The Coke Ovens, Shotton Steelworks
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- Опубліковано 7 тра 2007
- A Personal Documentary.
I Worked In This Place Back In The 70's Early 80's.
Now It's Gone...No Sign It Ever Existed!
Fire, Smoke, Heat! A World Away!, More Than A World Away!
I think the site was used by a paper mill.
Photo's By Gwyn (The Best Coke Car Driver) - Фільми й анімація
Worked at John Summers ,coke ovens,1963, on the rammer,and the coke cart, and the charger on the oven top...you never got cold feet
john i was a van lad for mothers pride bread back in the 1978 to 1982. i used to deliver bread to the canteens there were so many of them one was quiet posh with wooden panels i used to love that place my drivers name was bob hart he was from liverpool and i was from wigan.when the sun hit the scrap iron pile it looked lovely just like the lunar landscape.the ladies in all the canteens used to give us a slice of toast two thick sasuges backom and an egg on top with another slice on top of that MMMM lovely we were going there when the strike was on.we also dropped bread off at queensferry now a spar at garden city, and R.A.F. SEALAND and CAPENHURST NUCLEAR RESEARCH. 41 years ago, do you remember any of it and the regal cinema now demolished
I remember the huge breakfasts 😊 Our little canteen was right in the middle of the plant. The posh one sounds like the managers canteen. Lunar landscape sounds about right as well. Towards the end, all the coke we made was just piled up like mountains. Sad day when it closed down. Never had a job like that since.
I worked here , started as a junior op on the blast furnaces then was transferred to the coke ovens after the strike, worked on the battery for a while then the day pool , finished up on the benzole plant, never forget my time at Summers, can’t be many ex heavy end lads left .
The Music Is By Holst...Mars, The God Of War.
From The Planets Suite.
i worked as a junior operative at the fell coke works consett before its closure , these pics bring back many happy memories , i cant thank you enough for posting them
I worked in the coke plant at USS Lorain,Works in Ohio in the early 70's and 80's. I did about every job in that place. Lidsmen, Coke Side door machine operator, Larry Car operator, Pusher man, Hot Car man, The worst jobs in the summer were the Coke Side Door machine and Lidsmen. The mains were so clogged that we had many blowers. What a nightmare.
I understand you.
It is hell.
Excellent video. I worked on the ovens at Appleby Frodingham in Scuthorpe in the late 60's and early 70's. It was an experience I'll never forget and I could almost smell the place watchig your pictures!
My ex-gilfriends father twice emigrated to Warilla, Wollongong, NSW in the 70's then ealy 80's from Aston near Shotton to work in the mill out there......The girl was called Cheryl Davies.
I work for Tata Steel uk @ Appleby coke ovens Scunthorpe,was a charger driver for 10 years.Not as bad as comments left here make out, worked in temps of 50 c plus with full PPE on sorts the men from the boys
We All Used To Wear Wooden Clogs On The Oven Top, And To See Your Shoes Smoking...Scary.
Sometimes The Coal Got Jammed In The Charge Hole, And We Had To Unblock It By Hand (With A Scaffold Pole) Yellow Gas Everywhere...Hell On Earth!
Thanks, brings back a lot of good and bad times. I work at US Steel Clairton. Not on the bateries anymore. To hot and to dirty. Was a lidman on 7-9 battery. Now on the river, much better job.
I started at Clairton USS in 1993 as an electrician..left in 2001 not many days go by I don't think of the place..shitty and hell as it was I loved working there. lots of good guys; a lot of fun. Comparing to jobs I work now (electrician) we really learned alot and had to know alot..seeing this video reminds me of work I did there and how satisfying it was..and John marshall you are right most kids and men now wouldn't last a week there.
Sorry to comment, I’ll have to find the old newspaper cutting about the Shotton bandsmen who worked in the coke ovens, had no idea they did, when I was young in the band.
Just read in comments Dante’s inferno, that was the expression I thought I used to hear with regard to the works, and I heard it not so long ago ‘round here.
Just wondering what on Earth it was all about , looks like a towering inferno in one picture.
Excellent history
Thank you
Hi Sarah. Working there was as tough as it looked, but I'm so glad I worked there. Don't think I experienced the "team spirit" I felt there in any of my subsequent jobs. And it's all gone now...maybe a few railway tracks left here and there around Shotton Paper, but that's it.
PS.. Still Live Shotton (Mark Caddick ) Worked with the Day Gang and on Benzole Plant. Some real characters worked there...Happy Days ! But filthy conditions..Kids today wouldn't do it
I worked 30 years 75-05 in Dofasco coke plants. In 75 it was very smoky and dirty, they would say " Well we don't make ice cream here." then they took the environment seriously. when i retired, in '05 very rarely would you see any smoke.
I work for Royal Mail these days. Most people there haven't got a clue about the conditions we worked under. You're right...most kids (and men) wouldn't work there!
working on the battries seperates the men from the boys....i work in granite city ussteel a and b batteries....pure hell
Hi Neil did your dad work at Pretoria West at Iscor. Tony rings a bell don't know it could also be at Van der Bijlpark or New Castle Iscors. I was also a Byproduct foreman then later Batteryforeman, Sift Suprintendent and leave that cokemaking for my own business in 2000.
Nice photo! I took photo & movies in old factory in UE [in Poland]...
Hello, I work in a coking plant in Asturias of Spain arcelormittal.
In the coke side in the carriage guide.
Before that work on the roof of the battery.
Both places are hell.
The conditions are horrible, gas, heat, steam, dirt ...
we are tough guys
A greeting.
my dad (William Gordon davies) was killed on dec 18 1960 whilst on way to work in coach was crossing level crossing anyone remember this or any information fully respected
My father worked the coal mines in whyalla australia, where it hits 40c+ in the warm months.
He said hell didn't seem so bad after working the ovens as a 19 year old.
I worked there as an apprentice welder in the early 70's. Conditions terrible but the blokes were the salt of the earth. My dad [who worked on the railways] used to say "Another cussy shift son" I thought you haven't a clue.......
I work in the coke ovens and it is a hell of a job but you honestly dont even notice the high heats after a while
What a hell hole that place was. It left a scar on my memory that will never go away. It's pretty hard to imagine getting into wet, sweat drench cloths day after day. They never dried out. I had some fungal problems from all of that too. Not pretty to talk about.
@seaeagle47 the charger is the easiest job we have in our coke ovens, you want to be on the guide in the summer! Been working in Port Talbot morfa coke ovens now for 5 years. Providing Tata look after us I expect I'll be there for another 33 years! Bliss! Lol
@ckohne
I remember the smell coming off the coke batteries at Algoma.
I was not in Coke making ( plate and strip #2 ), but the smell meant money,
I must be nuts, because I read the posts and feel the same as all of you.
I miss the steel works, it was some of the best times of my life.
Good work - a real bit of social history I was there for a week and it was like Dante's Inferno
I worked in Shotton Steelworks coke ovens in 1974.....the place was already very rundown and desperately needing investment. Redundancies were already in the pipeline
@7in7in7in Hi I too used to live in Shotton and used to cycle to Hawarden Grammar school every day through Aston,, Long time ago Hayden Ellsum
I was unplugging a charging hole one time with a 6 ft. long steel bar with a hand loop on the end when the leveling bar grabbed it and pull the bar right down into the oven with my glove still on it. Almost pulled my arm off. I was very careful not to do that anymore. :(
when did you start? I quit in 2001 most knew me as Gigabyte..i worked on batteries in operation maintenance as an Electrician.
In the 1960s I worked with Roy Thomas/Bill Griffiths (works photographer) on a colour movie film of the works at that time. The project included footage of the coking process. The finished film was used to "showcase" John Summers works to university students prior to them leaving their studies. Does anyone know the whereabouts of this film today? Please contact me if you know of any veterans who I might interview to camera as they recount the part they played in the John Summers story,
Hi did you get any replies about the film?
Respect to any one who challenges the charger floor, we call it hell on the battery top! Im now on byproducts very smelly job but is a billion times better than working on that old cancer chariot ;) respect to the coke oven men :)
shotton steelworks
@Johnsnyder666 im 3 years into a 30 sentence on a and b batteries in granite city ussteel....topside temps 175 degrees in summer....hell on earth for sure...i roll the larry car and the eqc car now....but that first year i wanted to die
ps john..coke side of B battery was hell..not larry level..I remember many late nights burning out insulators on door machine hot rails
that was in the days when England was a great place now its fucked up forever and what do our kids have to look forward to bugger all thats what thanks to the rubbish governments we have had.
Andy
@7in7in7in