What ‘The Austin’ means to me...
Some Journey’s remain forever imprinted in our minds –
this is a memory I have.... I am travelling in an Austin A35 from Cloverdale,
Stoke Prior, Bromsgrove to Kingswood Road, West Heath, Birmingham to visit my Grandparents in was in 1967 The Summer of Love
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| The Austin A35- Motoring for the masses! |
The A35 was a laugh, when my Dad wanted to turn a
corner he pulled a stopper on the dashboard that was connected by wire to
‘indicators’ that popped up out their slots in the sides of the car like the
ears of a curious rabbit. Going up the little hill out of Stoke Prior to
Hanbury Turn was a bit of an effort for the A35 so my Dad encouraged me and my
little sister in the back to rock forward like little chickens pecking at seeds
– he convinced us this helped the A35 maintain the momentum to get up the hill.
We drove through Bromsgrove and Rubery and as we came
down the Bristol Road South 'The Austin' began to fill the horizon. We turned
left at Longbridge Island and I remember seeing the shiny steel body shells of
Mini’s piled up on the back of Car Transporters lined up along the side of the
West Works. As we turned right into Longbridge Lane I looked back through the
tiny rear window of the A35 watching the sunlight bounce off the steel –
I was proud that my Dad, Barry France, was one of the people who helped transform
these empty body shells into finished Mini’s – I also knew he worked hard and I
missed him when he was working nights as I hardly saw him. The fortnightly
change of shifts was the background rhythm of my childhood.
Once a Month my Dad went out on an evening – very unusual as he only
ever went out to go to work the rest of the time he was always with his little
nuclear family. It was only years later that I found out where he went.
Barry was the Branch Chair of the Longbridge National Union of Vehicle
Builders and once a month travelled to Selly Oak for the meetings held in a
small office above the Shops where the Number 11 Bus crossed the Bristol Road.
As we turned into Kingswood Road, West Heath I was
looking forward to playing on the swing at the bottom of my Nan and Granddads
garden and the cup of tea which they made with a frugal splash of sterilised
milk – the tea always tasted creamier at Nan and granddads. Len and Kath’s
House was spotless, perfectly decorated and the garden lawn a soft, short,
bouncy brilliant green. At the end of the Garden was a shed containing wonders
– old engineering tools, a lathe, heavy bench vices and an old motorbike painted
Khaki Green, awaiting restoration. Just beyond the Khaki Green painted shed was
a Khaki Green painted gate [I suspect Len
managed to get hold of a job lot of Khaki Green paint at sometime] The gate
opened onto a mysterious forbidden Jungle across the gap created by a brook....
Less than a mile from one of the Largest Industrial Plants in the World I stood
on the bank of this brook as mottled sunlight penetrated the tree canopy.
Silence and Sunlight – Green Grass and Blue Skies,
this was part of my life as the son and grandson of Longbridge workers in the
Summer of Love 1967.
My Granddad, Len, got a mortgage on the 3 bed house in
Kingswood Road in 1938 on the basis of his earnings as a worker at the Flight
Shed in Longbridge assembling Fairy Battle single engine bomber aircraft and he
went on to work on Hurricane Fighters.
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| A Hurricane taking of from Longbridge Airfeild 1942 |
4minutes 30seconds into this archive film Len France
can be seen pushing the tail of the Plane out of the Flight Shed.
Len, like thousands of other workers, was proud of his
contribution to the struggle against Fascism. As an active trade unionist and
early member of the National Union of Vehicle Builders, Len, had high hopes for
a fairer world and a bright future for his young family. Len joined the Labour
Party and contributed to the landslide victory of Labour in the 1945 General
Election.
In the aftermath of Fascism and War and with a
‘National Debt’ much higher than it is today, the process of reconstruction
began. Yes, there was austerity, but the pain was shared far more equally and
evenly than in 2012. The continuation of ‘the ration book’ helped ensure some
fairness in the distribution of the most basic necessities in life.
The Attlee Government Nationalised the, Coal,
Iron/Steel and Inland Transport Industries. The NHS was created, 100,000’s of
new homes constructed and the framework of a welfare state established that
promised to care for each citizen equally ‘from the cradle to the grave’.
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| Now to Win the Peace! |
The Austin turned from War Production to civilian work
– manufacturing 3,000 Austin ‘Welfarer Ambulances’ for the new NHS. The K9 Truck previously used for military
purposes was to become the backbone of the newly nationalised road haulage
industry. The Austin workforce which was reduced from its wartime peak of
37,000 as thousands of women in south Birmingham and North Worcestershire
stopped making Bren Gun Magazines, aircraft fuel tanks and other war materials,
many started families. A new generation born in peacetime into a new era of a
Welfare State emerged from the long shadows cast by War.
The predominantly male workforce that remained at the
Longbridge plant was soon pressed into work to assist in reducing the National Debt.
The USA, as soon as the War ended began demanding repayment of War time loans
from the new Labour Government. Under this duress the newly Nationalised Steel
Industry only allocated materials to those companies manufacturing for export
so Longbridge designers and workers produced the Austin Atlantic aimed at the
American market. All this effort proved in vain as the ‘Atlantic’ ended up
selling better across other oceans most notably in Australia. The ever
inventive and innovative management, designers and workforce at Longbridge took
this setback in their stride and investigated new opportunities as the period
of post war austerity gradually came to an end. When my Dad, Barry France, started
work at The Austin in 1954 the focus was still on production for export. The
first car Barry worked on was the Nash Metropolitan exclusively aimed at the
American Market. His home in Kingswood Road, West Heath was only about
15minutes walk from his spot on the track assembling the Nash.
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| The Nash - the first car Barry worked on |
In the Mid 1950’s most Longbridge workers used public
transport, works buses and trains, bicycles or ‘shank’s pony’ [Walking] to get
to the plant. Although relatively well paid, car ownership was still far too
expensive for most workers. The newly established British Motor Corporation
centred on the two huge plants at Longbridge [Austin] Birmingham and Cowley
[Morris] Oxford, was by far the largest car manufacturer in Europe and the 4th
Largest in the World.
A combination of factors including the increasing
capacity of US manufacturers to meet domestic demand and a weakened car market
in the UK and Europe meant that BMC management were faced with a crisis of
overproduction. The efficiency and
productivity of the workforce led to thousands of vehicles being stockpiled and
these were not selling in Britain, not because of any problems with the quality
of the cars, but because the British working class were still too poorly paid
to buy the products of their labour. There was emerging crisis and in the
summer of 1956 BMC management acted to implement their preferred solution. Without
consultation BMC announced the sacking of 6,000 workers including 3,000 at
Longbridge. Management had clearly not understood the mood of ordinary workers
and their unilateral act triggered the ‘Big Strike’ which was the first major
test for the NUVB and other unions at Longbridge in the post war period.
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| The Big Strike 1956 |
In the first days of the strike the Police turned up
with Horses and threatened to break up the picket line outside the West Works.
As the tension between strikers and police rose the NUVB Convenor, Dick
Etheridge, asked my dad if he used to collect marbles as a kid, my dad bemused
by the question said ‘yes – and I still have a big bag of them at home’. Dick said ‘well leg it back home and bring
all the marbles you can find’. Within half an hour Barry was back with his marbles
ready for whatever they were needed for. The ‘plan’ of Dick Etheridge was to
roll the marbles under the hooves of the Police Horses if they charged, but the
picket line held firm and Barry never ‘lost his marbles’.
Faced with such spirited resistance the police
withdrew the Horses and over the next few days the Strike became an expression
of a new found confidence as ordinary workers joined picket lines and
participated in spontaneous marches up and down the Bristol Road South.
Often at the forefront of the Big Strike were women
workers from the ‘Trim Shop’ who would wait at the various gates to ‘slow hand
clap’ those ‘blacklegs’ at the end of their shift. These shaming tactics worked
and the numbers on strike grew. The highly charged atmosphere during the last
week of July came to a head after a failed attempt by Sir Oswald Moseley to
hijack the anger of Longbridge workers to support his campaign targeting Jamaican
immigrants. Longbridge workers wanted nothing to do with the Fascists and drove
them away from the picket lines. My dad Barry was there at one confrontation and
remembers a bloke he knew getting his hands badly broken and bloodied by a
Fascist wielding a hammer. It was the ‘Longbridge Fortnight’ annual summer
plant closure that took the heat out of the dispute. BMC management shocked by
the resistance had to negotiate a return to work after the holidays lifting the
threat of compulsory redundancy for thousands of workers.
The confidence of Longbridge workers and the faith
they placed in their unions has often been distorted as some sort of disease or
problem that needed to be tackled. However, in 1956 the ‘Big Strike’ was not
about ‘greedy wage demands’ or ‘bloody minded troublemaking shop stewards’ – it
was a simple demand that jobs and skills be preserved and not sacrificed
because management bets on global market opportunities proved incorrect. In
fact the growing strength of Longbridge Unions led in time to their members
becoming the best paid industrial workers in the country and the creation of a
new market for BMC products. The revolutionary Austin Seven 850 [later
rechristened the Mini] was launched in 1959 a vehicle which was the culmination
of everything great about Longbridge.
The brilliance of the design testing and production
process that produced the Mini is show in this three part Pathe Documentary:
My Dads older sister June had Married Ronnie Steadman
who also worked on the track at Longbridge while June worked half a mile down
the road at Kalamazoo. June and Ron were the perfect example of the young families
whose lives revolved around ‘the Austin’. By 1958 June and Ron, still only in
their mid 20’s were able to get a mortgage on a brand new 3 bedroom detached
house on the Callowbrook ‘Mucklow’ Estate in Rubery. This well designed
community of semi detached, and detached 3 bed family homes had the backdrop of
the Waseley Hills, was within walking distance of Rubery village, but close
enough to open countryside that the sounds and smells of nearby dairy herds
were a feature of daily life. For many Longbridge workers moving to Rubery with
recent memories of Wartime Horror and Post War squalor, this transformation in
the quality of their life was exactly what they had been fighting for.
When my mom and Dad were saving for a deposit to get
their own home June and Ron put them up for a while in Rubery – and this sort
of mutual self help was part of the spirit, not just of my own family, but motivated many Longbridge workers in this
era. A form of social solidarity based on a shared identity and common goals
shaped daily life. It wasn’t a ‘political’ philosophy and it was not
articulated or discussed – it was something straightforward that was
implemented quietly and unobtrusively.
By the early 1960’s couples like June and Ron Steadman
were the first generation of manual industrial workers to own their own home
and purchase their own car to transport their kids to holiday and leisure
activities and to get to and from work. June and Ron bought an early example of
innovative design by ‘the Austin’, the A40 Farina the first ever ‘compact,
economical hatchback’.
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| The A40 - Auntie June and Uncle Ron had one |
By the time I had my 1st Birthday in July
1963 my mom and Dad had moved to 99 Cloverdale, Stoke Prior – from my bedroom I
looked out over open fields that as a toddler I was able to explore in complete
safety. One night I was awestruck as a huge Harvest Moon filled the sky while
fireflies played in the eaves of the house – I was happy to be so close to
nature and slept like a log. We even used to get casual work from the farmer at
harvest time and me and mom would pick the farmers spuds for a bit of extra
cash, but Barry got really annoyed when we said how little we were paid.
The boundary between the Farmers Field and the small
back gardens of the Cloverdale Estate was a patch of rough uncultivated ground
about 12 feet wide. Early one Sunday morning when I was still a toddler I was
woken by lots of activity at the back of the house. All the adults in the road,
most of them Longbridge workers, were ‘extending’ the back gardens by simply
moving their fences about 6ft further into the uncultivated border of the
Farmers Field. If the Farmer noticed his missing acre – he never complained –
and the great Cloverdale Land Grab was successful.
Back to the Journey in the Austin A35: When we finally arrived at 53 Kingswood Road,
West Heath I asked my Granddad, who worked at Kalamazoo with Auntie June, ‘what
do you do at ‘the Zoo’?’ Len said ‘Oh! My Job is to ‘Muck out the Elephants’.
For another 5 years I was increasingly frustrated that even though my own
Granddad was a Zoo Keeper we never ever got to visit ‘the Zoo’. Then one day we
travelled a million miles to Dudley Zoo. It was on a damp drizzly day in Dudley
that I learnt the painful truth about my own gullibility and the tremendous
capacity of adults to ‘lie’. My Granddad wasn’t like Jonny Morris in Animal
Magic, complete with a Zoo Keeper peaked cap, but an industrial worker like all
the other adults I knew.
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| Not a photo of my Granddad Len at Work! |
By the time of the Dudley Zoo trip we had moved to
Stirchley, Dad still worked at Longbridge and my mom was working at Wilmott
Breedon, a component company that supplied ‘the Austin’. Mom used to assemble
car door locks that were a couple of weeks later fitted by my Dad on the track
in CAB 2 to the cars. Much to my mom and Dad’s disgust Harold Wilson was no
longer running the country and a grinning Ted Heath was trying to ‘take on’ the
Unions. By this time Longbridge employed 28,000 workers and the sense of
collective strength that most of these workers felt was a major influence on
local politics. Even Bromsgrove felt this power when a By Election in 1971 led
to the return of a Leyland Employee, Terry Davis as the Town’s first ever
Labour MP.
Being a son of Car Industry workers in the early 70’s
meant growing up with a sense of optimism and a feeling that things were
changing for the better. Each year our standard of living improved, we lived in
a clean modern home with good furniture. We ate good food, we went on 2 camping
holiday’s a year. My Dad’s main hobby was buying a different car every 6months
or so and at weekends we’d go for trips to the Lickey Hills for long walks. In
the summer we’d drive to the Vale of Evesham to ‘Pick Your Own’ wandering
around strawberry fields stuffing our faces all day until Barry would buy a
single punnet of strawberry’s on our way out. In the autumn we’d walk the
country lanes surrounding Bromsgrove collecting thousands of blackberries.
Looking back I realise that Mom and Dad who were stuck inside noisy, dirty
alienating factory environments all week found a way to get back to nature at
the weekend.
When Holidays came we spent them on the nearly empty
and unspoilt beaches of Pembrokeshire that my Dad first discovered while doing
his National Service at Castlemartin Tank Range. Even in Wales – Longbridge was
still with us, I remember that one summer at Kiln Park Campsite near Tenby,
virtually the entire Longbridge Joint Shop Stewards Committee were able to meet
to discuss tactics to use against management the following week.
At Christmas we got all we could dream of. Me and my sister Shellie were the first kids
in our street to get electronic calculators! When the Rayleigh Chopper bike
came out I got a Bright Yellow one!
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| A Raleight Chopper in Yellow - Just Like Mine! |
In the early ‘70’s the changes came thick and fast -
we got a Colour TV, Split Level Cooker, fitted carpets, a washing machine and a
vacuum cleaner. The vacuum cleaner was a godsend – until it arrived me and my
mom used to clean the carpets once a week by tearing foot long strips of Austin
Grey Tape off the big roll Dad had nicked off the track. We’d press the strong
duct tape down on the carpet and yank it back up – picking up all the grit and
dirt out the carpet pile.But the washing machine was not as welcome; I missed
the regular Sunday morning trip to the Laundrette on Pershore Road. Chatting
with Mom as the Big Tumble Driers did their work. The Laundrette was my Church
and my Mom was my Vicar.
By the time we moved into a brand new 3 storey town
house with an integral double garage in Hazelwell Fordrough in Stirchley – Dad
was driving a massive Austin 3Litre and bought mom a little green Mini [but she
never got round to learning to drive]. Dad had bought the big second hand
Austin after a bad experience with the first ‘brand new’ car he bought. On one
of our regular trips to Soho Road, Handsworth to buy a pair of Stiletto shoes [My mom liked wearing Stilettos – but by
1971 they were out of fashion and only shoe shops catering for the tastes of
the West Indian Ladies still sold them] Dad spotted a garage while we were
in Handsworth selling cars made in the Soviet Union dirt cheap. For some
strange reason he bought Mustard coloured Moscovich Van and for a few weeks me
and my sister had to bounce around in the back of the van with only pillows for
seating. Dad used to park up at Longbridge next to the Apprentices Hut off Longbridge
Lane. After completing one shift he got back to the Mustard Moscovich to
discover the paintwork had been keyed... he concluded that some fellow worker
must have taken exception to him driving a ‘foreign’ car. Or perhaps it was a
heroic act of resistance against ‘communism’? Dad learnt his lesson and bought
an old Austin 3Litre to be on the safe side.
The world was getting more dangerous and polarised and
the local paper the Evening Mail was deepening its anti-trade union stance and
painting a picture of car industry shop stewards as the bad guys. I used to watch
the TV News with my Dad and the continuing images of death and destruction from
far away Vietnam were joined by similar scenes much closer to home.
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| Derry Civil Rights Banner Soaked in Blood |
As a 9 year old
kid I was horrified by the events of Bloody Sunday in Derry and it seems that
warlike confrontation was getting closer to home. Less than a fortnight after
Bloody Sunday the Battle of Saltley Gate took place. 30,000 Brummie workers
many from the car industry had struck in solidarity with Striking Miners and
descended on Saltley Coke Depot. As my mom had been born in the Rhondda and my
Uncle Idris was an active NUM member our family had natural sympathy for the
Miners. The Battle of Saltley Gate was won by the strikers and the Police
‘Closed the Gates’. The Miners won their immediate demands for a substantial
pay rise thanks in part to the solidarity shown by workers from Longbridge.
Less than five years on from the start of my Journey
in the little Austin A35 from Stoke Prior to West Heath during the Summer of
Love the world seemed to be falling into hostile camps – I began to realise
that the journey to a fairer world was not going to be easy and may even become
a matter of life and death.
By 1973, after nearly 20 years at ‘the Austin’ my Dad
was beginning to get a real insight into the huge problems affecting British
Leyland. Barry had always been contemptuous of the intellectual capacity of
many of the middle managers at Longbridge. His unfavourable assessment grew
from many face to face negotiations with managers in his capacity as a shop
steward representing workers on the track. By 1973 Barry was in lower
management himself, a shift Foreman, and he gained further insight into the
problems, especially in the run up to the launch of the Austin Allegro.
Barry remembers that most track workers were surprised
that instead of incorporating a hatchback, that proved so popular with the Maxi,
the new model was going to have a traditional boot. Apparently, management on
the Maxi side lobbied for the Hatchback to become a unique feature of ‘their’ car.
It was this separate ‘silo mentality’ that not only meant different parts of
British Leyland were in ‘competition’ with each other but different sections of
the Longbridge plant management were fighting each other for dominance. On top
of that Senior Management were drafting in teams of outside consultants to
carry out extensive time and motion studies in preparation for a move away from
the popular piecework incentivised pay system to something called ‘Measured Day
Work’. This hugely expensive and unpopular process proved another disaster for
industrial relations at Longbridge. Caught in the middle between an
increasingly angry shop floor and a completely incompetent, out of touch
management Barry decided to Unionise the Foremen and other lower management
grades into ASTMS so their voices would be heard and not ignored by senior
management.
When the Allegro was launched I went with my Dad to a
showroom to sit in a Mustard Coloured 1300 with its quirky Quadratic Steering
Wheel and bouncy HydroGas Suspension. I loved it! During it’s 10 year long
production run nearly 650,000 were sold and 40 years on there are still 1,000
kept running by enthusiasts. Perhaps the Austin Allegro doesn’t deserve the
awful reputation it has in popular culture? Maybe, if the design had
incorporated at hatchback the Allegro would have competed with the early Ford
Fiesta and VW Golf?
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| A Mustard Austin Allegro - BOSTIN! |
The winter of 1973/74 is one that my generation will
never forget. It was fantastic! Christmas got off to a great start me and my
sister attended the best Xmas Party Ever at the Gay Tower Ballroom, Rotten Park
Reservoir in Edgbaston. We joined over 2,000 other sons and daughters of
Longbridge Workers at the free party organised by the Joint Shop Stewards
Committee. By January it seemed Christmas just carried on with
romantic candle lit dinners, card games and woolly jumpers. The New Year 1974
was memorable for the 3 Day Working Week, fuel shortages and Power Cuts as the
confrontation between the Miners and Ted Heaths Tory Government reached its climax.
It was a great time for kids and we loved every minute of it – Adults seemed
more serious and an unusually glum looking Ted Heath appeared on Telly and asked
the nation ‘Who Governs Britain?’ I remember thinking ‘NOT you mate!’
Mom and Dad got involved in the local Labour Party in
Hall Green Constituency and before long I was enthusiastically helping to
deliver leaflets and doing ‘poll station’ duty in both February and October
General Elections. Labour just about formed a government in Feb and gained a
stronger parliamentary majority in October, but it seemed like everything was
coming to a head – all the underlying contradictions within the framework of
the British State were beginning to show. Even as a 12 year old kid I sensed
this. Maybe I was just growing up but the feelings of progress improvement and
security started to fade and within a few weeks I witnessed and felt the uglier
side of life.
On a cold November morning in 1974 my Dad came home
from Night Shift as I was getting up for school. The normally calm, relaxed,
smiling Dad I knew, who would be looking forward to his bed was agitated,
nervous and visibly troubled. Dad told us how the news of the Bombings of the
two City Centre Pubs came through to the night shift in CAB 2. He explained
that an angry mob of workers left their work stations on the track seeking out
Irish workers at the plant who were suspected of being sympathetic to the IRA.
[The Provisional IRA were immediately assumed to have planted the bombs that
killed 21 people earlier that night] At one point Dad
and other Shop Stewards had to physically intervene to prevent a ‘Lynch Mob’
who were intent on dragging one already battered and bruised bloke into Cofton
Park to ‘hang from the nearest tree’.
After hearing this harrowing tale my Mom left for work
and Dad went to bed. I left the house walked to the Pershore Road to catch the bus
to school. The top deck of the bus that morning had a very different atmosphere
– normal routine had been shattered by the Bombs. School kids and Adults were
in animated conversation that grew increasing loud as we travelled through
Cotteridge. Then one middle aged woman with a fag held high shouted out ‘The
RAF should Bomb Belfast to Hell’- most of the passengers responded with cheers.
As the bus started trundling down the hill to Kings Norton and the commotion was
dying down - I stood up from my seat at the back of the bus and asked a loud
question “If we didn’t have troops in Ireland and if we hadn’t killed all those
people on Bloody Sunday then would there be Bombs in Brum?” You could hear a pin drop as I walked down the aisle
and down the stairwell. I got off the Bus at my normal stop on the Redditch
Road to go to Kings Norton Mixed Secondary Modern but the group of schoolmates
who I normally walked into school with hung back – so I walked alone through
the gates. Word of my ‘question’ must
have got round the school fairly rapidly – at first break I was surrounded by a
group of older 4th and 5th year School kids most of them
girls. I was mercilessly beaten and called a ‘fucking bog wog’ and ‘murdering
Irish bastard’.... from my position on the floor as the mob continued to kick
me - I looked up and saw the Head Teacher Mrs Patterson a few yards away.
Unlike my Dad a few hours earlier, who faced down grown men at the Longbridge
plant to prevent an injustice, Mrs Patterson did not have the courage to take
on a group of angry young women beating an innocent 12 year old boy, she didn’t
intervene. Mrs Patterson was fairly typical of the degree educated, well paid
professionals in Birmingham who were contemptuous of Longbridge Trade Unionists
like my Dad. I was proud of my Dad for standing up to a wave of reactionary
anti-Irish sentiment at Longbridge and horrified at how fast that wave had
spread through the City. If I was getting beaten up and blamed for the pub
bombings as a 12 year old English boy – what on earth must it be like if you
were a middle aged Irish/Brummie with Republican sympathies?
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| The Innocent Men Frame By West Midlands Police |
As the winter of 1974/75 deepened, I became more
conscious of the darker side of life but I took my lead from my Dad who never
really dwelt on negatives. He was always light hearted, and as a family we
shared the good humour of ‘The Morecombe and Wise Show’"The Morecambe and Wise Show" and me and my sister
were allowed to stay up a bit later to watch "The Dave Allen Show". I don’t
think Barry ever forgot how people he had like and trusted had turned into a
Lynch Mob on that Night Shift at Longbridge – some of the faith he had in
humanity and in his ‘brother’ trade unionists had died.
At the start of 1975 Longbridge and British Leyland
were constantly in the news. European and Japanese Car Industries with much
higher levels of capital investment, new plant and equipment and rationalised
management structures were producing more reliable cars that were selling well
in the UK. The situation at British Leyland and at Longbridge was reaching
crisis point. Sir Don Ryder was called in by the Government to carry out an in depth
investigation and The Ryder Report recommended the effective nationalisation of
the company as the only way to prevent complete collapse with the potential
loss of nearly a million jobs.
Tony Benn as Secretary of State for Industry confirmed
a massive package of capital investment in British Leyland. A total
reorganisation of BL was to be negotiated in partnership with the Trade Unions;
the investment meant securing the future of Longbridge with the development of
a completely new range of Models including a replacement for the MINI. We could
all breathe a sigh of relief.
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| The Very Nice Mr Benn |
For me 1975 will always bring back memories of a
convoy of ‘Flame’ coloured Morris Marina’s travelling through Devon. Len and
Kath, June and Ron, Ken and Mo, Barry and Jem and seven kids, three generations
of France’s driving 4 bright orange brand spanking new motors. A holiday that
represented the pinnacle of one family’s shared experience of working class
affluence and confidence via working lives that revolved around ‘the Austin’.
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| A 1.3 'Flame' Marina Coupe |
Immediately after the flame coloured Devon adventure
we moved again - from a gloomy monochrome Stirchley to the bright colourful
Callowbrook Estate in Rubery. Our new home at 42 Rea Avenue was a ‘Mucklow’ 3
bed semi with a long back Garden. Me and my sister could not believe our luck
when my Mom and Dad announced they were moving into the 8ft by 6ft box room
meaning that we each got a big double room. Soon the plan of the Parents became
clear as Dad started drawing out plans for an Extension to the House. Rubery
was closer to Longbridge and was right on the edge of the countryside. It felt
like you were in a protected crater bounded by the Lickey’s and Beacon Hill - to
the south, the Waseley Hills to the west and Frankley beaches to the north....
and the Giant Longbridge Plant to the East. We even had our own micro climate!
We’d have snow in Rubery, but if you got on the number 63 bus into Brum by the
time you got to Longbridge Island no snow!
Just like Tony Benn, Barry was also ‘investing’ in the
future and with a little bit of help from me completed the extension to our new
Home...Mom and Dad now had a Double Bedroom ‘en suite’ and a DIY hot air
central heating system held together by thousands of feet of ‘Austin Grey
Tape’. Clearly, all difficult problems could be solved by the practical
application of Tony Benn and ‘Austin Grey Tape’.
For years my dad had talked about a beautiful concept
car he had seen at the Longbridge design centre – the full size clay mock up he
had viewed was called ‘Diablo’ I knew my
Dad, wanted to get one.
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| El Diablo - A car with an Identity Crisis |
The “Diablo” the concept became the 18/22 Series, or
the Princess, or the Ambassador It was available as an Austin, a Morris, a Wolseley
or a Vanden Plas. This car like the whole of British Leyland suffered from an
identity crisis. Dad came home one day with a Lime Green 1800 Wedge but
within a few weeks I remembering him saying ‘why on earth didn’t they put a
hatchback on this?’ So the Princess was replaced by a huge Ford Zephyr
‘Farnham’ Estate which gave him the Hatchback space he needed for his DIY
projects. As a complete surprise one Friday we got home from school and were
bundled into the Zephyr and drove all the way to Loch Ness and back in one
weekend for a Scottish Adventure sleeping two nights in the back of the giant
Estate.
Moving to Rubery meant I’d escaped from the horrors of
Kings Norton Mixed Secondary Modern and was now attending Waseley Hills High
School where my Dad, Uncles and Aunties had studied in the 1950’s. Waseley
Hills High School was heaven. It even had a ‘Quadrangle’ and some of the senior
staff wore ‘Academic Gowns’ around the school. Most of my fellow students had
parents working at Longbridge I made new friends easily; there was no culture
of bullying either by or between pupils and staff.
After the Glorious Long Hot Summer of 1976 – I
returned for my 2nd year at Waseley Hills High School and I first
fell in love with Dawn Graves. Dawn lived in Grange Crescent just behind my
Auntie June’s House. Dawn’s Dad, Terry Graves was a Fireman at Longbridge [the
plant had its own Fire and Rescue Service]
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| Michael Edwardes - CEO of British Leyland 1977-1982 |
Just as things looked like they were getting better, Longbridge workers and their family’s discovered they had a new Boss: the face of international capitalism reared its ugly head in 1977
A Longbridge Journey... what ‘The Austin’ means to me...to be continued...
I seized my chance. I put my hand up and said 'Polly... POLLY!... I have a question'. Polly Toynbee, seemed momentarily confused and nodded towards me and said 'Yes'. I stood up and said "Out there, and everybody knows this, the elephant in the room is that this war has gone on too long. Everybody has had enough of the war. We have to take decisive action. When are you going to bring those troops back home?'' Then I produced my petition sheets and held them in the Air "I have over 500 signatures here to present to Gordon from the people of Bromsgrove, many of whom have sons serving in Iraq and Afghanistan...." Already the Security were moving in but they couldn't get close enough without trampling over more 'loyal' party members. I sat down and Gordon Brown stood up... his reply to me made the evening TV Bulletins but my question to him remained unreported. Strangely, enough the only media outlet to report my comments was The Hindu an Indian Newspaper. The earlier protest by the young woman who was dragged out by security was briefly shown on the TV news bulletins, but typically framed in a way to present Stop the War supporters as some sort of 'Anarchist Thugs'.
I seized my chance. I put my hand up and said 'Polly... POLLY!... I have a question'. Polly Toynbee, seemed momentarily confused and nodded towards me and said 'Yes'. I stood up and said "Out there, and everybody knows this, the elephant in the room is that this war has gone on too long. Everybody has had enough of the war. We have to take decisive action. When are you going to bring those troops back home?'' Then I produced my petition sheets and held them in the Air "I have over 500 signatures here to present to Gordon from the people of Bromsgrove, many of whom have sons serving in Iraq and Afghanistan...." Already the Security were moving in but they couldn't get close enough without trampling over more 'loyal' party members. I sat down and Gordon Brown stood up... his reply to me made the evening TV Bulletins but my question to him remained unreported. Strangely, enough the only media outlet to report my comments was The Hindu an Indian Newspaper. The earlier protest by the young woman who was dragged out by security was briefly shown on the TV news bulletins, but typically framed in a way to present Stop the War supporters as some sort of 'Anarchist Thugs'.
