Third Post - The Foundry

Hello Again,

After i gave up my job at corona and did a little bit of farming that summer i stayed at home all winter and most of the spring until the next September 1970 ish. My mother went into hospital and she decided to go into a home, i wasn't very good at looking after myself, so the doctor and the woman next door decided that it was best for me to stop in a hostel, so i did. I had to go to work from the hostel, i got a job on a foundry after about 3 weeks. A foundry is a place that makes machine parts. The foundry was in Newcastle, I did that for about 18months, i was even trusted to let the hot metal out of the furnace, into the casting bucket. I did that for about 3 years. I left one or two times and went back again, in the mean time i started to go home at weekends. After the first 18 months i decided to go home for a while and go to work for the foundry. I managed very well for the first 6 months, then i went to Blackpool one Easter and i had a bad turn and ended up in hospital. so i went back to the hostel. In the mean time it had been decided by those who run the hostel that I should go to into sheltered accommodation. This was a difficult time on my life, more difficult than the first time i was ill in 1965ish.

I volunteered to go and live in emberton street wolstanton in a shared accommodation, there was about six of us, we all shared a room each two to a room with other people who were experiencing mental ill health.

I was still working at the foundry. I stayed at the house for 12months then i decided to go back home because we never sold the house so i could still go back there. I tried a job at Hanley in the training centre in clough street, you worked there to train , earned a wage packet but it didn't affect my green card benefits (disability card) I trained to be a machine operator, they also said that they would get me a job down campbell road at trentside engineering, doing a bit of metal work.i went there for a trial for a week and at the end of the week they said that i could get the job. In the mean time i decided that it was too far to travel, on two buses. So the training centre got me on another course GEC milehouse doing the same thing, only i went to the training school for three months, this was also on a grant of some sort. At the end of the course they gave me a job pressing staters into shells into electric motors for milking machines and washing machines for canada.

The trouble was i was cutting the wires off by accident! i did it for three days and then asked if they could find me a labouring job instead. he said he would and i was working at the same area as i was pressing the shells in but this time i was loading a belt. I did that for about 5 more years. They then moved the plant from the bottom factory to the top and divided the motor sections up. I went to the top factory where the B25 motors were (BIG 1's) there i was putting the motors ready for the builders, i did that for about 4 years. They then put the plant back as it was when i first went there. I went back to the bottle factory. I was still putting motors on belts for the builders.

Its worth mentioning that for all this time i was still helping Sirrel at his farm. He had another one now at Maildley.

I bought myself an old tractor with the money that i had been earning at the factory. It was a David Brown 25D it was red and it had shortened mud guards and was diesel. I gave £70 for it. It needed a new set of tyres which i put on. The two back tyres cost £68 for the two. I had to put a new one on the front too that cost £10. The other front one was ok. I also fitted up lights which i had from potteries diesel Fenton. One of the lads at the factory told me where to go.

I was doing this whilst i was still working at GEC. When Sirrell got the farm at Maidley i had a plough made up for the Ferrgison and ploughed the Maidley farm 6 acres. It was only a small field because the rest of the farm was 176 acres!

I sewd the field with the Massey Harris Corn Drill and also we used the D25 for working and sewing the land. I was happy doing what i liked which was moving around. I found farming a little lonely after the first time i was ill. But i have always gone back to it, and if i was fit and well enough to do it now then i would.

I only had to go to work for the money! People tend to move on, but i tend to stick to the past & go back to what you know & was bought up from a young age helping my dad buy farm equipment. i bought a mowing machine with him when i was 3 or 4 in 1946 ish for 30 shillings & it worked for 12 years!

when it was all done by the tractor a man always had to sit on top of it to oportate it because it wasn't really designed for a tractor!

But to get back to the story... when the summer came in at Sirrels farm i had already bought a B23 mower to fit the D25 tractor. I paid £37 for that to a farm at Bortolley i first used it on the Maidley farm. I started to cut the first field with it and i cut about 20 acres with it. Sirrell also bought another second hand tractor which was a 165 Ferrguson and the Fergusson 70 mower. Which he got from selling 20 acres away . He sold some of the land for mowing the money he got for that bought the tractor and the mower. He also bought a new bailer! which cost 1100 pound! it is still there today in working worder and it is still used today! It is now 30 years old it was bran new when we had it in 1976.

i'll leave it at that for now & write again soon.

Ken