This site is for all the past Employees of SWS who want to share memories and pictures. There are already plenty of photographs, check them out you may see your "younger self", if so let me know and tell me the story behind the picture.
I joined SWS in 1968 when I was 16 fresh out of Pontllanfraith Grammar School as an Apprentice , I still have a copy of the indentures that my Father and I signed. The first year of course was spent in the Training School with day release for College. I still remember those green overalls, they were to identify me as the lowest form of life in Switchgear, and I was constantly reminded of the fact by every skilled man I worked with!
There was a very interesting cross section of people in my intake in 1968. Apart from us local lads, there were Swithun Kalimba and Nelson somebody from Malawi, and we also had a South African lad - an Afrikaner whose accent was so thick we found it hard to understand him. Each break time he could be found reading his Bible, probably asking himself what he had done to find himself amongst this band of heathens!. Closer to home but still "foreigners" were some lads from Pembroke, they stayed locally during the week and drove home on weekends, quite a trek back then.
The Training School was run by a guy called John Roberts (if I remember correctly), in the Fab Shop was Jim Winfield, and the Machine Shop were Dick Morris and Fred Delahey. We all learned by hands on the fundamentals of welding, machining, fabrication, soldering, reading prints and electric circuitry. I still have the toolbox I made and the spanner I lovingly carved out of solid steel!.
Having said that the training was first Class and has served me well all and gave me a rock solid engineering foundation for my career both in Britain and in the USA.
Who can remember how much fun it was on a cold morning to run around the entire perimeter of the Sports Ground?
When I graduated from the Training School my first Module was the R&D Workshop for 5 months working with a guy called Ernie Sutherly. He seemed ancient to me wore a brown smock overall, had a colonoscopy bag and had had no sense of humor at all. When I arrived, he handed me some rags and told to climb inside an oily transformer drum and clean out the oily dregs! This was my introduction to my new role and made me clearly understand my humble position in life. I remember one of my friends David Ralph getting into trouble with his mentor when he was given the task of cleaning the tea mugs. Now Dave being conscientious gave the mugs a good scrub because they were badly discolored, but when he got back with them sparkling clean his guy went ballistic. He said that Dave had taken all of the taste out of his mug, Dave thought he was going to get killed!
From there I circulated around all of the various Departments, Purchasing, Planning, Finance and R&D Design where I worked with some really good guys, Russell Jones, Eddie Jones and John Richards. John Parry was the Chief Engineer. Finally ending up in the Contracts Drawing Office working with Don Godwin, this is where I discovered my talent for drawing cartoons. Any situation that was out of the ordinary got it’s own cartoon. I became the official cartoonist and people would come to me to suggest themes, when the drawing was done it would be passed around the Drawing offices to an appreciative audience and then returned to me to be filed in the Cartoon Book. When I left SWS this book was still being passed around, I always wonder what became of it. Many of the cartoons were based on the activities of the Office Committee ,led by Big Mac, supported by Dai the Bomb, Dai Williams and John Pascoe. Their actions gave many ideas and many laughs, I called them the tight lipped four as you will see from the attached poem I wrote. I remember when John Pascoe was asked if there was any news his reply was always "Too early mun", thus in my cartoons his catch phrase became "Twirlymun". I also came to realize that even though I was no longer an Apprentice and had become a Junior Draughtsman, I was still low on the totem pole. We Junior Draughtsmen complained that it took us 5 years to become “skilled” even though we were doing a skilled mans job. The response from the Senior Draughtsmen was that they had to do it so we had to do it, the Office Committee had the same view. I once wrote a poem called the Drawing Office Blues which is included in this website in the "Stories Section". Reading it today brings back some memories I can tell you. Remember Pud in the bog after a bad night? phew....
My last position in SWS was in the Jig & Tool Drawing Office working with Lyn Maloney, Dai Jones, John Bosley, Roy Dayton, Dai Bowen, glamorous Val the Secretary and John Spruce the Department Manager who seemed to spend most of his day thinking about where and when his next gig was with his organ!
I cannot understand why with all of the history of SWS I could find nothing on the web. So I decided to do it myself, all of you ex-employees of the “Switch” out there who have memories or pictures to share - this is the place.
Let’s walk down memory lane together and bring the glory days of the old SWS back to life, I look forward to all of your responses.