FM Conway - Going the Extra Mile

Going the Extra Mile

Notes from a staff meeting, May 1989. We’ve come a long way since then.

quarries had crushers, but they were static – bolted into the ground – so you couldn’t get a proper look at them. And crushers had problems of their own. The rock would sometimes get caught in the jaws at the top. The jaws would work away at it, but it was like chewing chocolate: nothing would move. I remember visiting Downs Road with Sean Geraghty one time when the crusher had got stuck. Bill Slade was in charge of the machine, and he was a big man. He jumped up on top of the rock and started jamming a crowbar into it. And suddenly, as he stood there, it all fell in. Bill jumped out of the way just in time. After a short while, another rock jammed in the jaws of the crusher. Seeing what Bill had done before, Sean picked up the crowbar and started to relieve the rock; but it didn’t work. So Bill took the crowbar out of Sean’s hands, shook it a few times, and the rock went through. Then Bill turned round to Sean, held up the crowbar, and said: ‘It’s a bit heavier than a pen, isn’t it?’

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