Down, down, down. All a bit sad.


https://youtu.be/kfg4ml4ZxFk

I was on Seaton beach and the noise/shock wave seemed to hit me several seconds after the structure had toppled.It was a bit alarming TBH.

Bastiiids…. Was gonna go down but heard the bang in the kitchen, drove down and it was gone.gone.
Sorry, but good riddance, horrible place to work in and I was on maintenance on them in the 70’s.

I remember going up there in 79 on a work experience trip. It felt extremely high, 356 foot if I remember correctly. I’ll never forget a bloke walking out on a plank to red lead a bit he couldn’t reach. This was within 50 of the top and not hint of a harness, just a baton jammed between two pipes and out he went. Crazy crazy man. They called it springboard painting.

I never fancied working in heavy industry when i left school due it looking to be a risky occupation.
Got an office job but for years had to cope with the dangers of paper cuts and stapling machines.

That's how blast waves, shock waves work, depending on distance from them and amount of explosives used.

Agree, they were/are dangerous place's to work.

Occupationaly and Health wise.

I said to my wife, I'm glad it's raining because all the crap that come out of it, when it come down would have went everywhere if it wasn't raining and everywhere would be covered in the dust from it...whatever might be in that dust.

I always got spooked by the tuyeres around the base in case one blew out complete with jet of molten pig iron shot out.

Good old industry! Who needs it when you can spunk it all on a pie in the sky freeport?

Worked on it in the late 70s it wasn’t in full production, my memories are everything covered in coal dust, I went back years later, walked off after a couple days, unbelievable conditions, the lads who worked under those conditions deserve a medal. The whole place was a health hazard, fumes, dust etc and everything you touched was black, the dust even got in the car.

That was one good old industry you wouldn’t want your kids to experience.

Probably like the pits generation after generation followed their parents, grandparents etc but what they did do was provide apprenticeships, after completing their apprenticeship many moved on to a different environment.

Proper apprenticeships would be brilliant…but it appears everyone is pushed into going to Uni for pointless degrees…… I’ll exclude medicine and science subjects from the pointless group…… trouble is engineering is looked down upon in this country whereas in Germany it’s an highly respected career, we seem obsessed with the not getting your hands dirty jobs.

India turns out loads of engineers and technology people, we sent people to uni for worthless degrees, who ever thought up the idea of of apprentice office and shelf stacker apprentices ?

The ignorant politicians to whom work is an alien concept thought stealing the word ‘apprentice’ and bastardising it to suit any shit training scheme boils my piss.

I think it was the Charles Dickens book Great Expectations where Pip (our hero) was an apprentice Blacksmith and he was virtually owned by his boss right through his childhood and eventually Miss Haversham ? has to buy him out of his punitive contract in order to give him a chance of a better life.

Now that is Old School Proper apprenticeship.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlBgxelH6Lw

This gives an idea of the size of the place. It was like blinking Mordor.

I finished my apprenticeship in 1973 and had to go before the Chief Engineer to receive my indentures in a formal setting, a bit intimidating, but you knew you’d achieved something.
Annoying to see some kid in a pound shop on a two week course course called a retail apprentice……if companies were giving Retail Degrees for a two week training course there would be hell to pay.
Let’s be honest, some people admire ‘barista’s’ in a coffee shop as though they were feckin special and they’re only selling you a cup of bloody over priced coffee, crazy society.

a form of slave labour that will not get much air time in todays world.

we have always in this country had an odd view about many jobs. in germany it was always about just having a job and all jobs were regarded useful and on par with another. even back in the mid 50,s when i left school it was all about white collar work where kids were moved away from all jobs that needed apprenticeships for being classed as dead end jobs. like once a welder always a welder. even my first mother in law classed me as a common bus driver, thing is the common bus driver earned more than her pen pushing town hall working husband.

spent some time on it when SSI got it back up and running - the thing should never have been turned back on and how they managed it with the state the thing was in, is an achievement for man kind in itself ! like others have said, very hazardous aweful place to be

in a lot of ways its a pity its gone for good and future generations cannot see it anymore. However bad it was to work there it is still part of our past like all others things are that get preservation orders on which mean sod all to many because there are so many others around. know it would not be easy to preserve but if the will was there anything is possible. What will be next, the end of the transporter.

it certainly served the region well and many a working man made his living from it - as much as it was an eyesore it was iconic to teesside.

i could see that and the power station from my bedroom window as a kid - playing in the garden listening to the pipe mill clatter pipes all day long. Soon the Power station and the pipemill will follow in the footsteps of the blast furnace. sad times really - not sure what the kids of the future are going to be able to do for a living.

Maintaining monuments is a doddle…maintaining metal monuments is a fooking nightmare, an expensive nightmare….the costs are horrendous.
Be honest, a blast furnace heritage site is not going to get the kids wound up, it’s hardly Flamingoland is it.

The problem is companies don’t want to train kids up they want ‘ready made’ people.
I was in Specsavers today, they are recruiting for January, they can’t get enough staff, I used 23 taxis they have a massive problem because they can’t get drivers, a driver can earn £500 a day according to the driver who dropped me of for a 12 hour shift.
Apparently if you have a night out planned you have to book a taxi weeks in advance.
I got a yellow cab on Monday, Railway Station to Sainsburys at Bishop Cuthbert £9.20, if I wasn’t so fatigued I would have pulled him, extortion !

[quote="Jamie1952"][


The problem is companies don’t want to train kids up they want ‘ready made’ people.
I was in Specsavers today, they are recruiting for January, they can’t get enough staff, I used 23 taxis they have a massive problem because they can’t get drivers, a driver can earn £500 a day according to the driver who dropped me of for a 12 hour shift.

they can earn that amount but they must be willing to work weekends untill the noght clubs close. just working days and you,d struggle. people now are not prepared to work after 6 and want their weekends and bank holidays off. the police are having similar recruitment problems as some applicants think its a 9 to 5 job monday to friday and do not want anything else to disrupt their private lives.

I always hated working Xmas Days…..on standby for breakdowns that never happened and the visit from the Chief Engineer to give you the customary cigar …..pity no one in our squad smoked.

i was the complete opposite. always volunteered to work christmas day as it was only for 4 hours at double time with a guarentee of having boxing day off to watch a game. was the last person to finish on christmas day on the buses in huddersfield before they stopped running as i made sure i was the last man out of the building when everyone else had gone home.