Places Features

What are your memories of ICI on Teesside?

Janine Forth
I grew up in Grangetown and my dad was employed at ICI in Billingham, just two years after we moved near Billingham his position became redundant. ICI has played a huge role in everyone i knows life one way or another - parents, brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles working for them at one point or another. ICI have contributed so much to Teesside and to see every part of it go will be quite sad. The early morning alarms going off and having to close windows as a caution was, looking back, quite thrilling. I drive past the ICI block in Billingham everyday as well as those bendy buildings on the Haverton Hill road, i always wished it would snow on them so i could slide of them!! Although they we're slightly too big! ICI has been forward thinking in every aspect of business and generating the future. I wish the smaller companies luck and hope they do exactly the same. Although nearly every building is grey its part of the skyline of smoggie land...

Gerald Barrass
my father was transferred from I.C.I Prudoe in Newcastle to Billingham site in 1967 and worked there until his death in 1974 we attended a number of fundays which I.C.I put on for there workers we even supported Billingham Synthonia football club. Unfortuantly my father had an accident at work when he was on nightshift his picture was then displayed around the site to make there workers aware of the dangers of wearing rings at work.

Jasper
ICI gave a lot of People hope on Teesside, a lot of jobs created through the years. A lot of money came into the local economy, but, in the end, some of the ways they "downsized" their operations wasn't exactly, shall we say, "professional.

Barbara Barrington-Turnbull
Ginger smoke coming out of one of the chimneys and that I was nearly at Redcar when we went passed.

Kenneth Salmon
As my father used to say 'When I retire I am going to walk past the Billingham plant as I will miss the sparrows coughing'

jake stamp
i am only 15 and so do not remember ici in its hayday. in recent years the ici site is a stain on billingham with a lot of it abandoned and neglected. ici may once of been a light in billinghams history but now it is the uncle who you wish you didnt know. the articles that i have read on the internet made out that ici is a brillint place and it cares for the environment. the truth is that ici has been changed over the years and not for the beter. life in billingham is not enjoyable and how can it be with the huge widowmaker that is ici round every corner. the old ici brought the local people of billingham closer to gether but with the sale of the final parts of ici the locals have moved away from each other. it may have been inevitable that ici would be sold but with the sale, life in billingham has slowly sliped into decay and disrepair. life in billingham is only liveble by the eforts of people like the billingham carnival comity who organise many things in old billingham.

Kevin Hopkins.
I agree that ICI provided large scale employment for the area. But the goverment should make ICI invest money in returning all the redundant plant areas back to greenfield sites. Investors looking for land will not look at these sites not knowing what is below the surface (old pipelines, cables, asbestos etc) (billingham)

mal
What a mess they have made over the last 80 years, to the landscape of the Tees Valley.No wonder Middlesbrough is considered the WORST place to live in England!! Well - according to Channel 4!!Pity they didn't do as other companies and take all the hardware with them.Chimneys and all the flare stacks etc.

Jean Harrison nee Clark
I started work at Billingham ICI from shool from 1954 to 1957. I travelled from Hartlepool by bus, leaving home at 7.30 a.m. and often returning after 6. I started at their secretarial training school for nine months, intensively learning shorthand and typing but other skills as well. I remember a gentleman called Roberts who was a trainer there and used role play for telephone training - horrible Scottish voice, audibly incomprehensible that we had to make sense of. I then moved to the engineering drawing board offices, long wooden buildings, draughtsmen and engineers on one side and typists and clerks on the other. In our hut, there were three long rows of desks with typewriters, old metal key type; we typed up purchase orders and when called to the draughtsmen, took shorthand for letters. We had to ask permission to go to the toilet, only had a break when the Supervisor allowed and had to sign in and out: woe betide if you were later which happened often when travelling by bus. the best thing about it was the friendships made with the other girls. I finally left because of the travelling much to my father's disgust, he felt leaving a job at ICI was a poor decision!!

keith wells
messenger boy when billingham hse. h/q first opened 1959 panelled wood on bd/room flr.(8th). on first process ops training course (1st in the company) held in grn. wooden hut at top end ammonia ave as a 16yr lad going round blr. hse. with pulverised ball mills for making coal into dust to feed the blrs.+ gen. hse. seeing then working on the old nh3 plts,250ats. started on commissioning new 150ats nh3 plt. left to go to shell m/c

Tony Banks
I worked at Billingham ICI from 1966 to 1971, first as a messenger bay, then as an apprentice fitter.All my time, except a year was spent at the Billingham site, the other was at North Tees/ philips ICI site. To this day I am grateful for the training and education I received, particularly a scheme called 'discovery' which was a management type training. Much of this was carried out at a site near Ingleby Greenhow in North Yorkshire. I was made redundant in 1971, due to financial pressures, and although no longer in engineering, the skills obtained and learned at ICI have been used almost daily in my ongoing career.ICI was ahead of it's time. I now have a lot of involvement with the NHS, who are only now coming to terms with some of the business/management concepts that were taken for granted at ICI in the 1960s.

Jane Jackson (nee Fairclough)
My father worked at ICI Billingham from about 1936 to 1970, my mother worked in the offices from about 1934 to 1944 when I was born. I grew up in the shadow of ICI and in the sure knowlege that everyone worked there. Both of my parents took an active part in the social activities connected with the Synthonia Club.I remember going to go to meet my dad from work sometimes and watching hundreds of men streaming through the gates either on bikes or running to get onto the nearest bus to take them home, hundreds of double decker buses. They all wore coats and caps and carried tool bags - - I remember it in black and white very little colour in the early 1950s. My dad was based in Billingham all his working life but I remember him going to London, America and other ICI plants to work for short periods. My dad was very proud to work for ICI and would have been horrified to see the decline of the chemical industry that he contributed so much to.

John Robinson
ICI gave much to the region and its employees for decades. It was an innovator by providing housing, recreation facilities, pensions, welfare schemes and the opportunity to achieve. An ICI training created truly skilled people at all levels. Many of us are proud of the legacy which sadly has virtually disappeared. The UK economy is poorer by the demise of a one time world leader.

peter raffle
worked at ici for 35 years, as did my father, and grandfather, present board of directors should be ashamed of themselves for their contribution to the demise of a tremendous company not just a good british company, a household name, an institution,built up over many decades by people like Mc gowan, Fleck,Allen,and all the many tallented people who contrbuted their skils and lifetimes work to this great company.This is surely a sad moment in the history of British Industry

Roy
I hope that the new company will have the same attitude as ICI opposing the use of the disused Anhydrite Mine underneath Billingham.

phil kane
I grew up in Billingham right next to the ICI,remember every one going to and from work on peddle bikes, used to play in the bus sheds next to the cricket club. My dad and Brother both worked for the ICI or (ICKY) as it was known by the local lads. Now live in the USA miss the old place

phil kane
I grew up in Billingham right next to the ICI,remember every one going to and from work on peddle bikes, used to play in the bus sheds next to the cricket club. My dad and Brother both worked for the ICI or (ICKY) as it was known by the local lads. Now live in the USA miss the old place

Scott Walker
It blowing up

dave west
started with ici in 1978.then got sold on to huntsman then sold on to sabic (whose next) ici has left a living memorial for billingham the once magnificent agricultural divisional office at belasis anyone seen it lately..shame on you ici !

claire pearson
its been part of the landscape for as long as i can remember shame that such a legacy has to come to an end.

Alan Green
I was employed at ICI Wilton as a Instrument Articifier And the training I received there has served me well all over the world I now live in Australia and I can honestly say it is the best company I have ever worked for. In addition, to the most forward thinking and innovated. I have worked in Canada, USA, Indonesia as well as most States in Australia. I am retired last year and I still receive shares etc generated while working for ICI am deeply sorry to read that they will no longer reign in the Tees Valley. I have many happy memories of the people and the company.

Lynda Aitchison
After being away on holiday, seeing the ICI tower made me feel I was home again.