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cylinders. As more oil leaked in this way so the engine speeded up and the normal controls were useless. When these engineers could not find what was wrong they evacuated before they were blown sky high leaving the old man to think out the problem and when he realised what had gone wrong and he then acted on his theory which certainly proved right.

During the last year of my indentures I was fortunate enough to be transferred to John Cockerel of Sergaine, Liege, Belgium. Here a cousin of the family, Victor Nizet, was a director of this vast Steel Works and rolling mills. The company had it’s own coal mines and Gas works from where they obtained the coke for the Blast Furnaces, which fed the vast Steel works and manufacturing complex. I had been given a special works pass giving me complete freedom of movement throughout the company. Some weeks were spent working down the Deep Coal Mines. The first huddle as a “Miner” was to descend down well over a mile to the working level. This lift shaft passed through an underground river which flowed straight across the pit shaft. We always got soaked as we passed this water fall which was about half way down the shaft. We would be struck by this wall of water hitting us from the side and in complete darkness. When we did get to the bottom it was normal to strip off our shirts and trousers and leave these by the air duct to dry, at this depth the air was quite warm . We still had long walk usually at least 2-mile to the Coalface!l

Just before I went to John Cockerell’s they had had a very serious failure with one of their large slow running gas engines. The engine had a 24 foot flywheel it’s running speed was low, only 80 rev per min but it seems this 24 foot flywheel burst during the night and the heavy outer rim had been thrown over a kilometre out of the power house cutting a two floor machine shop into two halves! It had been cut as if by a knife but fortunately the cut went through the roofing down the upstairs and downstairs gangways without touching any machines nor causing any casualties even though there was a full night shift working!.

When I joined the company the machine shop was being repaired and the engine was running again with a rebuilt flywheel fitted. During my first week I attended the run up and testing of this engine. And the machine shop had returned to work soon after. I wonder how long it would have taken to get things working again if it had been this side of the channel.

The factory Produced high quality iron from their four huge blast furnaces Their three Bessemer converters feed the extensive steel rolling mills and High quality steel production. The exhaust from the blast furnaces also supplied gas to four, horizontal, double acting, gas engines These engines had cylinder bores of over two metres in diameter the engine ran at a low 60rpm. The piston rods of these engines were coupled to large air pumps feeding compressed air to the blast furnaces; smaller gas engines supplied compressed air throughout the works.

The exhausts from the gas engines was mixed with exhausts from numerous other gas engines which in turn was fed to rows of smaller gas engines in the large power station coupled to generators for the production of electricity.

This power station supplied all the electrical power required in the factory and the whole of Liege town. The Blast furnace waste product ash was collected and taken in wagons to the large cement works alongside were high quality cement was produced. I spent some days working within this complex and a day filling cement bags, an

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