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Even after leaving the works he describes
still feeling the blistering heat on his face and blinking from the
blinding, searing light. The monstrous heat of up to 150
degrees in summer meant that some men lived on salt tablets and a furnaceman, reportedly, could drink
twenty pints of beer in day”.
“All the steelmen were issued with
flameproof clothing and wooden clogs. Shift working in teams meant
that it was possible to work with basically the same people for ten
years or more and some families had a steel tradition with several
generations employed at the works. It was hard work and supposed to
be a job for life, one where you could work your way up. Except in
wartime, women only worked in the offices, not on the shop floor”.
David Bishop, the ex-Wolverhampton City
Archivist, has provided the following account of the works,
assembled from the memories of workers and local people which are
preserved in the city archives.
Tim Hadley was at the works from about 1947
and recorded some of his colleagues there:
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