Another batch of pictures, sent in by Ken Flemington. Says Ken: “They were taken at Northcliffe House, home of the Daily Mail, where we were printing the Sunday People. They were taken in June 1986 and I am in one of the photos. I will also include one of me using a Polymer platemaking machine which replaced hot metal at Holborn for the short period before closure in 1988.
“I hope the readers enjoy these photos as much as I enjoy the other photos of printers and printing on your excellent site. Sadly this is all I have.”
Malcom Watts preparing the moulds for Sunday People June 1986 at Nortcliffe House.Malcom Watts preparing the moulds for Sunday People June 1986 at Nortcliffe House matrix dryer in background.M.A.N. casting machine. These were not as effective as the Autoplate Autocasters used at Holborn but needed less men.MAN casting machine with casting box open. Plate is cast on the curved ribbed portion Northcliffe House June 1986.Ken Flemington (that’s me) setting the mould ready to cast plates. MAN caster June 1986.Newly cast plate being ejected from MAN caster by hydraulic ram June 1986.MAN caster, broken mould apparently almost impossible to happen, but I managed it! June 1986 Northcliffe house Sunday People.Checking the finished plates, old plates stacked on trolleys ready for remelting.Marking the page number on the plate for easy recognition in the machine room.Old plate being put back in metal pot for melting down and reuse June 1986.Putting plate on conveyor for transport to machine room.Sunday Mirror printing Northcliffe House June 1986.Off topic, but one of Ken Flemington (me) on polymer Platemaker. This process replaced hot metal until Holborn closed down in 1988. Many stereotypers were made redundant at this time.
I don’t think this site would be quite so popular if it was called “Polymer Type”! – Ed.
Many thanks to Ken Flemington for getting in touch with the site and sending these photographs in. Some pictures include Ken’s son!
General view of the foundry with (L-R): Brian Chalker, John Wakefield (chargehand) and Bob Teasel.General view of foundry with autoshaver in foreground, conveyors to machine room on left, spare plate racks in middle, autocaster 1 far left, Wood 4/60 number 2 caster, and Wood 4/60 number 3 caster.
American Machines
Ken says: “The Woods were American machines which were only used as a last resort as they were extremely unreliable and difficult to fix when little things went wrong.”
Plate casting with Dave Webber operating number 5. The usual crew was an operator, one to remove the plate, one to remove the tang, one to keep the metal pot at the right level, and one to operate the shaver.Autoshaver No.6 and a plate.Another view of the autoshaver used to plane the plate to correct thickness and to mill grooves for gripping onto the press cylinder.An Automatic Autocaster with a plate in the cast eject position. The core of these casters was cold water cooled, and rotated through 180 degrees one plate being cast while another was removed, and could cast 4 complete plates every minute. The usual run was around 36 plates with a further 2 spares.Automatic Autocaster 4 with Les Floyd operating and Dave Large removing the plate.Automatic Autoplate 4 with shaver in the foreground. In the rear right is the pot used to melt down the shavings and cast them into ingots for re-use. This was done on the day shift.Plate casting, Les Floyd operating, Dave Large waiting for new plate to be ejected, Tom Harrison in foreground operating shaver, and Alan Hart on right keeping the metal level steady.
Says Ken: “This was my “crew,” the dwarfs, so called because we always worked a man short. The metal pots were electrically heated and held 7 tons of printing metal.
Holborn machine room showing the Goss Headliner presses.This is the foundry rest room, or booby, in the summer of 1986. Reg Barber drinking from cup, standing (L-R): Tom Hatton, Roy Clark, Roy Tomlin, in striped t-shirt leaning forwards Dave Sherwood. Back to camera with bald spot Bob Venison.
Was the writing already on the wall when this photo was taken? The poster on the notice board at the back urges union members to attend a picket at Rupert Murdoch’s “Fortress Wapping.” – D.H.
Thanks to Barry Adams for sending in these pictures of the last-ever hot-metal production run of the News of the World – the UK’s biggest circulation Sunday newspaper.
Barry Adams and Brian Inwood operate a Linotype and Machinery auto at the News of the World.
In Barry’s own words: “There was a crew of 4 for the Auto and a further 3 for the Auto shaver.
Auto crew operator – one taking the plate another the tang (the waste above the plate which had the blow holes in it and fed the plate as it cooled), and the pot hand who regulated the metal temperature and also put the blacks in (blacks were yesterday’s plates covered in black ink).
The shaver trimmed the plates for length and diameter. Crewing shaver front looked the plate over, put the page number on and pushed it into the machine.
Shaver back looked plate over and took any rough edges off the plate also used his runner to remove or disfigure a typo if need be. Plate stacker put the plates onto a trolley and wheeled them to the machine room door.
Four plates a minute and on the set page the presses were rolling by the 30th plate cast. The Sun was 46 plates of each page.”
The late crew in the foundry after completing the last edition of the News of the World before the Wapping dispute.
Says Barry: “We were the late crew that night and after cleaning the foundry up, we were playing around.”
There are six pages of Yorkshire Evening Press photos on Metal Type. Check the “Related Pages” menu to see the rest.
Many thanks to an ex-colleague, Ian Cottom, for sending in a scan of the front cover of “The Newsman” from October 1954.
I’ve got to say that I’d never seen this publication before. The blurb at the bottom has been cut off, but sounds intriguing: “The live journal for the progressive newsman and . . .
Featured on the photograph, as Ian recalls: Syd Wynn, nearest, Me (Ian Cottom), Sam Doherty (Napper), Wilf Benson, Armstrong, Bob Anley and I think Don Wilkinson (stone sub-editor).
Chris Johnson contacted Metal Type in November 2007 saying that he was an engineer working for Express Gifts, part of Findel PLC and had been looking after 3 working Intertype Monarchs for the past 11 years. The company had recently acquired a refurbished Intertype C4 to bring the count of working linecasters up to 4! The machines are used to produce slugs of people’s names to manufacture personalised gift items.
The machines all have a Decitek Floppy Disk Drive operating a Fairchild Teletypesetting unit. Chris very kindly sent in the following photographs.
An overview of the 3 Intertype Monarchs.The row of Intertype Monarchs viewed from the rearIntertype Monarch with Decitek Floppy Disk Box on the right.Close-up of the Intertype Monarch keyboard and the Fairchild TTS unit.The Decitek Floppy Disk drive.Refurbished Intertype C4 with floppy disk drive and teletypesetting unit – the rufurbishment was carried out by Mike Kirby at Linecasting Machinery.Close-up of the Intertype C4
Tom Bailey sent in this picture of Norman Barnes retiring from his job as “The Printer”, early 1970s.
FROM L-R: Bert Heinman, Tom Bailey (who sent in the photograph), Charlie King and Norman Barnes overseeing the last wet dab of the front and back pages of The Mirror on the night of his retirement as “The Printer” in the early 1970s
Tom Bailey said: “To my mind the setting of type was an art form and having spent many hours setting five point type, visually letter-spacing said type for advertisements to be published in newspapers; actually cutting up cigarette papers and bus tickets to use in the spacing. Remember I was not the only one, I had to learn from somebody.
I left advertisement setting to work as a time hand on the Mirror for nearly 20 years which was a complete new experience; and so different.
Skill was in the make-up of the pages and the time it took. I made up many fronts and not once in all those years did I hear the words “Hold the front page”. The chief sub would whisper in your ear: “Sorry but we have to do a new one” and that would be about three minutes before off-stone time of 2215hrs.
I left the Mirror to start my own business in new tech typesetting shortly before the then proprietor, Robert Maxwell, went missing along with the Mirror’s pension fund.
There are six pages of Yorkshire Evening Press photos on Metal Type. Check the “Related Pages” menu to see the rest.
In October 2007 the Yorkshire Evening Press, based in York in the UK, celebrated 125 years of production by delving into their archives and publishing a special souvenir supplement.
Here Metal Type brings you the hot metal highlights!
Linecasters are put onto lorries in October 1986 outside the Evening Press’s office in Coney Street, York. The Press’s trio of mechanics are in attendance.The paper’s Goss press in action in Coney Street, probably 1970s or 80s.Working on the stone, probably 1970s. Sub-Editor on the left, comp on the right. In the background a couple of Ludlows and an Elrod (no my eyes aren’t that good, I knew they were there!)Freddy Hill puts the finishing touches to the feature pages – probably 1970s or 80s.A hot stereo plate coming off the caster, 1970sAn early web press, photo probably dating from 1900-1920. A boy seems to be part of the press crew!Again, probably taken in the 1900-1920 period, some early-looking Linotypes.Probably the same vintage as the previous two pictures, an early stereotype department.
Many thanks to Ian Cottom, from York, who sent in this photograph which he bought from the Gazette and Herald newspaper in 1946!
There are six pages of Yorkshire Evening Press photos on Metal Type. Check the “Related Pages” menu to see the rest.
Ian says: “The photograph shows the Evening Press lino room the morning after the Baedeker raid on York by the German Air Force on the night of April 29, 1942.
Showers of incendiary bombs spattered in line across the River Ouse from the other side of Coney Street, St Martin’s church, the Guildhall and Rowntrees warehouse where North Street gardens now are.
All were gutted including mainly the old lino room, standing roughly where the City Screen foyer now stands. I can still smell the acrid smoke from the ruins.
We had about 15 or 16 Lino machines some of which were remarkably restored by Reg Cooper and Chris Pool. They were in use well into the 70s as were several items of ‘furniture’: The Stone trolley, the proof press, the rack and several stools, one of which I used to park my bum on. Chris Poole used one to sit on whilst graphiting the ‘mats’.
The paper never stopped publishing though and the next day’s edition was printed by Ackroyds of Harrogate from flongs from our foundry which were saved from destruction. The Press came out at the usual time — remarkable, eh?”
Happier Days — the same room photographed 1900-1920.
65 Years Later . . .
From the Yorkshire Evening Press: “A Luftwaffe pilot who bombed York during the Second World War was hailed as a guest-of-honour during a trip to the area. Willi Schludecker, who targeted England in 32 separate missions — including a devastating attack on York — paid a flying visit to RAF Linton-on-Ouse, near York.
Mr Schludecker, 87, said: “This is the first time I have ever set foot on an RAF base and I think it is wonderful.”
He first returned to York in April this year, when he visited the sites where his bombs fell. He said then he wanted to come back to say sorry to the people of York for the 1942 raid, which killed 92 people and injured hundreds more.
Andy Taylor sent in these pictures of his “brand new” Model F Elrod strip-casting machine. He’s hoping to send in some video of the machine in operation in the near future. He also has a Model K.
More pictures from this giant plant which produced the Northern editions of UK national newspapers.
A Ludlow installation.A stereo plate is taken from the casting box.Two of the many stones at Withy GroveA group of lino ops taking a break.A comp taking a long break!
Enjoyed the photos? There’s more from Withy Grove on Metal Type. More photos here: Men and Machines– and this page has a lot more photos plus loads of comments and feedback from workers: Withy Grove 2.
