7ryMJjyBMgowKMZdQ~~_7.JPG "cee-dee"){kind=avatar}
And we all know the answer to question three of course 🙂 I once saw somebody having a pop at our car industry. A sticker displaying the logo "Buy BL" was prominently displayed on the back screen of a Toyota! He no doubt thought it funny.
I used to be a Rocker in the early 60's although all I could afford at the time was an NSU Quickly moped! Tuned it up to do 40mph while my mate had a BSA Bantam. Yeah, real hard Rockers!
but where are th British bikes now? Where are the BSA's the Norton's the Arial's the James or even the Gieves. All gone. End of an era.
Ah yes, of course, the Triumph. If you hadn't passed your test, to push in with the big boys you merely bought a combo. It didn't matter if it was a wooden box on a frame, so long as it had a third wheel it was street legal. We'd meet up at Highgate tube station, North London, and fifteen minutes later you'd be on the M1. Bodies hard against the tanks to reduce drag, flat out, into a dive bar just outside Birmingham, three cups of coffee to warm up, and then back to London. Bought a PVC "leather" jacket from Woolworth's for £2.00, painted a skull and crossbone in white plimpsoll paint and for extra bravado painted on the lettters A.C.A.B. Yeah, real hard guy - in a group!
I worked for an engineering set-up and grew up with the Denbeighs, Colchesters, verticle millers etc. Spanners were all drop forge steel - none of this mass produced nickle plated rubbish that looks nice but can't take the strain. When's the last time you had to use Whitworth and BSF? Everything seems to be AF these days. I went to Wickes the other day and wanted a pack of 4BA's. The boy didn't have a clue what I was talking about! Proper taps, proper dies. Half our tools are produced in Germany the other half in Taiwan. Screwdrivers and chisels had wooden handles, not plastic. Our planes used to be something to be proud of - now they're all cast alloy. I've got a 24" Stilson for sale. You can't get hold of them for love or money. The one thing I was never any good at was sharpening my own drills - they always came out off centre. I was a bit of a chip off the old block. My late father was an engineer officer in the merchant navy where he served a full five year apprenticeship before getting his AMIMechE so heavy engineering was nothing to him and I had that leaning too for a while. Half these qualifications don't even exist now - Senior Cambridge, that sort of thing.
I'm going back to the mid-sixties now, but what I liked about the Colchester was it was so versatile and so easy to use. You pulled down the cover, and there were the gears all clearly marked with exact ratios. You wanted it at 1300 revs, no problem 1:4: 7 for example. You merely slipped in whatever cogs you wanted. If you put me in front of a lathe now I'd be totally lost - it's all gone computerised! I wouldn't have a clue what I was doing. Had a full set of collets for every job. Shame I swung away from it. I drifted into the insurance world where I spent fofrty-one years under the same parent company which saw out eight chairmen! Even my boss said he couldn't get round the fact that I'd been in the same job before half of them - including himself, were even born! The girls I took a shine too were several years younger than my daughter!
Getting back to what we were talking about I bought one of the earliest Velocettes on the road. It was an LE200 with the hand gear change on the side of the case and a pull lever to start it! It was a water-cooled job with a top speed of 55 mph. (Providing you were going downhill, that was!) It was the forerunner of the police Noddy bikes used extensively in London by the Met - their's were 350 cc jobs. Either side they were both hopelessly underpowered. Another underpowered machine was the BSA C15 a 250 cc job that could just about hit 70. Their bigger bikes were BSA's if I remember rightly. I never had a lot of time for the police - the contempt was mutual. (Roll eyes). Hey, remember the Francis Barnet? So easy to work on! It could just about hold it's own against a BSA Bantam 175 cc. The Honda's were just about breaking in to the UK market with their flying H logo, long since gone. I guess the late 60's were the beginning of the end.
Thirty years, eh? Congratulations. 
You'll have some way to beat me, though: Forty-one years, four months, two weeks and one day! 
It speaks well for any company whose employees choose to remain over the years. My job was of no consequence. I was just a very small cog in a very big wheel, but I'd been there so long that they tolerated my idiosyncrasies where I became part of the furniture. I actually met my wife there. Over the years there'd been many changes - some good, some not so good but with each major upheaval I weathered the storm. I damn nearly didn't get as far as the interview. I got off at the wrong tube station and by the time I found the building the boss was actually walking out of the door! He took one look at me soaked in sweat, took his coat off and proceded to tell me all about the job making himself an hour late going home! ROTF! I used to be in the engineering trade working on Colchester Lathes but that was so long ago I've long sinse forgotten which model it was. I kept my hand in though by making car ramps and selling them at a very modest profit.
Anyway, good luck in your continued employment. I'm now happily retired. My working life is over. What line of business are you in, if you don't mind me asking?
Very much like what I did, collecting documents for onward transmission to Lloyds, sorting out items that had to be scanned, general postroom services etc. Easiest job in the company until I went sick for a couple of days and then everybody got into a flat spin because what I could do blindfold wasn't natural to them! Bet you too had the easiest job in the company which anybody could do - until they tried.
