The United Kingdom has always been at the forefront of industrial and commercial life for the working man. Every industry today requires input from the world of utilities and that is as a direct result of the efforts put in to design and develop the infrastructure to power every aspect of their operation. Big tech requires huge numbers of employees to keep things ticking over. They think about and design innovative supplies such as power lines to the factory/generating unit; power and light for employees to move around the site safely; power for the machinery that produce all the goods manufactured by the plant; water for the machinery, catering facilities; work place stations and all the areas governed as necessary for the safe and happy working of the mill/factory/workshop. There are no more clocking in cards – the passport to a wages packet and happiness at home on a Friday. These clocking in cards were a little bigger than the old fashioned property cards in the original game of Monopoly. They had on them, the worker’s name and department or loom if still working in a mill that produced materials. The cards were fed into a noisy machine that looked like a cross between a cash register and scientific reactions tester. The operator had to feed the card into the in slot and tap out an amazing set of key strokes over the pedals – the wages department would have been sent the amount of hours / type of task carried out by that worker. As most mill workers and factory workers in general, worked shifts, starting early in the day and right through 12 or 16 hours, the cards would be clocked into the ‘clocking on machine’ as the worker arrived, and they cocked out for break time, back in again for the second shift and out again upon finishing for the day. The cards for each worker were collected up and fed at enormous speed, into the aforementioned comptometer machine that calculated the hors to be paid per the clocked in and off times. Watching the ‘punch card’ operator/wages clerk opeerate that machine was absolutely fascinating and many a happy hour on a Thursday was spent watching and listening to the regularity of the clicking of it operating at such speed. The next o in that office was to calculate exactly how much cash was needed to make up the wage packets. It was truly terrifying for the poor Export clerk who was drafted in every Friday morning to assist with making up 560 wage packets! How the staff managed to calculate exactly how many £1, 50p and other small coins were needed as a whole, when the manager drove to the local bank always amazed onlookers. Woe betide anyone who made an error counting out the right coinage to join the notes – put together by the senior wages clerk – if they got to the end of the wages run with any coinage left over, every single wage packet had to be checked by the other parties. That bit was easier – just a case of ensuring the cash within matched the amount printed on the front of the small manilla wages envelope.
This wasn’t hi tech as we know it nowadays but at the time it was fantastic stuff and formed an essential part of the fabric of the working area.