Issue 5

A Word From Our Leader

The months are flying by and Christmas is looming. Stocking levels are steadily increasing and stands at around 13.4 million. Sales are ranging between 300,000 and 400,000 per week. As you have probably seen on the notice board another works has been mothballed with the loss of 53 jobs, these are hard times and we could say “By The Grace of God go I”. We are in a fortunate position with our extensive clay reserves and the prospect of a new works, the application for the site was th submitted on 4 October, so fingers crossed and hopefully a presentation will be forthcoming. At the same time we must maintain our discipline and quality this was sadly lacking on the second day production run of Victorians. Gentlemen I have got to stress strongly that we cant shoot ourselves in the foot, times are hard enough outside without causing problems ourselves. Enough said. You can see that bricks are being stocked on the pad near the quarry, this is to sell different type rejects 1of5

e.g. Rusticated. This has generated sales of around 200,000. Every bit helps. Keith Sawyer attended the companies H&S day at Hanes Hall, which was quite informative. Production for September was very good and the quality (apart from the Victorians) was again very good so gentlemen more of the same. On the financial side costs are being manages well by Steve, Darren and Mick, so thanks to these lads as well for keeping inside the budgets at the same time as getting little projects achieved. All in all gentlemen September was a good month so well done and just remember that well known acronym

Team Work And Trust

Oh by the way Nick Hunter has finally paid up after Whitehaven falling and Swillington 2nd eleven lost their final game

Interview With Darren Bell

An image of Darren caught with shutter speed set at the maximum

“I just have not time” says Darren in between bites of his sandwich and looking at his emails on his computer, “Just put no comment, have not time for every question”. [He takes another big bite of his sandwich and sweat his pouring from his forehead and rolling down his face] “oomph oomph” he says his mouth full of tuna bread and cucumbers with bits of tuna flying back out where he had taken a too bigger bite to chew, he swallows, “I hated school and came here when I was sixteen straight from school into an interview with Phillip Ploughrite, Eric Naylor and Keith Wilcox, I wondered what it was I was walking into I had only come for a job as a Despatch Clerk not for an engineer at NASA” He takes another bite of his sarnie then goes off to help Sue lift Henry up the stairs then answers the phone and tells Mick Lardner about his Golf Balls before continuing as if without missing a beat. “I did despatch for about 5 years and then went on to take over from Eric Naylor as Stock Yard Supervisor” Steve Todd in the background seated near Darren comments that the stock yard has never run right since to which Darren Continues, “No its never run right ever since I took over and then I lost my marbles, I have got a mobile phone but I never switch it on, alright Steve stop putting words in my mouth…” “Then David left this March and the few remaining marbles I had left soon disappeared” Gary comes in asking something about some bricks that want repacking; Gary is one of Darren’s subordinates, an epitome of pure efficiency Darren answers Gary’s query within the blink of an eye and satisfied Gary bows and quickly runs off to complete the task to the best of his ability. “So yes I was saying, well working conditions haven’t changed so much over the years but various companies have implemented minor changes, some for the worse and others for the better. Everyones got a bigger workload now, when I started there used to be 10 staff now there are only 5 well four if we don’t count you”. Asked about his best memory while employed at Swillington for the first time Darren falls silent 2of5

but you can see his brain whirring away in his minds eye going through all the many experiences locked in his powerful brain. “I think winning the ICT Golf and Ten pin bowling challenge, our team was David, Ernie, Steve Blacker and myself, I also won the golf challenge at Painthorpe Country Club”. At this point Darren has to dash off on to the plant and promises to finish the interview after a Rosie Lee to wash his sandwich down, he nearly collides with Mick Brayford on his way through the door and then trips over Henry. About half an hour later Darren is back stumbling through the door with a handful of bricks then disappears like a rocket down into the glasshouse at the front of our office so I run after him to try and finish my interview. “Oh No! Its you again, haven’t you got better things to do than ask people stupid questions, my worst memory – Its got to be you starting here, No going through redundancies and uncertainties due to bad market conditions under various takeovers” I follow Darren up the stairs with my clipboard and over to the Photocopier where he retrieves some photocopies he started doing earlier and got broke off from finishing. “Steve Todd, in the early days well he was a bit more plumpish and cuddly when I started whereas Mick Brayford had 5 strands of hair instead of three”.

Mick and Steve, Steve was a bit cuddlier in the past and Mick had a few more strands of hair says Darren

This is the most exercise I have had for ages trying to keep up with Darren I follow him into

the toilets and continue to question him as he enters the cubicle to have a poo and a wee which he says he tries to do in the same session so not to waste time. “Well I think Mick Brayford can be a little fiery and hard to please but Steve is just a one off, a freak of nature” He shouts He comes out of the cubicle and flushes the chain and turns to the wash basin to wash his hands… “Life after Death, well my personal opinion is I don’t believe in life after death, the universe is just a mindless machine it has no meaning and is going nowhere, we live our lives then they end and switch off into nothingness” We exit the toilets and hurry back up the stairs to the fax machine and Darren Quickly retrieves a fax from it before heading back to his desk. “I only believe stuff that I see, I have not sampled life after death but if there was one it has got to be better than this f**ker, I mean what you supposed to do up there play harps with the angels and be eternally happy” “I do believe strongly in fate and karma but I think death is the end we live this life then when we die its just darkness, well not even that just nothing” Mick Brayford comes over to him and tells him about some Victorians that have spray missing off one of there headers there then follows a slightly heated debate about the spray guns. Finally I get a final opening in which to finish my interview… “Oh I don’t know, my nicknames, er Belly er Sam Dingle from Emmerdale, Zippy from Rainbow cos I talk really fast and its usually all nonsense, in summary I have my ups and downs but I enjoy the job and enjoy myself running around the factory learning new challenges” So finally out of breath I collapse back into my chair after my interview with Darren for another issue of our monthly newsletter.

September Statistics Top Selling Bricks For September Last mth ▲ ▲

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pos 2 3

1 2

Name City Multi Smooth 73mm Class B Hansons

Quantity 192,768 161,280

▼ ▲ ▲

1 18 7

3 4 5

▲

15

6

▼

5

7

▲ ▲

11 14

8 9

█

10

10

▼ █ ▼ ▼

8 12 4 9

11 12 13 14

▲

16

15

Week Com 28/08/2006 04/09/2006 11/09/2006 18/09/2006 25/09/2006 02/10/2006

Class B Perf Jewsons 73mm Red Mix Rustic City Multi Smooth Victorian Multi Smooth 73mm Golden Brown Sandfaced Swaledale Mult Dragwire Cream Mix Smooth Golden Brown Sandfaced 73mm Farmhouse Brown Sandfaced 73mm Ryedale Dragwire Ridings Multi Rustic Derwent Rustic Red Mix Smooth 73mm Produced 337,864 420,148 456,192 479,016 476,860 445,944

Sold 170,776 402,406 318,036 299,844 408,462 319,744

138,240 75,484 72,320 70,656 66,896 62,244 61,020 57,216 56,064 49,140 47,912 46,948 45,312 Stock 12,931,984 12,952,030 13,090,186 13,269,358 13,337,756 13,463,956

Joke Of The Month A couple from Minneapolis decided to go to Florida for a long weekend to thaw out during one particularly icy cold winter. They both had jobs, and had difficulty coordinating their travel schedules. It was decided the husband would fly to Florida on a Thursday, and his wife would follow him the next day. Upon arriving as planned, the husband checked into the hotel. There he decided to open his laptop and send his wife an e-mail back in Minneapolis. However, he accidentally left off one letter in her address and sent the e-mail without noticing his error. In the mean time: In Houston, a widow had just returned from her husband's funeral. He was a minister of many years who had been "called home to glory" following a heart attack (died and gone to report in heaven). The widow checked her

e-mail, expecting messages from family and friends. Upon reading the first message, she fainted and fell to the floor. The widow's son rushed into the room, found his mother on the floor and saw the computer screen which read: To: My loving Wife From: Your Departed Husband Subject: I've arrived! I've just arrived and have been checked in. I see that everything has been prepared for your arrival tomorrow. Looking forward to seeing you then. Hope your journey is as uneventful as mine was. P.S. Sure is hot down here.

Like A Leaf In The Wind –

The Career Of The Editor I started my career in a very promising direction by obtaining 3 good grades at A level in Maths, Physics and Chemistry and going on to read a Bachelors Degree in Theoretical Physics which I graduated from in 1990. During my time at York University I gradually became more withdrawn and depressed and shortly after graduating with a lower second I nearly died after a bad accident on my motorcycle that resulted in me spending 13 weeks in Pinderfields Hospital with 33% burns. Looking back on the incident I realise now I had experienced what are now termed a near death experience which I left my body and travelled to another dimension and met my Guardian Angel. In April 1991 nearly one year later I obtained a job as a labourer at Sellers Engineers Huddersfield where I spent 9 years doing a whole variety of manual labouring jobs before being made redundant indirectly as a result of writing an unofficial “newsletter” about the place. During that period I obtained an HNC in computer programming on a voluntary day release and did so well I was left with a strong desire to learn as much about IT as possible. After applying for numerous vacancies I obtained a job at Howley Park after an interview 4of5

with Nia Roberts for the post of “Production Data Administrator”, which entailed me being an assistant for Steve Blacker. During those early days I was cocooned in a tiny office with no windows and would frequently have to wear my crash helmet to protect me from the various pieces of office equipment that Steve used to throw about when he lost his temper. Very early on things looked good, we used to go go-carting and then followed a trip to York which we sailed down the river Ouse but very soon black clouds started to form on the horizon. Steve disappeared on the sick, I was sent to see a psychiatrist and we were descended on by many aliens from high up in the Marshals hierarchy and in order to escape from all the chaos my drinking stepped up a gear - to escape from this awful reality I had found myself in. Things became so bad that I was once taken home by the then Sales Director, Alan Young for being drunk at work following a game of hide and seek over the quarry with myself and Mick McGrory and various other concerned individuals. By late Autumn 2004 I had lost track of what my role was or who my boss was I was so confused and when I came back to work after Christmas I found out that the company had been sold to Hanson’s and everyone except me was extremely uncertain about the future. Luckily by this time I had joined AA and been completely sober for about three months so I was gradually coming back down to living in the real world, and I found the Hanson employees much more human than there Marshalls counterparts. However the inevitable happened and I was placed on death row for redundancy in July 2005 and started once again applying for jobs. One of the jobs I applied for was an internal vacancy at Swillington as a “Despatch Administrator” and luckily I seemed to fit right in to the institutionalised characters who occupy the office so I was taken on. That was September 2005 and the rest as they say is history, probably not the job I had envisaged myself doing when I was back at school but a place I really enjoy working. I have now been sober just over 2 years and these have definitely been the best years of my life and

I think working in an environment where everyone helps each other has made me so much more confident than I ever was. Now I follow the AA philosophy of living each day one day at a time. It is not the experience of today that drives men mad – it is the remorse or bitterness for something that happened yesterday or the dread of what tomorrow may bring. left: my website at

www.madmickstories.com

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