Monklands Memories - Airdrie & Coatbridge areas

My RB Tennent Years
(1970 to 1989)
by Grant Cullen

In the spring of 1970 I was winding down my 6 years at Coatbridge High wondering what I would do after leaving at the end of May having already ruled out university. One day Tom Baillie (now sadly deceased) one of the teachers of technical subjects came in and asked if any of the class wanted to apply for a position as a trainee metallurgist at RB Tennents in Whifflet.

 I and another lad (David Smith) said we would and TB went off to arrange interviews. In the end David decided to go to British Steel leaving me the one to turn up for the interview at RB Tennents Whifflet Works. I had to ask for Hugh Ford (he was friend of Tom Baillie and is also deceased) and he took me across to the personnel office (no `Human Resources` departments in those days) where I was introduced to Walter Tennant, Personnel Officer. I thought I was in the presence of one of the Tennent family but Walter wasn`t – note the spelling difference.

After a kindly interview Walter said he would send for Dr. Milton – for me panic – a medical ! – did I have on clean underwear!. I was soon put at my ease as Dr. Milton (Big Willie has he was affectionately named by colleagues on account of his height) was Chief Metallurgist and he would be my boss for almost all of the next 19 years. Anyway, I left RBT that afternoon with a job - £10 – a week paid fortnightly – to start on August 10th after the plant summer shutdown.

Apart from a few odd days my first year was spent at the Foundry Industry Training Centre in Bainsford, Falkirk, travelling to and from the centre in Tennents works van. My daily travelling companions were Jim Tennant (apprentice electrician) from Plains and apprentice moulders Alec Booth (Airdrie) and Danny Pettigrew(Coatbridge). My, we had some laughs on those journeys.

Back `on the job` at Tennents a year later I soon got to know my new colleagues – Derek Hamilton, John Cameron, Bobby Purvis, Hugh Matthews, Tommy Turner, John Meek, Tommy Davidson, Robert Cook, John Findlay, Alastair Jolly, Nan Soutar, Billy Wright, George Pigott, Peter Burns, Hughie McAllister, Cathie and Gavin Millar, Jim Murdoch, Tom Clarke, John Devine, Walter Service, Jimmy Hay and others whose names escape me now. I went to day release to study for ONC / HNC and for the first few years went round the various works departments to gain all round experience in what proved to be an excellent education which has stood me in good stead over many years since.

In the foundry there was John Thompson – who later left to study to be a minister, Sam Brown – his son Jimmy played for Scotland at football and another son, Sandy for Scotland at cricket, John McLeod, Jimmy `Yogi` Mair, Willie Hamilton, Willie Coventry, Tam Buchanan, Harry Bruce, Joe Graham, Nicky Welsh and Andy Martin. They were assisted by the patternshop with John Bate, Willie Douglas, Jimmy Rankin and Jimmy Gray

There was tragedy too, when on 30th March 1973 a water cooled mould erupted during a roll cast at the Meadow works and Jimmy Murphy (foundry foreman) and Harry Bate (moulder / closer) died instantly. Robert Allan died in hospital of his injuries a week later. Many other men sustained injuries from the spraying liquid steel. Coatbridge was subsequently witness to three large funerals where the streets were lined to pay tribute to these men. It took Tennents a long time to get back to any sort of normality.

I spent time with the fitters and electricians – Stevie Naismith, John Waddell and John Cowan were the foremen fitters, with Robert `Skin` Hunter and later Dick Foster and Willie Penman running the electrical department. I then moved to the Meadow melt shop where Robert Urquhart was the Melting Superintendent and had several happy years with his furnace team of Duncan Paterson, Tommy Love, Robert Bennett and David Berwick, the latter being the department`s crane driver. Then came the appointment of Dr. Douglas Baird as MD and he appointed `young guns` Tom Scoular and Robin Tennent to run the key departments Foundry / Melting and the newly built ESR Plant with heat treatment respectively.

As part of this reorganisation I was moved back to the metallurgical lab as Dr Baird felt such a move would benefit my education. For a while I was the `gofer` in the newly created quality Control Department working for Derek Hamilton and John Cameron, then in 1977 came an opportunity for a bit of promotion. Harry Johnston decided to leave his post as Customer Complaints and Liaison Metallurgist to join the RAF and I was appointed to take his place. Much of this work was failure investigations and producing reports on why rolls had failed or did not live up to expectations and proved to be highly interesting work with some customer site visits thrown in as well. In the meantime I passed ONC and HNC Metallurgy and completed the new Graduateship of the Institution of Metallurgists course at Glasgow College of Technology which of course is now the Caledonian University.

Opportunity presented itself again in 1979 when John Findlay left to become Works Manager at Tennents sister company Miller & Co in Edinburgh. Despite me wanting to stay in the more studious metallurgical environment, I was `encouraged` to take over John`s job as manager of the Whifflet works melting department running the 17 tonne electric arc furnace and the two reverbratory air furnaces which produced iron for the duplex chill rolls.

The key people in that department were the melters Jimmy Donnelly, Arthur McClory and Sam Spiers. Arthur, from Shawhead, bred and showed Pekingese dogs. A year later I was on the move again, John Thomson announced he was returning to university to prepare for the ministry. Tom Scoular was promoted into his job, Billy McPate who had been running the Meadow Works Electric Arc Furnace was promoted to be Foundry Manager and I took over his post at the Meadow. John Findlay who had failed to settle at Millers returned to run the Whifflet melt shop.

By this time the British Rollmakers Corporation, of which Tennents, Miller & Co and Midland Rollmakers were part, had been absorbed into the Sheffield based Johnson and Firth Brown Group. Although in practical terms nothing much was different since the take over, that was all about to change. JFB, along with Dunford Hadfield – Brown Bailey steels were about to go under in the recession in manufacturing which followed Maggie Thatchers election as Prime minister in 1979.

 The government, who reluctantly couldn`t allow these strategic industries to go to the wall merged the remnants with British Steel Corporation`s (which was being privatised – again) River Don Works to form Sheffield Forgemasters, which in my opinion was the beginning of the end for the Tennents that I knew and loved. Alan Robertson arrived as new Works Director when David Paton retired . He had previously been at Cruickshanks of Denny and North British steel Group and was well respected foundryman. Alan was there right until the day the doors were closed for the last time

In 1984 the new bosses of Sheffield Forgemasters decided that Tennents should cast ingots on night shift - melting at the Meadow Works and sending ladles of steel to Whifflet for casting. None of the plant was really suitable for this type of production – remember both sites were designed to cast large steel and iron rolls not nests of small ingots. Also the Meadow furnace was grossly underpowered for this type of work where tap to tap time was a measure of the efficiency of the plant . The only cure for that would have been upgrading the electrics but the costs, which would have included a new furnace transformer were prohibitive.

There was more than a few disasters on those nights – a `pug` ran out of steam and 60 tonnes of steel set solid in the ladle. On another night the oxygen line to the Meadow furnace ruptured and blew a huge hole in the road at the back of the melt shop. But by far the biggest `disaster` to be visited upon Tennents was when `Mad Jack` Woodhouse came in, initially as a steelmaking consultant and then to run the place when Douglas Baird departed. Woodhouse, foul mouthed and with a cavalier attitude to safety showed he was little more than a bully who had no respect for the Tennents people, particularly those who had been there for many years.

By the late eighties (in my opinion) it had become an unpleasant place to work with Woodhouse in charge and the inevitable decline setting in. Whifflet works melt shop closed with John Findlay and others being paid off. Others, like Simon McCarroll the long serving office manager departed on early retirement and he was followed in 1988 by Bill Milton who had been driven to breaking point by Woodhouse`s antics . I started looking around to see what was on offer and left to join GR Stein Refractories at the end of May 1989, the start of a journey which would see me and my family relocate to Nottinghamshire in 1992 and me being given the opportunity to travel the world on business.

Did I regret leaving Tennents when I did ? – no – for the changes that took place from the mid eighties on were not for the betterment of company or people, but I certainly have no regrets about working there for a few months short of 19 years. I have many, many memories, mostly good, some sad – the memories of the accident in 1973 are forever etched in my mind.

Writing this short `memoir` has helped me mentally re-live my career at RBT and the multitude of good people with whom I had the honour, privilege and pleasure of working alongside. They enriched my life, I hope in some small way, I may have brought good companionship to them as a colleague.