BUILDING THE IRON - By author Geoff Lewis - Engineering adventure rebuilding Swansea with Ruston Bucyrus diggers

Special Coast and Country book review

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BUILDING THE IRON - ENGINEERING ADVENTURE REBUILDING SWANSEA WITH RUSTON BUCYRUS DIGGERS

                                       BY AUTHOR GEOFF LEWIS

ENGINEERING ADVENTURE REBUILDING SWANSEA WITH RUSTON BUCYRUS DIGGERS - By Geoff Lewis.

Price £19.64 Per Copy Plus UK shipping in protective wallet £4.85.

**Orders can be made online via the link on the website shown below:

TEL: 029 20867364     MOB: 07944 692695.

https://www.diggerynook.com

Hello and Greetings from my long ago days of boyhood; days of yore when machinery mechanics roamed the land fixing diggers, bulldozers, tipper trucks and anything else wot' needed fixin'.

I have a story to tell of a different way of life; born into the war torn town of Swansea in 1943 and one of the most exciting periods in our countries existence. 

Born on that fateful night in the West Cross district a few miles around the sweep of the bay, where forty acres had been plundered by Hitler's Luftwaffe leaving devastation in their wake; a once thriving town centre razed to the ground on the last of the night raids lit up the town watched by the west end population as it burned. 

The legendary 10RB Scimmer Scoop seen all over Britain. A favourite with contractors and schoolboys

For mechanically minded schoolboys in the years following, when they started to rebuild, it became the best of times because of all the machinery that the task of renewal involved. The particular machinery which grabbed our attention along with the general public was the mechanical excavator or digger by which it became more popularly known. 

They could be found anywhere; in the town centre, outlying districts or country field as they dug foundation ditches and trenches within sight of fascinated onlookers watching ropes coiling and uncoiling to work the arms poking out of the front capturing the dirt with the machine turning to dump into a fleet of waiting tipper trucks taking it away to fill the seemingly insatiable appetites of other hungry holes waiting to be fed. ]

One machine became more familiar than the ohers because it had enough space to stand behind the man operating it. Manufactured by RUSTON BUCYRUS in their LIncoln factory and if you hang around I am going to take you there!

**Orders can be made online via the link on the website shown below:

TEL: 029 20867364     MOB: 07944 692695.

https://www.diggerynook.com

A WELSH SCHOOLBOY REMEMBERS: 

Check  out my website and I'll tell you a lot more about the boyhood of my generation; following diggers around the building sites as we rebuilt our town. I'll take you aboard a 22-RB standing behind the dirver as he places girderwork on the new M&S store in Oxfords Street in 1952. Great days. BOOTS had a steam derrick crane at the back with a 100 ft boom lifting sealing tar in a bucket. 'wow'! There's a lot more I can tell you especially when I take you along to THE RUSTON BUCYRUS FACTORY in Lincoln on a tour of the workshops and my apprenticeship.

SCHOOLBOY MEMORIES OF REBUILDING MY TOWN.  Well known landmarks that grew from devestation and others that have disappeared over time. See if you recognise the names reviewed in my book: - BUILDING THE IRON. Did you know that M&S Oxford Street caught fire in the 1950'S?

TEL: 029 20867364     MOB: 07944 692695. https://www.diggerynook.com