VT Coughtrey - Davall Gears

NOTES There are no notes for this chapter yet. Some of the notes on other pages are based on info YOU send me.	Of course, the move to Hatfield presented difficulties, both with Angela's job at Barnet General, and Felix's school, but Angela discovered that one of the radiographers lived in Hatfield, and was prepared to give her and Felix a lift to Barnet every morning. The other big problem, of course, was the financial one - how to keep up the mortgage payments. Although there was certainly plenty to do in the house and garden it began to be apparent that we both needed to be working in order to pay the mortgage and school fees. The snag was the problem of looking after Felix during school holidays. The answer presented itself when I saw an advertisement for night workers in an engineering factory - Davall Gears, in Welham Green.
	Although the days of just 'walking into' jobs, as described many times earlier on in this website, were by now more-or-less over, you still came across the occasional very convenient throwback, such as Davall Gears. Not for them the risks involved in relying on applications, interviews, CVs and all the rest of that meaningless junk. They knew the way to do it was to send you see the foreman. The conversation with this one followed the usual pattern: "Have you worked one of these machines before?" "Never" "Know what this is?" "Nope" "Can you use a micrometer?" "What's that?" "Start Monday night, eight o'clock". I very nearly didn't start on Monday at all, in so far as I went to a party on the Saturday to deputize for Angela, who wasn't feeling well. That was a big mistake. As I didn't actually know anyone there and people seemed intent on ignoring me, I took a bottle of vodka into the kitchen and pretty much drank the lot. The next thing I remember was being delivered to our door by someone and causing a lot of commotion. The next morning I was so ill that the doctor called an ambulance. At the hospital I was given an injection then left on a trolley and completely forgotten about. By the time a very apologetic nurse remembered me, I was a lot better and able to go home. Although Angela and I took it for granted that I wouldn't be able to start the job the next day, I in fact recovered enough to go. It was lucky the job didn't start until the evening.
	It turned out that only the drilling and tapping section of the factory - about five percent of the whole - was required to work round the clock. I took straight away to the magical experience of working right up in one corner of an otherwise deserted and silent factory with only half a dozen other men, bathed in our own little pool of light, while the rest of the place was in darkness. Even our machines operated almost silently. The thing I dreaded most, the usually mandatory non-stop pop music, was completely absent. Occasionally the radio would go on, but only for the World Service of the BBC.
	I was introduced to the machine I was required to operate. It was a Burgmaster drilling and tapping machine (tapping is cutting screw threads in holes). There were an awful lot of holes to be drilled and tapped in a wide range of components - mostly wheels of various sorts, ranging from tiny nylon cogs to the hubs of lorries and tanks. Most of the components were said to be connected with defence contracts in some way, but nobody quite knew how. I soon got the hang of the Burgmaster and my production figures began to outstrip those of my counterpart on the day ship. Soon, I was able to position the jigs accurately enough on the 'table' of the machine to be allowed to set up each new run myself, instead of the foreman having to do it for me. This resulted in a substantial rise - I was now paid as a setter, rather than just an operator. Later, I learned how to use the instruments required to inspect my own work, so then received another rise, this time to the rate of an inspector. These three jobs - operator, setter, inspector, were done by three separate people on the day shift. As my pay rate was already at time and a half due to the night work, I was eventually earning about £120 a week - more than twice what the day man on my machine was getting and big money in 1979.
	But there were so many other good things about that job. I soon discovered that the other men, including the foreman, were getting away with something quite extraordinary. By going at it very hard for the first three hours, they were able to drill and tap more holes in that time than their dayshift counterparts managed in a whole eight hour shift, and the quality of the work was higher. In fact the management (who never put in an appearance during the night shift) expected us to produce more than the day people because our shifts were of twelve hours. They apparently never had the slightest suspicion that my fellow drillers and tappers were finishing at around 11pm every single night, taking their sleeping bags into the offices (which were never locked) and dossing down until about 7 in the morning! That allowed them an hour to clean their machines and the floor area before the day shift turned up for work. I say 'they' because I never fully took part in this scam. At least, I didn't attempt any sleeping - as an insomniac I would never have succeeded anyway. As a result my production figures began to exceed the nightly target by about 50 percent, even though I was taking it fairly easy all night, with plenty of long breaks.
	Of course, my sterling efforts for the British economy greatly alarmed the foreman, who knew that the target would be revised sharply upwards for everyone if I carried on like that. He told me in no uncertain terms to curb my enthusiasm and not to exceed expectations. If I didn't want to sleep there, he said, I could easily go home and come back early the next morning to clean up and clock out. As the walk to the factory (along a pleasant country footpath) took about 30 minutes, I had no intention of following that suggestion. I therefore fell into a pattern of doing a little relaxed drilling and tapping now and again - in complete isolation after the others had gone to bed - and making use of the time between to read Russian novels, study German, write short stories (all this in one of the offices) and even to go for long walks on warm Summer nights. This situation continued for two and a half years. The three Christmases that were included in this period were marked by the foreman in a fairly memorable way. It was arranged that we all did a little more work than usual for a few nights, until the extra components, which were hidden away, added up to the target amount for one shift. This meant that no work at all had to be done on the last shift before the Christmas break. Instead, the foreman would bring in his formidable collection of blue films, and someone would be delegated to bring large quantities of beer and food, the cost of which we shared.
	The films were the first really hardcore porn that I'd ever seen. Initially, I was a little taken aback, but after a few bottles of beer, I found them very amusing, as did everyone else. One year, the foreman decided to have a bit of fun at the expense of some Nigerians who worked the night shift at a neighbouring factory. As they had only recently arrived in Britain, he imagined they would combine a childlike innocence with puritanical attitudes, so he invited them to come over and watch some 'interesting films'. The idea rather misfired, as the guests swigged half our booze, found the films hilarious, and yelled raucous sexual comments with the rest of them. Though slightly disappointed by this wholly unexpected reaction, the foreman's opinion of the 'chocolate squad' was definitely improved by it.
	In the Summer of 1981 the management announced that the Ministry of Defence had cancelled a couple of large orders and the night shift was no longer needed. We were all offered jobs on the day shift, but I couldn't face the thought of that and had an interview for a night shift job in another engineering works. On the strength of a verbal assurance that I would be formally offered the job within a few days, I handed in my notice at Davall Gears. When the formal offer didn't arrive, I phoned the factory. "Oh, that job's gone" was the reply.