Volume Four - An Era of Change, Uncertainty, Depression & War - The Penarth Dock Engineering Company Limited . . .

He had an irritating habit of calling Julie to collect a lever arch file which was positioned on the top of a hugh floor standing safe. The safe seemed like a relict from some Dickensian office!

Julie recounted that Mr. Mitchell was a grey-haired gentleman of diminutive build who thought that being on a diet meant that he was to eat his diet food first and then consume his usual daily intake of calories. He used to keep a large chunk of Gorgonzola cheese in his desk drawer together with a good supply of Jacob's cream crackers which when consumed stunk his office out and the fumes permeated the entire floor if there was a seaward breeze blowing!

Julie also recalled that in mid-conversation he would remove his false teeth and place them on the desk. Then he would ask, "Do you have any false teeth, so that I can compare them?" He was, despite his eccentricities, always smartly dressed in a dark suit and treated Julie well.

Back to the cheque. The payee is Mr John Pilcher who in 1953 was probably the wages clerk. The reverse side indicates his receipt of the considerable sum of £3,620 and one shilling (5p). Mr. Pilcher would have probably been driven by chauffeur in one of the two shiny black company limousines to the Midland Bank in Bute Street, Cardiff, where he would collect cash, confirm receipt by countersigning the reverse of the cheque and hope that no one was contemplating the theft of the bags of bank notes and coinage! Back safely at the Penarth dock offices, the wages were made up in the wages office and checked before the brown manilla envelopes were handed out to the workforce on Friday afternoon. Mr. John Pilcher became company Secretary by 1962.