Teesside Iron and Steel Memories Interview: Peter Tait

Background & Work History:
Born 14/11/1947 in South Shields, Co. Durham - an only child
Dad was a Merchant Navy officer from a crofting & fishing family in Shetland
Was a fisherman @ 13yrs old, joined the Merchant Navy @ 16yrs old & came to South Shields in the early 1930's and met mother - married in 1944
Lived in South Shields until 1962 - early schooling there @ Mortimer Rd primary & South Shields Grammar-Technical School
Moved to Whitburn in 1962 & attended Jarrow Grammar School until 1966
'O' Levels in 1964 & modest science 'A' Levels in 1966
No definite career plans then (all Dad said was 'Whatever you do, don't go to sea!'), and no steel industry background, but a clear interest in science. A Levels not good enough for university, so went to Manchester Polytechnic 1966-70 & gained HND in Metallurgy on a Sandwich course
Three industrial placements (6 months each); South Durham Steel & Iron @ Hartlepool North Works (Nationalised as British Steel Corporation during this period in 1967), Royal Ordnance Factory @ Birtley and Gas Council Engineering Research Station @ Killingworth
All were steel - related placements
Wanted to stay in the North East and applied for jobs in the steel industry there
Most opportunities for metallurgists then were in steel
First full-time job in Nov 1970 was as a Metallurgical Assistant in the 20" Pipe Mill at BSC Hartlepool South Works
Still a fully integrated iron & steel works then - blast furnace, large open-hearth steelplant, coke ovens, plate mill & 2 pipe mills employing over 4,000 people. It was basically the old South Durham works but the 20" Mill was a Stewarts & Lloyds plant
Raw material for the 20" Mill was coil plate from lackenby, uncoiled cold & rolled over a series of forming rolls to a continuous pipe, welded and then cut to required lengths. Some of the product was supplied to various markets as round pipe 'as-formed', whilst the remainder was hot-formed into Rectangular Hollow Sections (RHS) for the construction market.
PT job was in the Quality Control Dept., taking routine test samples, checking for quality, investigating any metallurgical problems in the product, analysing test failures and liaising with production & QC on corrective actions.
In 1971, demand for the cold-formed round pipe dropped, and the Mill was mothballed & PT was made redundant.
After interviews at other BSC sites in Scotland & Teesside, eventually joined BSC General Steels Division Research Organisation at Britannia Works in Middlesbrough
Joined the Welding dept. in the old Apprentice Training school
Most of the works was derelict by then, but Redpath Dorman Long (RDL) still had some construction activity
GSD Research then was spread over at least 5 sites in the Middlesbrough area alone (BSC employed in excess of 250,000 people then) at Britannia, Newport, Skippers Lane, Forest House (Cargo Fleet) & South Bank (at 'Pest Doom', an old mothball/pesticide plant)
The big Grangetown Laboratories were separately operated as a BSC Corporate function
PT worked in the Welding Dept as a research assistant, initially on fairly mundane work on testing etc., but soon progressed to research investigations and reporting
The Department manager was a practical welding engineer from a shipyard background who took a very progressive & enlightened view of research. He saw it not as an end in itself, but mainly to provide support to customers' needs.
GSD products were essentially raw materials (plates, bars, sections, beams) that customers used to manufacture their own finished products - ships, pipelines, bridges, vehicles, storage tanks etc.
The Welding Dept then became a very important link through the Commercial offices to end customers in providing advice & support to their use of GSD products.
Re-located to the new Ladgate Lane Research Centre in 1975, but could not take heavy welding equipment which moved to South Bank
PT role gradually evolved away from practical metallurgy to meeting customers and running research projects geared to solving their welding problems & applying new steels etc. Promoted to principal welding engineer by end 1970's
Major projects included a gas storage tank development for Shell in Scotland, new high-strength steels for coal mining roof supports and new pipe steels for offshore pipeline projects.
Another aspect of the work was investigating welding issues in other parts of BSC, eg during construction of the Redcar Blast Furnace & ancillary plant in the mid 1970's, and latterly the introduction of new welding practices in the Hartlepool pipe mill in the early 1980's.
In 1982, BSC rationalised the Research Organisation, and Ladgate Lane was closed & sold to Cleveland Police
Staff were re-located to other sites, mainly in Teesside, but the Welding Dept was moved to Swinden Laboratories in Rotherham - PT chose not to move & took voluntary redundancy. (Of the 26 people in the Dept, only 4 moved to Rotherham, the remainder leaving)
Moved immediately to Whessoe Heavy Engineering in Darlington as Senior Metallurgist in the R&D Dept.
Whessoe then was one of many large UK fabrication companies building heavy mechanical equipment including reactor vessels for nuclear power stations (Heysham & Torness AGR's), gas storage tanks, pressure vessels, bridges, offshore oil & gas installations etc.
Worked closely with the Purchasing Dept, producing specifications for incoming materials & following up with inspection of suppliers.
Subsequently changed direction & joined Purchasing Dept and eventually became Purchasing Manager following the illness & retirement of the previous incumbent.
Towards the end of the 1980's, economic changes drove UK heavy fabrication into rapid decline and in 1990, Whessoe closed the manufacturing works and concentrated on design & site project business - PT made redundant.
Good fortune intervened as a new Technical Manager was needed at the 44" Pipe Mill at Hartlepool (by now privatised as British Steel) PT joined the Mill in this role in 1990, and remained there until retirement in 2008
Responsibility was for QC, QA, technical specifications & procurement of incoming plate materials and pipe products, and all technical (metallurgical) issues in the Mill.
A major development took place to replace the ageing 44" Mill (making pipe up to 44" diameter) with an upgraded, more powerful Mill bought from Japan. This became the 42" Mill, opened in 1993
A second development followed in the early 2000's when the old 84" Pipe Mill was moved from its original location in Stockton (the old Malleable Works) and installed on the Hartlepool site
Much of the role was concerned with technical specifications for incoming plate & pipe products
Most of the plate for the 42" Mill was sourced by this time from European plate mills outside of British Steel.
The second main responsibility was for technical development/R&D and technical troubleshooting in the mills
The 42" Mill supplied pipe for international projects, usually for submarine pipelines, where the technical requirements were very demanding

Social Life:
There was a very good & active social life, especially at Ladgate Lane in the 1970's/80's
There was an active social club, played bridge, cricket & football, with many social functions organised both on & off site
Very good camaraderie in all jobs, and formed lasting friendships from BS/Corus.

Observations on Working Practices & experiences:
Enormous changes in the steel industry from starting about 1967
Over 250,000 employees in dozens of large & small sites all over the UK, many former competitors making the same products, reduced to less than 50,000 in 2008 on 3 main sites & many fewer outlying sites
This led to big logistical supply issues, especially for the smaller sites
The company organisation & ownership changed significantly during the period
South Durham nationalised to British Steel Corporation in 1967
De-nationalised to British Steel PLC in 1988
British Steel merged with Hoogovens of The Netherlands in 1999 to become Corus
In 2007, Corus was acquired by Tata of India to become Tata Steel Europe
Worked from 1990 for a BS/Corus plant which relied upon imported steel plate, usually from European plate mills owned by competitors - the major pipe-plate mills in BS had been closed in earlier reorganisations, and the remaining plate mills in Scunthorpe & Scotland could not meet the stringent requirements of offshore linepipe
Led to inherent commercial weakness compared with competitors with their own steel supply
Good experience with managers over the years. With few exceptions, all direct managers down the years were very good people who were very supportive & encouraging in the difficult times
Modern management practices involving teamworking etc. have led to radical improvements in areas such as productivity, Health & Safety etc.
Dramatic and rapid changes in automation & technology
Who remembers telexes? carbon-paper copying?
Test results could take hours or days - now can be discussed almost in real time
Major plants are almost fully automated with very few people in evidence
Hard to recall now that PC's only came into widespread use in the mid 1990's
Huge advances in H&S
Accident statistics are unrecognisable from earlier years
As a schoolboy visitor to Consett in the early 1960's, recall stepping over the open molten metal streams - no safety guarding, protective clothing etc.
Dress codes relaxed markedly over the years
Catering arrangements much more informal & democratic
In early years at Hartlepool, Britannia & Whessoe there were several levels of canteen & dining room arrangements depending on hierarchical staff grades
Ladgate Lane in the mid 70's and then progressively elsewhere single status dining arrangements were introduced