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| Murray and Paterson's at Whifflet |
The engineering works in Whifflet, Coatbridge,
founded in 1868 where my grandfather Archibald Jackson was employed for most of
his working life, ultimately in the post of Engineer Manager. I remember being
taken to meet him at the factory when I was a boy.
About the visit I remember two things – first, a pantograph
device with a small torch bulb on the end, which you could move over a flat
sheet of cardboard, covered with scribbles and calculations. My grandfather guided the torch bulb around
the edge of a random shape he first scribbled on the card. The pantograph must
have been linked to some cutting device, because as bulb followed line, so a
piece of steel, to my eyes huge, was carved out in the shape my grandfather had
drawn, the process accompanied, I like to imagine, by a satisfactory shower of
sparks.
The second thing I remember was looking wistfully at
the crane which ran the length of the machine hope high above the floor. Could
I climb up and have a ride, I beseeched my grandfather. ‘Not today,’ he replied
(or was it my parents?) ‘But when you’re bigger you can come back.’ I never
forgot that casual word, nor did I forget that the promised return visit was
never arranged.
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