VERY RECENTLY WE HAVE HAD CONTRIBUTIONS FROM PAUL MYLEMANS, BH CANADA, AND STILL HE FINDS SOME MORE ITEMS.
Mostly in photographs, and plenty of them, practically all ex colleagues from various depots of BH Canada, so feast your eyes on these, with the email messages from Paul that accompanied the images.
1) Hello. I have recently come accross some more pictures.
The Terex 33-15B picture provided by Pud Greig who was a crane operator at the local General Motors Diesel Division Plant. It includes the various employees that worked on the Terex 33-15B production. Pud is on the back row, 6th from left. I have no names for the others in the picture. If you would like me to send the picture as an e-mail attachment just let me know.
I was also provided with several pictures of BH staff at the 10 Suntract Road, Weston (Toronto) repair shop. I am waiting for Keith Ward to help me with identifying more of these former BH employees.
Regards, Paul
2) Hi. Recently I met Jack McMichael, a former BH London, Ontario co-worker whom I had not seen for years, at a local store and after some BH reminiscing he came up with some photopgraphs of the old BH days – and Jack himself is in some of these pictures as well. Keith Ward has been kind and helpful to identify several persons as he worked with them for a number of years at the 10 Suntract Road, Weston (Toronto) head office. I know most of them from my dealings between our London Branch and Weston head office. It has been great thinking about these wonderful people who were so helpful to me in my years at BH. And unfortunately some of these people are no longer with us, but that is what time does!
Here is a link http://www.komokaweather.com/pictures/pictures_upload-1.html to my website's Pictures page. In the Blackwood Hodge section you will find my recent uploaded pics. On the actual picture I have added the name(s) of the persons that we have identified and hopefully no errors, but some names are missing. Picture numbers 01 to 19 were taken around 1980+- and were used for the quarterly BH Ontario Newsletter on BH Ontario people and events that we produced from our London branch (they were for the newsletter edition where we highlighted the Weston service repair shop and its personnel). I had most of those quarterly newsletters here at home but have not been able to find them recently but hopefully they will appear again.
Pictures 20 is from our BH London branch annual golf tournament also around the 1980s; and pics 21 and 22 are from a couple local aggregate producing contractors in the London area showing their Cedarapids Commander series portable crushers that were sold by our branch in the mid 1970s
If any of these are suitable for including in a future Blackwood Hodge Memories update you should be able to save the ones of interest, or let me know which pics and I will attach to an e-mail.
Best regards, Paul
3) To the Editors, and thanks, it is my pleasure to try and gather and share old pics and stories. I have had several email discussions with Keith Ward, as I knew his dad Vern very well while at BH. He also has great memories of his time working at 10 Suntract Road and the people there…
In my ongoing searching here at home for some of my BH material I did find a Blackwood Hodge – Policy and Procedure manual with 56 pages showing an effective dates 1st Nov 1964 to 1966. It appears to be a Canadian version as there is mention "Certain Codes are controlled by the U.K. Controller's Department" and "the structure of the Budget Code system is under U.K. Control", The header on each page is in light blue. I do remember using many of the codes for purchase/expenses, etc. and a bit of hand writing notes and updates appear on some pages, and a further 30 pages update with effective 1st Nov 1970.. Then I also have F.G. Mundy's Memorandum of April 20, 1982n providing the "complete re-issue of the Policy and Procedure Manual up to and including Acct.#2519" and consists of 85 pages double sided. If this is of any interest I would gladly check on mailing or have them scanned and send via email or CD.
Thanks for your work on keeping those memories alive…
p.s. I remember well the years I was with BH, 1966-1984, and with Euclid, Terex and GM through that time, but then when I left lost most contact and had not been fully aware of the goings on and the subsequent closing and bankruptcies. Over the past year had searched the web a few times and found that the new Terex includes Cedarapids and other lines we had at BH but the product is so much different now.. and also the reputation as I hear it.
Just yesterday did some more search and found a NY article on Dieter Esch and his charges and jail term, and also read about perhaps some shady dealings with Adrian Edwards.(I remember several training sessions conducted by Adrian about 1966-68 which I found extremely enlightening and high respect for him, at the time!).
Still not totally clear on what happened to BH in Canada or UK. I do recall that sometime in late 1980s or early 1990s getting a call from the Comptroller, who had know me when I was at BH, saying that BH was recalling all the outstanding shares and going private and that I had not yet returned my shares and I had to give them up as they would be cancelled.
I, like many BH employees, had bought 100 shares at $8.00 with the initial Blackwood Hodge Canada public offering but the stock price just kept going down so I just held on to them because of their little value. But then 20 or so years later they were being recalled for as best I can remember a bit over $16.00 so doubled my money over that period
All the best, Paul
ART DOHERTY
ED KONROYD
ART GRIFFITHS
JACK McMICHAEL
Many thanks Paul. The Editors.
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