leech
Walter Taggart
Harry Bradley
The canteen facilities
were excellent, I’ve got to
say. I’ve never come across
a canteen that gave you as
good helpings, good tasting
Within the factory there
weren’t any designated rest
areas. You made your rest
area where you worked. There
used to be a seat frame for
an FG cab. We used to use
these seat frames and just put
a cushion on top of the seat
frames and you basically sat
at your workplace and had
your piece, if you didn’t go
to the canteen.
Andy Hunter
If you didn’t feel well there was the First Aid room
with a rest area. You could go down and see the nurse.
They took care of everything.
Alan Marr
PAGE 34
Frank Leech in
training for the East
of Scotland Amateur
Weight Lifting
Championship.
He won the 10 stone
championship with
a lift of 25 lbs more
than his competitors.
The Newspaper article
is from BMC World,
October 1962.
the weight lifting in there. I do
W remember we
had the wee bar bell and in
E STARTED
PAGE 35
The company was
unbelievably good. They
allowed everybody to
have their project and
they encouraged you to
have a project. They had
golf, cricket, football, table
tennis, fishing, cycling.
Tam Brandon
They started a pipe band
in the factory - there were
that many ex pipers going
about. They were looking
for pipers and anybody that
wanted to learn. So I thought
I’ll have a go at this. I was
35 years old at the time.
Malcolm Black
Malcolm
Black playing the bagpipes
at the 1986 Commonwealth
Games in Edinburgh.
BATHGATE ONCE MORE THE LEYLAND WAS A COMMUNITY
CHAPTER 7
The runners looked to me because
I was the most experienced runner
in the plant.
I encouraged them to run. So if they
hadn’t run before I used to encourage
them to run at lunch time, and build
them up and then stretch them…
show them by example how to train.
At lunch time we just went round
what we called the Moss – that
would be about 4 miles.
Hugh Mitchell
from the Shettleston
Harriers winning
the 1964 Edinburgh
to Glasgow Road
Run. The Sports
Reporter is Duncan
MacLeod Wright,
the Scottish athlete
who competed for
Great Britain in
several Olympic
Games finishing
fourth in the 1932
marathon race.
Hugh Mitchell
John Lawrie (front
row, centre) holding
the Leyland Cup
having won the
1981 Bowling
Championship
Singles Tournament
There were
a good lot
of bowlers.
We played
ties. A good
crowd o’
fellas.
John Lawrie
PAGE 36
BMC Golf Club
Committee Member,
John Bell is pictured
after winning the
Clarkson Trophy in
its inaugural year,
1962. John was also
part of the BMC
golf team taking
part in the National
Championship
of the Scottish
Industrial Sports
Association; 50
other clubs also
competed.
The Car Rallies
My dad, John Bell was an Experimental Engineer
at BMC/Leyland plant from 1962-86. He and his
workforce road tested the trucks to find out how
they road handled. They did test drives all over
Scotland.
My happiest memory was helping my dad make
up the car rallies. You would have your own car and
there’d be a family unit there. It would start off at
the canteen and it would finish at the canteen. It was
all measured out on the speedometers of the cars.
So for example every half mile you’d have to stop
and there’d maybe be a question, or maybe there’d
be a box. Dad organised this. We would put boxes
of nuts and bolts out and you had to come back
with matching nuts and bolts. And we’d go round in
the morning to make sure that nobody had moved
either the boxes or some of the treasure or questions
overnight. It wasn’t any good just coming back with
any nut or bolt! Folk would come back with a nut and
a bolt and my dad would say ‘yeah, but do they fit?’
It had to be just right.
Lynne Bell
Photographs
courtesy of
Alex Binnie,
Joyce Brogan
and John Moore
When I became a Superintendant
I was eligible for the Executive
Association… which met fairly
regularly and I eventually became
Treasurer for the Association… One
of the Committee’s responsibilities
was getting speakers for the various
events we held. We used to get
Sandy MacDonald, who was the
Minister in Bathgate. Now, his son
David MacDonald – he became
David Tennant, Dr Who.
Andrew McKeown
social even ts
Some sections had a Social Convener who would organise
dances, outings, leaving dos and Christmas parties. In
other sections arrangements were more informal but there
were frequent “get-togethers for a pint and a blether”
arranged in pubs and clubs in West Lothian, including the
Leyland Social Club in Blackburn.
I was on the Social Club Committee. We used to run various
functions in the canteen. When the canteen was built it was the
biggest hall in West Lothian. We used to put on variety shows.
We had Billy Connolly when he was with Gerry Rafferty in the
Humblebums. We had wrestling shows, boxing shows – we used
to get the rings in from Shotts Boxing Club. Membership cards
There was a guy
courtesy of the
came in... He said
Bennie Museum
that he had a pop
group that was on
the way up and he
was wanting to book
the hall. As I say it
was the largest hall
in West Lothian. We
had 1700 people
seated at a wrestling
show so you can
imagine how many people we could have had in at a pop concert.
We said we have reservations about it because it’s a company
building… I believe we turned down The Who!
Andy Kidd
Sandy MacDonald,
Jimmy McGinley
and Jack Smart
were regular
speakers at the
Leyland Executive
Association Burns
Suppers. Programme
courtesy of John
Bell’s family.
Jim & Rena’s Marriage
My father started in December ’61 just a couple of months
after me, and he used to pass the office window when
he was going to pick up a truck and he used to give me a
wave. When Jim started he was actually working with my
dad to show him the ropes and, of course, Jim got into the
habit of giving me a wave and one day he waved me out
and asked me if I would like to go to the first BMC dance,
at the Maybury. Jim borrowed his brother’s car… and we
thoroughly enjoyed our evening. So that was our first date
and we’ve been together ever since.
Rena Hamilton
Jim and Rena Hamilton pictured at the Bathgate Once More
anniversary event, 27th June 2011. Rena (née Hay)
was already working as a Copy Typist in the BMC when, in
January 1962, Jim Hamilton started at the plant as a Driver,
working alongside her father. Jim and Rena married on 4th July
1964. ©Workers’ Educational Association
PAGE 37
CHAPTER 7
BATHGATE
ONCE MORE
CHAPTER 8
THE TRADES UNIONS
Special Visitors
Charity Work
We used to contribute to a charity.
Everybody in the plant, unless they
opted out, used to give a penny a
week off their wages... So therefore
if you had 3000 workers raising
a penny you had £30 a week for
charity... At a mass meeting of the
workers (that was the only way you
could get something like that passed)
I proposed that we increase it from
1 pence to 5 pence... We were
raising hundreds of pounds every
week from the workers. We then set
up within the Joint Shop Stewards
Committee a charitable organisation
where we were instrumental in
donating thousands of pounds to all
the various charities. We were buying
monitors for Bangour Hospital,
foetal monitors for the maternity
units and various other things. A lot
of the other industrial factories they
set up charitable organisations that
were donating these things as well.
Leyland set a lead.
Kenny Paton
Faith, Hope and
Charity - Trucks
for Cambodia
I must have been about 12…
My brothers and I used to love
watching Blue Peter. They had their
fundraisers every year and I remember
the year they decided they were going
to be sending trucks to Cambodia and
as soon as I saw that the trucks that
they were going to buy were coming
from the Bathgate plant I couldn’t wait
‘til my dad got in from work.
‘Dad, why are they having to buy
the trucks from you? Why can you
not give them for their funding?’
Elaine Harvey
All of the workers gave a quarter
of an hour extra, took a quarter
of an hour off their dinner for a
fortnight, and that made up the
money to pay for these three
lorries…Everybody felt good about
it because we were doing something
that was needed.
Glen Munro
I remember when the Queen was coming and there was a great amount
of activity then because they were brushing floors and scrubbing floors and
painting the corridor where she was coming down in the centre of B Block.
The first two or three machines leading on to the passageway where she
was going down were painted, and everybody had to wear clean overalls.
Alex Moffat
I remember the Queen coming. I remember she had a yellow coat on
and a yellow hat. She drove through the plant in an open jeep. It was
one of the office girls Jeanette Kerr, in Material Control, who was chosen
to present the Queen with a bouquet.
Joyce Brogan
PAGE 38
Photograph
courtesy of
Alex Moffat
We had a big Open Day. I took my son.
I think Scott was aged 3 and I took
him up through the plant to show him
where his dad worked... It was a great
day. It was a really, really fun day.
The highlight of it was a helicopter
came across and the parachute guys
came oot and dropped onto the spot
and they passed a baton over to
Charles Archer, the Managing
Director, and that baton lay in the
Managing Director’s office for as
long as I can remember.
Andy Hunter
I can mind I met Jim Watt, the boxer.
He’d finished boxing by that stage but
he had been the World Champion. He was
along at an Open Day - people could bring
their kids in to see round the plant.
Ian McFall
Trades Union
representatives,
Ian Tennant and
Stan McKeown
are presented to the
Queen during her
visit to the factory
on 5th July 1968.
Photography
courtesy of
Ian Tennant
Almost all workers in the Bathgate BMC/Leyland plant
were trades union members. The Joint Shop Stewards
Committee (JSSC) was the forum for all blue collar unions
to meet, work together to resolve problems and negotiate
with Management on wages and conditions. The JSSC also
represented Bathgate members on the UK-national Trades
Union Combine, the Trades Council and at STUC meetings
and conferences.
Trades Union
membership cards
courtesy of John
Lawrie, Hazel
Marjoribanks and
Margaret Mutter
There were 9 unions in the factory
My union has changed its name a few times but it started off the Amalgamated
Engineering Union (AEU)... We had about 2000 members that would be roughly
a third of the workforce. Then there was the Transport and General Workers’
Union (TGWU) who had the track workers, and the Vehicle Builders Union also
had track workers. They eventually amalgamated into one union. Then there was
the Foremans’ Union, ASTMS (Association of Scientific, Technical and Managerial
Staffs) and the Office Draughtsmen were in TASS (Technical, Administrative and
Supervisory Section). There was the Sheet Metal Workers, the Boilermakers,
the Electricians, the Pipefitters – they were all separate unions.
Jim Swan
The 1966 Scamp Inquiry
What became known as the ‘Scamp
Inquiry’ was set up in 1966 in
response to government and trade
union concerns over the level of
productivity at BMC Bathgate. The
previous year, the Ministry of Labour
had sent an Industrial Relations Officer
to the factory to discuss ‘general
industrial relations matters’, and
had found that the management at
Bathgate felt that the main problems
facing the plant were a lack of
discipline amongst the workforce,
including what they described as a
‘one out, all out’ attitude, and related
low levels of output. In his report of
PAGE 39
Fundraising
I felt strongly that to be involved we should go
to trades union meetings down in England.
There was a Combine there where you had
representatives from different factories. They
met in Leyland Lancs, Birmingham, Coventry…
I was picked to go along with Chris Bett and
we were the spokespeople from Bathgate…
In the winter weather we were left many
a time sleeping overnight down in England in
the railway station because you hadnae the
money to stay in a hotel. We decided that
it just wasnae good enough...
So we came up with the idea – why do we
no have raffles but make it good raffles. So
they asked me to dae an exercise. I worked
it out that if everybody paid 10 pence off their
wages, it went directly into the Company off
their wages, maybe 7 or 8 pence of that would
be used in prizes and members were only
putting an extra 2 or 3 pence into the JSSC
funds. That was still a lot of money because
it accumulates. And so when you went to
meetings whether it be Edinburgh or Glasgow
you could say to the person ‘well there’s your
petrol money’. It was all done through C Block
from the Management side… It was really
successful. The prizes used to be a car a year
and then it went up to 2 cars a year.
Tommy Morrison
this visit, the officer concluded that
production difficulties at Bathgate
were closely linked to industrial
relations difficulties, and that these
problems were in turn exacerbated by
a feeling of distrust between workers
and management due in part to the
frequency of lay-offs and short-time
working. Later that year, the Ministry
received a letter from a Bathgate Shop
Steward who expressed his disquiet
CONTINUED >>
BATHGATE ONCE MORE THE TRADES UNIONS
CHAPTER 8
THE TRADES UNIONS
STRIKES
THE JOINT SHOP STEWARDS COMMITTEE
I’d been on strike 3 times – 3 occasions we were
on strike for petty things that could have been
talked over and settled… ‘It was too hot to work’.
That was the final straw for me. I says ‘I’ve had
enough’. I says ‘that’s it’. A lot of the disputes
were trivial, a lot of them were brought on by the
Management because if the workers went on strike
they wouldnae need to pay them layoff money.
A lot of strikes were engineered by the
Management that’s what I think.
Paul Kelly
Demarcation
I started on the big track on A Block. I’d be on the big track for about maybe 6
months. Then the EA van was transferred from Willenhall to Bathgate so a vacancy
arose for a panel beater and Gus Andrews who was Block Manager at that point
in time knew that I was a panel beater. He says ‘Andy, do you fancy going on to
panel beating on the EA vans?’ which I did do…I went to the Tool Stores, got my
tools wi’ a line off o’ Gus Andrews, and started repairing dents in vans but I hadnae
transferred my union. I was still in the NUVB (National Union of Vehicle Builders).
So I’m knocking away at an EA van and John Allardyce who was the Convener of
the Sheet Metal Workers Union at that point in time came and tapped me on the
shoulder. He says ‘Haw, What dae ye think your daein’. Of course I say, ‘Well, I’m
sortin’ the van. He said, ‘That’s a Sheet Metal Worker’s job’. He was very nice about
it. He says ‘Put your tools doon, you’ll need to sign a form and join the Sheet Metal
Workers’ Union’, which I did do and then that was me free to carry on repairing
vehicles… There were a lot of demarcation lines within the plant.
John Meffen, TGWU,
addresses BMC workers at
a meeting on the Banking.
Trades Union leaders had
to get silence and manage
large meetings of thousands of
workers in the canteen or on
the banking beside the A8 dual
carriageway. Decisions were
taken democratically by a show
of hands. Photograph ©The
Scotsman Publications Ltd.
Kenny Paton
Andy Hunter
The 1966 Scamp Inquiry continued
at the way in which the factory was
being run, drawing attention to the
impact of lay-offs on the workforce,
and asked that an official inquiry take
place. On the 25th of April, 1966,
a court of inquiry organised by the
Motor Industry Joint Labour Council
under the auspices of the renowned
industrial conciliator Sir Jack Scamp
met at the factory to discuss its
problems. The Ministry of Labour
felt that it could not make an inquiry
into production at a private firm, and
so discussion focused on industrial
relations issues, with the terms of
reference ‘to examine the cause and
extent of lay-offs at BMC (Scotland)
Ltd., Bathgate’.
PAGE 40
say ‘What is the problem?’ and I would
The Joint Shop Stewards Committee
try and analyse what the problem was
was going in the 60s. When I first
and say ‘look you’re no’ going to do
started in the plant the Convener was
yersel any good wanting to go out on
Stan McKeown – a very clever, very
strike, you’ll need to be constructive,
intelligent man. I admired him having
positive on what you’re going to do’.
to go up there and put forward an
As a Shop Steward and trade unionist
argument in front of 4000 people
we prevented more trouble within the
at a meeting in the canteen. You’d be
plant… Maybe one union would have
crammed in there and these guys had
a grievance with the plant and them
to get silence and put forward their
walking out would cause the plant
point of view and try and calm
to shut… so you had to sit in
down certain elements that
the Joint Shop Stewards
were wanting to walk
Committee and try and iron
out on strike. A lot of
out any problems to stop
times these guys had
strikes.
a grievance and a
It was exaggerated
complaint but walking
that British Leyland were
out the plant was
always on strike. I was
never the answer.
there 11 years and I think I
One of the most
was only on strike 3 weeks in
important things I learned
Photograph
in there as a Shop Steward was
total. The Joint Shop Stewards
©The Scotsman Committee meetings were very
that Shop Stewards weren’t
Publications
Ltd. positive and constructive in
instrumental in saying ‘right,
Licensor
www.
stopping a lot of the trouble within
we’re no getting that, let’s go
scran.ac.uk
the plant. We used to try and
oot on strike’. I would say 9
sort it out before it went to the
out of 10 of the times that
Management level.
people approached me with a complaint
or a grievance then I would turn round a
The court of inquiry was made
up of representatives of both the
BMC (Scotland) management and
of each of the relevant trade unions,
which included the Amalgamated
Engineering Union, the Transport and
General Workers’ Union, the Electrical
Trades Union, the Plumbing Trades
Union, the Boilermakers’ Society,
and the Amalgamated Society of
Woodworkers. Both management
and trade union delegates stressed the
difficulties that had been experienced
at the plant in building up its labour
force to the 1966 level of 5,000,
particularly as most of these workers
were new to the motor industry and its
working practices. Similarly, the trade
unions accepted that they had initially
found it difficult to establish and
organise themselves due to a high level
of labour turnover. The weaknesses
in the trade union organisation during
the plant’s early years was put forward
by management representatives as
one reason for a relatively high level
of unofficial strike action. According
to a dossier of statistical information
provided by the company, there had
been 117 unofficial strikes between
the plant’s establishment in 1961
and the time the inquiry took place
in 1966. 93 of these had occurred
before the official negotiating
machinery could begin, and 46 had
lasted for less than one hour. It is
PAGE 41
TGWU leaders including John Meffen
outside BMC Bathgate. Photograph
I was in the Transport and
General Workers’ Union, a’ the
men in Cab Trim was in that.
For a while I was the Minute
Secretary… I remember there
was trouble on the Line and the
Shop Steward came doon and he
says ‘Right we’re goin oot on the
Banking everybody’. And we said
‘Wait the noo, that’s stupid’ and we
stayed in… Well, Tommy Morrison
was the Convener at that particular
time and he got hud o’ the Shop
Steward and he gied him a hard
time. He says ‘you took a group
oot there for no good reason’…
Tom had an awful lot o’ sense.
Frank Leech
important to note that only one of
these strikes was over pay, and the
majority came under the category
of ‘working hours and conditions’, in
many cases linked to concerns over
the insecurity of employment within
the factory. Over the same time
period, there had been 16 incidences
of lay-offs and short-time working,
seven of which were a result of
the BMC (Scotland) management’s
inability to maintain an adequate
CONTINUED >>
BATHGATE ONCE MORE THE TRADES UNIONS
CHAPTER 8
THE TRADES UNIONS
HEALTH + SAFETY
The 9-Week Strike – a
watershed for wages and
conditions of employment
We made a major breakthrough in what
was called the 9-Week Strike in 1972.
Wages were increased easily by about
30 percent. There was an agreement on
a yearly increment. There was a move
towards what they called parity – a
comparable wage for people within the
industry, people within the company,
because other Leyland plants had
higher wages than Bathgate.
One of the biggest achievements of
that strike was lay-off pay. Lay-off was
a regular occurrence mainly during
the winter… you’d come up to your
machine and the Foreman would come
round and say ‘you’re on here, you’re
on there’. Within an hour you would get
somebody coming down and saying
‘you’re sent home’. The only reason
they would gie you is the trucks from
down South bringing component parts
werenae able to come up over The
Shap. So you were laid off and that
caused real issues and problems
within the plant…
John Moore
…But that wasn’t the end of it in terms
of improvement in conditions. We managed to
wring a sick pay scheme and also a pension scheme out
the company and ex BMC/Leyland employees like myself
are picking up that pension the day and it’s really helpful.
Leyland Motors itself had been going a hundred years and
they didn’t have these benefits and they got it too because
they had to give it to the whole Division. Whether all the
workers realise how important they were in these things I
don’t know but it was certainly a tremendous step forward.
Chris Bett
Mass meeting
of workers in
Inch Park.
Photograph
©The Scotsman
Publications Ltd.
Licensor www.
scran.ac.uk
supply of component parts, and the
remaining nine of which were caused
by similar problems due to strike action
elsewhere in the motor industry.
The Ministry of Labour’s official
report of the inquiry concluded that
‘the incidence of short-time working
was no more than a contributory
factor to the sum of interruptions to
production’. However, the trade union
delegates to the inquiry argued that
lay-offs and short-time working,
usually as a result of difficulties in
accessing supplies, were among the
main causes of discontent amongst
workers at Bathgate, as they created
an atmosphere of insecurity on the
shopfloor. Furthermore, they felt that
PAGE 42
this insecurity bred distrust of the
management amongst the workers
especially as there was often very
little consultation between the two
groups before men were laid off.
The Company, meanwhile, pointed
out that short-time working was a
common feature of working practice
within the motor industry, and that
in fact the factory in Bathgate was
not losing much more time to layoffs than the BMC’s other factories,
Kenny Paton was
instrumental in
stopping the use
of asbestos mats
throughout Leyland
Vehicles Ltd.
Having become
aware of the long
term health dangers
of asbestos, Kenny
researched and put
forward the case
to his Union, the
JSSC and Leyland
Management.
©Workers’
Educational
Association
As Maintenance Welders we had to go into an
environment that was very unhealthy. The
Heat Treatment Department had chrome
pipes that heated up to heat the various
engine components so as they would
become hard. Within these ovens… the
pipes or welds had to be renewed so
we would be put on a trolley on a roller
and you used to have to lie flat and go
in there and weld these chrome pipes. It
was like an oven when you were in there
and then when you were welding them you
were generating heat.
One of the major issues I found in the plant was
that when we were doing this in the mid ‘70s it
was custom and practice that whenever you
were going into these furnaces or wherever we
were sent to within the plant to do anything…
to get one of the Fire Department with you
because we were using burning equipment.
They brought with them an asbestos blanket for
you to either lie on so that you weren’t touching
the hot metal or they would hold it in case
something went on fire.
I was the Vice Convener of the Boilermakers
Union and I decided that because of the
warnings that one particle of asbestos going into
your lungs could actually kill you I decided to try
and stop them using asbestos mats… I therefore
took it to the Joint Shop Stewards Committee…
Kenny Paton
most of which were located close to
their supply networks in the English
Midlands. This was taken by some
trade union delegates as a sign that
the company management had
failed to understand the concerns of
their Bathgate workforce, for whom
stable employment and a forty-hour
week were paramount. One union
representative in particular argued
that the level of labour turnover, which
in 1966 stood at 16 per cent, was
indicative of the disillusionment felt by
many of the workers, many of whom
had had experience of unemployment
and had been led to believe that motor
industry work would be stable as well
as relatively well-paid.
However, it is important to note that
by the time the inquiry took place, it
was acknowledged by management
and trade unionists alike that the
situation with regards to both shorttime working and unofficial strike
PAGE 43
NEGOTIATING AN
ALCOHOL POLICY –
WE DREW THE LINE
We had two hotels selling beer and
whisky to our workers during the lunch
break and people would come in drunk...
I argued wi’ the Shop Stewards initially
that we should say to people ‘If you
come in drunk we’ll no be representing
you because you’re no just pittin yerself
in danger you’re pittin everybody else in
danger round about you’. We put that
out. Even if it was just the smell of drink
then that would be it. One of the things
that came out of that was there was
less people in the Engineering Union
getting into that situation because they
knew the score, we drew the line. And
then I ended up negotiating an Alcohol
Policy in the factory.
People through in Rolls Royce had an
alcohol policy and employee counselling
because they had had a lot of problems
and so had the shipyard people. It was
one of the industrial chaplains, a guy
called Donald Ross, great man, who
came through to see us and said ‘we
want to see if you can dae the same
thing in BL’. The people I had the maist
difficulty getting that through was the
workers because they were saying ‘why
CONTINUED >>
action was improving markedly. In
1965, the management had taken
the decision to increase the value
of stocks held at the factory from
£3.3 million to £4.5 million in order
to minimise supply shortages, and
it was agreed at the inquiry that
they would in future consult more
closely with the trade unions over
any potential problems. Equally, trade
union organisation within the plant
was becoming better established,
BATHGATE
ONCE MORE
CHAPTER 9
BATHGATE NO MORE
CONTINUED >>
should we hae a policy if it’s just going to
be a cop out for folk that want tae come
in drunk’ and, of course, the opposite was
the case. We were sayin’ the person who
comes in wildly drunk and abuses their
position will still get the sack but it’s the
ones who were off every Monday and
Friday who were alcoholics who were
daein it a’ the time but never were wildly
drunk that were gettin’ their fingers
injured an a’ that. That’s what the policy
was for and once you got them in that
situation you would then put them in a
procedure where they got counselled. It
was pretty successful once we got it in,
once we got it through the men and
said ‘No, this isn’t an easy option for
these people’.
©The Scotsman Publications Ltd. Licensor www.scran.ac.uk
b block had huge ambient noise
...when the 1974 Health & Safety at Work Act came
in you had to negotiate a policy with the Management...
Before that, a book came out called Hazards at Work and
the Convener at that time of the AEU, a guy called Bill
Kerr, decided that we should use our funds to purchase
100 books for our Shop Stewards. We all had one of these
books and the books demystified health and safety for us.
They had been written by people with workers in mind,
and we found out things that astonished us. For instance as
far as noise was concerned, the Health and Safety Officer
would say that ‘it was okay, noise levels are only one or two
decibels above the norm’, but what we found out when we
read the book was that it was exponential, in other words
one decibel was a huge jump you know, so people were
getting made deaf. There was a big argument going on for
a long time, right up to the factory ended, about what the
noisy areas were and how bad it was to work in, particularly
B Block which had huge ambient noise.
Jim Swan
Following the closure of the BL factory Jim Swan became a
Resource Worker with the Lothian Trade Union and Community
Resource Centre. He was responsible for carrying out hearing
tests with former BMC/Leyland workers. The hearing tests
were conducted using an audiometer and took place in Miners’
Welfares around West Lothian. As a result many hundreds of
former workers found they were entitled to compensation for
the hearing loss they suffered as a result of being exposed to
high noise levels in the factory.
Jim Swan
and the maintenance of a settled
Joint Shop Stewards Committee
was improving relations between
the shopfloor and the management.
Indeed, the factory’s General Manager
went as far as to praise the Joint Shop
Stewards specifically, saying that, ‘I
think in the last 10, 12, 15 months
the rational thinking of this group of
people has been of great assistance
to us as management in getting
implemented common sense in this
factory’. The inquiry certainly ended
on a positive note, with the Chairman
acknowledging the concerns raised
by the trade union delegates, and
PAGE 44
promising that the Bathgate factory
would be given ‘a fair crack of the
whip’.
Catriona Louise Macdonald
Archive material from Modern Records Centre,
University of Warwick – MSS.178/15,
proceedings of the Court of Inquiry.
In 1982 the Joint Shop Stewards Committee (JSSC) and their
members occupied the Leyland Bathgate factory to resist the sale
of the profitable agricultural tractor plant. The next day workers
at the nearby Plessey factory did the same to try to protect the jobs of
the largely female workforce. The BMC/Leyland dispute ended after a
month when workers narrowly voted to return to work. The JSSC and their
members continued to support the 3 month Plessey factory workers’ sit-in.
Two years after Leyland sold the tractor plant, the JSCC joined forces
with the staff unions in a Joint Action Committee to fight closure of the
remainder of the Bathgate factory. In 1984 the workers again occupied
the factory and the occupation lasted for a month but again the workers
voted narrowly to return to work. However, this gave the factory another
two years life before it closed on 27th June 1986 with the loss of the
remaining 2000 jobs.
THE MICHAEL EDWARDES’ PLAN
The really big problems came when
they hired a Michael Edwardes (British
Leyland Chairman). He was in the
same line as Beeching, the railways,
MacGregor, the pits, and I knew what he
was there for. He developed a Corporate
Plan and we searched for a while to find
out what this Corporate Plan was. He
put out a series of documents
and asked everybody to vote whether
they accepted his version of the
development of Leyland or no, and he
won hands doon. 7 votes to 1 was the
vote in favour of Michael Edwardes’
plan. That was right across the Leyland
Company. So after the result came out
PAGE 45
the National Shop Stewards met to
discuss it and the conclusion wis that it
was a scam, the intention was to close
plants, curtail the operation. So we were
delegated to go back and report back to
your plant the position of the National
Shop Stewards in relation to the plan that it should be opposed.
CONTINUED >>
BATHGATE ONCE MORE BATHGATE NO MORE
CHAPTER 9
BATHGATE NO MORE
CONTINUED >>
I’ll never forget it. We organised a
meeting in the canteen. There’d maybe
be 2500 of a workforce there that
mornin’ and I argued the case that we
should oppose Michael Edwardes’ plan.
I nearly got drawn off the platform
and I can understand the position of
the lads. ‘We voted 7 votes to 1 to
support the plan, what right have you
got to come and try and change it?’ So
that was the outcome of the Michael
Edwardes plan… At the end of the day
the number o’ people that came up to
me and said ‘sorry, you were right’. That
was after they got the word that they
were getting the boot. It was a rough
mornin’ that I can tell you but I hadnae
any qualms about daein it.
Chris Bett
It was just a total
bombshell
All the Shop Stewards got cried
down to a meeting with the new
Leyland Truck And Bus Group
Managing Director Ian McKinnon
and he said ‘Five minutes ago
we signed a deal with Charles
Nickerson to sell the Tractor
Production to Marshall Tractors’…
Jim Swan
I can remember it as if it’s just
now. Head Management were
in the front row, Trades Unions
were in the second row and I
think everybody just turned and
looked at one another. We knew
that the writing was on the wall.
When they were getting rid of a
tractor that was so good in the
farming industry, to take that
away, was a disaster.
Andy Hunter
Fighting the Sell Off of the Tractor Plant
We decided that rather than going
out on strike what we would do
was everybody would pay £1 into
a fund that the Joint Shop Stewards
Committee would hold and the people
who were working up at the Dispatch
would not dispatch any tractors or
tractor parts. So the first thing the
Management said was ‘Right, they’re
all off the clock’ which meant they
weren’t going to get paid so we then
walked up to the Manager in Dispatch
and said ‘you can get out of here, we’re
taking over Dispatch’, and he took a
while to do it but he went out, and we
paid the workers in the Dispatch area
and we kept that going for about 6
months and tractors piled up and when
the time was right we phoned up the
PAGE 46
various media and we said ‘get out
to Bathgate something is happening’…
The cameras began to come outside
the factory gates, and they said
‘what’s happening?’ And we said ‘we’re
about to occupy this factory’ and we
symbolically slammed the gates shut
and put a big chain on them… We
occupied the factory. It was to try
and let the people out there know what
was happening to us in the factory.
Frae oor point of view as union guys
I don’t know that we could have done
any mair than we did. We stood our
corner and got the best conditions
we could for our workers. The dice was
always going to be loaded against us.
Jim Swan
The Joint Action
Committee
The Joint Action Committee
continued to function up until the
closure. Just after the sit-in there
was a movement within the plant
to hive off part of the plant and
that was the tractor manufacturing
to Nickersons. It caused a major
split within the trades unions within
Bathgate because people in one part
of the plant, C Block the Tractor
plant, felt it was their entitlement to
make a decision on their job rather
than the Joint Shop Stewards making
an overall decision about the plant.
They took the decision to accept the
closure of C Block which eventually
led to the closure of the factory…
You always felt the factory was
going to close after the removal
of the tractor manufacture but it
was still a shock… I was the Vice
Chair of ASTMS at that point of
time and I was their representative
on the Joint Action Committee.
The demonstrations that took
place in Bathgate and elsewhere I
was part of that. I was involved in
demonstrations down in London on
the closure, visits to the Parliament
about the closure. I was part of most
of the negotiations that took place
up until the early part of ‘86 when it
became inevitable
that the
factory was
closing.
John
Moore
The Leyland Sit-In
IN COURT
We took ower the factory, it went for
2 or 3 weeks and then the Company
took out an Injunction against the Joint
Shop Stewards who were all named
on the Injunction. It comes up in the
Court of Session. We didnae contest
it ‘cos we couldnae afford a barrister.
Jimmy and the rest of them asked me
if I would go into the Court of Session
and observe the goings-on and report
back. So I went into the Court of
Session and it was packed, press in
the main, but Tam Dalyell was there.
So the Leyland barristers got up and
made their point that they wanted
to get their premises back because
of constraint of trade, that was the
legal terminology. I always remember
Dalyell got up in the court. The Judge
says to him ‘Mr Dalyell, sit down.
You’ve got rules in your place and I’ve
got rules in my place. Sit down. The
only people that are allowed to say
anything here are either the people
mentioned on the Injunction or their
legal representative’.
So everybody looked at me. I was
standing at the back. So I go down and
sit on the fancy benches wi’ the boys
with the wigs on. I just said ‘we’re only
ordinary working people fighting for
our jobs. I don’t understand the legal
implications in relation to constraint
o’ trade. If you put us oot the factory
there’s still a constraint of trade
because there’ll be naebody daein
anything, we’ll be on strike outside
as opposed to inside’. Anyway it didnae
wear. Oot!
…after it the lassies at Plessey sat
in and they went to the Court of
Session wi’ an Injunction. They argued
that constraint o’ trade was not
involved and the Judge accepted it…
Subsequent to that Thatcher changed
the law so that they could put you oot
under any circumstances.
Chris Bett
Our aim was to stop the closure if we could and if we couldnae stop the closure
we’d try to delay it as long as possible. We manned the gates and wouldn’t let
anybody in. We also went to what was then supposed to be the future Scottish
Parliament, the Royal High School in Edinburgh, and we held a big demonstration
there. We done everything in our power that we could to stop the closure.
Lenny Walker
PAGE 47
BATHGATE ONCE MORE BATHGATE NO MORE
CHAPTER 9
BATHGATE NO MORE
The Plessey Sit-In
The bravery and
bottle came from
the workers
We were absolutely petrified being in
a court. I remember there was one girl
fainted out of fear just before we went
into the room.
All the legal aspect did was buy
time. The bravery and bottle came
from the workers - some men, but
mostly women.
I was one of the solicitors. Paul
Laverty and I did it as a team. Jonathan
Mitchell though, as the Advocate, was
the brains so to some extent I was the
conduit - the person doing the running for
the legal work being done by Jonathan
Mitchell QC... The meetings with Ina
Scott, George Wilson and others would
almost invariably take place within the
occupied factory... the women were fairly
buoyant... It was actually fairly relaxed.
Access was restricted but not in terms of
barbed wire or anything like that simply
the doors were locked. To be fair the
management went away. They didn’t
seek to put in Sheriff Officers or anything
such as that. They might have had the
court action been unsuccessful. So there
was a kind of Mexican stand off. Getting
in to the factory was simply a matter
of turning up, identifying who you
were and you were invited in. Matters
were ongoing because the women
had to amuse themselves but it
was all very disciplined.
There was a loophole in the law
which Jonathan Mitchell exploited. It
was a significant legal victory but it was
a matter of finding a loophole. Ultimately
the loophole would have been closed
which is why I take the view that these
matters were political not legal, but
the legal challenge was important in
keeping the hopes alive. Ultimately, it
can only do so for a short period of time.
In due course, the legal battle was won
but the industrial war was lost.
Susie Bradley
Kenny MacAskill
Plessey Shop Stewards and workers outside Edinburgh’s High Court, 26th February
1982. Lord Kincraig withdrew a court order that he had made three weeks previously
requiring the women to leave the Plessey factory. ©The Scotsman Publications Ltd
I would say out of B Block which had
maybe 2500 workers in it, mostly men, the
biggest majority of the men’s wives worked
in Plessey... We used to go to the Plessey
dances maybe once a month up in the
canteen and it was like walking through
Leyland at times because every second
guy you met worked in Leyland. Ina Scott
was the Plessey Shop Steward...
During their strike my wife was one of
I think 80 workers who sat in, they wouldn’t
come through the gates. Ina and Jim
Swan had got thegither because STV had
asked them could they interview a couple
whose wife worked in Plessey and her man
worked in Leyland so because my wife
and I stayed next to Ina they put our names
forward. So we got a letter to say that STV
was coming to interview us... They come
into the house and set up the camera and
asked us what our fears was, how we were
living and how we were getting by from
day to day. In Plessey the women controlled
the kitchens and they were making food
like soup for all the workers. The interview
went out on a programme called This Week.
So they paid us £40 because they can’t
interview without paying you so my wife
took £20 down to the Plessey fighting
fund and I took £20 down to the Leyland
fighting fund.
When Kenny MacAskill who was
representing the Plessey women for no fee
went to the court to fight it for them word
came round B Block that the police were
going up to put the women out the gates
so the men downed tools and marched
up the railway to Whiteside but the police
went away. There were nothing done.
Harry Bradley
PAGE 48
We got handed a letter saying that everyone in the
Tractor Division was getting paid off, made redundant,
about 1000-1100 personnel. Wherever you worked in
the plant if your major job was to do with the Tractor
Division you were being made redundant. When the plant
closed I was absolutely shattered. I’d never, ever been paid
off before. No matter how good you had been at your job,
or how good an attender or anything.
They just decided the Tractor Division
was goin’ so you were goin’with it.
It was a disaster. At that time there was a massive
recession on and there wisnae any work so I was
made redundant and tried for a period of time to
get any type of job... I hated being unemployed. The
majority of the people that were in the factory were
in an age group where they thought that was them
settled for the rest of their working days. So when it
closed it was a complete financial and
a mental disaster for the people that
worked in it.
Alex Moffat
John Cooper
Coffin made by workers on Truck
Assembly to mark their last day of
employment in British Leyland.
Photograph courtesy of Alex Binnie
I don’t mind telling you I cried
because I was looking forward to my
family getting work there. The Leyland had a tremendous
input in the social life of people. You’ve got to understand
how many thousands of people worked in there…
and their skills were unsurpassed. I got that word and
I came home and I sat and I held my wife’s hand and
I said ‘we’re finished’.
Tam Brandon
I just could not believe that they
would shut that plant. I kept
saying to myself, and I wisnae alone, how can
they shut a place like this? It was a total shock.
Blackburn really suffered. The shops felt it.
They started to pull down the houses they
built for the Overspill.
Jim Bilsborough
I was there for a number of
weeks after the plant closed
because I had all these tools to
separate, have them labeled
and ready for dispatch to the
various BL factories in Coventry
and Birmingham and so on.
The parts that we were making
were being transferred, the
making of them, back down
South but not all to the one
factory. These tools had all
to be separated. I did it personally... There was no shopfloor
workers left when I was doing that job. There was staff in
the Planning Department because they were responsible
for the change over – the paperwork and drawings going
down South.
I was one of the
last people out the
factory because I could
handle a tractor and
a winch and I took all
the machines out. 600
machines and I never
©The Scotsman
damaged one and some
Publications Ltd.
of them were maybe
25 tons in weight…
Believe you me, you
maybe had only a
couple of inches to spare taking all these machines
out because they only wanted certain ones at first
and they were picking them.
Jim Hamilton
John Duncan
PAGE 49
BATHGATE ONCE MORE LOOKING BACK
BATHGATE
ONCE MORE
CHAPTER 10
LOOKING BACK
Within weeks of being
25 years on there is little physical evidence that the BMC/
Leyland factory ever existed in Bathgate but the story lives
on in the hearts and minds of the people who worked there
and their families. What can younger generations learn from
this important time in Bathgate and Scotland’s history?
LOOKING BACK on it I think
it was good for the area and
it brought all our children up
through the 25 years. But sadly
it wisnae there for our families
to go into and work and the
youngsters nowadays they
never hear about Leyland or they
say ‘Aw, that lazy place where
everybody was lazy and shoved
a brush’ which was totally
untrue. A lot of hardworking
people were employed there.
The factory was
isolated. There
werenae enough
nearby subsidiary
factories
supplying
Bathgate wi’
the likes of
bolts, nuts, sub
assemblies,
whatever. It was
all being brought
up from England.
Harry Bradley
John Cooper
PAGE 50
Members of the
Nuffield and
Leyland Tractor
Club with BL
tractors and
memorabilia to
show the children
of Simpson
Primary School at
the Bathgate Once
More anniversary
event, 27th June
2011. ©Workers’
Educational
Association
elected (Member of Parliament for
West Lothian) early in the summer
recess, I went to Birmingham…
I was invited to lunch in his plush
office dining room, by Mr George
Harriman, the crusty old boss of
Austin at Longbridge. With him
was Alec Issigonisis, the genius
designer of the Mini… I shall never
forget what Harriman said to me,
as I was leaving at the end of the
lunch. ‘Dalyell, I am an old man
and you are a young man. Before
you come to retire as MP for West
Lothian I fear that the
Bathgate move will end in tears.
When this happens, please bear in
mind that we never wanted to go to
Scotland in the first place – we were
pressurised and incentivised by the
Cabinet to do so’.
Harriman was right. It did end
in tears. But that is not to say that
forcing the motor industry to come
to Central Scotland was not worth
doing. For a quarter of a century,
BMC Bathgate provided good jobs
which we would not otherwise
have had. In the context of the time
Government direction of industry
was far from stupid.
Tam Dalyell
Geoff Fishwick
©Workers’
Educational
Association
Postcard
courtesy of John
Bell’s family
IT HAS A FANTASTIC PLACE in the history of this area. If you look at
the mid to late ‘50s this area was depressed, and really depressed. It was
a political decision taken by the Tories in the ‘50s. They obviously realised
that you had to get people working. It was social engineering. Thatcher
did it in the wrong way but this was done in the right way. It proved that
you can take people with very little skill and make them very useful in a
productive sense and give them a sense of belonging, a sense of pride
because there was a lot of pride in Bathgate… It put a lot of money into
this county every week. It provided for Blackburn to grow…it provided
Whitburn with opportunity to expand. Bathgate did exceedingly well out
of it during the ‘60s and ‘70s. I’ve heard people decrying the Leyland
experience but it was really an excellent piece of social engineering.
Ian Tennant
I’m surprised that there
wasn’t sufficient expertise at
the right level to realise that
to build a plant… 300 miles
from the Midlands couldn’t
succeed unless you insist that
your major suppliers set up
satellite factories all around
the producing factory. This
was Linwood’s problem.
Nobody’s going to bring the
components, which every
manufacturer uses to build a
vehicle no matter what badges
are on the front of the vehicle,
300 miles from Birmingham to
Scotland and back with driving
hours meaning the driver has
an overnight stay… without
increasing the price of the part.
So you’re on a loser before
you’ve put a nut and bolt
together.
Geoff Fishwick
PAGE 51
Frae the ‘50s,
‘60s, ‘70s we
were at the
forefront of
engineering
throughout the
world, frae the
ship building
to motor
manufacturing
and I think
we were
instrumental in
getting a lot of
industry going…
We’ve got to
expand our
brains and think
positively and
jump ahead of
our competitors
and try and
manufacture
stuff again.
Kenny Paton
It was a great
grounding
for an
apprentice
because it was
something
different
every day…
most of the
apprentices
are still really
doing so well.
Alan Marr
DInnae blame the workers of
Bathgate. They were good workers.
They adapted well to factory work. You
get the ‘Aw they did nothin’ up there’.
We couldnae have produced what we
produced if naebody was workin’. So
that’s a fallacy that. There were some
jobs better than others, some jobs
cleaner than others, but overall the
people that was there, whatever they
got paid, they worked for that. Looking
back, it’s a shame the way it ended and
the reasons for it.
Tommy Morrison
BATHGATE ONCE MORE LOOKING BACK
The Bathgate Songs
IT WAS A POLITICAL MOVE
to bring the factory here and it
was another political move to close
it again. We shouldn’t be playing
politics with people’s jobs like that.
That sticks in the craw a bit. When
the factory was here okay they had
their troubles and there were strikes
and different things but we werenae
worse than anywhere else. We made
some good stuff here. We made
some very good stuff. But with a big
place like that you always had your
knockers, there were always people
that run us down and gave us a
hard time, but we did a good job
basically as far as I can see.
Former workers
and project
contributors
at the Bathgate
Once More
anniversary
event,
27th June 2011
John Weir
Guthrie Aitken and Harry McKay
at the Bathgate Once More
anniversary event, 27th June 2011
The main thing I liked about it was
the companionship. There was a
fine lot of lads there.
Alex Moffat
They were the best bunch o’ guys
ever I worked wi’. I still see quite
a few of them yet and I’m still
friendly with a few of them yet.
Jim Swan
©Workers’
Educational
Association
Walter Taggart
PAGE 52
One of the things that West
Lothian learned was
don’t have all your eggs
in the one basket. In
the ‘80s we were
heavily dependent on
manufacturing and
coal extraction, we
hadnae anything else to
balance our economy. So
far we’ve managed to get
on. We’re coming to it again.
The main employers now in West
Lothian are the hospital and the Council
so people have got to be aware of that,
we’re back in that situation again.
Jim Swan
The BMC/Leyland factory site is now home to Simpson
Primary School. In early 2011 as part of the Bathgate
Once More project the children of Primaries 6 and 5
and Primaries 4 and 5 of Simpson Primary School
worked with local songwriter Ewan McVicar to write
songs, make pictures and research the story of BMC/
British Leyland plant. The children performed two of
their songs at the Bathgate Once More anniversary
event on 27th June 2011.
ALL AROUND THE WORLD
Lyrics by P6 and 5,
Simpson Primary School
Tune: I Ziga Zumba, from South Africa
British Leyland trucks and
tractors
Built in Bathgate factory
We found pictures, we wrote
stories
On our website, come and see
They were sold to different
countries
Finland, Sweden, Russia ya ya
Kenya, Ghana and Uganda
Argentina and Brazil zil zil
In the 60s and the 70s
Bathgate was a vibrant town
People worked in the plant
From the places all around
Blackburn, Whitburn and
Linlithgow
Ladywell and Livingston tun
tun
Boghall, Uphall and Torphichen
Addiewell and Armadale dale
dale
Before 1961
On the site there was a farm
Where they built the massive
plant
And the vehicles were made
In 1986 there came a big
alarm
HERE IN BATHGATE TOWN
Lyrics by P4 and 5,
Simpson Primary School,
Tune : Ni Wapi Banana, from Kenya
There was a sad
announcement
“We are going to shut you
down down down!”
When the workers heard the
bad news
There were frowns all round
the town town town
The workers tried to save it
They held protests, they sat in
But their hard work was in vain
They felt angry, they were
glum
Then there came a giant car
park
Where the factory had been
been been
Till at last they built a village
And again the place was green
green green
In the year two oh oh seven
Oh seven, oh seven
They built a school called
Simpson
Our brilliant primary
Our brilliant primary
Example of artwork by children
of Simpson Primary School
Four years ago they built a
school in BATHGATE!
So we will never be fools in
BATHGATE!
Simpson Primary is cool in
BATHGATE!
Here in Bathgate town
They piled up the earth with
big machines in BATHGATE!
They were really keen in
BATHGATE!
Then they stopped and had a
plate of beans in BATHGATE!
Down on Castle Road –
BATHGATE!
There used to be a castle on its
own – BATHGATE!
I bet they didn’t have a phone
– BATHGATE!
Do you think they had a big
pipe band – BATHGATE!
At the opening ceremony –
BATHGATE!
Of the truck and tractor
factory – BATHGATE!
There were ancient farms in –
BATHGATE!
A house and a midden and a
barn in – BATHGATE!
Crops and cows and lambs in –
BATHGATE!
That was fifty years ago in
BATHGATE!
After twenty five years it had
to go from BATHGATE!
Now we live there you know in
BATHGATE!
On a grassy field on a farm in
BATHGATE!
A different kind of plant was
born in BATHGATE!
Not tatties or carrots or corn –
BATHGATE!
PAGE 53
BATHGATE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This publication has been produced as part of the Bathgate Once More project which aimed to
research, record and preserve the story of the BMC/Leyland Truck and Tractor plant in Bathgate
from the perspective of the people who worked in the industry. The project was led by the
Workers’ Educational Association (WEA) with the help of a great many people and organisations
who gave their time, knowledge and enthusiasm to the project. The WEA would like to thank
all the people and organisations who have contributed to the making of this publication especially:
Guthrie Aitken
Chris Allen
Lynne Bell
Alex Binnie
Caroline Bennie
Graham Bennie
Chris Bett
Jim Bilsborough
Malcolm Black
Janette Bond
Harry Bradley
Susie Bradley
Tam Brandon
Joyce Brogan
Elizabeth Bryan
Gordon Cameron
Margaret Campbell
Harry Cartmill
Sybil Cavanagh
Gordon Chalmers
John Cooper
Tam Dalyell
Bruce Davies
Tom Devine
John Duncan
Geoff Fishwick
John Fleming
Helen Foster
Neil Fraser
Gavin Grant
John Gray
James Hamilton
Rena Hamilton
Elaine Harvey
John Hastings
Elizabeth Henderson
Andy Hunter
Dorothy Hunter
Berian James
Helen Jeffery
Paul Kelly
Andy Kidd
Jean Kidd
Lesley Kinloch
Tony Kizis
John Lawrie
Frank Leech
Jim Love
Kenny MacAskill
Carole McCallum
John McCaughie
Fred McCormick
Jim McCulloch
Catriona L Macdonald
John MacDonald
Ian McFall
Dougie McIndoe
Harry McKay
Andrew McKeown
David MacPherson
Ewan McVicar
Hazel Marjoribanks
Alan Marr
Rab Marshall
Dougie Miller
Hugh Mitchell
Alex Moffat
John Moore
Tony Moore
Vince Moore
Tommy Morrison
Bob Muir
Glen Munro
Ross Murray
Eric Mutter
Margaret Mutter
John Paterson
Kenny Paton
Bill Raine
Janice Rhind
Cecilia Rose
Malcolm Simpson
Billy Steven
Jim Swan
Walter Taggart
Ian Tennant
Gary Vines
George Waddell
Lenny Walker
Selby Wands
Janice Wimpenny
John Weir
ONCE MORE
The Story of the BMC/Leyland
Truck and Tractor Plant, 1961-86
The volunteers of
the Bennie Museum,
Bathgate
Heritage Lottery Fund
The Living Memory
Association
The Nuffield and Leyland
Tractor Club
The Royal Commission on
the Ancient and Historical
Monuments of Scotland
The children and staff of
Simpson Primary School,
Bathgate
STUC Archives, Glasgow
Caledonian University
Voluntary Sector
Gateway
West Lothian Courier
West Lothian Local
History Library
West Lothian Trades
Council
PAGE
PAGE
5400
Photographs courtesy of Caroline Bennie,
Jim Bilsborough, Alex Binnie,
Gordon Cameron, Dorothy Hunter,
Andrew McKeown, Dougie McIndoe,
Alan Marr, Tommy Morrison
BMC Cab Trim (1961),
Photograph courtesy of Tommy Morrison
For 25 years Bathgate was at the centre of Britain’s giant motor vehicle
industry. This book tells the story of the coming of the British Motor
Corporation (BMC) factory to West Lothian in 1961 through to the
plant’s closure in 1986. It is based on the first-hand accounts of some
of the many people who worked in the industry.
ISBN 978 0 902303 74 4
The Workers’ Educational Association is a charity registered in England
and Wales (number 1112775) and in Scotland (number SCO39239) and
a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (number
2806910). Registered address is WEA, 4 Luke Street, London EC2A 4XW

bathgate

Transcription

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