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[crazyjoetavola]

I did an old-fashioned five-year apprenticeship with Saunders Roe Ltd at East Cowes, Isle of Wight. I'll never forget my first training school exercise, filing down a hunk of mild steel until it was a rectangular shape, all sides parallel, all sides within 0.001" of the specified size. I hated it. It took me weeks to pass that exercise, standing by the vice all day, file in hand.

But after five years, I and all the other 100 or so apprentices in the intake were fully trained engineers of the old school. We could make anything by then (and still can, 40 years later!) That's when I appreciated the the virtues of the tough discipline and ruthless training that we were put through. All that seems to have gone now.

There's a name that fits very well into the pantheon of great British engineering concerns

[Pitchfork]

Saunders Roe became part of Westland (the helicopter people)

[crazyjoetavola]

Saunders Roe became part of Westland (the helicopter people)

Mamma mia!!!!