Getting on..? 14 4 5 (23) 25 1 22

All those years ago I never considered myself an Internationalist but looking back I guess this was the metamorphosis which was taking hold splitting my time up as I did between the working-class England in which I grew up with its satanic northern mill towns and the salubrious Scandinavia where every Englishman was treated in those early post WW ll days a bit like royalty...

But if many of my most formative experiences as a young man were formed in the company of Scandinavians by the mid-sixties I was saying enough is enough...only the alternative with 10 years industrial experience under my belt of enduring the indignity of being one more time designated a "Laboratory Assistant"..! left me with mixed feelings...

Returning then from Scandinavia “this last time” I now had a girl-friend who hailed from England's saath. In fact she shared a flat on the Earls Court Road in one of those enormous Victorian terraced houses a with ceiling so high… well it was real high! and I decided to have a break from chemistry so took a job as an Assistant Youth Hostel Warden in England's Lake District to become a pusher of new rock climbing routes, if only once! “Susan Direct” I would have called it had I tried to claim the route on Gowbarrow Buttress above Ullswater but I had so much other stuff going down in 1965... 

Then out of the blue came this invitation to join WT who at the time they were at an advanced stage with their plans to build a Pulp and Paper Mill at Corpach near Fort William in Scotland for I had offered my services some time earlier. So I was to join in the grade of Lab Assistant and if I proved myself would be made up into a Project Leader “in no time at all,” so beginning one of the most interesting 3 years of my entire career. I began by working on the formulation of Electrographic printing paper coatings with a pilot machine solvent coater to produce my test papers. Then quickly was asked to set up a raw materials evaluation laboratory to utilise my Scandinavian experiences in pulping and bleaching technology, and with equipment on order, I was seconded to the Corpach Pulp Mill to assist with plant commissioning.

Meanwhile I introduced myself to Slalom ski-ing in the Cairngorms and climbed my first Munro hills with an Easter assault on Ben Nevis in a blizzard with friends, followed a week later, with a solo climb of Carn Dearg Meadhonach and the ridge taking in Carn Mor Dearg to its north east to re-climb Nevis in brilliant sun-shine on excellent snow condition.

Returning to Beaconsfield and one of the three flats I rented in a truly up-market part of town on Grove Road I would get to travel the UK from top to bottom conducting Pulping trials at for example the Government Forrest Products Research Institute at Princess Risborough, or alternatively using production plant at Stoneywood Mill on the River Dee above Aberdeen and Stubbins Mill in Ramsbottom Lancs or at the Company’s Devon Valley Mill whilst working for the Company’s Wood Pulp Buyer and towards the end of the period make visits to BASF in Germany, the PFI Institute in Oslo and KCL (the Central Laboratory of the Finnish P and Paper Industry) in Helsinki.

Have a good day everyone…       

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