Ductile Steel was a giant but it still felt like a family firm
Friendly faces at ‘family’ firm
I started working for Ductile Steels plc in April 1978, being based at their headquarters in Planetary Road, Willenhall.
It was a large independent steel and tube manufacturing group employing around two and a half thousand people and I was the group training officer, working out of the central personnel department.
I was fortunate, because most things were already in place so all it needed was someone with a steady hand on the tiller. It was common parlance in the Black Country that, “during the industrial revolution most of the world’s steel was produced within a twenty miles radius of the Earl’s.”
They were of course referring to The Earl of Dudley’s Steelworks in Brierley Hill (Round Oak). Whole families worked there and it seemed that steel was in the blood of the community and indeed all steel communities across the Black Country.
Your dad worked in steel just like his dad – it was a job for life! When you retired there was a leaving do where the chairman presented you with a mantle clock and a framed certificate for forty years’ loyal service, and your missus got a bouquet and a cut glass vase.
This applied across all areas of manufacturing. The majority of employees at Ductile lived in and around Willenhall, Wednesfield, Bilston and Wednesbury.
Activity
The whole of the Ductile group was a hive of activity in meeting the flow of incoming orders from ‘metal bashers’ all over the UK. On the Willenhall site HQ we had four manufacturers – Ductile Steel Stockists, Ductile Planetary Mill, Metalon Steels and Ductile Steel Sections.
The Planetary Mill was a rolling mill in every sense of the word, but instead of the conventional mill where hot steel undertook multi-passes to and fro between two rolls (like a washing mangle), the Planetary Mill had two rolls as a basis but, with many smaller rolls positioned around the their circumferences. This reduced the number of passes required through the mill and hence speeded up production and reduced costs. It sort of ‘kneaded’ the steel rather than actually rolled it.
The Ductile Steels group began in 1915 when local steel stockholder Frank Hall acquired a 50% stake in Stanley & Hawkes, a steel merchandising firm. It then became the largest stockholder of coldrolled steel strip in the country and Ductile Steels soon became Ductile Steels plc in 1936.
Complacency however meant that British steel makers were slow to adapt to the open hearth furnace principle coupled with a lack of investment, resulting in the steel industry being twice nationalised and twice privatised since World War II. The once family businesses were now parts of large international corporations. Some however managed to maintain that home-fromhome culture. Ductile was such an example of that culture. The Personnel Department at Ductile comprised of Geoff Round, group personnel director, Frankie Spencer, group personnel officer, John Smallshire, group safety officer,
Gerry Bilson, group welfare officer, Barbara Holder, secretary and, myself as group training officer. It was ‘Barb’ however, who kept the ship administratively on course!
“And now, last but not least ladies and gentlemen, under ‘any other business’ item twelve is, the rota for the feeding of the site cats during the annual shutdown”
So said Geoff Round, who was chairing the Joint Productivity Committee (JPC) – an official monthly meeting of union and employee reps and management. After the meeting, Geoff said to me, “now that’s what we call the human side of the enterprise!”
I was soon to learn of other goodwill gestures like the children’s Christmas party, The 25 Club for long-serving employ
ees, the pensioners’ annual slap-up Christmas lunch, and retirees’ annual outings.
There was also an employee suggestion scheme with cash prizes. If you owned a British made car you got £10 from Ductile towards the road tax – approximately twenty five percent if you drove something like an Austin Allegro.
It was custom and practice at Ductile that those employees not committed to a booked holiday would pop into the workplace and take their turn in feeding the cats. They did this willingly. Planetary Mill operator Tom Cross was ‘on duty’ this year and he’d had strict instructions from Mrs Cross: “doh ferget ter gerrus a cat when yoh goo in terday Tum!”
Tom dutifully chose a popular docile, friendly cat who went willingly into the small carry cage, but understandably ‘groaned and moaned’ a bit throughout the short drive to Tom’s place. Once released at his new home the cat went berserk, tearing around the living room and clearing the mantle piece and sideboard of ornaments and a clock before pinning itself onto the new curtains.
Tom was ordered to, “tek it back. Now!!” The cat immediately settled into its familiar environment as if nothing had happened, and appeared its normal docile self.
Tom was also a first aider and training instructor who would goad the personnel dept staff, “yow lot doh know what a day’s work is.”
Kind and Fair
I write this article some forty-odd years later, and I will recall a few more notable, and often humorous interludes that were an everyday occurrence at the time.
Geoff was previously at BMC and so had a solid grounding in industrial relations to fall back on. He was an extremely kind and fair boss whose motto was, “don’t mistake kindness for weakness.”
Frankie developed all of his human relations skills as a former prison officer. He was also a former Wolverhampton professional boxer between 1957 and 1959, who had taken part in twenty one professional contests as flyweight, featherweight and bantamweight.
During his tenure at HMP he was always called upon to diffuse an awkward situation. He told me that he used to remove his jacket, roll up his sleeves, look them in the eye and softly ask, “what’s your problem sunshine?” His reputation preceded him!
John was a hands-on safety officer who never missed a trick. He would often secrete his car outside a site he was visiting and enter on foot via a rear entrance in order to “catch the beggers red-handed!”
John was a professorial-type who, when addressing a safety committee, would stand or stroll to and fro at the front with both hands on his jacket lapels and quote Shakespeare or Greek philosophers in support of his oratory.
He was also a local historian who wrote the history book, ‘Wednesfield – The Field of Woden’, of which he gave talks to schools and societies.
He and his son were avid ornithologists and also friends of Bill Oddie (The Goodies). When in the area, Bill would always visit John at his home in Wednesfield and they would all go out ‘twitching’ together. One Monday morning, John cracked everybody up in the office as he gushed excitedly, but naively in, declaring, “over the weekend me and Bill spotted a pair of great tits.”
■ Part II follows next week