Jim Duncan
Jim belongs to: The Doxford Engine Friends Association
Jim was born in Sunderland in 1943. He followed his father into Doxford's. He began his apprenticeship in December 1959.
Jim was interviewed by Kylea Little on 24 January 2006. The interview took place at the Interviewee's living room and lasted 1 hour, 16 minutes and 2 seconds.
Starting at Doxford's
"Well, I started first of all as an office boy for the managers"
Well, I started first of all as an office boy for the managers, the general manager was Mr Rhodes and Mr Adie and Mr McCoy and I was their office boy and basically I did all the running around; taking drawings.
The idea of an office boy was not only to help the managers move things around to go messages for them and various things like that, it was to also let you know how to get around the factory so when you moved to different departments, you knew where they were, which was great because I found out a lot in the first sort of six months of going around the company, meeting foremen, meeting men who, you know, knew me, I didn’t know them; “you’ll be Dally Duncan’s son.” That was all I got- “if you’re half as good as him, you’ll be a good one,” and that was that, that was the other one.
But that was where I started, I was then transferred to the light machine shop, that was the first time I ever worked on the lathe and I was in the light machine shop for six, seven months.
Jim has 14 memories in the memorynet:
Starting at Doxford's
- The Doxford master plan
- Les Morris
- Working in the Tool Room
- Training the apprentices and the closure of Doxford's
- Value of Doxford apprenticeship
- Politics and Doxford's
- The apprentice strike
- Leaving Doxford's
The Doxford Ship Yard- Aerial view of the Doxford Works and the River Wear
- A ship being launched
- A Doxford engine
- Model of a Doxford engine
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