1952………THE FIRST DIRECTORS REPORT.

RECENTLY WE ADVISED THAT WE HAD BEEN GIVEN A COPY OF THE VERY FIRST DIRECTORS REPORT FOR 1952 (FIRST YEAR AFTER THE COMPANY WENT PUBLIC), BUT THAT IT WAS NOT IN VERY GOOD CONDITION, ASKING IF ANYONE OUT THERE HAD A BETTER COPY.

Well unfortunately, nobody came forward, and we have decided that enough time has passed, so good or bad, we will publish & be damned. The problem is not so much its age, but that a nasty little rodent of some kind has decided to use it as its main meal over a period, and has eaten through almost the centre of the spine, on every page !!

It hasn`t ruined it by any means, but has taken the gloss of it a little, anyway, you can see for yourselves.

The make-up of the report is different in small ways to the ones that followed, for instance the cover, as you will see, is nothing like the rest, being one of the best, and certainly the earliest, aerial shots of Northampton Depot that there is, albeit tinged with yellow, which is not us, but the way it was originally printed…….….we make no apologies for repeating this shot (in two halves, as it has fallen apart now), as you can pick up the detail of the yard a little better, so here we go again…………the original Chassis Shop, known better as The Hangar in later years, with the TC-12`s parked behind in the railway cutting, the small nissen type huts where the Paint Shop eventually would stand, loads of space where the new Chassis Shop would be, moving forward to the Dining Room & Canteen, and the outdoor stores area and greenhouse behind, right through to Location 13 in the foreground……..….and the other part of the cover, showing Transport, the original buildings, now the Miscellaneous & Machine Shops, what was then the new Engine Shop & Gearbox Bay, Service Dept offices, the Water Tower has taken a bashing from the mouse, but then across the yard, we still have the old Reception building, shown in 1956 Report from 1946, now looking as if it is just being extended, and almost nothing at all where the main Parts Stores stood later on, just open space and a little construction work going on. Pointless, but we wonder who those 2 people are stood just outside The Bungalow…being adjacent to a fairly large car, quite probably a couple of important "suits" we would summise.

We havent published before many if any of the pages with all the accounts shown, but as this was the inaugral report, just for the number crunchers amongst you, the complete set of figures (mouse permitting) of JBH`s results upto October 1952, complete with leader pages….

Lastly, the precursor of all those World maps, The Organisation, and just marvel at how large it was already in 1952 !!

Now back to the proper stuff, having satisfied all the paper pushers, first page shows a quartet of FD`s outside the early Newhouse Works Office, all heading for export….we know that because Ken Lansley says that any truck without a canopy ex-factory was sailing somewhere or other, and then below them, we see one being loaded aboard…cant read the shipping marks though, more`s the pity……

….whilst we have this last image handy, does anyone know the proper way of facing the "Pioneer Pete" decals on a machine ?? We have seen them both facing forward on the opposite sides, and one pointing forward on the off-side, and backward on the near..which is correct ?? Many photos in Mr Orlemann`s book have both examples, and one must be right, but which one ???

Now a couple of new items back then…..the scraper being a 77FDT with a 6-71T engine, and a 12cu yd 40SH scraper box, with a 71FDT tractor hauling a 89W 13cu yd bottom dump, the tractor also with a 6-71T lump….

……Marion equipment was playing a big part in the Company`s progression, and here we have one of McAlpines 33-M draglines, of which they ran 40 ! Looks like one of the many city centre WW2 bomb sites which were still around in the Fifties getting some long overdue renovation…

…and an image of a slightly stylised example of one of 60 Taylor Woodrow FD`s, and one of 38 similar trucks belonging to Wilson Lovatt being loaded….…coming towards the end now, the ever present shots of BH sold units overseas….R-22`s in the Belgian Congo, and the unit in the lower frame is described as an 18LDT, which had a Cummins NHRS engine, with a Fuller 10 speed manual, pulling what is probably a 21 cu yd, 39 ton capacity 113W bottom dump in Victoria, Australia….…and finally, but by no means least, the original Engine Test House at Northampton, advised by Ken Lansley that it was to be found in those days at the top end of the "new" Engine Shop, shown earlier on the cover, must have been great for the fitters ears when they checked them out !! Did Uggy ever use this rig we wonder ??