Online Catalogue last updated 17th of September 2023
Digger Day Memories
When I was a schoolboy in the 1950's I had a magnificent obsession. It wasn't train spotting or number taking, and it wasn't watching ships go sailing by. I was a 'crane spotter'. Swansea, which was heavily bombed during the war years, was the town I grew up in and there were cranes and excavators everywhere. As the debri was cleared and the centre rebuilt along with other outlying developments it became a haven for the budding 'engineer' and the reason for many a late attendance and lame excuse to 'sir'. The Swansea Secondary Technical School which I attended was also in the heart of docklands so there was plenty of distractions where from the technical drawing classes I could watch an NCK-304 grab off loading a sand dredger, and from the art class an old electric Smith crane with single chain latch grab loading coal. Unfortunately at the time a camera was not one of my possessions so a photographic record of all the navvies I 'spotted' was not to be. Now that I have one, albeit some forty years on, I intend making up for lost time. So if the story sounds familiar, this video is a reminder of those halcyon days when engineers were still inventing and developing mechanical gubbins, the only chips to be had were from cutting metal or covered in salt and dripping with vinegar, Meccano still held ambition and the cable excavator was the only digger on the horizon with hydraulic machines barely in sight. There are no 'skimmers' or 'backacters' but I hope the sight and sound of the 22-RB Shovel, the 38-RB and 71-RB grabs, and the larger 195-RB mining shovels can at least rekindle some of the memories. My grateful thanks are due to all who assisted in the making of this video by permitting me to film on their sites. Geoff Lewis.
Code No. 011958