Redcar Coke Ovens - January 1980

I don't remember a saharan wind but I do remember the wind from another time.

In 1980 I was "doing the rounds" as a trainee engineer (Grade MM0, Middle Management Zero). It was three months here, and three months there and so on. "Here" moved about quite a bit, but in January 1980 it was the coke oven plant at Redcar. You can still find the remains of the Redcar blast furnace and coke ovens by selecting the birds' eye view on Google maps, just a little to the North West of Redcar town.

It should have been a good time (I'm perverse enough to have a soft spot for coke ovens), except that between January and April 1980 was the Steel Strike. It was not a good time. Each day started with 15 miles across the North Yorkshire Moors (which could be pleasant), then negotiating my way through a picket line and then a further mile through the sleeping works to the site. The works had been built on reclaimed salt marsh and there is nothing between it and the the North Sea but the dunes at Coatham. Fortunately it didn't really snow while I was there, but there was constantly snow on the wind. It was bitterly cold.

I can bore for 3 countries on coke ovens and blast furnaces, and I'll spare you the details. Both are strange things, like caged dragons or demons. One difference is that a blast furnace can be put to sleep and woken again. It is not a desireable thing to do, but in this case it was done for 3 whole months. Imagine waking a coke fire from the embers. Coke ovens are not like that - they cannot sleep. They can be "turned down" but if production stops then the ovens are quickly destroyed and have to be rebuilt. So, production continued on the ovens. Several times a shift an oven would discharge tens of tonnes of incandescent coke into the air. The inside of the ovens is extremely hot (up to 1400 deg C), and the outside is still hot enough to damage the soles of your boots if you stand still too long in one place. The atmosphere between workers and management was one of tension and resentment. To top it all, the ovens (which were almost new) were suffering from serious technical problems. The air stank and all the time the wind was blowing in from the sea, carrying snowflakes.

It was about then that I decided that, right or wrong, the politicians had decided that they didn't want a steel industry and that the best thing I could do was leave before everything came to a sad end.

On a brighter note, I enjoy my place down by the river. I wish I had found it years ago, but it wasn't the time. I don't expect to see kingfishers. I think the soil is wrong for them: clay rather than sand. On the other hand, I have found myself studying the water. I find the patterns formed by the eddys fascinating. They are both chaotic and predictable and they change from day to day with the state of the river. There is one place where a branch sheds little vortices and another where there is sometimes an area of turbulence like plaited hair. I'm pretty sure Da Vinci drew something like that in one of his notebooks.

On an even brighter note, Noreen and I are off for a couple of days in Bantry. Two nights in a fancy hotel. I'm looking forward to roasting myself in the sauna.

I've got another letter to write before I shut things down, so I'll end there.