Author Topic: companies that have gone in Birmingham  (Read 90564 times)

tramp

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Re: companies that have gone in Birmingham
« Reply #11 on: June 12, 2009, 05:45:45 PM »
Phil,

Thanks for all that information - I'm especially interested as my dad worked for  A & P / Tube Investments in the 50s in Oldbury and  he told me about when a US Co. sent A & P the ''smallest calibre tube in the world'' and they sent it back without a comment attached.   Eventually a US engineer weighed it and found that it was a very small amount heavier than a piece of the same length of tube that the US Co. had not sent.   Then in US, they put some sophisticated eqpt to work on the sample returned by A & P.   To everyone's surprise, the calibre was now smaller but they could get no further...all the metal was the same, so they contacted A & P who told them ''after measuring the exact length of it, we put another tube inside your ''world's smallest tube'', then annealed them so there was no visible join''. ;D.

And then the killer ''Please find loosely enclosed in a stoppered bigger metal tube, a section of the tube that was put inside your tube - inside that a still smaller tube..." O0

Dad wrote a couple of articles in the ''Non-Ferrous Journal'' (not about the above) as a result of which he went to the US a few times and was launching a new factory down south as a US subsidiary, when he died on the first ''Factory Day Out' held to celebrate it.

sheldonboy

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Re: companies that have gone in Birmingham
« Reply #12 on: June 12, 2009, 09:16:20 PM »
Sadly and at the same time Very Proudly, Birmingham must be able to boast the most highly skilled pensioners , maybe in the world.
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tramp

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Re: companies that have gone in Birmingham
« Reply #13 on: June 12, 2009, 09:25:24 PM »
Pretty sure that you're right there from all that we hear.

sheldonboy

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Re: companies that have gone in Birmingham
« Reply #14 on: June 13, 2009, 09:49:50 PM »
I think Brum should be made the Apprentice capitol. With some of the skills in and around our fine city. We could fit the country out with some fine craftsmen and women. (Shipwrights for example)
Strangers are just friends you havn't met yet

tramp

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Re: companies that have gone in Birmingham
« Reply #15 on: June 13, 2009, 10:15:43 PM »
sheldonboy'

Get up to date see all these are 21st Century skills, because you really must stop living in your ''All Our Yesterdays World'' - look at Birmingham now lad, today's Mighty Midland Metropolis is exemplified by a vast variety of cultural activities: - there's ''Balti Brum" - from Ladypool Rd they're now offering Curry Cookery Courses online, and on-site, while round the corner you can ''Rent a Mullah'' by the riot, and just down the end, on Stratford Rd they have "Saturday Night at the Somali Tag Chopping Cull'' - the Hippodrome and Bingley Hall had nothing on these real life (and death) attractions.  What do you reckon?


sheldonboy

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Re: companies that have gone in Birmingham
« Reply #16 on: June 13, 2009, 10:20:27 PM »
tramp
I reckon you should give up Spanish, get trained in Polish and Somali and come back here, you could train Waiters up the Stratford Road.
Strangers are just friends you havn't met yet

tramp

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Re: companies that have gone in Birmingham
« Reply #17 on: June 13, 2009, 11:02:52 PM »
Naa,

What! - forget it with that weather for a start, and I've taken to Latin Americans anyway. As for them lots you mention - with Poles there's only a choice of 2,  N or S, and Somalis are pirates not waiters aren't they?

sheldonboy

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Re: companies that have gone in Birmingham
« Reply #18 on: June 14, 2009, 05:17:40 AM »
Good morning tramp
Of course they are my friend but they still need to communicate don't they.
Strangers are just friends you havn't met yet

Phil

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Re: companies that have gone in Birmingham
« Reply #19 on: June 14, 2009, 09:16:15 AM »
Another good old Birmingham firm that had factories and warehouses all over Brum. Now lost in the swirling mists of time. Wilmot Breedon.

Phil
Phil died in 2020. RIP.

Phil

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Re: companies that have gone in Birmingham
« Reply #20 on: June 14, 2009, 03:20:53 PM »
Yet again another good Birmingham firm Serck Radiators on Warwick rd. they turned out their last radiator in 1968. The company carried on for a good few years after and eventually moved out of the old premises on Warwick rd. After being taken over many times I believe it still exists in one form or another, but I have no idea what it is called today.

We had a unit over the road for about six years in the old Brook Tool premises when it was divided up into units. The same fate as befell the old Serck premises for many years until it was demolished quite recently.

Fred do you recognise any of these hard working lads, I think the photo must be around your time there.

Phil
Phil died in 2020. RIP.

tramp

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Re: companies that have gone in Birmingham
« Reply #21 on: June 14, 2009, 03:34:21 PM »
Phil,

I remember both Serck and Brooke Tool on Warwick Rd very well - while Wilmot Breeden must have been almost as big an employer as BSA - as you say they were in a good few places.

When and why did Fort Dunlop ''die"?

tramp


 

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