IAN:  Okay, interview with Martin Ward, who used to work for British Steel and in the quarries. So we'll start now. So Martin, what age were you when you started in the quarries? Or you started the steelworks first? Yeah. Yeah. Out, hold where you then? Sixteen. Sixteen. Straight out of school in the steelworks. Yeah. Yeah. No, no. Was that on an apprenticeship or was it just now?
MARTYN:  No. No. Number one strip mill. We used to take the coils off the conveyor, down from the mills. We used to stack them up. We used to tilt them up, and supply their own veg cranes could pick them up.
IAN:  And they'd go through the rolling mill. Yeah. Yeah. And what was that actually to make? Was it for cot, for tubes or?
MARTYN:  Yeah. It was all strip steel that went for the two tube works.
IAN:  Yeah. I think Corby Pioneer, the seamless tubes didn't they?
MARTYN:  Yeah. Did the seamless tubes first out? Also for boilers and steam boilers and stuff. And then it is standard tube, which was welded. Yeah.
IAN:  So you would just turn out on the handling side at that stage? Yeah. And did you move on up through the works where you promoted? Yeah.
MARTYN:  Worked way up. And through the rolling mills, on the jobs I had in the mills. We used to stamp the cast number on the end of each bar. These bars were still red out. Line it. Because we used to wear asbestos gloves.
IAN:  Right. No thought of asbestosis in those days? No. So from the work the way through the mill, you spent seven years at Corby's.
MARTYN:  Yeah. Right. And then working the soaking pits, whether reheating us, operating the furnace, the soaking pit covers. Right. So by the could load an unload of soaking pits.
IAN:  Yeah. The soaking pits. Were they pickling? Was that what they called them? Did pickle the steel left? No. No. It was just reheated it. So were they filled with water or all of what?
MARTYN:  Right. Yeah, they were gas-fired. What we could do. It was, I think, eight or eight that we could run on crude oil. All right.
IAN:  And that was heating the bar and the ingots first.
MARTYN:  Yeah. The ingots up to about 13, did 1,300 centigrade ready for the mill.
IAN:  Yeah. So what year did you start in the steelworks?
MARTYN:  What was this? It was early, 1963. 1960, that's the year before I was born.
IAN:  You were already earning a living wage. Yeah. I was still in liquid form. But so I mean, at that stage, there must be a huge demand for boilers, for likes of fall or early locomotives and steam boilers for shipping and so on.
MARTYN:  And the amount of tubes that were made, terrific. And then there's some wind out by the way, or something by lower.
IAN:  Yeah. Yeah. At that stage, I mean, obviously, there was the three full barners, blast furnaces down at Corby, wasn't there? Yeah, there were four blast furnaces. They had names, didn't they? They had names, didn't they?
MARTYN:  I believe they did, but I'm not sure what they were. I never went down that way.
IAN:  Yeah. Yeah. So you did seven years in steelworks and then you went on the quarries. Why did you move across?
MARTYN:  We got put on three-day week. Shot time.
IAN:  So if you started in the 60s, it was 1970s.
MARTYN:  I don't know. Yeah. So I left then, went to work for John Billow's plantire, but the catchment was a semi-skill fitter with doing the lower gearboxes and stuff. Then 1973, about August, September 10, I started in the quarries.
IAN:  And what were you actually doing in the quarries?
MARTYN:  I started with a permanent way gang.
IAN:  And we've got some of the wagons here from that permanent way train, haven't we? Yes. Was that particular one? Yeah, K2 is one of them.
MARTYN:  K2, K1. This gallery has just repainted the works plate for K1.
IAN:  Yeah. So doing the permanent way, was that just literally a fatal track all day, six days a week, or five days a week, and then she went on a safari? Yeah. How did they shift the actual track within the quarries in the cuts?
MARTYN:  Well, we did have a crane. We had a 22RB crane, which I ended up driving. What we'd all saw was a first out, then a line, 34, that used to use out.
IAN:  That was another crane. Yeah. Yeah. So physically, with the lift, literally unbolt the section of the track. Yeah. Lift it, shift it, drop it, and then move on to the next one. Yeah. And then re-bolt.
MARTYN:  It wasn't very far to move it. It was done by and. Just a dang of the seven of us with crowbars. Seven men and crowbars.
IAN:  That must have been hard work. Of course. I bet you had a prodigious thirst at the end of that.
None:  Yep.
MARTYN:  You used to get that three-course-an-hour dinner break each day. And there's sat-these we used, gone from, if we had to move the cranes or the small diggers, moving on sat-dings mornings. Yeah.
IAN:  So you'd reckon on working a length of cut, a length of a bunch of iron stone during the week, and then sat-that he'd shift everything. Yeah. That worked. Yeah. Yeah. So you'd use bulldozers and whatever else it was to hand to shift the track. Oh, yeah. Literally just pull it across the quarry floor. Oh, yes. Or push it across the quarry floor. Yeah. Couldn't that lead to a lot of derailments?
MARTYN:  No, we just straightened it up and used the split-out sleepers and used them for backing it from the, instead of using it on ballast.
IAN:  Yeah, because the tracks have a letless strength off. Oops. A bit enthusiastic. Yeah, so you'll say your track was laid literally on the quarry floor. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, so which quarry's with that? Would that be the quarry itself, is it, or? All around the quarry area. Yeah. So, Gretton, Weldon. Yeah.
MARTYN:  So, you know, it was paddling what? It was about 10 different quarries. Yeah.
IAN:  Did I see on old maps that some of the quarries were served by aerial role plays?
MARTYN:  They were, well, desperate area.
IAN:  Right. And that was feeding into catering or?
MARTYN:  No. That was fed across to Oakley quarry. The sardines there. Ah, right. All right, we tipped into the normal wagons. Yeah. Well, the 20 ton, the 30 ton wagons.
IAN:  So were you in the quarries right up to the closure of Corby? Yep. That must have been a hell of a blow. Yeah. 1980, wasn't it?
MARTYN:  Yeah. I've finished this before Christmas. So, some of them, because it would have got me Weldon on the 29th of December.
IAN:  Well, a wedding present?
MARTYN:  Yeah.
IAN:  So that was very strange. I actually got me redundant, you know, to about three weeks after we were married. Blimey. That's because the steel works blew out on strike.
MARTYN:  Yeah.
IAN:  They just closed it.
MARTYN:  Yeah.
IAN:  Yeah.
MARTYN:  The government told them if they come out on strike, they would shut the place down, which they did.
IAN:  So that left you just starting married life in 1980, 1981, but then?
MARTYN:  Yeah, 1980. 
IAN:  Ah. Just starting married life, no job. And a hell of a lot of other people around Corby also looking for jobs. 
MARTYN:  Yeah. Well, eventually we all found jobs here at different places. I think I started a temporary job in the market, I have a fair bit. Yeah. Then I found one Northampton. So we moved to Northampton. 
IAN:  Then? 
MARTYN:  Yeah.
IAN:  Well, but the man you worked with, the gang on the permanent way, was all the same seven men. Yeah. Yeah. So he must have spent pretty much seven years with them.
MARTYN:  Yeah, the two gangs, Corby. The Arnold Dolby, he was one for them. The binder, with the other one, the other gang.
IAN:  Did you all socialise together or was it just a finished working, bugger off home and forget it.
MARTYN:  It was a big job. Both gangs had got together.
IAN:  Yeah. Yeah. But when it came to after work, did you socialise together, did you got the pub together, did you get each other's houses or whatever?
MARTYN:  Yeah. Because Freddie Adams had taught me to drive the cranes and diggers. I used to play skills with him before.
IAN:  Yeah. How did you get on with the Scottish contingent? Because there were an awful lot of Scots in Corby.
MARTYN:  Before we got on well with them. Yeah.
IAN:  Still do. I know. The accent changes as you get closer in the centre of Corby, doesn't it? 
MARTYN:  Yeah. 
IAN:  I'm Scottish and I have problems. I can't understand half of them. I don't know how you cope.
MARTYN:  There's some, some of them that slipped in Corby. Have you got a Scottish accent and they've never been to Scotland?
IAN:  Yeah.
None:  Yeah.
IAN:  But you were Corby born in Bradford, were you? No.
MARTYN:  What's the bond? Old born works up Nottinghamshire.
IAN:  So how did you end up in Corby?
MARTYN:  You dad moved, got the chance for jobbing in the tube works. He got his mate that was with him in the army, told him of a job that was going to be literally moved.
IAN:  Lockstalk and barrel from one shop down at Corby.
MARTYN:  Yeah, the third in November 1963.
IAN:  So that was pretty much when you started in the steelworks as well. Yeah. Yeah. You were telling me we had a conversation some time ago about, we were talking about women in the steelworks over wartime. Yeah. And when the men came back they were all let go except for some of the crane drivers, is that right?
MARTYN:  Yeah. Over at crane drivers in the tube works.
IAN:  And they were kept, the women were kept on. Yeah. Why didn't they, why didn't they have the mail crane drivers back? No. Were the women better?
MARTYN:  They just kept the women on. Yeah. Which was Stuart Nords practice.
IAN:  Yeah. It was unusual to find women at the sharp end of industry, heavy industry, wasn't it? Yes. Did they do anything, I mean okay, I'm not old enough to remember it, you're not old enough to remember it. I mean obviously wartime, people who had told you about things, do other things in the steelworks as well? I mean on the shop floor or something?
MARTYN:  I'm not too sure I'm that one. But there was always in the tube works.
IAN:  Yeah.
MARTYN:  Because the steelworks are rather dangerous.
IAN:  Yeah, just a bit. So you also mentioned sometime ago we were talking when Corby was being demolished, you had a job then didn't you? So was it on some of the plant?
MARTYN:  Yeah, only for a tiny bit. Yeah.
IAN:  So when they were ripping everything down, it must have been quite emotional.
MARTYN:  I did get a part time job. The lads that were reclaiming the quarries, I was servicing there doing the fuel filters and so forth on the bulldozers. Yeah, and probably do oil change on them.
IAN:  So that was part time, did you have another job as well to keep you going or was that it? 
MARTYN:  No. No, that was it. Just a part time job. Yeah. Not much for long enough. Yeah.