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big!

PERSONALITIESIN

ABIG

PLACE

Amazingly, as if by chance, our pathshave crossed in the middle of a patchworklandscape on the NottinghamshireLincolnshire border. This magnificentindustrial edifice which we work in is ourforum, our market square, our villagegreen. Those giant cooling towers thebackdrop to untold dramas. The messrooms a stage for endless banter.

This is our West Burton. The place and thepeople are larger than life. For more than40 years our special community has beengenerating power for millions upon millionsof homes and businesses. We’ve kept thelights on and the machines running.

Let’s celebrate who we are. Each and everyone of us has contributed in one way oranother to the West Burton story. This bookrecalls the people we know and those wewouldn’t ever want to forget. It’s a snapshotof memories and a testament to ourwell-earned place in the modern world.

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01

HISTORY

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04

Muddled thinkingLondon in the 1920s illustrates the fragmented approach of the early powerindustry. The city had 50 different electricity supply systems which, betweenthem, had 24 different voltages and 10 different frequencies. The 160 megawattDeptford station was considered large for the time, but most stations had acapacity of just 5 megawatts or less.

The CEGBWhen the British Electricity Authority came into being in 1948 the power industrywas in a mess. Much of the newly nationalised plant was more than 25 yearsold with many sets generating less than 8 megawatts. Power cuts were theorder of the day.

However, by the mid 1950s a massive amount of new plant had been built toincrease generating capacity by two thirds and a new supergrid of 132kV and275kV line was under construction. The name also changed to the CentralElectricity Authority.

In 1958 a new electricity council was set up to co-ordinate policy for the industryas a whole and the CEA evolved into the Central Electricity Generating Board.In effect, the CEGB’s role was to become the industry’s manufacturer andwholesaler. It was tasked with achieving the most economic generation possibleand reliably delivering bulk power supplies to a network of Area Boards fordistribution to customers.

It was in such an environment that ambitious plans were laid for the first 200megawatt set at High Marnham. This would be bigger than anything anywherein Europe. Yet, before it could be completed, within three years new orders wereplaced for eight 500 megawatt sets. So it was then that the concept for WestBurton came into being.

West Burton is magnificent.When we began producingelectricity in the 1960sthis was one of the largestand most modern powerstations of its type anywherein Europe. In fact thetechnology was so newthat the experts bringingthe project to life effectivelywrote the rule book for 500megawatt generation.

But what lay behind the needfor West Burton? Why wasthere so much pressure tosucceed? To understandthat we have to step backto the early 20th centuryand look at the ramshackleroots of our country’selectricity industry.

WHY WESTBURTON?

The birth of the national gridElectricity production began in a haphazard way. The motley collection ofsmall power stations existing in the early 20th century were owned by eitherprivate companies or municipalities and tended to supply their localneighbourhood. There was no consistency or co-ordination, and very fewstations were inter-connected.

Change came in 1926 when the Central Electricity Board was established.Its aim was to build a ‘gridiron’ of high voltage transmission lines to link themost efficient stations. Ownership of the stations didn’t change, althoughthe CEB did control output. At first the CEB thought it risky to have too manystations connected in one network and so seven virtually independent systemsdeveloped. However, the problem with this was that while the south didn’t haveenough power, the north had capacity to spare. In 1938 work began to pulleverything together and by 1939 Britain had the largest integrated powersystem in the world. Despite the grid, power supplies were still unreliable anda massive freeze during the winter of 1946 brought the country to its knees. Itwas time for a re-think. The following year saw the introduction of the ElectricityAct 1947, which led to nationalisation of the power stations and the formationof the British Electricity Authority. The future as we know it had begun.

West Burton church

1597William Shakespeare’s play ‘Henry IV, Part I’mentions the two oxbow lakes at West Burton.

1710George Green leaves 3 acres of land in Sturton Ingsto Charity. The rental is directed towards educating3 poor children at West Burton.

1750Sheffield firm of surveyors Fairbanks produce thefirst known map of West Burton village.

1792‘No Mans Friend’: one of two oxbow lakes is brokenthrough by the river Trent at Bole Ferry.

1797The River Trent breaks its banks and the Ox BowLake known as the Burton Round is passed fromLincolnshire to Nottinghamshire at the Village ofWest Burton. The land quickly becomes an OzierHolt where willow is grown and harvested.

1896The West Burton Church of St Helen is pulled down.

1920After the first world war, Harvest thanksgivingservices begin at the West Burton Church Graveyard.

1943A Stirling bomber from Wigsley in Lincolnshirecrashes into the Trent bank at West Burton. The crewall bailed out safely.

1955On 26 May the Ministry of Defence installed twoaviation fuel pipelines to RAF Waddington andConningsby from the nearby fuel store at Mistertonover the West Burton site.

1958The Central Electricity Generating Board beginlooking at sites suitable for a planned 2000MW coalfired power station.

1961CEGB begin commencement of the civil works forthe new 2000MW station under the Northern ProjectGroup, headed up by Project Manager DouglasDerbyshire. Douglas had previously completed thebuild of High Marnham Power Station.

1965His Imperial Majesty the Shahandshah of Iran visitsWest Burton on 6 March at the invitation of theEnglish Electric Company who are keen to sell theirsteam turbine technology around the world.

1969West Burton is declared open by the RightHonourable Roy Mason MP Minister of Power.

No Man’s FriendBack in medieval times the River Trent had two ox bow meanders.One passed by the old West Burton village and was known as theBurton Round. The other passed by Bole village and was calledNo Man’s Friend. History has it that when entering No Man’s Friend,a bargee would traditionally throw his cap on to the bank of theriver at the bow’s neck. Then, having navigated the bow, he wouldpick it up again using the boat hook.

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Harvest thanksgiving

Even in the early 1960s there waspressure on us to use contractors.It was the politicians. They’d go ontheir jaunts to places like Canadaand the United States and have VIPtours of the power stations. Thatwould introduce them to the conceptof contracting. They’d come backand start pointing the finger at theCEGB. “Why are you so top heavy inpeople?” But they never checked thedetails. Out there the stations weremainly oil or gas fired. They didn’tneed so many people because theydidn’t have our overheads like thecoal, milling and ash plants.

THENASNOW

TIMELINE

06

Sharing the knowledge“The CEGB was very good at spreading knowledge aroundthe organisation. Right back in the early days I attended acourse at the training facility in Buxton. All the key figures inthe development of West Burton were there. The level of hardcore experience in that room was extraordinary. But mostof us knew we wouldn’t stay at West Burton for long. Our jobwas to get the site up and running. When that was achievedwe were encouraged to move on to other plants andshare our expertise with the next generation of managersand engineers.”

THE CEGB HAD ITS HEART IN THE RIGHTPLACE. ITS PRIORITIES WERE FIRSTLYTHE SAFETY OF THE MEN, THEN SAFETYOF THE PLANT, THEN CONTINUITY OFSUPPLY. MINIMISATION OF COST WASNOT A BIG ISSUE.

Setting the standards“I was part of the CEA as a young aspiringengineer and had to deal with theconsequences of the BEA’s and CEA’sattempts to build their own power stations.Problems arose because they hadn’t beenvery careful when contracting the designwork. When we became the CEGB wechanged the approach. We commissionedour own stations and laid down standardsfor everything. In retrospect there was atendency for us to over-engineer. But you’veonly got to consider how many of ouroriginal stations are still running to wonderwhether it was really such a bad thing.”

Image problemsNationalisation of the power industry in 1948 brought with it an army ofcynics determined to oppose the British Electricity Authority’s every move.Even the name was called to ridicule because the initials clashed with thoseof British European Airways. “Which carries the most passengers?” wasa common remark.

Changing handsBy the early 1960s the CEGB was organised into five regions that operatedand maintained the power stations, and three project groups which designedand built the stations. West Burton was built by the Northern Project Groupand operated by the Midlands Region.

In 1987, the Government announced its decision to privatise the electricitysupply industry. The intention was that the existing power stations would besplit 70/30 between two new private companies, National Power and Powergen,with National Power incorporating all the nuclear plant. The national gridwas to be jointly owned and operated by 12 distribution companies; formerlythe Area Boards.

So it was then in 1990 West Burton became part of National Power Ltd. Then,in 1996 it was sold to the Eastern Group, which later became TXU EuropePower Ltd. TXU Europe ran into financial difficulties and in November 2001West Burton was sold to London Energy (a part of the worldwide EDF group)for £366 million.

In 2003, three UK energy companies – SEEBoard, London Energy and SWEB– were amalgamated to form EDF Energy, which is now one of the UK’s largestenergy companies.

A GOOD HEART

1972The last harvest thanksgiving at West BurtonChurch of St Helen is held on 17 September.

1989Lord Marshall of Goring (Chairman of the CEGB)gives a presentation on the new West Burton ‘B’ Coalfired power station 2 x 900MW units. The proposalis later shelved by Mrs Thatcher’s Governmentand the industry is privatised.

1990West Burton becomes part of the newly privatisedcompany National Power nearby Cottam and HighMarnham become part of Powergen.

1993National Power demolishes the old Low FarmHouse building after it has fallen into ruin at theedge of West Burton Village. It was originally ownedby George Warburton who is buried in the WestBurton Graveyard.

1996The Advanced Plant Management System (APMS)is installed on unit 2 during the summer outage.

West Burton is sold by National Power to theEastern Group which later become TXU Europe(Texas Utilities).

1998Derrick Wells is awarded the OBE for services to thepower industry in developing countries.

1999Project Manticore is assembled in the office nextto the canteen. It is headed up by Stuart Reardonwith the intention of implementing a new financeand work planning programme called SAP.

2001London Power Company later to be known as EDFEnergy purchase West Burton to join their existingCottam Power Station portfolio.

2002Management introduce a site PPE map to reducethe amount of commonly occurring health andsafety issues.

2003A one hundred million pound Flue GasDesulphurisation project designed by MitsubishiHeavy Industries and installed by DanishCompany FLS Miljo.

2006HP Turbine retrofit unit 4.

2007New SOFA (separated over-fire air) burners areinstalled by GE Energy to meet new EU NitrogenOxide emission levels.

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West Burton villageWest Burton was never a particularly big village.We know from the old church that it existed in Normantimes, but the Elizabethan population of around 100was probably the largest it ever became.

Originally the village stood on the edge of the RiverTrent. Then in 1797 the river broke its banks and themeander known as the Burton Round was cut offleaving West Burton high and dry. No river meant notrade and the village soon fell into decline. A mapdated 1865 shows that the village had disappearedcompletely except for the church. The church itselfwas eventually demolished in 1896, although harvestthanksgiving services continued to be held in thegraveyard until 1972.

The graveyard still exists today in the corner of theWest Burton site. When viewed from the air, it ispossible to clearly see the outline of long lost buildings.

The last harvest thanksgiving

The Low Farm House

TIMELINE CONTINUED

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STATION MANAGERSWEST BURTON

GEORGE NICHOLSON(1963-1968)

DERRICK WELLS OBE(1968-1990)

RON TAYLOR(1990-1993)

DOCTOR DEREK CHEETHAM(1993-1996)

ARTHUR WRIGHT(1996-1999)

NICK PLANT(1999-2002)

PETER MCGRISKIN(2002-2007)

NIGEL BERESFORD(2007-PRESENT)

AFEW

GOODMEN

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1968KEITH ASKEW, MICK COOK, ANDY PAUL

1970PHIL CARTER, RICHARD BROCKLSBY, STUART FOOTTIT,MICK KETTLEWELL, CHRIS MARSHALL, DAVE SCOTT,TONY SMITHSON, MICK WEGNER

1971MARTIN WILLIAMS

1972PAUL BASSETT, CHRIS CHAPPEL, MICK FLYNN (PADDY),GARY KEELING, ROB KENDAL, DAVID NAYLOR,PAUL ‘TIC’ PRIESTLY

1973GRAHAM HOWITT, DAVE LANE, STUART SAXELBY

1974PHILIP APPLEYARD, PETE COX, JOHN COOPER,PETER CRESSWELL, PAUL ELLAM, PAUL OTTER,JOHN PETTINGER, IAN SCOTT, LES TWIGGER

1975KEVIN CHILDS, DAVID DUNN, ANTHONY GARWELL,KEVIN LANE

1976JERRY BLOOMER, ROBERT DEAN KING, PETER LARGE,IAN RANSBY, DAVID VERNON

1977DAVE HANCOCK, JOHN HAVERCROFT, ANDREW HUMPHRY,KEVIN SENIOR, KEN ZAITSCHENKO

1978ANDREW GELSTHORPE

1979MARK BROOKS, GARY CLAY, ROBERT PICKERSGILL,CRAIG MORLEY, MELVIN RANDALL, ANDREW STIMSON,ROBERT WESTBY, DALE WRIGHT

1980RICHARD CLARK, EDWARD HALL, ALAN HAMILTON,WILLIAM HUGHES, DAVE PEDDER, NEIL PULLEN,CLINTON ROSE, NIGEL WILLAMS

1981IAN PRESTON

1983SHAUN GREGORICK, PAUL HIRD, JOHN KIERNAN,ANDREW SMITH, PAUL THURLOW, SIMON TOMKINSON,MARTIN WALKER, SHAUN WOFINDEN

1988STEPHEN PERRY, ROBERT SAMPSON, ROBERT STRICKLAND

2005PAUL FALKINER, LUKE WARNER, STEVE BIDDLE

2008KIERAN GREEN

2009JONATHAN SANDERSONWe’ve done our very best to ensure that everyone has been included,please accept our apologies if any names have been omitted.

THE APPRENTICEYOU’RE HIRED!

10

02CONSTRUCTION

OFWESTBURTON

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12

Making historyCoal merchant Thomas Benjamin hasa special place in the history of WestBurton. He recalls a memorable day:

“I’d been asked to deliver 10cwt to theold farm house at West Burton, whichwas the site headquarters for Mertzand McLellan the civil engineers.

I arrived at 8 o’clock on a Mondaymorning and was met by a chapcalled George Holmes. He was thegeneral factotum and tea boy atthe office. George showed me whereto unload the coal and when thatwas done we stood around for abit of a chat. Suddenly, out of theoffice rushed a gentleman in a tinhat clutching a bundle of papers,a big sledge hammer and a pieceof pointed wood. “Come with me”,he demanded.

Not knowing what was going onwe duly followed him to the middleof the field until he said, “Stop here”.He then gave me the hammer andGeorge the pointed wood andtold us to knock it into the ground.We did as instructed and thenthe gentleman congratulated us,“You’ve made history,” he said“for that is the starting point ofWest Burton power station.”

DRIVINGthe first peg

“YOU’VE MADE HISTORY,”HE SAID, “FOR THATIS THE STARTINGPOINT OF WEST BURTONPOWER STATION.”

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The first measurementRight at the beginning of the construction process, before the first clod was dug, someone hadto mark out the land to show where all the buildings and roads would go. And, to do that, theyhad to establish a single set-out point that indicated the centre line of the complex and againstwhich all other measurements would be taken.

The task fell to Douglas Derbyshire, Chief Project Engineer for the CEGB Northern Project Group,and colleagues from Merz and McLellan civil engineers and Mitchell Construction. The groupassembled on a hump-back bridge over the railway that led to West Burton village. A plumbline was dropped over the edge of the bridge down to the tracks and from that intersection themeasuring began.

The bridge was later demolished during construction of the site. Ordinance Survey subsequentlyintroduced benchmarks (reference points) at either end of the turbine hall on the corners of row ‘A’and at the foot of chimney 1 plus the coal plant emergency drainage pump house.

Things are much more sophisticated today. The new CCGT site has been laid out usingtechnology based on an advanced satellite global positioning system.

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A blessing in disguiseBad weather normally plays havoc with building projects. But that wasn’tthe case when construction work at West Burton was just beginning in 1962.

The type of thick clay subsoil underlying the site usually becomesunmanageable when wet. In particular, it can cause no end of problemsfor workers trying to dig foundations and lay drainage systems. However,the winter of ‘62-63 was one of the coldest on record and the clay frozesolid. For once, bad weather was turned to an advantage and excavationproceeded without the anticipated winter delays.

1961-69

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During the early stages of construction in 1963, workmenexcavating a trench came across the shattered remnants ofa WWII aeroplane. In fear of what might be found, work wasimmediately stopped and the police and RAF informed.

Fortunately no bombs or bodies were involved. After checkingthe records it transpired that the plane was a Stirling bomberoperating from Wigsley. It had been on a night-time trainingflight in 1944 when it developed problems and crashed. All thecrew baled out and landed safely.

Fancy a dip?Back in 1993 you might have thought your luckhad changed when a new pool was built nearthe pump house. In for a swim anyone? Not so.This was us tightening our environmentalstandards. 42 metres wide, 49 metres long andover two metres deep, the tank was designedto catch oil and slurry from site drainage andstop it fouling the River Trent.

Home from homeWest Burton’s rural location meant there was very littleaccommodation available for the hundreds of workersbrought in from all over the country to construct the site.The solution was to build a special, temporary compound.

The compound was erected adjacent to the then stillexisting derelict Low Farm buildings and close towhere the mediaeval village of West Burton once stood.More than 1400 workers could be comfortably housed.There were special cabins allocated for managers anda modern canteen block capable of serving up to2,000 meals a day.

ON-SITE ENTERTAINMENT WAS IN SHORT SUPPLYTHOUGH AND SO THE PUBS, CLUBS AND CINEMASOF RETFORD, GAINSBOROUGH AND THE LOCALVILLAGES DID A ROARING TRADE.

Why there?Have you ever wondered why the gatehouseseems to be at such an odd angle? You’re notalone. But there’s a good explanation.

Scotland Yard started the process by saying weneeded the gatehouse at the top of the drive forbetter security. The trouble was that their favouredlocation was crossed by an MOD fuel pipeline,two 15” water mains and a 132KV cable. Morethan that, the land itself was very much lower thanthe road. Clever thinking came to the rescue.“We drew up plans for the gatehouse to sit rightin the middle of the triangle created by the pipes,mains and cables. Then we used rubble fromdemolition of the old chimneys as a thick layerof hardcore to raise the ground level. That done,building work commenced.”

The result is a piece of perfect logic, albeit atouch off-centre!

WARTIME RELICSTHE STIRLING BOMBER!

NOW THERE’S AQUESTION:

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Ring of strengthBy 1999 the structural stability of the cooling towers wascoming under increasing scrutiny. The shell of C1 in particularwas starting to show signs of deformation and cracks hadappeared. Although the cracks were filled with resin, this didn’tresolve the underlying problem.

In keeping with the traditions of West Burton an innovativesolution was employed. Rather than the usual method ofapplying a completely new concrete skin to the structure itwas instead fitted with a series of concrete rings. The processlocked the tower into shape and, in doing so, created thedistinctive appearance that we still see today.

Feathered friendsIt was always hoped that ducks would populatethe ponds naturally. Nothing happened and after30 years we still only had a couple of stragglers.Then, when chatting to a local farm lady, she madea remark about being over-run with the things.“Not one to miss an opportunity, I spoke to thestation manager and he agreed we could buy somein, “But no wing clipping,” he insisted, “they mustcome and go as they please.” The original floating

platform we built for them sank, so we constructeda permanent island. That did the trick.

They love it. We’ve now got about 30and the number increases

every spring.”

Band of goldAs you walk around the site today and look up atthe cooling towers you’ll notice one with a distinctgoldish yellow band around the top. This is not anaccident. It is in fact the remnants of the station’soriginal award winning design scheme.

Back in the 1960s the sheer size of the West Burtondevelopment posed new challenges for thearchitects and landscape designers. How couldthey comfortably fit such huge shapes into thegentle countryside of the lower Trent Valley?

The answer at the time was revolutionary. Theypositioned the towers so that some were alwayspartially obscured by others. One group of fourwas laid out as a lozenge and the other four in ameandering line. More than that, they also colouredthe towers. Two of the towers in the lozenge wereconstructed in a dark grey concrete to contrastwith the light grey of the other two. Similarly, oneof the towers in the line formation was finished ina dull yellow to add a different perspective.

The idea behind the scheme was actually quitesimple; ‘You can’t hide such an enormousconstruction, so let’s make it interesting to look at’.

YOU CAN’T HIDE SUCH ANENORMOUS CONSTRUCTION, SO LET’SMAKE IT INTERESTING TO LOOK AT.

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A tense occasionWest Burton sealed its place in the history of UK power duringa memorable three day commissioning period beginning onAugust 1st 1967. In the space of 72 hours, unit 1 averaged a thenremarkable output of 502.75 megawatts. In doing so it becamethe first of Britain’s new generation 500 megawatt single shaftsets to achieve full commercial production.

Speaking at the time,Derrick Wells, West BurtonSuperintendant, said“It was a very good, steadyrun. Everyone knew whatwas at stake and theimportance of what theywere doing. They weredetermined that unit 1would be the first set in.You could sense thateverybody was willing itthrough those 72 hours.”

National prideEven before it opened, West Burton wasacclaimed as a showpiece of Britishinnovation; a pioneer of 500 megawattelectricity production. Its engineering,construction and design were symbolsof national pride. So much so thatthrough the mid 1960s the site receiveda regular flow of visitors from all aroundthe world accompanied by politiciansand industry dignitaries.

Memorably, the Shah of Iran wasentertained with lunch and a guidedtour in March 1965. His name andsignature have prominence on thevery first page of the station’s leatherbound visitor’s book.

SHOWPIECEOF BRITISH INNOVATION

The helicopter“My take on opening day is different frommost. I was a youngster. Only just startedas a plant attendant in Ops. The peoplefrom Ferranti came by helicopter andlanded on the forecourt in front of thepump house by the river. The boss toldme to watch over the helicopter and keeponlookers away. I was there for the wholeof my shift and so missed the ceremonies.It didn’t matter though. I’d never been soclose to a machine like that before.”

Award winning designIn 1968, West Burton was granted an award bythe Civic Trust for its, “Outstanding contributionto the surrounding scene.” The award judgementdescribed West Burton as, “An immenseengineering work of great style which, far fromdetracting from the visual scene, acts as a magnetto the eye from many parts of the Trent Valley andfrom several miles away.”

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OPEN FOR BUSINESSWEST BURTON WASOFFICIALLY OPENED ON25TH APRIL 1969

THE RIGHT HONOURABLEROY MASON MP, MINISTERFOR POWER, PERFORMEDTHE CEREMONIAL DUTYSUPPORTED BY SIR STANLEYBROWN, CEGB, CHAIRMANOF THE BOARD, ARTHURHAWKINS, CEGB, REGIONALDIRECTOR AND DOUGLASPASK, CEGB, DIRECTORNORTHERN PROJECTS GROUP.

WE BUILTWEST BURTON

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BACK ROW (LEFT TO RIGHT)T. HAYES (ASSISTANT CHARGE ENGINEER), R. W. GRAY (ASSISTANT INSTRUMENT ENGINEER), M. A. FARRER (ASSISTANTCHARGE ENGINEER), W. WARD (COAL AND ASH HANDLING ENGINEER), D. P. PARRY ASSISTANT OPERATIONS ENGINEER),B. J. VINCENT (ASSISTANT CHARGE ENGINEER), R. E WALKER (INSTRUMENTMAINTENANCE ENGINEER).

SECOND ROW (LEFT TO RIGHT)T. MARRIOTT (ASSISTANT OPERATIONS ENGINEER), G. H. JORDAN (CHARGE ENGINEER), G. K. DARKE (ASSISTANTOPERATIONS ENGINEER), M. MCHALE (ASSISTANT OPERATIONS ENGINEER), A. R. PERRETT (ASSISTANT CHARGE ENGINEER),J. L. WALKER (ASSISTANT CHARGE ENGINEER), H. TURNER (CHARGE ENGINEER), D. P. PHILLIPS (CHARGE ENGINEER),G. S. SMITH (ASSISTANT CHARGE ENGINEER), P. R. CASSON (CHARGE ENGINEER), T. J. PRICHARD (ELECTRICALMAINTENANCE ENGINEER), A. M. BROWN (ASSISTANT CHARGE ENGINEER), L. J. CRADDOCK (PLANNING ENGINEER).

CENTRAL ELECTRICITY GENERATING BOARDWEST BURTON POWER STATION - MANNING COURSEELECTRICITY HALL, BUXTON: 2 - 13 NOVEMBER 1964

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WE OPERATEDAND MAINTAINEDWEST BURTON

FRONT ROW (LEFT TO RIGHT)S. SUNDERLAND (ASSISTANT CHARGE ENGINEER), H. E. BLEAZARD (MECHANICAL MAINTENANCE ENGINEER), R. K. DOWLOR(MAINTENANCE SUPERINTENDENT), P. J. CRESSWELL (CHARGE ENGINEER), D. F. KILNER ASSISTANT CHARGE ENGINEER),G. NICHOLSON (STATION SUPERINTENDENT), D. E. WELLS (DEPUTY STATION SUPERINTENDENT), T. RONAN, ASSISTANT TUTOR,ELECTRICITY HALL, BUXTON, J. F. MATHEWS TECHNICAL DEVELOPMENT OFFICER), W. J. HARRISON (OPERATIONS,SUPERINTENDENT), F. KIRKBY (ASSISTANT OPERATIONS ENGINEER), P. WALKER (ASSISTANT CHARGE ENGINEER).

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03

TECHNOLOGY

&AUTOMATION

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24

1960’S

TOUCHY,FEELYIn the old days the panels in the controlroom used to be hard wired. You couldfeel things activating, there’d be avibration. Likewise you could see andsmell if something had burned out.There’s none of that with computers. Allwe get now is a little message on screen.It’s worse if the screen freezes becausethen we haven’t a clue what’s going on.

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2000’S

Getting computerisedBy the mid 1990s the case for a computerised process management system wascompelling. Financially there were the demands of a competitive marketplace,which called for two shifting. Equally, environmental concerns were driving aneed for much finer control of the combustion processes.

Dick Wright, who was the site’s control specialist, and Station Manager NickPlant took the initiative and sourced an APMS best suited to West Burton. By thetime it was installed in 1996 each area of plant had been thoroughly tested off-line and emergency back-up desks situated in the control room.

They’re not toys! Oh yes they areWhen APMS was about to be introduced the technical team wasconcerned that staff wouldn’t want to work with computers. Theiranswer was to put a terminal loaded with games in the controlroom so that people could get used to it. Fancy a game of ponganyone? Contrast that with today and the inevitable ear-bashingfor anyone caught playing games in work time.

The team thought all the angles had been covered.That is until the screens started going blank, oftenfor hours at a time. Why did this happen? Nickexplains with the calm of hindsight:

“The cause was contractors trying to save money onsoftware licenses. They set things up so that if themain computer failed it would automatically handover the licenses to the back-up. But they didn’tcheck this would actually work. It didn’t, and withoutthe licenses neither system could operate.”

Fortunately the error was spotted and corrected.The system was soon absorbed into daily life andnowadays it’s hard to imagine running West Burtonwithout it.

1960’S

Praise where praise is due“The West Burton plant has been adapted over the years to copewith a completely different set of demands than it was designed for.

You’ve got to remember that West Burton was originally run asbase load. But, with more and more big stations coming onstream, supply exceeded demand and we had to start two shifting.Constant shutting down and starting up wasn’t in the blueprint andit stressed the components.

Our maintenance departments did a great job. They recognisedthe problems and overhauled, repaired or replaced all those partsthat couldn’t take the strain. Rapid vacuum pumps were installedfor a quick start-up. Likewise, electrical actuators were fitted toreplace all those valves and dampers that previously requiredmanual effort to open and close.

My compliments to the engineers who put West Burton together inthe first place. The computers and instruments we’ve added haveworn out and been changed many times. But the mechanical bitsseem to last forever. They’re still running.

Today our operators regard two shifting as the norm. I don’t thinkthey realise just how much skill and ingenuity has gone in tomaking that possible.”

It’s a secretWhen computers were first introduced themanagers were told to use passwords to protectthe confidentiality of their work. One very seniormanager (whose name is best withheld) had thebright idea of using ‘BOSS’ as his password. Ofcourse the code was cracked within minutes andso everyone knew everything that was going on.How’s that for open management!

Press the red button“‘If the computers fail, press the red button’. Thatwas the instruction given to us when APMS wasintroduced. But, believe me, pressing the red buttonwas the last thing you wanted to do. That shuteverything down. It would cause mayhem. We knewthere was a fault with the system and if the screenswent blank, well, it was probably just the screens.At least that’s what we thought. We’d hold ourbreath, cross our fingers and hope it would comeback to life.”

Give it a tap lad“This was the old days. Before computers. Therewas me with my Sunday evening shift routines doingmill PA diff checks. A needle was sticking so Ireported it on the radio. “Give it a tap with a rubbertorch,” came the instruction. I did. Though perhapsa touch too hard. The needle moved violently andthe mill tripped. Before I knew the team was downon me like a ton of bricks. “I said tap it not . . . . ”,someone screamed in my ear.”

26

2000’S

HATS OFFT’ ENGINEERS

BACK TO THE FUTURE“YOU KNOWWHAT I FINDFASCINATING ABOUT THIS PLACE?THINK OF PARSONS, WHO INVENTEDTHE STEAM TURBINE IN THE 1880’s.IF HE CAME BACK HE’D IMMEDIATELYRECOGNISE THE TURBINES WE’RERUNNING TODAY. THE CONTROLSWOULD BE NEW TO HIM, BUT THEFUNDAMENTAL DESIGN IS STILLMUCH THE SAME AS IT EVER WAS.”

For the workers by the workersThe thinking was like a breath of fresh air, ‘Thissystem will have the greatest impact on the workers,so let’s get them involved in its commissioning’.

“The system in question was PR-ISM, a newcomputerised work control system launched in1994. Stuart Reardon lead the team and heco-opted Dave Thornsby-Smith for his experiencewith boilers, Craig Morley from mills and MartinWalker who knew the coal plant and turbines.With mechanical craftsmen inputting data andintroducing updates we knew there was fargreater chance of the system being right for themaintenance staff that would use it most often.”

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There have been many family tiesthroughout the history of West Burton.The photos below illustrate just oneexample – brothers Mick and NigelBeresford next to the original drying outkit their father Wilf bought in 1970 whenhe was the assistant overhaul projectcontroller (pictured in black and white).The adjacent photo shows them withtoday’s more compact version.

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A FAMILYAFFAIR

29

CLEANUP

YOURACT

Avote of confidenceGetting the go ahead for the FGD plant wasa massive morale booster for us. This was ahundred million pound investment and it provedthat Eastern was committed to our future. In effectit rubber-stamped their confidence in the stationand the people who ran it. You see, FGD was aforward looking decision. Without FGD wecouldn’t meet the environmental standards andwe would’ve had to close. With FGD we gotanother string to our bow and knew we’d beOK for at least another fifteen years or so.

But that was just one side to it. Besides the jobsecurity, FGD also introduced us to a differentstyle of working. While the process is run remotelyby our people in the control room, the activities onthe ground, the operational and maintenanceaspects, are handled by an embeddedcontractor. We’d had contractors on site before. Itwasn’t a new idea. The difference was that withFGD both sets of people became fully integrated.You can see it now. There’s real teamwork at play.It’s shown us what can be achieved when you putyour mind to accepting change and having adetermination to make new things happen.30

“WITH FGD WE GOTANOTHER STRING TOOUR BOW AND KNEWWE’D BE OK FOR ATLEAST ANOTHERFIFTEEN YEARS OR SO”

Conflicting signalsIt’s amazing to think how we ever managed to communicateproperly on a site this big before mobile phones. There was thetime we first introduced walkie talkie radios. They seemed likea great idea, until we found that the radio signals interferedwith the electronics on the cranes and stopped them working.

Stuck in a box“My first job was working the PABX. Honestly, I felt as if I wasshut in a coffin. The room was so small and pokey. And thetechnology is laughable today. When a call came in there’d bea light on the panel and I’d plug the wires in and out of sockets.They were elastic and when we got busy the whole panellooked like a bit of bad knitting. There weren’t many internalphones either. Managers had their own extensions of course.But if I wanted to get hold of an engineer or someone like thatI’d just ring an area and hope for the best.”

Guess the location“In the early days we relied on fixed land-lines forcommunications around the site. For us in maintenancethis meant that if you wanted to get hold of someone onthe team you’d have to call the operator, guess whereyour mate might be, and then she’d ring the nearestphone. It was inconvenient in an emergency, but we gotby. Today we’ve all got hand-held radio phones, our ownwalkie talkie system, and they work perfectly. Too wellsometimes. Constant bloomin’ interruptions.”

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32

04STAFF&CULTURE

(THERE’SNOWTSO

QUEERASFOLK)

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NOT MY FAULTGONE ARE THE TIMES WHEN A TITLEAUTOMATICALLY EARNED RESPECT. NOWADAYSWHAT MATTERS IS BEING GOOD AT WHAT YOU DO.SUCH PROFESSIONALISM HAS SEEN US ADAPTTO CHANGE, EMBRACE NEW TECHNOLOGIES ANDINNOVATE WORKING PRACTICES. BUT THINGSWEREN’T ALWAYS SO GREAT. BY CONTRAST, IT’SINTERESTING TO RECALL AN ANECDOTE FROMTHE EARLY YEARS:

A MAN WALKING AROUND THE BOILER HOUSEREALISES HE’S LOST. HE SPOTS ANOTHER LEAVINGTHE LIFT AND ASKS,

“EXCUSE ME, CAN YOU HELP? I PROMISED TO MEETSOMEONE HERE HALF AN HOUR AGO, BUT I’M LOST.”THE MAN REPLIES, “YES. YOU’RE ON 131 LEVEL,CENTRE OF THE BOILER HOUSE, BETWEEN UNITS2 AND 3.”“YOUMUST BE AN ENGINEER,” SAYS THE LOSTMAN.“I AM,” CAME THE REPLY, “BUT HOW DID YOUKNOW THAT?”“WELL,” SAYS THE LOST MAN, “WHAT YOU’VE TOLDME IS TECHNICALLY CORRECT, BUT I’VE NO IDEAWHAT IT MEANS AND I’M STILL LOST.”THE ENGINEERSMILES AND REPLIES, “YOU MUST BE A MANAGER.”“I AM, BUT HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT?”“WELL”, SAYS THE ENGINEER, “YOU DON’T KNOWWHERE YOU ARE OR WHERE YOU’RE GOING. YOU’VEMADE A PROMISE YOU CAN’T KEEP. AND NOW YOUEXPECT ME TO SOLVE YOUR PROBLEM. THE FACTIS YOU’RE IN EXACTLY THE SAME POSITION AS YOUWERE BEFORE WE MET. BUT SOMEHOW IT’S NOWMY FAULT!”

THANKFULLY TIMES AND ATTITUDESHAVE MOVED ON!

First in line for NVQsWith the demise of the CEGB it became clear thatin-house qualifications from the electricity supplyindustry would soon have little meaning in theoutside world. West Burton recognised this and,as part of the Investors in People Award scheme,began implementing training programmes that metnationally recognised standards.

At the head of the queue in 1994 were Steve Walker,Steve Lee and Vaughan Boot. These three becamethe first from West Burton to set off on the NVQ level3/4 supervisory skills trail. In the same year thestation earned a ‘highly commended’ in the nationalChief Executive’s training award scheme.

CHECK OUT THE

BRAINSON THIS LOT!

STEVE LEESTEVE WALKERVAUGHAN BOOT

A time for everything“In the early ‘70s, time and motion was the big thing. We evenhad a works study department to run it. Time and motionlooked at our performance individually. Everything we didgot measured and all jobs had a time allocated to them. Thissaw the introduction of performance related pay and bonusschemes based on productivity. It was good for us becausewe received big rises and the bonuses were great.

The trouble was that no one kept on top of it. New technologymeant we became more efficient, but jobs weren’tre-measured. Some people took advantage and would sitaround after finishing their work simply to use up the sparetime. The scheme was phased out at the beginning of the‘80s. After that we returned to proper job management andwork levels became much better.”

35

Abetter class in OpsOps was different when it came to recruitment.The CEGB was engineer driven and so quite a fewof the lads came from other stations. Back in the1960’s West Burton was the future. Everyone wantedto be part of it. The discipline was tight though.There was a rigid management system and itfiltered down through all the levels. Even thesupervisors had to be called ‘Mr’.

My interview“I’d been working for myself. Repairingpeople’s cars, doing mechanical odd jobs,stuff like that. A bloke in the pub told methey were recruiting at West Burton and soI applied.

At my interview the manager looked at myapplication form and straight away startedasking about Morris Minors. “What’s wrongif it does so and so, how would you fix it?”After about fifteen minutes of me telling himwhat and how to do it he said, “Right, that’ssorted my daughter’s car, now pop off foryour medical and you can start next week.

I’ve been here ever since.”

A mixed bunch“To start with lots of the people who came here livedlocally. Apart from working on the land there wasn’tmuch else. We also had quite a few ex Royal Navy.The thinking was they’d know about steam turbines,but I remember one bloke who was signals andhe’d never been in an engine room in his life. Thenof course there were the railway people. It was theBeecham era with lines being closed and so we hadplenty of ex drivers, stokers and signalmen.

As they said at the time, ‘you can always tell arailwayman, but you can’t tell ‘em much’.”

Initiation“It was one of those things you do whensomeone new starts. This lad wasn’t thebrightest spark it’s got to be said. Phil broughtsome bones from home and put them in thereject box. Another bloke added an old bootand a battered helmet. “Check the box isclear lad, will you!” Across the room anothershouted, “Oi, has anyone seen Tony?” Thelad looked. He couldn’t handle it. Face whiteas a ghost he wandered off without sayinga word.”

RECRUITMENT

36

The mark of excellence1995 saw West Burton earn the prestigious Investors In People awardfor the first time. In doing so it became only the third location throughoutNational Power to achieve the distinction.

The award followed a lot of hard work by the Personnel and Trainingdepartments, which culminated with an in-depth assessment by NorthNottinghamshire TEC. Commentating at the time on the success,Station Manager Derek Cheetham said, “The process has been longand demanding. The TEC certainly don’t make the award lightly.But this isn’t the end of the story. We’ll be reassessed in three years andby then we’ll have to demonstrate we’ve made substantial improvements.”

Three years later we were even better than before.

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You ask anybody and they’ll say theirloyalty’s to West Burton. We’ll work justas hard and just as conscientiously nomatter whose name is on the door. You seethere’s a passion and camaraderie herethat runs deep. This is where the heart is.West Burton’s in our blood.

WHERETHEHEART IS

38

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West Burton used to be pretty much self-sufficient.It was the CEGB way. Then came privatisation.The focus moved from efficiency to profit andcontracting entered the equation.

“The early steps were obvious. In around ‘94 wehad a partnership arrangement to run the ashplant. That worked OK because ash really wasn’tour business. Not long after we had facilitiesmanagement to do odd jobs and run the canteen.It was low key stuff, these were non-core activitiesand no one minded too much.

But towards the end of the ‘90s we started tocontract some of the core services. First to go wasthe coal stock ground. This was uncomfortablebecause the contractors really weren’t as goodas the original staff. It was definitely them and us.There was tension and a blame culture developed.It was as if there were two sets of rules.”

“I suppose the breakthrough happened six or sevenyears ago. Contractors and our own fitters startedworking together in the same workshops. Thechange was cultural. Almost without realising weswitched to a position where our blokes providedthe knowledge and the contractors provided theskills. We manage; they do.

Today it’s almost seamless. Having contractorson site, sharing offices and work spaces, we’rea proper team. Many of them operate with ‘life ofstation’ contracts and so the feeling is ‘we’re inthis together’.“

A race apart“It wasn’t a good atmosphere when contractors started taking overcore functions. They were seen as the enemy. People really didfear for their jobs. It was almost like they were a race apart. Therewere signs saying ‘no contractors’ to keep them out of our parts ofthe site. These blokes might have been your best friends, but youdidn’t talk to them in work time.”

Part of the fabric“‘Bloomin’ Contractors’, they used to say. We gotblamed for everything. This was back in the mid‘90s and our firm had been appointed to handleall sorts of hard and soft services. The problemwas communications. People weren’t sure whatwe were doing, they hadn’t been told, and sothere was fear we’d take over their jobs.

People then were stuck in their ways. ‘Our corebusiness is not your core business, and vice versa’,we’d say. But it took a long time to sink in. Therewas confusion. Blokes would turn up with bits ofplant for us to fix. It wasn’t what we were there for.

Nowadays it’s completely different. I’m still hereas a contractor, though with a different firm. Wehandle all the minor civils like plumbing and smallbuilding works. In fact things became so good westarted having problems. ‘If you want anythingdoing, go speak to Pete’. We were a short-cut. Andof course that upset the cart because some of thejobs hadn’t been authorised. How was I to know?

It’s settled down now and there’s a good systemin place. We report to a technical officer for thecontract and only do things when a work ordercard has been issued. ‘Not a yard without a card’is what I tell my lads. The relationship is wellbalanced. West Burton is an institution, and welike to think we’re part of the fabric.”

THEMUSWE

WESTBURTONIS ANINSTITUTION,AND WELIKE TOTHINK WE’REPART OFTHE FABRIC.

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Wages day“Preparing the wages started on Wednesday. There were no banktransfers, it was all cash. When the money arrived we’d be lockedin a room with two security guards outside the doors. We’d makeup each wage packet by hand, more than 700 of them, and woebetide if you got a single penny wrong. The packets were stored inthe safe overnight. Then on Thursday we’d help give them out.They weren’t taken round, instead people would line up in a longqueue and we’d hand them through a little window one by one.Sounds unreal nowadays doesn’t it!”

Think firstRisk assessment was probablyone of the most important practicaldevelopments in management atWest Burton. It made us think aboutwhat we were doing, and about theconsequences of doing it properlyor not.

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05LEGENDS

&MYTHS

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BUZZ “EVERY TIME ILOOK OUT THECORNER OF MYOFFICE DAVE I SEEYOU DOING NOTHING.”DAVE “SO DON’TLOOK OUT OF YOUROFFICE BUZZ.”

YOU LUCKYLADS”

“C’MON

Buzz must be here!

Buzz Webb - Electrical ForemanThe unforgettable Buzz Webb! He was oneof our original electrical foremen. Who canforget the cry of “come on you lucky lads”to get us going. Or that old fashioned torchhe wore on a cord around his neck.

There was one occasion when Buzz and anelectrician were on their way to a job. Acouple of burly scaffolders squeezed intothe lift and Buzz straightaway told them,“The safe number of occupants is beingexceeded.” An easy remedy. They grabbedhis arms and hoisted him out of the lift backinto the boiler house. Later, when heeventually caught up with the electrician,Buzz mustered all the dignity he could findand demanded, “Did you get their names?”

Bad weather Buzz“The thing about Buzz was that he had areputation for attracting really bad weatheron his holidays. We used to ask when hewas going just so we could plan our ownholiday for a different week. There was onebloke, a mechanical foreman, who’d beenhaving perfect weather in Cornwall. Hetook an excursion down the coast and itstarting pouring with rain. Not to be put offhe wrapped up and went for a stroll alongthe sea front. Who do you think he bumpedinto – you’ve guessed it!”

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Where have all the rabbits gone? Did I hear you say?Where have all the rabbits gone? Have they gone away?Have they gone to Scunthorpe or have they gone to Bole?Have they been on night shift or are they sleeping down their hole?Have they gone on holiday, lazing in the sun?No. They met the pigeon man and he shot them with his gun.

Raffle tickets“Do you remember the bloke who used tosell the raffle tickets? I’m not sure what hedid, or even if he did anything. He justseemed to be around when the place wasbeing built.

Every couple of weeks he’d turn up sellingraffle tickets at a pound a go and there’dbe a single prize. Usually it was a great bigflashy car, a Cadillac or a Jag. The buildersin the compound loved it, we all did. Thiswas the 1960s and so we jumped at thechance of winning something like that.”

The pigeon manThe legendary pigeon man used to come in on night shifts to cullpigeons trapped in the boiler house. When admin staff on theirlunchtime walk around the grounds noticed a lack of rabbits theyimmediately assumed the pigeon man had extended hisresponsibilities.

Fair exchange?“Security was never a strong point in the early days. During theoutages all kinds of things used to go walkabout. There was onebloke, an Italian, not sure if he was one of ours or not. He’d holdout a bag of sweets and ask, “Got any bolts you don’t want?” Thatwas the deal. You’d take a couple of sweets and he’d stuff hispockets with any old bits and pieces of scrap lying around. Why?Who knows! But he turned up every year so there must have beensomething in it for him.”

All for show“Peter Mathews loved his old BMW. It wasimmaculate. Everything else took secondplace if something had to be done for thecar. “Come on Ken,” he said to me oneday, “I need new wiper blades, let’s go tothe garage”. “Why not,” I thought, “it’sbetter than working.” But, you know what,this guy was a principal engineer and yethe drove virtually all the way there andback in third gear. “Is there a problemwith the box?” I asked. “No lad, it justsounds best in third!”

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BUBBLES, CLINGER, MAD DOG, BAT MAN,SPUD HEAD, SHODDY, HOLLY BUSH, FRUIT,SHAG, ANIMAL, FINGERS, CHOPPER,ZIPPY, WOOF, STUMPY, EMMA, CHICKEN,EGG, SAUSAGE JOCKEY, SMELLY, MUPPET,MOTHER, BOXES, CHUCKLE BROTHERS,TEA POT, BALD EAGLE, SINEX, ROCKETRON, BLACK ADDER, TWO HEADS, LITTLEDRUMMER BOY, FATHER CHRISTMAS,CHEYENNE, COACH EAST, BLACKNESS,YORKIE, MOVIN, TRACEY LEGS, SWAMPY,MUM, THE OLDMAN, LISTERS, WEETABIX,BREADMAN, ALE CART, BASHER, GIANTHAYSTACK, SARGENT BILKO, DIP DAZZLE,PLUSSY GASSEE, PORKY, KNOBBY,

TOP CAT, SELWYN, CHALKY, BLACK CLOUD,PRINCE CHARLES, FAT CONTROLLER,SCORCH, BOOM BANG-A-BANG, CURLY,POISONEDDWARF, SLASHER, FIFO,GLADYS,CAPTAIN CHAOS, LEVER BROTHERS, FUB,CAPTAIN KIRK, SPIKE, BLACKMAC,CABLE TRAY, PERVERT, BERO, LOVELACE,GRUMP, IRON HORSE, GRAVEL GOB,LIVERSLUDGE, MOANVIN, BUTCH, PERCY,BUD, SELWYN, MAGPIEMICK, BALD EAGLE,PIGGY, BATMAN, LORD HAVERCROFT,STOCKINGS, BLACK CLOUD, YORKIE PUD,ALI BONGO, LA LA, HARRY (P), OTTER,UNCLE FESTER, LADY, MOGGY, JUDY,DIDDY, PUGH PUGH BARNEYMAGOO,MARDYWARDY, SERGEANT SLAUGHTER,DABBERS, ROO, DIZZY, TEA POT, CHOPPER,BLACKNESS, BLACKMAC, BENNY, SWEETIEWHEATIE, SLASHER, NIC NIC & SKEGGY,BOBBLE, ANORAK, BRIGGER, TRIG

46

Dream onDave Naylor. Now there’s a lad and a half. A top bloke.Could fix anything. But do you remember that old Miniof his? He’d hand painted it to cover the rust. Theexhaust was broke and you had to leave the windowsopen ‘cos fumes came in through a hole in the floor. Noignition. You had to hard wire it to get the thing started.

He was off to Burton on Trent once for training and gotpulled. The brake lights weren’t working. Somehow hetalked his way out of a ticket. But the officer asked him,“What’s your ambition in life son?” “To get a brand newblack Ford Capri,” came the reply. He did an’ all. Afterleaving West Burton he made an absolute mint runninghis own business.

“WHAT’S YOURAMBITION INLIFE SON?”

“TO GET ABRAND NEWBLACK FORDCAPRI.”

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“GETTHOSEPOODLESOUT OFMY WAY.”

PoodlesRoger Grey didn’t like it whenthings got in the way of efficiency.Not surprisingly, he went ballisticwhen “a bunch of stuck-up toffs onhorses” interrupted work on thecoal plant. It was the Grove andRufford hunt and they werechasing a fox through the site.“Excuse me,” he said, standingthreateningly in front of the riders,“I’ve got a ninety million poundpower plant to run. Get thosepoodles out of my way.”

Wind-up merchantDan Caunt loved to wind-up the bloke in the pub. He’dget a round of drinks and then offer to pay by creditcard. OK today, but believe me it was well out of orderback then. He turned up once with a home-made arrowstuck through that old deerstalker of his. “Give us apint landlord,” he shouted, “I’ve a splitting headache.”

Some of the jokes were a bit close to the mark though.He’d wade through the boxes of rags brought in forcleaning until he found something wearable. Then he’dput them on at shower time. The one that sticks to mindis him in a baby doll nightie, his work boots, andnothing else. Not a pretty sight!

The hunt chased a fox down the road onto site and it jumped intothe cooling tower pond to try to get away from the hounds. The foxwas fished out of the pond and taken into the stores to recover itwas exhausted. The security staff stopped the hunt coming on tothe site to chase the fox. When the fox had recovered it was takendown to the coal plant and released to find its way home.

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“HORRIDGE!OFFICE!NOW!”

Colin Horridge - Site Postman“I’ve lost count of the times that instruction bellowed down the corridor.You see Colin always knew what was going on around the station. But, heliked a gossip and so everyone else also got to know what he knew. SteveMcKiernan, his boss, couldn’t handle it. “A confidence is a confidence,”was his approach. One minute you’d hear Colin’s merry whistling, the nextit would stop dead with a blast of “Horridge – Office – Now”.

Colin Horridge was the site postman. Everyone knew and liked him. Equally,everyone at some time or other was collared by his, “Hey, have you heard theone about . . . “ opening gambit. Emails and facilities management put anend to the job and he took early retirement. I know we don’t need postmennowadays, but Colin was the best morale booster this place ever had.”

Bricking itColin was a smashing bloke,although it has to be said he was atouch gullible. One day the lads inengineering gave him a parcel totake to the coal plant. Next day thesame parcel went from coal to thecontrol room. They sent it to admin.In fact it went to just about everyroom on site. It was only when thewrapping finally tore that Colinrealised he’d been duped intohoicking a brick around the place.

The longest run“No matter what the blokes at Ratcliffe say,it’s our record. We ran unit 4 for the best partof nine months. It didn’t stop rotating once.The difference is that we played by the rules.We did things properly like the statutoryoverspeed protection on the turbine.They didn’t do this and so kept going longer.We’d have got them anyway if it wasn’t for abloomin’ tube leak. We were one day short oftheir make-believe record, but just couldn’tpump in any more water. We had to stop.”

The original cavemanBarry Barker had country blood. He’d walk to work and on theway stop to scrape up road kill or pick mushrooms. Likewise he’dcollect fish or eels found on the band screen. Then he’d cook thestuff during shift. His favourite, much to our disgust, was tripe.None of us ever accepted his offer for a taste.

That old cast iron stomach of his stood him in good stead one daywhen he was left to open the bar in preparation for a darts match.True to form he was well into the beer by the time we arrived. “Heylads, we’ve got a good brew tonight,” he said holding up a pint tothe light. “It looks a bit watery mate,” replied one of the team, “areyou sure you flushed the cleaning fluid?” “What cleaning fluid?”said Barry.

Barry the bruiser“I used to play football withBarry Barker. He wasn’t themost skillful bloke on thepitch by a long way. Bit ofa monster to be honest.Good for the team though.No one ever tried to getpast him more than once.”

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51

HERE COME THE

GIRLS

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06

UNIONS

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£1.10 allowanceWe thought it a perfectly reasonable request.‘The station is in the middle of nowhere andwe’d like an allowance for all the travellingwe do to get here’. Management wouldn’tlisten. We wouldn’t withdraw. So an unofficialwork to rule began.

“After three days the management steppedin and asked if we’d go back to workingnormally. But by then the managementattitude had really got under our skin. Wedug our heels in and said no. That was it.They locked us out. It was the principle wewere standing up for.

A week later a compromise was reached.There was a meeting in the club house andwe agreed to return. Equally, managementoffered us £1.10 allowance. That was 1977.The allowance hasn’t been increased since,but those of us still here continue to get it.”

You’ve got to belongUnions ruled the roost back in the ‘60s andearly ‘70s. Not just in electricity production,but in all areas of industry. At West Burton itwas a closed shop. There was the NJB formanagers and engineers, and the NJIC forindustrial and other grades. You had tobelong. No ifs or buts.

What caused the problem though was thelack of flexibility. Everyone had their owntrade and you weren’t allowed to cross intoanother. If you were a painter you painted,but if you needed the wood screwing downbefore you started painting then you had tocall a carpenter. Demarcation they called it.Everyone to their own basically.

“It wasn’t ‘till privatisation that things reallystarted to change. By then the unions werea weakened force and there was generalrealisation that multi-skilling was the wayforward. Our unions didn’t object and to behonest we saw it as a way of opening upcareer opportunities. Working culture hadmoved on and the station ran better for it.”

NJB,NJIC,CEGB

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CAUGHT BETWEENROCKHARDPLACE

TheMiners’ strike“The miners’ strike of ‘84 put us in an awkward position. ArthurScargill was up in arms threatening to bring down the governmentunless it stopped the NCB’s plan to shut pits. Margaret Thatcherwasn’t having any of it. She wouldn’t capitulate. The minerswanted our support because they thought power cuts would turnthe tide in their favour.

The other side of the coin was that the Nottinghamshire minersstood against the strike and carried on working. Our loyalties layclose to home and so we continued working as well. It wasuncomfortable. One union against another. We were compromisedand had friends in all camps.

There were protests at the gates and stuff was thrown at ourcars as we came and went. But we kept going. The pickets didn’treally try too hard because they could see from the fences thatwe’d got good stocks of coal. What they didn’t know was that wewere desperately short of supplies. We’d hollowed the middleof the coal piles so they were actually more like doughnutsthan mountains.

The strike went on for a year before the miners finally called it off.It wasn’t a happy period and none of us took pride in the result.The best to be said is that we survived.”

Picketing the picketsStriking miners outside the West Burton entrancehad their thunder stolen when a group of womenturned up to picket the pickets. The leader of thewomen, Mrs Mell of Beckingham, explained theiractions to a local newspaper at the time:

“There will be no violence and we will not even talkto the miners. We have formed this silent groupbecause we cannot see why people should bestopped from working. We have come here – all ofus really very frightened – because we feel stronglythat a man should be allowed to work, and that thewhole community should not be held to ransom. Thewomen, as usual, will have to foot the bill as a resultof this dreadful chaos. We all hate anarchy.”

Opportunity?In the early days your career was stuck in a rut.What career? There just weren’t the opportunities.On the one hand you’d got the CEGB, and theywouldn’t train people into new areas. On the otherwere the unions, if you were NJIC there was no wayyou could apply for a NJAB position. It was hopeless.Nowadays it’s down to ability and application.Today, if you start as a kid sweeping floors, if you’vegot what it takes, you can go all the way to stationmanager.

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Timely advicePrivatisation was in the air andI took myself off to an unofficialunion meeting in Worksop. Itwas a low key affair and notmany attended even though theShadow Energy Secretary wasguest speaker. That speakerwas a young Tony Blair. Hepresented himself brilliantly andexplained what was going on

with remarkableclarity. Towards theend, when the floorwas open forquestions, someoneasked about theinducements beingoffered. He hesitated,classic Tony Blairstyle, and then replied,“Look, my advice is tograb what you can.We can’t stop it.”

“LOOK, MY ADVICEIS TO GRABWHATYOU CAN. WECAN’T STOP IT.”

PRIVATISATION

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Good money was madeLots of blokes did very well out ofprivatisation. When it happened the lower,non core, grades were done away with.The severance pay offered was generousand people jumped at the opportunity. Thejobs still existed though. The work had tobe done. So, before you knew it, many ofthose same blokes were back on site ascontractors doing pretty much the same asthey’d done before. But this time they had abig fat bank balance to sit on.

Privatisation rewards“I’m an ordinary working bloke and knew nothing about sharesand things like that. But I do know an opportunity when I see one.”

That opportunity was the share save scheme offered to us atprivatisation. It allowed us to invest up to £250 a month for fiveyears buying shares at less than float price. At the end of the timewe could sell the shares for their new market price or, if the shareshad fallen, cash our investment like a regular savings scheme witha good interest rate. “Whatever happened, whichever way I lookedat, I reckoned this was a winner. I went for it”. Those who did takethe plunge certainly came out on top. The share price rocketed. “Itcleared my mortgage,” was one happy result. “It paid for mydivorce,” was another.

WHAT NOW?

THE OLD THEM AND US MILITANCYHAS GONE. ALTHOUGHMEETINGSARE NOW LESS FORMAL, BOTH SIDESARE IN NO DOUBT OF EACH OTHERSASPIRATIONS. WE STILL WANT THEBEST FOR OUR MEMBERS BUT IFMANAGEMENT CONVINCE US OF AREAL BUSINESS NEED FOR CHANGE,THEN, (WITH A FEW COMPROMISES)WEWILL SUPPORT THEIR ACTIONS.I BELIEVE WE ALL REALISE THAT WEARE NOWGOVERNED BY THE‘BOTTOM LINE’ DRIVE OF APRIVATISED INDUSTRY.

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07HOW’DWEGET

AWAYWITHTHAT!

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If only I’d known“I was a youngster at the time. Still wet behind the ears.The door on the reject box wouldn’t work from the local button.“Nothing for it lad, you’ll have to do it by hand. Just wind thathandle ‘till it opens”. So I did. One thousand and twenty timesI wound that bloomin’ thing. Nearly there. Arms falling out oftheir sockets. A maintenance bloke walked by. “What’s thegame son, that looks hard work?” I explained. He smiled.“Give us your biro”. He took the pen and pressed it down onthe contactor. The electrics sprang to life and the button workedagain. “That’s the trick,” he said.”

Nothing to cry about“Clean up days aren’t new. But, being mill men, weused to do things differently. Fire hoses were ourfavourites. We’d set them up to pressure-clean theoutside walls and anything else within reach. Itwas real fun. The roller shutter door was a problemthough because water sprayed into the workshop.A cunning plan was devised. Out came a ladderand a youngster was collared. “Up you go lad,you can do this by hand”. Everything went welland we carried on talking among ourselves untilthere was an almighty crash followed by anagonised scream. The ladder had slipped and thelad was laid under it. “That arm of yours is all bent”,someone said amid the laughter. It was broken,but not too seriously.”

Off side?“At Christmas we used to clear out the old millworkshop and give it a good clean. Then, after thework Christmas lunch, we’d have our own bit ofa party. Remember, this was when no one mindedif we had the odd drink or two during and afterthe meal.

Anyway, the workshop became the venue for theshift versus shift football match. It was always oneof those ‘anything goes, no holds barred’ typesof game. The tradition continued until one yearthe ball shot clean through the foreman’s officewindow. Unluckily for us he was sitting at his deskat the time. He went berserk, ranting and raving.That was the end of it, no more football after that.”

Too hot to handle“I’d just fixed the mother-in-law’s kettle as a favour.No sooner was it turned on for a test when I gotcalled away. Next thing I heard was this almightyBEEP, BEEP, BEEP of a smoke detector. The kettlehad boiled dry. It’d overheated and blistered theworktop paint. The place was filled with smokeand fumes. I panicked and threw the red hot kettleinto a skip. The skip though was loaded with cardand there was a real risk of fire. That put me ineven more of a state. I was just about to lose theevidence when the boss arrived. Nerves shattered,in fear of my job, I couldn’t find an excuse. Thetruth came out. “Is it one of ours?” was all heasked. “No”, I replied meekly. “That’s good,”he said, “no paperwork; we can get away with it.”

ONE THOUSANDAND TWENTY TIMESI WOUND THAT BLOOMIN’ THING!

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One of the blokes in the mill team had an oldRenault. It was pretty rough, but then we were allbringing up families at the time and so none of ushad money to spare.

After dinner the car was smuggled into a back storeroom and set upon. Anything detachable was off in aflash. The whole vehicle was sanded down and thenpainted with ‘hand rail yellow paint’. Obviously it wasstill wet at home time and there were a few confusedlooks from the gate house as the red faced fitter triedto sneak out a car covered in greenfly! It was a trendsetter, and soon all cars came with colour codedbumpers, mirrors and grill. It was certainly thebrightest car in the car park and the body was stillgoing strong when the engine finally packed up!!

YELLOWPERIL

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Lucky escapeI don’t know who was responsible,but somehow someone managedto spin the mill with the reject doorsopen. As you can imagine, the placewas instantly filled with a denseblack cloud. To my horror, right inthe middle of it, I saw a bloke pullout his pipe and light it. I froze.To this day I still don’t know whythere wasn’t an almighty explosion.

THE DAYWE COULD’VEGONE UP INSMOKE!

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08

SAFETY&

SECURITY

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Which way’s up?E shift was called on to provide fire cover when a train derailed.They knew the procedure and set about rolling the lengths ofhose from the boiler house to the coal plant. Not a difficult taskyou would think. The last length was ready to be connectedwhen the penny dropped – they’d run all the hoses out thewrong way round! It was a mix of embarrassment from the teamand hard to conceal mirth from members of the real fire brigadewho were there to observe.

“Back in 1993, West Burton’s first aiders made it to the final ofthe prestigious Lincoln League team event. We were on top formand had high hopes of winning.

It was an accident scenario and our role was to treat all the‘casualties’. Full of enthusiasm, one of the team spotted abemused elderly gentleman wandering around. Grasping themettle, the gentleman was encouraged to lie down and then hewas given a complete once-over to check for injuries. Clearlyirritated at being pushed and prodded, the gentleman stared ourchap in the eyes and said, “You do realise that I’m the judge?”

Needless to say, we didn’t get an award that year.”

NOPOINTSFOR ENTHUSIASM

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Safety wins gold1994 was a great year for safety at WestBurton. The station passed the magical500 days mark for no Lost Time Accidents.Up until then the previous all time industrybest was only 275 days. In recognition ofthe 500 day achievement and continuingsafety improvements, RoSPA presentedWest Burton with its prestigious annualGold Occupational Safety award.

Remember to duckIt was the middle of the night, the alarmsounded and the fire team sprang intoaction. No one had said anything abouta drill. This was the real thing. Adrenalinpumping, full of nervous energy, theyjumped into the fire engine then – nothing.The motor wouldn’t start. Up went thebonnet, lots of fiddling, no, it was dead.More fiddling. Finally it burst into life.Bonnet down, pistons screaming, cloudsof exhaust smoke, they roared out of thegarage. CRASH!!!! They hadn’t thoughtto lower the pole with the flashing light.Broken glass everywhere. Red faces allround. Back to the training room lads.Fortunately it was a false alarm.

What price safety?It’s astonishing, but in the early days people simply didn’t wear PPE. Evenwhen it began to appear on the scene, the individual was left to buy their own.

West Burton was slightly better than the average employer because staff weregiven special PPE tokens. A PPE retailer was invited to park its van on site andpeople could choose what they wanted and use the tokens to pay for it. But,if the cost was more than the value of the tokens, the individual had to pay thedifference out of their own pocket.

Times changed. By the ‘90s operational staff were being issued with basic PPE.Then in 2002 the whole site was mapped in terms of personal injury risk and noone was allowed into the high risk areas unless they were wearing the proper,company supplied, safety equipment.

WHEN YOU COMMENCE YOURDUTIES AT THIS STATION YOU WILLBE PROVIDED WITH TWO OVERALLSAND TWO HAND TOWELS ON LOAN.EACH YEAR YOU CAN EXCHANGEONE SUIT OF OVERALLS AND TWOHAND TOWELS FOR NEW ONES, IFTHE OLD ONES ARE WORN OUT.ON THE TERMINATION OF YOUREMPLOYMENT THE LATEST TWOISSUES OF OVERALLS AND TOWELSMUST BE RETURNED TO THE STORES.FAILURE TO DO THIS WILL RESULT INTHE VALUE OF THE ARTICLES BEINGDEDUCTED FROM YOUR WAGES.WEST BURTON POWER STATIONSTAFF HANDBOOK1960s

Banana drama“Everyone got a real shock when theyturned up for work one autumn morningin 1997. Five foot high giant bananas hadsprouted in the corridors. Pirates lurked inthe alcoves. Parrots hovered menacinglyfrom the beams. Was this a new take onWest Burton being a funny farm? No.Things were much more serious than that.

The displays were all part of a campaignto raise awareness to safety issues aroundthe site. It was fantastically successful andthe team received nearly 1,300 responsesthat led to more than 450 safety defectsbeing fixed.”

SAFETYRECORDS!

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Two blokes and a battered Suzuki“Back in the ‘90s, security at West Burton was verylow key. It was run by a local firm. They paidpeanuts and employed – well, you know the phrase.The set-up was basically two blokes with a batteredSuzuki Rhino. At night there’d be one of us in thegatehouse and the other on patrol. Sometimes we’dhave two break-ins a week. Anything not naileddown was at risk.

Then Scotland Yard took an interest and sent a teamup here to advise us. ‘Victorian wages, principlesand methods’ they said. It was hard to argue.Fortunately things didn’t stop there. They workedwith the station management to prepare a long termplan and we’ve been steadily improving ever since.

Our little old plastic hut with no water or toilethas gone. Now we’ve got a modern gatehouse.There’s CCTV throughout the site, new perimeterfencing and the late shift wears night visionglasses. Check-in procedures are computerisedand everyone gets a Tensor card. We’ve even gotdecent vehicles; a Ford Ranger and a Peugeot van.

G4 has the contract now and we meet everymonth with the station’s security managers. We’reorganised. There’s more security staff, good qualitypeople and the training is a hundred times better.

West Burton is always going to be a target forthieves and activists. But at least today we’re ina position to deal with things properly.”

A PLASTIC HUT,WATER AND

SECURITY

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Mayhem at the gatehouseAt first there were just five lonely peoplestanding on the edge of the road protestingin support of the 2008 oil refinery dispute.

Security Supervisor Phil Nicholas kept awatchful eye, but it seemed calm enough.Then, without warning, the situationescalated:

“Within a couple of hours the group offive had turned into more than 300.Protestors were everywhere. They blockedthe road targeting contract workers onthe CCGT site. It was getting out of handso we asked Cottam for assistance. Thepolice eventually shut the road, but wewere stretched to the limit. No one hada moment’s peace until the crowddispersed later that evening.

Next day only three people turned upand we thought normality had returned.That is until the call came throughfrom Cottam. The crowd had changedlocation and we had to dash over thereto help our colleagues. It was two daysof absolute mayhem”.

Community support“When we started patrolling the tracks and roads around theperimeter it was to improve security for the station. But, as theweeks rolled on, we kept noticing a constant stream of carsvisiting a certain flat in Bole. Suspicions aroused, we told ourmates in the constabulary. “Well spotted”, they said. “We’ll takeover from here. Let’s see what’s happening”. A few weeks laterthere was a big raid. Flashing lights. Sirens. The whole business.Apparently it was a drug dealer, and we helped put him away.”

I had to admire the lad though. An ex army Ghurkha, shouldersback, standing to attention. A perpetual smile, yet that steely lookin his eyes. Thankfully, he’s on our side.

From time to time we draft in teams of Ghurkhas to boost securitywhen the authorities warn us of a possible threat. They love to beout there at night patrolling the grounds. That’s when they’re intheir element. But I like the deterrent approach. Having Ghurkhaschecking IDs is a sight to behold. No one ever argues.

WITH NONO TOILET

“WHAT DO I HIT THEM WITH SIR?”“WHOA, HOLD ON THERE,” I THOUGHT,“THAT’S NOT HOWWE DO THINGSROUND HERE.”

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OGGLES&BOOTS

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DISASTERS

&EVENTS

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Timely adviceAll it took was one man and his hammer to bring thestation to its knees. The day was 24th April 2001 and thetime 9.35 in the morning. Bill Pettit, a regular contractor,had been assigned to remove fire barrier cement frombetween sub-basement floors in preparation for laying anew cable. A simple task. But Bill forgot that beneath thecement lay an existing, live, 11 KV cable. With one sturdyblow, Bill drove his chisel straight into the live cable. Noone knows how he escaped with nothing worse than aburned hand. The side effect though was that he starteda chain of events that nearly closed the whole station.

Damage to the cable instantlytripped station board 2, whichsupplies half the auxiliaries,the precipitators, the sulphurtrioxide injection system andthe instrument air compressors.Chimney emissions to air rosedramatically and without airpressure the instruments beganto falter. After little more than 30minutes, units 2, 3 and 4 wereshut down. Unit 1 just managedto stay available on half load.

Isolation and re-energising thetripped boards, clearing the milltables and purging the furnacestook five hours. Unit 2 returned toservice in mid-afternoon and unit4 in early evening. Unfortunately,unit 3 had to stay off because itsustained a tube leak.

Solid team work prevented anyserious plant damage. As forBill, well it was pure luck thathe survived to tell the tale!

WITH ONESTURDYBLOW, BILLDROVE HISCHISELSTRAIGHTINTO THELIVE CABLE

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BILL PETTIT AND HIS CHISEL CAUSEDHAVOC. WITH PRODUCTION INTURMOIL, ONE OF THE GUYS IN THECONTROL ROOM HAD THE TEMERITYTO ASK STUART MENZIES,“SHALL I RING THE GRID AND LETTHEM KNOWWE’VE GOT PROBLEMS?”THE RESPONSE WAS INSTANTANEOUS,“YOU’LL DO NO SUCH THING LAD,I’LL DECIDE WHENWE’VE GOT A#%£!&$ PROBLEM.”

“DO YOU KNOWYOUR CHIMNEY’SWOBBLING?”

Chimney wobble“It was a contractor on the phone. There was an air of disbelief. We needed tocheck it though and, sure enough, we had a real problem.

This was 2003 when construction had finished on the new FGD chimney 2, butthe old chimney 2 hadn’t yet been demolished. There was a gale blowing andwind was bouncing off both chimneys to create a vortex between them. As aresult, the old chimney was being pulled all over the place. We measuredmovement of up to 1.2 metres at the top.

Stuart Menzies took control. If that thing had fallen we would’ve had a disasterto deal with. All except the essential production people were evacuated and theunits were shut down in an orderly manner. The emergency services werecalled and they set up a command centre with police, fire and ambulance onstand-by. At the same time a working party was assembled to gauge thepotential effects of how and where the chimney might collapse.

Our chief engineer ran a whole load of calculations and assured us thechimney could take the strain. But it was still a major concern and, even thoughthe winds eventually dropped, people weren’t allowed back the following day.

After the event we brought forward demolition of the old chimney to eliminatefurther risk. The unsung hero that day was young Sarah on reception. Shestayed at her desk through it all and calmly dealt with the barrage of calls wewere receiving.”

Missing without traceOn the day of the chimney wobble everyone exceptessential staff was evacuated. Security had aproblem though. Two contractors couldn’t beaccounted for. Already stretched to the limit withmedia and onlookers, the team double checkedtheir records and went in search of the missingpeople. After two hours of frantic activity and worrythey received a call, “Oi mate, I hear you’ve gotsomething going on up there. Look, me and my ladslipped away early. I didn’t think to tell anyone.Hope it’s alright.” Guess the response!

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A 70 TONNEBULLDOZER IS STUCK.WHAT DO YOU DO?

GET A 55 TONNERTO DIG IT OUTOF COURSE. DOH!

Q.A.

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One thing after another“It was winter 2008 and there waspressure to reduce the coal stocklevels. No problem. We’d got theequipment and the people. Thingswere going fine until our 70 tonnebulldozer sank up to its engine bay.Why? Well the driver didn’t stop toask. He simply got our next biggestbulldozer, the 55 tonner, and tried todig the first one out. Guess what, thatsank as well. Tension was mountingso we brought in a CAT coal scrapper.But it just wasn’t our day; that alsosank. We had a problem! With onlytwo scrapers left we played safeand used them in a completelydifferent location to coal the station.”

“Why was this happening? Wereckoned it was a combination of poorquality coal and underground springs.Putting brain into gear we dugdrainage trenches and set up pumpsto clear the water. That did the trick. Ittook a couple more days of solid work,but eventually we got the bulldozersand the scrapper out of the mess. Withthose machines costing around half amillion each you can imagine ournerves were stretched to the limit.”

PUTTINGBRAIN INTOGEARWEDUGDRAINAGETRENCHESAND SET UPPUMPS TOCLEAR THEWATER.

That wasn’t supposed to happen!“The noise could be heard all over the site.People stopped work to see what wasgoing on. The evidence was clear. Greatchunks of cladding were missing from thebunker house walls.

It all started with efforts to dislodge wetcoal stuck in the lower end of 4E bunker.The head of maintenance had recentlyjoined from another station and he hadexperience of clearing blockages withexplosives. This time though, the wrongtype of fuse detonator was used. Whatshould of been a small controlled chargeturned into a massive blast that blew thewalls out. “That wasn’t supposed tohappen”, was all he was heard to say!

Fortunately there were no injuries and thedamage was mainly superficial.”

The end of the world?The bunker house explosion caused large sheets ofcladding to fall about 60 feet and wrap themselves arounda contractors’ cabin below. Luckily, the cabin was emptyexcept for one man. “First the bang, then everything rattledand shook. I jumped out of my skin. The whole place wentdark. This is it, I thought, my time has come.”

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Water, water everywhere“We’d take around 12 million gallonsof water a day from the Trent forcooling. Back in ‘72 there were ninereally powerful pumps managing thewater system. But one of those pumpsfailed. That put stress on the rest ofthem. Another went. Then another. Itwas a domino effect. Before we knewit the sub-basement was filling withwater. The level rose over the cabletrays and we’d no choice but to shutthe station.

While maintenance worked likemadmen to get the pumps goingagain the fire brigade was called tohelp. Trouble was, no one thought toexplain the drainage plan to them. Asthey were pumping out the basement,the removed water was being dumpedonto the road where it ran down theplant drains. These of course fed intothe cooling towers, which was wherethe water flooding the sub-basementwas coming from. Chasing their owntails was a phrase that came to mind.We got it right in the end though.”

Bug off“According to the media the millennium bug wasgoing to be a major catastrophe. Anything with acomputer was going to crash on the stroke of 2000.Nonsense of course. So I agreed to an interview withthe BBC’s Emma Simpson to put the record straight.

Emma and her crew spent five hours filmingeverything that moved and trying to get me to justifyher doomsday vision. I showed her that all thesystems had been tested exhaustively. We even letthem film a ‘roll-over’ where the time and date onone unit was advanced through the New Year toprove its reliability.

Unfortunately my reassurance was a newsroomdamp squid. Unknown to me they filmed an extrapiece outside the station boundaries. When thearticle was aired the theme was ‘. . . they could notgive us an absolute assurance that this large powerstation will continue to produce power after themillennium. The whole power system could failcatastrophically, leaving the country devastated’.

At midnight 1999/2000 I was in the control roomalong with Stuart Menzies, Julian Ford and a fullshift team. We were co-ordinating the contingencyplans for the whole power division. You know what?Nothing happened at all!”

Nick Plant 85

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OPENDAYS

&SPORTS

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“WOW”THE NIGHTENDEDWITHA FIREWORKDISPLAYTHAT’S STILLTALKED OFAS BEINGTHE MOSTSPECTACULAREVER SEENLOCALLY.

Best everYou should’ve been here in ’98. That summer we held probablythe best ever open day. More than 8,000 visitors flowed throughthe gates to join the celebrations.

Friday’s VIP event ran without a hitch, so lots of corporatebrownie points for us and the site as a whole. This wasfollowed by a tremendous family evening attended by around600 staff and their guests. The night ended with a fireworkdisplay that’s still talked of as being the most spectacular everseen locally.

On Saturday the crowds flocked in. It was a beautiful day andthe mix of fun, tours and displays hit exactly the right note.Minstrels wandered around singing. There was a ventriloquistthat absolutely wowed the kids. Plus we had a group ofCustard Clowns who raised a smile from all and sundry.

Brilliant! Lots of hard work to get everything ready, but wellworth the effort.

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WEMADE A BIG EFFORT TO HELPDISABLED VISITORS. I WAS WITH AGENTLEMAN IN A WHEELCHAIR ANDWE EVEN MANAGED TO GET HIM ANDHIS CHAIR UP INTO THE COOLINGTOWER. HE WAS ABSOLUTELYDELIGHTED AND SAID IT MADE HIS DAY.

“Even though it was an open day, the units were still runningand so everyone who wanted the royal tour had to wear PPE.We were incredibly busy handing out ear plugs, safety glasses,caps and helmets. The kids loved it. They had to be fittedindividually and you could see they felt so proud and importantbeing dressed up like that.”

Giant jellyfish“Me and the lads were working. We set up the cooling towerplatforms, made safe the royal tour and did all kinds of generalstuff like that. The big memory though was when a marqueetried to escape. While we were taking a break on the boilerhouse roof we saw the marquee company setting up one oftheir tents in the road below. A gust of wind got inside the tentand blew it up like a giant jellyfish. Then the moorings brokeloose and this lookalike sea monster went floating down theroad with half a dozen blokes chasing after it trying to grab theropes. It was like a silent movie. Pure Charlie Chaplin.”

Mini racersAugust bank holiday 1981 saw West Burton host theBRCA national model car racing championships.For three days, more than 120 enthusiasts from allover the country pitted their machines and drivingskills on an especially constructed track. Sand filledfire hoses marked the circuit. Our painters hadcoloured the run-off areas bright green. And ourscaffolders erected the temporary drivers’ rostrumand spectators’ stand. We even put up barriers withmesh and nets to contain out of control cars. Thesocial club was open for the whole time and did a‘roaring’ trade.

SOLD!

All but the kitchen sinkEveryone loves a bargain.So it proved when closeon 1200 people turned upin 1993 for an auction ofsurplus stock from thestation’s stores. Gardeningequipment, office furniture,plant, machinery, even anold road sweeper wentunder the hammer. It allsold. The only thingremaining at the end of theday was a trailer, whichwas bought in error and leftunwanted by its new owner.

Damp, but not downheartedSpace hoppers, bouncy castles, and lotsand lots of water. When the last joker hadbeen played, the final event competed,West Burton’s finest of Stuart Reardon,Graham Ellis, Steve Walker, Kathy Wright,Sara Harrison and Keith Irving pattedthemselves on the back for finishing – last!Well that’s ‘it’s a knockout’ for you. Headsheld high though because we were the onlyteam in the inter-power station competitionnot to have cheated. Allegedly.

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DJ’S PANTS, DECAND FAT BOY TIM!

Freaky Friday“It started with me suggesting to a few friends in the Caravan Clubthat we could have a small get together outside the social club.Before I knew it, West Burton had somehow become hosts for theClub’s famous Halloween Rally. It was fantastic. We ended up with78 caravans neatly spaced on the golf course.

Friday night began with trick or treat for the kids followed by aFreaky Friday Social in the club house. I was kicked off the musicto be replaced by our regular DJs Pants, Dec and Fat Boy Tim.They sorted things out with line dancing, sequence and disco plusthe odd Guns n’ Roses to humour me. We even had Halloweenimages projected onto the cooling towers.

Saturday was craft sessions for the kids in the discovery centreand then a ghost walk after dark. This basically followed thediscovery trail, but we dressed it up with people in ghost outfits,someone rising from a grave of leaves and two trolls hiding underthe bridge. Great stuff! Even the grown-ups got scared. Theevening rounded off with a Monsters’ Ball featuring some trulyexcellent homemade South Yorkshire entertainment.

It was an amazing weekend. The best Halloween ever! We raised£500 for the social club, £100 for charity and left the place lookingbetter than when we arrived.”

An unfair advantageThe club’s first sports sectionwas football run by CyrilLittlewood. The team wasbrilliant and included KenScott who used to play forDerby County. Do youremember Ted Brazel, PeteMcGuinness and BernardFeatherstone? They beatwhoever dared stand beforethem. Maybe we had anunfair advantage. But,everyone likes a winner sothere were no complaints.

FORONENIGHTONLY

“It started in the mid ‘60s with a sports andsocial committee. There was me, RayAdlington, as the assistant secretary, plusAlan Cole, Fred Fletcher, Buzz Webb and afew others. We hadn’t got a clubhouse inthose days and met in the conference room.We’d hold dances in the canteen, and thetable tennis section played in the old library.

Then we were offered what had been thecontractors’ ‘wet bar’ as our very ownclubhouse. The first thing we did was to movein a snooker table. We shifted those heavyblocks of slate piece by piece by hand.

It was a good time to be involved. Activitiesincreased and by the early ‘70s acts likeNorman Collier and Tony Adams andGrandad were regulars. Marti Caineappeared a few times before she found fameon TV. We even had Charlie Williams once.He cost us just £25 because he doubled upwith a booking in Scunthorpe. A really bignight was when the group Pickettywitchplayed to a full house.

The New Year’s Eve dances were the bestthough. They were packed out. We made itticket only and even then had to ration thetickets because there was so much demand.

But those were the good old days. What did itfor us was when drink driving came in. Thatput a lid on things and the attendances soonstarted to drop off.”

*MARTI CAINE*NORMAN COLLIER*GRANDAD*CHARLIE WILLIAMS*PICKETTYWITCH

STARRING

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HE ROLLEDHIS OVERALLSDOWN TO THEWAIST ANDTHEN BEATEVERYONEOUT OF SIGHT

Stella who?“The old clubhouse bar was run on avoluntary basis and a committee wasset up to organise it. One afternoonwe were invited up to Sheffield totaste a new beer being introduced inBritain for the first time. There were acouple of ladies drinks launched aswell, Wicked Lady and Calypso,neither of which lasted for long. Butthe beer wasn’t at all bad. Wedecided to order some for the club.Its name? Stella Artois!”

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Alex walks it“The turkey trot at Christmas became a really big thing in the ‘90s. Itstarted with a group of us running to the river and back. You know, loosea few pounds, that kind of stuff. Then we added variations with differentcourse lengths so some people could walk and others could cycle. It wasfun. We offered a bottle of whisky for the winner and had a special‘cranks’ prize for whoever made the biggest fool of themselves.

One year, in an effort to boost the numbers we invited the contractorsto join in. We were all assembled ready for the off when Alex Pond, afabricator, ambled over to the starting line. Resplendent in heavyprotective boots, he rolled his overalls down to the waist and then beateveryone out of sight. There was some discussion as to how Alexcompleted the walk so quickly. But, he did a bit of boxing as well sonobody argued the point too keenly!”

All for one and one for . . .“We gathered in Keilder Forest on a brisk September’s weekend in 2004.The occasion was the Rievers Challenge corporate team building event.We weren’t practised and some of the tasks were daunting in the extreme.But, with more than 100 teams from other blue-chip companies taking partwe were determined to put on a good show.

Our first team was led by action man Roger Winmill from procurement.Our second by Commercial Manager Nigel Beresford. And our thirdteam, the novices, was led by Gary Fielder from Ops. It was hard going.A five hour orienteering course, hikes through the forest and a 200 footravine decent took their toll. Yet that old West Burton ‘never-say-die’ spiritkicked in and we dragged ourselves bruised and bedraggled to the finish.Roger and Nigel’s teams even managed top 30 places. Rumour has itthough that Pos is still out there running around the woods somewhere!”

Team 1Roger Winmill, Steve Walker, Martin Walker, Andy Lowe, George Gilbert and Will CollinsTeam 2Nigel Beresford, Paul Otter, Dave Pedder, Charmian Heaton, Nigel Wallis and Ian PostlethwaiteNovicesGary Fiedler, Sara Beevers, Kathy Wright, Ken Marsh, John Ward and Sam Jackson

THE TEAMS

BACKWHERE ITBELONGSWE ALWAYS THOUGHTOF THE FOSTERSCHALLENGE TROPHY ASOURS. WE WERE THEGOLFERS. IT BELONGEDIN OUR CABINET. WELL,IN 1999 WE FINALLY GOTIT BACKWHERE ITBELONGED.

Dating to CEGB days, thetrophy was annually playedfor by power station teams inthe region. With thecompetition having survivedthe rigours of privatisation, itwas somewhat ironic that thetwo teams facing each other inthe last match of the century,West Burton and HighMarnham, were both part ofthe same company again.

Three times a winnerOur runners had been practically unbeatable throughout the 1998season. We topped it off by winning the ESI Northern Regiontrophy for the third year on the bounce. “As I remember it, ThorpeMarsh was the toughest race,” recalls George Gilbert. “It wasblowing a gale and the run took us through the nature reservewhere the surface was particularly cloying because ash had beentipped all over.”

The victorious West Burton team was Kathy Wright, GeorgeGilbert, Ian Scott, Trevor Newby, Phil Marshland, Vince Naylor,Shaun Johnson and Ken ‘I’m only here for the free buffet’ Durdey.

Rafted!It was a needle match. Our rafters had beaten LoundSki Club in the previous year’s competition at LoundGravel Pits. Revenge was in the air as we took to thewaters in 1995. Our team of Kathy Wright, DaveThoresby-Smith, Martin Walker and Geoff Taskerpaddled to an easy first round victory. Then it wasthe Ski Club again in the final. History repeatingitself? Not this time. They pulled a flanker, stoppedus dead in our tracks, then rowed away to beat usby a mile. We was robbed is all that can be said.

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FANCY A

BREW?

PEOPLE THINK THAT WESTBURTON IS POWERED BY COAL.IT’S ACTUALLY POWERED BY TEA...

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IT’S YOUR

ROUND!

...AND BEER

11TODAY

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PRIDE AND PASSION.“My journey back to West Burton tookthe route of an apprenticeship atIronbridge Power Station and variousroles across the power industry,before joining EDF Energy in atrading role in London. When I got acall about the Commercial Managerrole at West Burton, I jumped at thechance. On my first day, as I droveover Leverton hill and sawthe cooling tower plumes and thehuge site, it felt like coming home.

Times have changed since the CEGB.We can all see that. Yet, througheverything, this fantasticallyengineered plant of ours has keptmoving forward. Like a giant super-tanker it has slowly twisted andturned to meet the needs of thecountry we serve. Looking ahead,what we’re doing now is absolutelyright for the station. Everythingwe are working on puts us in the bestshape possible for the future.”

Nigel Beresford

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WE WERE ON AN OUTINGTO THE THEME PARK. THECOOLING TOWERS OF WESTBURTON STOOD PROUDLYON THE DISTANT HORIZON.

making

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“LOOK MUMMY”

“THEY’RE MAKINGCLOUDS”

CAME AN EXCITED CHILD’SVOICE FROM THE BACK SEAT,

clouds

SWARFEGA

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It's been a fascinating journey to understand the story ofWest Burton and its proud history. There have been manypeople who have helped create this book; many haverecounted their tales, and others have brought in theirphotos. However there has been a special group of peoplewho have worked hard to create what you have in yourhands. They've trawled the archives, contacted retiredcolleagues, searched in drawers, cupboards and attics andmost importantly used their grey matter to remember aninfinite amount of detail. We've had photos from far andwide and special thanks go to George Gilbert for spendinghours of his own time scanning these for us.

I've enjoyed working with them hugely and getting to knowWest Burton in such great detail. So, thank you: Jim Reeves,Paul Howitt, George Gilbert, Ken Marsh, Phil Gibson, DesIngamells, Steve Lee, Dave Shaw, Chris Bailey, SteveWalker, Suzy Middleton and Kathy Wright. Not forgettingPaul Otter for all his great photographs which appearthroughout the book. I'd also like to thank Kevin, Nikki,Greens and Emily from the agency who helped us createthis - their dedication, eye for detail and artistic flair havebeen at the heart of making this possible. And finally hugethanks must go to Robert Davis, the copywriter who hasspent weeks talking to many of you and writing out everystory and piece of text in the book. Thank you.

We hope you've enjoyed the book as much as we've enjoyedmaking it.

Vanessa NorthamInternal Communication Manager

December 2009ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

LARGER THAN LIFE.D

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