Post #18 by MGI » Tue Dec 27, 2011 7:59 pm
I remember the William Press side booms very well... They were mostly old 22A's with Boughton cross dog winches which took a bit of getting used to after driving the original Cat booms which had Hyster (I think) draw works with conventional levers. I think Press converted them 'in house' and the job was very professionally carried out! They also converted International BTD 20's into twin arcs and, again, top quality workmanship, they had Rolls Royce engines with six gears and would track along at amazing speeds. They also converted a few 8's into pipe carriers. I think Press came up with the first Hydra Booms as well, also based on Cat tractors! In those days Press were not getting a lot of pipeline work although in the old days they got more than their share... probably why they hired out so much of their specialist gear. They also supplied the fitters to fettle their own kit and they were top blokes as well! I also worked a few years for Monks on pipelines, the kit came out of Padgate but the office was nearer to Manchester, just off the A580 - Bill Prosser was the main man in those days. One of their downfalls was they had to use their own plant as much as was possible and their old Navvy drivers would only work a 40 hour week, even on an open cut river crossing they would jack it in at 4.30 on Friday and head for the hills - I remember particularly a job at Oswestry when they left their NCK 605s literally in the middle of the job and went home for the weekend! I was driving the stringing 22RB and the Spread boss (Tricky Dicky Conway) asked me to work a ghoster to cover for them, another old rope man called Cyril drove the other one. On the Saturday morning the Monk Foreman fitter (a huge burly bloke called Burt Packard) took over from Cyril but there wasn't anyone else who could drive a dragline so I ended up driving all day on the Saturday as well. Saturday night, Cyril showed up but Burt refused point blank to work through the night so I was lumbered again - Sunday morning, more of the same, Cyril wouldn't stay when Burt came back so I ended up working continuously from 0700 Fri morning until about 15.30 Sun when we took the buckets off and lowered the fabrication into the river! To add insult to injury I found out that although I got double pay after 12 hours, after 24 hours I went back onto single pay and started again, the only thing that kept me going was thinking of ways I was going to spend all the money I was going to get! Bill Prosser once told me that he operated on the principle that the profit would be in the 'extras' (another reason they probably went out of business)