Back To 1969

07-02-18

On the last but one PhotoWalk with my photo buddies I wanted to have a look at the factory where I started my very first job on the 4th of August 1969. I was taken on as an apprentice Lithographic Printer at Hodgkins-Millar & Co, with a weekly wage of £5-0-3d.  Looking at the building seems it to have taken on new and varied uses !

The car at the bottom of the driveway in the picture is where I would park my Francis Barnett motorbike. After the first week of work I wanted to go back to school, loading an A1 size press with heavy art paper was hard work, not to mention the many paper cuts on my hands, they gave me a pair of linen gloves so that I didn’t mark the paper with blood from the paper cuts. Needless to say I stuck it out but within 3 months I was working for a different company as an apprentice Litho Platemaker (a step up).

The view looking across the road. It was always an industrial part of the city, with plenty of old shops, characterful pubs, and Victorian factories, not so much today, the pubs and shops have been demolished and the area is a bit rundown. I took the photographs on my Minolta X700 using Kodak Tri-X, a film I haven’t used for many years.

My helpers, supervising my work this morning.