Welcome George, what you describe sounds much like Sheffield in England, also known as Steel City.

I'm sure you will find much to interest you on here and everyone seems keen to help with questions.

Brian

Welcome to the forum. I hear what you're saying, loud and clear. I served my apprenticeship at a Chrysler car factory in Australia which too was surrounded by small tool and die shops, machine shops and press shops and the like all supplying the main factory as a mainstay and doing other work on the side. Also all gone now and the skills base lost except for perhaps a few venues like this site and similar. There were many absolute wizards of craftsmen among them and its too bad that knowledge is not being passed on to the next generation on a broader scale.

Hi George,

I live in Sheffield, although not an engineer. The steel mills have largely gone, but now the emphasis is on special steels, many only recently invented, and hi-tech manufacturing. There are still small businesses working in cutlery, and fine instruments though.

Geoff

George, I have happy memories of my time in Detroit. I stayed over the river in Windsor and there where many toolmaking outfits there to. Rounded off the trip with a visit to the Finkle (spelling) steelworks in Chicago. In all a nicely organised trip with our UK trade association and USA trade association.

Hi George,

Thank you. There are still the big plants, Forgemasters (Was Vickers River Don) Outo Kumpu, stainless, a Finnish Co, Firth in some incarnation, Tata Steel, now sold to Liberty, (Stocksbridge, Parkgate) but most of the old basic steel has gone. Several big bits of machinery, drop hammers etc., have been placed at road junctions, roundabouts etc., as monuments to the past. The mighty 'River Don' rolling mill steam engine has been preserved in working order at Kelham Island museum.

Geoff

Hi George,

I was born in Barry, South Wales. Once it was the fastest growing and busiest coal port on the planet. I saw the docks decline, and now its rising up again with designer dwellings instead of cranes. Sill a few ships, but not many.

In the mid-80s I worked in Bridgend, on a job creation scheme. We had a lot of ex-steelworkers, many of who had worked at Port Talbot. As a boy I remember the drive to (great) Aunt Lil's in Mumbles/Swansea and when you drove past Port Talbot you had to wind up the windows and shut the air vents to keep the eggy small out. The hills above the motorway opposite the steelworks were covered in dead trees. So there were good and bad sides to the decline of industry, but the human cost was high.

Neil

And noise. Volume. Rhythm. Power. Hard driving relentless production machinery. I read Jimmy Barnes's autobiography recently — he was lead singer for Aussie hard rock band Cold Chisel, who also made the bigtime overseas for a while. He says straight up they took a lot of their musical inspiration, and the band name, from the car factories around where he grew up. Most likely the stamping plant with 100 or so presses banging away rocking the foundations. Plus he wanted an escape from life as an apprentice moulder in a foundry and rock 'n' roll was it.