大象传媒

13 鈥� Reginald Warner (aged 95) tells about his work at the Alvis Aero Engine factory in Stratford. His younger son David, who attended school in Stratford during the war, is present:

鈥� 鈥o I wasn鈥檛 bombed out (of my building business and decorators鈥� shop in Birmingham). No, we lost a few roof tiles and some windows though, and I came to Stratford because I was sent here by the Ministry of Aircraft Production and that was in 1941. I worked here for the next five to six years until the end of the war. (Initially) I travelled to work in Coventry for nearly a year, and I was in Coventry when the blitz came. After the blitz, the Ministry decided to divert all the factories, and so they鈥� they commandeered a partly built garage on the Birmingham Road that was being built by Mr Thomas Bird, you know that name don鈥檛 you? It鈥檚 now called the Maybird Centre of course. And they commandeered that place and I was sent here from Coventry to start a satellite factory in 1941.
Indirectly I worked for the Alvis Motor Company, who were contractors to the Ministry of Aircraft Production. (In Stratford) we were only one of two places in the whole of Britain to strip and rebuild (aero engines), and we used to strip and rebuild Kestrel engines and Merlin engines, because of course they became the bombers, Wellingtons and Lancasters. It was a very busy place. Sometimes the engines were removed from the plane at the aerodromes and sent on lorries, sometimes we had to dismantle them ourselves, and salvage what we could.
I was out (of the factory) quite a great deal: I toured the country for spare parts, nearly all my time really. They gave me a Morris 12 van, a new one, painted grey 鈥� they were painted the same as the forces, belonged to the forces of course. It was interesting, yes 鈥� maintenance units, aerodromes, and of course lots of private contractors who made parts for us. There was a Rolls Royce representative, and he was a 鈥�, he was quite a small man called 鈥楾itch鈥� Edwards, and a very clever engineer as you might know working for Rolls Royce, he was quite a character.

At one time we used to work on the Kestrel engines which powered the Miles Master trainer, a single engine plane used as a trainer for the Hurricane and Spitfire. And I used to have to go to the place where they were made in Reading quite often, a firm called Phillips and Powys, and they told me one day鈥�, sometimes I used to see Titch Edwards there because of course he had to be there a great deal and on this occasion he wasn鈥檛 there, and one of the fellows I used to see said you know Titch had a wonderful experience here the other day. I said what was that? He said well you know we鈥檙e having trouble with the undercarriage, the undercarriage used to collapse and鈥�, and Titch was trying to find out where the fault was, so he鈥檚 sitting in the cockpit of a Miles Master, revving the engine up, and he revved it so high it jumped the chocks and took off! Well he was too small to reach the rudder bar, he couldn鈥檛 reach the rudder bar so he just got the joy stick, went up, and either by luck or judgement he went over and landed on the railway bank. He wasn鈥檛 hurt, he wasn鈥檛 hurt at all!
The plane was buckled up. I didn鈥檛 let him know that I had been told, because he didn鈥檛 tell me, and I thought he wouldn鈥檛 be very happy to know that I knew about it! Quite a character at Rolls Royce.
The engines weren鈥檛 made in Coventry 鈥� either in Nottingham or Derby. But during the war under the Lease Lend system with America, we began to get them made by the Packard Company under licence to Rolls Royce, so we had a lot of them that were made in America for a time.

I did thousands of miles in the blackout, but I could see in those days. (With masked headlights) you might as well have been without any headlights 鈥� they didn鈥檛 do anything for you.

By the time (the factory) was developed, about three hundred people were working at the Stratford Alvis; we took on a lot of local labour, 鈥榗os I was foreman of the works as well as going out, and we trained people to do things you know.
[David intervenes:] Going out to the Maintenance units, some of the Air Force chaps gave a bit of trouble: My father could see the components he wanted on the shelves, but they were saying鈥�, it鈥檚 too much red tape and you can鈥檛 have this, and on one occasion the corporal left the counter and my father was so frustrated he leapt over the counter barrier and took the parts for himself, because the war had to carry on.
[Back to Reg:] My memories of the blitz aren鈥檛 very good, but living here wasn鈥檛 too bad. It came about because I was still travelling at first from Birmingham to Stratford. We had a caravan, and my wife agreed that she would come with the boys and live with me in the caravan if I could find somewhere to put it. So I brought it up, and I was introduced to Mrs Reading of the Elms Farm, Tiddington. She was a wonderful woman, very kind woman, and she allowed me to put the caravan in her orchard, that鈥檚 where David and his brother Michael spent the first summer of 1941.

[David:] It was an idyllic world living in an orchard, because we had the free run of the fruit trees. The pear trees were a bit superannuated and they were very big trees but very tine pears, so we used them as ammunition! We formed a little gang called the Orchard Rangers, and our enemies were the Huckabites who lived in caravans in the meadow field by the river, so we used to have running battles with them. But being the youngest of the gang I was the one that was captured most frequently and put to the torture! Inside a hollow willow tree on the river bank was my place of incarceration, but it was all good fun. Our leader could fire an arrow from his homemade bow (which we all had) vertically out of sight.

[Reg:] We had almost twelve months in the caravan wondering what we were going to do the following winter, because it isn鈥檛 the ideal place to live in the winter. There was an advert in the Herald: 鈥減ossession of cottage in exchange for a caravan鈥� and it could have been written for us, so on the way to the factory in the morning I dropped a message in at the Stratford Herald office, got back home, my wife said we鈥檝e had a visit from some people we know. I said who鈥檚 that? So she mentioned their names, and they were people we had met in Alveston, and they were the people with the cottage, and they wanted a caravan (because) his work was transitional, he was engaged in arranging temporary emergency landing fields, you know, suitable flat ground, and he had to go and make them into places where a plane could put down if in trouble. He always had difficulty in finding somewhere to stay wherever he was posted, and he had been posted to a place near Thame in Buckinghamshire, and wondered where they were going to live. They lived in a condemned cottage in Alveston, but he had got to leave it you see, to follow his work. And they were offering possession of the cottage, in exchange for the ownership of a caravan. Eventually the exchange was arranged and I had to tow the caravan down to this place near Thame, and that was the last I saw (of my self-made caravan). We moved into their cottage, and that鈥檚 where we lived the rest of the war, next door to the old Exchange Inn.

The factory was very busy, I used to work pretty well seven days a week, and there were three 8 hour shifts, the factory was working 24 hours a day. The engines were never all right, because they were either time expired or were damaged; in either case they had got to be stripped down. We didn鈥檛 work physically with the RAF getting the engines out of the aircraft, but we worked on paper with them all the time. After rebuilding an engine, it was allocated to one of the airfields or a maintenance unit, and I used to have to arrange the transport 鈥� a small part of my work.

The only other people doing similar work was the Morris Company of Cowley; we used to visit them and they used to visit us, but they never caught me up, I was always ahead of them 鈥� at one time we were turning out 32 complete engines a week with 300 people, and that was involving stripping the old engines and rebuilding them, not just building them. The Ministry commandeered the Hippodrome in Wood Street, as a store, and we had to arrange a 24 hour watch; everything to do with aeroplanes was stored there, cowlings and radiators and oil cores and everything. The cowlings came up from Briggs Bodies, which was the Ford Company outside London you know. And radiators from people like Serck and so on. Flexible pipes from a firm called superflexi at Oxford, etc.
The day guard was a cockney who was into the black market, and who had also been a member of Fred Karno鈥檚 Army, during which time he had taught Charlie Chaplin to roller skate. He also had more than one wife!
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Engines were tested at Baginton; our test house was at Baginton in open ground, just fields in those days. I used to like going there, the noise was colossal, you know, it took possession of you. And I didn鈥檛 go there when I didn鈥檛 need to!
One day, you know when an engine鈥檚 on test, it hasn鈥檛 got the usual four blades propeller, it鈥檚 got two, just enough to balance the crankshaft just bobbing round, but they told me that one day one of the men working there, without thinking what he was doing, and with an engine just ticking over, airscrew going like this, he walks though it without it touching him. It would have cut him to pieces if he鈥檇鈥e looked back and realized what he鈥檇 done, and fainted 鈥� he passed out! That was at Baginton.

[David:] I don鈥檛 think Stratfordians knew much about it (the Alvis factory). My teacher asked me what my father did and I told her that he was a manager at Alvis and she looked completely nonplussed鈥�, she didn鈥檛 even know there was an aircraft factory along the Birmingham Road. The Germans only knew about Wellesbourne and the satellite airfields, because the Heinkels came over and bombed Wellesbourne, but they didn鈥檛 come to the sugar warehouse on the Birmingham Road, did they?
[Reg:] Yes, the Ministry of Food had filled (Bird鈥檚) place up with flour and sugar, but anyway the Ministry of Aircraft Production prevailed against the Ministry of Food, took it off them, and then I saw that it was a possibility, me being sent to Stratford, so of course I was pleased about that.

One or two of the men that I had been working with in Coventry came within a matter of a couple of months after I started. When I started there was nothing, just a shell, no glass in the windows, just a roof and four walls, there were no toilets, there was electricity, and if you wanted water it was a lead pipe sticking out of the ground 鈥� a ridiculous commencement really, but it didn鈥檛 take long before the Ministry started sending things 鈥� a wonderful crane called a Ransome Rapier, that was the first one I had, and then we could lift the engines about after that. It was a ragged start, but we made something of it.
When I tell you that I鈥�, I had a boss of course, everyone needs a boss don鈥檛 they? He said he was conveying congratulations to us for having completed 100 engines in the first three months from a standing start. And I suppose I was wrong really, because I said well tell him we did it for Britain. Everybody was (patriotic) when the War was on of course..
A lot of Stratfordians worked (night and day) 鈥� I can remember some of the men鈥檚 names: Alf Goode was from Tiddington, Bill Monk was from Alveston, so was Bert Oxon. Bert was formerly chauffeur for Mr Docker (the paint people) he was quite a useful chap, and then a man who worked for Reynolds, who also lived in Alveston, the steel tube people, his name was Bill Monk and I gave him a job, but in both cases the former employers tried to get the (tied) cottages off them, you know, get rid of鈥� But in both cases we had barristers from the Ministry, they didn鈥檛 stand a chance of evicting them.

I left the Alvis in 1946 back to Birmingham to start my own business again, working on building repairs and reconstruction, and leaving Stratford behind.鈥�

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