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16 October 2014

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Factory Closures

There are 6 messages in this section.

Scott McCall from Linwood. Posted 14 Mar 2002.
Redundancy is cool when youre 11. Redundancy, its fantastic. When my Dad was one of the ill-fated 4000 Dads that were made redundant from the Chrysler Peugeot car plant in Linwood in 1981 it was a great time to be 11.

My Dad became unemployed and extremely grumpy, but I got a light sabre from the redundancy money and was of the opinion that becoming unemployable at 42 was obviously no bad thing as long as toys were involved. It was a hard time for my Dad, he had worked there for about seven years, but luckily he had been trained as a butcher before that and went back to working there.

Maurice Mallon from Dumbarton. Posted 9 Apr 2002.
I was an apprentice in the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria in the early 60's. It was just an excellent time for young 16 year old lads. We moved to a different trade every 3 months. The journeymen took very good care of the boys. It was like working for a large group of uncles and Dads. I left to work in John Brown Engineering for a year before emigrating to Canada in 1969. I will always remember the beautiful red sandstone building of the Torpedo Factory and the marble staircase at the entrance.

Stewart Daniels. Posted 2 Sep 2002.
I also served my time as a fitter in the early 60's I now live in Glasgow the office building is still there.

Maurice Mallon. Posted 13 Nov 2002.
I left the RNTF in 1968 to work at John Brown engineering for a year and then emmigrated to Canada in 1969. I worked for IBM in Canada for 33 years and have recently taken early retirement. My manufacturing education at RNTF & my HNC were invaluable in me being hired by IBM as a Mfg.Engineer.
I moved into Sales and finished my career as a Mktg Mgr. I travelled all over the world for IBM and my RNTF training certainly got me started on a the right track.

Alison Gilmour from Paisley. Posted 12 Jul 2006.
I'm doing research on the Linwood car plant and would like to talk to people who once worked at there. Please contact me via email if you would be able to help. My address is 0006167g@student.gla.ac.uk

John Lamont from Alloa. Posted 6 Mar 2006.
I was at a local school and on the day that the Linwood was announced to close, the teacher asked the class to put up a hand if the closure affected your parents. Around 2/3 of the kids put their hands up.

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