British Steel Corporation PO Box 72 Near Nottingham NG10 5AA

"I worked in the Research Centre at British Steel Corporation Tubes Division at Corby between 1974 and 1978. We did quite a bit of work for the British Steel Corporation Coombeswood works who manufactured street lighting columns. At the time British Steel Corporation was having great difficulty competing against Petit-Jean. We could not match their prices and our columns for the large columns market were not stiff enough. My predecessor had looked at strengthening the base of the column with welded in plates around the door (not a good idea). Looking at the British Standard I realised that it allowed the opening to be fully rounded, top and bottom. This gave a substantial increase in stiffness and allowed British Steel Corporation to get back into the market. We did some testing ourselves but since Concrete Utilities had an established test site at Ware we co-operated with them and the design was licensed to them. It was difficult times and at one point British Steel Corporation decided to withdraw from the large street lighting column market only to receive a very large lucrative order a day later. The salesman had no knowledge of the order and was promptly sacked."

"It was an interesting place to work with a very alcoholic culture. However it was pretty obvious that the core business was slowly failing so I left and got a good job in a completely different industry." - John Allen

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