Great old industrial photos

Concrete Dreams said:
I have just read some excerpts from it. There is a brutal description of two men falling into a blast furnace and the process of getting the bodies out and then just continuing the shift!
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I have a theory about this. It's a bit vvanky but here goes. That brutal working background you describe is where we all came from, it's our roots. And I think that our social culture: the way we are with each other, our humour - brutal in itself - and that streak of negativity we all carry around inside us ("The Boro'll always let you down, son"), well that all comes from the uber-working class roots of the people who went before us. They worked in brutally harsh conditions and that informed their wider outlook. Down the generations it passed on to us. The heavy industry is just a memory but the other stuff still hangs around.

Told you it was a vvanky theory. But it is what I think.
 
HarryVegas said:
I have a theory about this. It's a bit vvanky but here goes. That brutal working background you describe is where we all came from, it's our roots. And I think that our social culture: the way we are with each other, our humour - brutal in itself - and that streak of negativity we all carry around inside us ("The Boro'll always let you down, son"), well that all comes from the uber-working class roots of the people who went before us. They worked in brutally harsh conditions and that informed their wider outlook. Down the generations it passed on to us. The heavy industry is just a memory but the other stuff still hangs around.

Told you it was a vvanky theory. But it is what I think.
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The chapter on family life and schooling supports that theory. It states the town had a low view of education and families wanted sons to work from the age of 13 upwards. Even if they were not working, families would still remove them from school. She goes on and states that she is in no doubt that the future of Middlesbrough would be limited by this. She has hit the nail on the head with that observation!
 
redblood said:
Roofie,
I worked on the Sydney harbour bridge for over ten years from the early nineties until 2001.
We couldn't wear hard hats due to the wind and the danger that would have meant to the public or harnesses
for that matter as they were restrictive to our movements and more of a danger to oneself. Particularly when we
were carrying planks for erecting work platforms on the underside of the bridge. Besides that, there was basically
nothing to attach one to as the underside is predominantly vertical flat steel panels.
Loved working on that bridge, my footy teams name was everywhere you looked and was so proud of that fact.
Dorman Long Middlesbrough.
Over the years after covering almost every inch of that bridge, I came across a couple of girders with the name
Skinningrove. Very rare indeed but was excited to see them and another reminder of home.

Harry and Scuba mentioned small world on this thread and I, sadly, had an experience that only came to light
several years later.
On my very first day on the bridge I was given the freedom to wander around the bridge and make myself known
to other employees and check out the varying work positions and procedures.
I went up the arch to the south east crane and was chatting to the operator when we noticed a young schoolboy
climbing up the safety fence. The operator was yelling out for him to stop and get off to no avail as the traffic and
train noise drowned him out. We at that time had no idea of his plans.
To our horror, the kid managed to scale over the three strands of barbed wire and threw himself off.
Several years later my wife came home from school and told me the unbelievable.
A teacher new to the school had asked my wife if her husband was a teacher also, like her partner.
My wife said no, he's a crane operator on the SHB.
The woman broke down in tears, my wife had no idea what the hell was going on or what she had said to make
the lady so distraught.
It turned out that it was her son that took his own life on my first day on the job.
Naturally my wife has kept that a secret from her.
That poor lady to this day blames herself and husband as it was them that put the kid under so much pressure
to do well in his final year of high school which obviously was way too much for him.
Small world or what?
Sorry didn't mean to put a downer on the thread.
Love and best wishes from Oz.
Stay safe.
UTB
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Very sad indeed.
Never easy to deal with even if its part of your job and even more so when it gets "close to home".

On a lighter note: I was planning to go to Sydney this December, before all this virus business - spend New Years Eve at the bridge and watch the fireworks. That looks 99% a no no now.
Such is life.
Say hello to the Boro rivets and girders from us Boro fans(y)
 
I guess that I must be a bit of a vvanker too.
I reckon that you're absolutely spot on.
I've lived in Oz for the past fifty years and I can say for certain that my childhood upbringing and memories of my grandparents
home in Warrenby have stayed with me and forged me into the person that I am today.

One can never forget walking around Warrenby as a child holding my grandads hand as he was door knocking collecting whatever
he could for some poor family as they were experiencing hardship due to no workers compensation.
Or the look on some of their faces with sheer embarrassment because they too had nothing to give and the embarrassed faces of
the family that were receiving the handouts.
But then , there was always the humour to save the day amongst all the gloominess.

That stuff stays with you forever.
So proud to be a northerner.
Love from Oz.
UTB
 
G'day Roofie.
It was sad, and there were plenty others too. In the end, it stopped making the news there was that many suicides.
Plenty of good times too though.
If you ever do come over one day, I always suggest to people to actually walk over the bridge rather than pay through
the nose going on bridgeclimb.
Walk over the eastern side of the bridge on the footpath until you get to the north shore and cross over to the western
side to the cycle and pedestrian footpath.
The views are just as good as being on top of the arch.
 
Somebody gave me some disks with old photos of Skinningrove Works, there's some great stuff on them.

Tapping a blast furnace, probably a slag notch.
sk16.JPG
Some advertising blurb, colliery arches on the first wagon (I've worked out the photo is taken on Castleton Rigg heading out towards Ralph's Cross)
ConvoyOfLorriesCarryingCollieryArches.jpg
Found this quite interesting from 1920. Turns out it's not what it seems and is a bit of needle prior to an inter-departmental cup final between the Steel Plant & Coke Ovens:)
Melting Shops Rememberance 1920.jpg
 
Lady Bell also tells of babies being born and put straight into a bucket of water and drowned as the family could not afford to keep them.
 
More Skinningrove stuff:
No.5 Blast Furnace built in the early '50s. When it came into operation it was the only furnace at Skinningrove.
35.jpg
Tapping iron from No.5 Furnace
No5BlastFurnaceCasting(21 ft hearth).jpg
Charging iron into an Open Hearth steel furnace
ChargingBasicOpenHearthFurnaceWithHotMetal.jpg
'Original' 36" Mill Roughing and Finishing stands
36MillRoughingAndFinishingStands.jpg
 
Dorman Long, Middlesbrough in 1926. Look at the size of it and then consider that there were at least 17 this size, all round the Navi area towards the back of the cinema. I remember them being derelict in the early 80s because I worked in pretty much the last one standing. The only remaining bits now are behind Macdonalds and the garage, where Boro Taxis operate from.

Dorman Long factory 1926.jpg
 
r00fie1 said:
38,000 tons of steel!
View from the pully-wheel at the top of the crane on the opposing pillar.
View attachment 6633View attachment 6634
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Love this photo, it shows the original cranes that were modified after the joining of the bridge. They were later to be used for maintenance purposes
which I and many before me operated on a daily basis.
They were strong and sturdy and relatively easy to operate but a little more complicated and time consuming to move into the next bay.

We, the employees, local historians and the green party were horrified when told that they were going to be replaced by new and modern ones.
It's funny that the SHB on a yearly basis struggled to find the funds to come up with enough money to maintain the bridge to our satisfactory and
yet here they were, willing to spend millions on new cranes that we deemed to be totally unnecessary. They had an agenda which was kept secret
from us and even though I look at these photos with a sense of pride, I also feel a sense of shame as, I, unknowingly, had taken some part in
their demise.

It would be an interesting read for those interested in this kind of stuff though quite a long one. But if anyone is interested, I will share the story.

Getting back to the photo, the second one is taken from Milsons Point on the north shore looking south. You can just make out Circular Quay
in the distance.
I bet that little pub selling Tooths Ale to the right of the photo made a small fortune during those building years being right next door to the compound.

Stay safe all.
Love and best wishes from Oz
UTB
 
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