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Born 5/1/1924 at 121 Hutton Road, Handsworth, Birmingham, Maurice Bassett recalls some cherished memories from the post war era.
Elaine, my second child, was born on 27th March 1951. I had a chance to continue my trade as an engineer at the Bardney sugar factory. During the beet season I had to look after a number of pumps that pumped the raw sugar juice to the pan floor, where it was boiled and turned into raw sugar prior to refining. When the sugar season had ended we had to service all the plant.
I was offered a job at Ruston and Hornsby, makers of diesel engines, in Lincoln, working a night shift. It suited me as I was living at Woodhall Spa and could get into work by train at 8.00PM and get a train home next morning at 6.30.AM. It was only 4 ten hour nights then 3 days off.
Trying to improve myself, I applied for a position at English Electric, in Stevenage near London. After having an interview at Luton, and waiting for many weeks while my background was investigated, I was finally told I had a job with them and to report to Luton airport on a certain date.
 Me and the girls, my daughters, taken on holiday at Skegness in the 1950's.
I was found lodgings in Stevenage as this was going to be my place of work. Later, I sent for my wife, as we had been found a new home by the Stevenage Development Corporation, and I was pleased to get out of lodgings and into my own home.
The work involved the manufacture of Gyroscopes for the Thunderbird guided missile. Owing to a signed document we had to make under the secrets act, I can't to this day divulge the details of this project.
Needless to say the work was very involved and tedious, and required one to work with very intricate measuring tools and machines. Tolerances were + or - 1/10th part of a thousandth of an inch. (or one ten thousand part of an inch).
These were hard to achieve and optical measuring devices were necessary. To make sure these tolerances were kept, all measurements were taken at a temperature of 68 deg F in an air-conditioned atmosphere.
I was getting a little fed up with shift work and I applied for a job with Kodak and started there, working on X ray development machines. Kodak went on short time and I had an offer to work at Borg Warner as a machine-fitter, looking after the machines producing the automatic gearbox for the Austin 850 mini and the Morris cars.
They wanted experienced fitters in Australia at the Borg Warner plant in Fairfield near Sydney, and they asked me if I would like to go. After much thought and talking it over with my wife I decided to say yes I will go.
Maurice Bassett, Queensland, Australia, 2001
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