Topic: Mystery Object ...from Nazeing

[Frank]

Max don't worry, traffic lights are pretty, we have a complete set including housing here  I can understand the excitement you felt... imagine when I got my first pieces of Gauge glass - scroll down to the first non-catalogue image to see them here http://www.ysartglass.com/Moncrieff/Moncrieffgauge1.htm

Yet to find a good method of display.

[David E]

Nice glass there - I like that paperweight as well!

I have some archive photos (black & white) of headlamp lenses being pressed, and also the automatic welding of the fronts of cathode ray tubes (TV tubes), which was an evil-looking machine

So I'd like to see those photos if at all possible :ac1:

[Adam]

Max, sorry I wasn't contradicting you, somehow I didn't see your confirmation of Nazeing before my last posting.  That answers very neatly my comment that, UNLESS someone else had taken over Holophane jobs then it was Davidson.  As Pollock-Hill senior would certainly have been aware of, and probably seen our Holophane production then it isn't surprising that the work ended up there.  I had assumed, without checking, that Holophane had vanished like nearly everyone else whom I once knew!

Adam D.

[Max]

I had assumed, without checking, that Holophane had vanished like nearly everyone else whom I once knew!

Ahh...well, at least Holophane is still doing well Adam!  Maybe the simplest designs are the best and have most longevity?  Perhaps you could take a factory tour at Nazeing, some items could be a real blast from the past for you.    I don't know why, but I thought you worked at Sowerby's, not Davidsons...I don't know where I got that assumption from.     

Andy McConnell told me an anecdote about Nazeing Glass collecting a whole lot of moulds from Sowerby - apparently they were transported back to Nazeing in a flat bed lorry.  Tragically, the lorry tyres met a pothole whilst in transit, the lorry shuddered, the floor gave way and the whole load of moulds fell out onto the motorway...

 

[Bernard C]

... I don't know why, but I thought you worked at Sowerby's, not Davidsons...I don't know where I got that assumption from. ...

Understandable, Max, as Dodds is possibly the third most frequently met surname in Cottle, after Sowerby and Crane.   It was Adam's grandfather who introduced Sowerby's Tynesyde glass in the late '20s.   His unique career spanned all three glassworks, Sowerby, Davidson and Jobling.   Collectors particularly associate Adam with Davidson's Briar (aka Topaz Cloud).

... Andy McConnell told me an anecdote about Nazeing Glass collecting a whole lot of moulds from Sowerby - apparently they were transported back to Nazeing in a flat bed lorry.  Tragically, the lorry tyres met a pothole whilst in transit, the lorry shuddered, the floor gave way and the whole load of moulds fell out onto the motorway ...

To misquote the Australian barmaid at the start of Crocodile Dundee, that story gets better every time I hear it.   The original, in Cottle, is probably too long to quote here without permission, but has a furniture lorry as its star player, no tyres, no potholes, no shuddering, and no motorways.   I hope Andy McConnell's books are as much fun as his anecdotes, and that his publisher has left nice big margins for pencilled notes. 

This is just one of the two lorry anecdotes.   The other was related by Adam in an earlier GMB, sadly now lost, and involved Davidson collecting the last of the flint (non-Pyrex) moulds from Jobling in the early '60s.

Bernard C. 

[Max]

Ooh Bernard, I just laughed and dribbled tea on my trousers!  :cry:

Well, maybe the lorry/moulds thing is just getting better with the passing years...a bit like me.    

If I pass that anecdote on anywhere else, I think I'll add something to it, and see if it's relayed back to me at some point.  Maybe I'll have a swarm of bees nesting in one of the moulds, escaping into the lorry drivers cabin and rendering him blinded....thereby crashing...moulds fall out on motorway...blah blah.... 

[David E]

Chinese whispers - a famous one ferom the first world war was:

Send reinforcements we're going to advance.

after much repeating became,

Send two-and-six, we're going to a dance.

Perhaps Adam could reprise his original anecdote? Providing it doesn't involve two-and-sixpence as well! 

[Adam]

Max - Press moulds are very, very heavy! 

David - The story to which Bernard refers wasn't really comical at all, but here goes.  I moved from Davidson to Jobling in 1961, just a few months after Jobling had stopped all non-"Pyrex" production, i.e closed down what they called their Flint Factory, which was really just a department.  Jobling didn't mess about and would want everything cleared out.  Some time in the following year or so I was walking across the yard and saw Davidson's old Bedford tipper which was collecting Jobling moulds.  I only mentioned this on the GMB because there had been some doubt expressed as to where Jobling moulds had gone.  I think what amused Bernard was that I said I had talked to the driver but that I was more interested in the old wagon (which I knew well) than in the moulds.  I had put that part of my career behind me and industrial archaeology had hardly been thought of.

The reason I knew the wagon so well does perhaps give an insight into the run-down state of Davidsons while I was there.  Although the wagon was only used for maybe a couple of times a week, mainly to take rubbish to the tip, it had a full time driver (typical of one of many causes of our problems).  He died suddenly and it was decided not to replace him.  We had a labourer who had been taught to drive our crane and it was decided that he could do both driving jobs, apart from the detail that he had never even driven a car!  I was the only person in the company who had driven anything bigger than a car and being young and daft I volunteered for the job of teaching this chap on the Bedford.  There were no HGV licences in those days.  A powerful incentive was of course that, until he passed his test I had to do the tip runs myself!  I'm proud to say that he passed first time and I was able to go back full time to being production manager!

The Bedford was pretty well beat-up long before I got my hands on it, but hopefully the bottom didn't fall out on the way back from Joblings that day.

Anne - Is there no way now of putting a two line potted biography on our profile?  On the old board I had my employment history, which saved time sometimes when replying to queries.

Adam D.

[Anne]

Anne - Is there no way now of putting a two line potted biography on our profile?  On the old board I had my employment history, which saved time sometimes when replying to queries.

Yes indeed Adam, click the tab above the forum called Profile. Once in Profile click the Forum Profile Information link under the Modify Profile heading. That shows the info which is publicly available about you on the board. You can add your two line potted bio either as your Signature or into the Personal Text box, or have something in both.  Does that help?

[Bernard C]

Adam — Many thanks for your memories — really appreciated.   I look forward to more.

Further to Anne's information, the Personal Text box gives you one line immediately below your "England" on the left, maximum about 50 characters, with no control by you over line breaks.   So you could use this for something like "Retired HGV Instructor" or whatever.   The Signature box appears below each reply and gives you 256 characters and more control, as you can use normal line breaks and bbcode to enhance and position the text, in the same way as posted messages.

Bernard C.