Bob Crozier
Bob was born on 4 September 1935 in village originally known as Dinnington Colliery, now known as Brunswick Village. He lived there until he got married, at the age of twenty-two.
Bob started working at Swan Hunter in 1950, in the electrical drawing office as an office boy aged fifteen. Bob worked at Swan Hunter as an electrical engineer.
Bob talks about his experiences as an apprentice and his memories of Swan Hunter.
Bob was interviewed by Alex Magin on 19 February 2007. The interview took place at Segedunum Roman Fort, Baths and Museum and lasted for 1 hour 10 minutes.
Bob Crozier's Memories
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Transcript
The hand signals would appear – have you ever heard of the hand signals in a ship yard? Well I showed you one before when I said ‘cut’ well that was we were finished, were stopping – that’s drawing the hand across the throat. Another one by going in a circular motion above you head – that indicated that a manager was about ‘cause all the managers wore bowler hats in those days. The “dut” as it was known – a “dut”, but that was a manger was about! And if it was a foreman you drew your hand down your cheeks like that ‘cause the foreman were all freshly shaved and all beautiful and nice y’know whereas we ragamuffins always had 2 days growth or something of the sort and that was the signals. If you could see someone doing that – the foreman’s about lads! (laughs) Or the one around the head – there’s a manager! So as I say we could see the foreman coming ‘cause we could see the signals were coming from all over the place. They could see ‘em y’know and of course everything was packed away and everybody was busy hammering or knocking or whatever it was we were doing!