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the works siren. This to us was great fun until I found I could not hold the cutter, for the pipe began to wobble out of control and out of my hands. I also knew I had a very sharp dangerous cutter between my outstretched arms running at thousands of revs per minute. Somehow the steel tube slid out from the bearing and I threw the whole turning cutter over my work bench where it hit the concrete floor shooting up sparks and running in all directions We jumped up everywhere to get out of it’s way! In the end it ran up to the Forman’s office and cut straight through the side panelling and cut a groove across the floor inside his where it eventually stopped upright in the groove it had cut.

As Mr Bum was out he had locked up his office and we could not retrieve our cutter though we could clearly see it on the wooden floor inside. We had to retrieve the evidence. I climbed up from the workbench to see if I could lift up a ceiling panel to get in that way but slipped and the whole ceiling collapsed

During my first year with the company an exciting experience occurred in the Engine Test House. I was working in the Small engine assemble shop at the time some 500 yards away, we could hear the roar of a new RPL16 cylinder Vee Diesel engine running on the test bed. This engine had been fitted with a large Roots mechanical Blower, which gave the engine a background whine while it was running. However on this occasion the roar of the engine started to increase and the whine began to rise as the engine clearly was starting to increase it’s speed. Our whole assembly shop went silent for they clearly knew something was wrong. I ran off towards the test house to see what was happening and found the work crew were getting out away from the engine which by now was completely out of control. The engine speed must have been by now double the maximum normal speed and the noise had become deafening. In this test house, the offices and a control cubical overlooked the engines under test, here there was all the data recording equipment and controls.

In the emergency everyone had left the area and was standing outside crouching for protection behind the outer walls. The only person left inside was the Old Superintendent of the Test House; he was a real character who everyone knew for he had been with the company for years. He always wore a dark grey suit with waistcoat, watch and black tie and never left his office without his black bowler hat! We all watched as he slowly climbed down the steps from the observation cubical down to the engine. By now the engine was shaking in its mounting frame while the old gentleman took a stepladder which he lent it up against the engine? He then picked up a hacksaw and coolly climbed up some ten feet to the Blower, which by now was screaming enough to bust his eardrums. He balanced himself against the ducting and started to saw through the lubricating oil supply pipe. A moment later hot oil spurted out from the cut pipe and the engine at last started to loose the speed it had been building up. This supervisor then covered the broken pipe with rags and then he climbed down and returned to his office.

We later learnt from his report that the lubricating oil seals had failed in the blower. The test team tried had tried to shut down the engine i the normal way earlier by cutting the fuel using the control lever but on this occasion the engine had continued to run and had started to increase in speed.

The test engineers were puzzled and had closed all the fuel supply lines without success for they had not realised the engine was running on the lubricating oil which was leaking passed the seals into the blower and from there it was being sucked into the

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