upper image - A view looking up the apprentice shop at the Penarth Dock Engineering Company Limited. Horizontal and vertical milling, centre-lathe work, shaping, slotting, boring, drilling and turning were all the machine skills learned as well as bench fitting skills. Later, at the Barry works, I learned plano-milling, cylindrical grinding, gear hobbing and milling as well as crankshaft grinding and vertical boring.

lower image - Another photograph capturing the apprentices at work. I believe the man in the brown coat supervising at the vertical milling machine is none other than Mr. Ted Smith, which would date this photograph to pre-1967 when I believe he retired. The works is exactly as I recall it in 1966-67 and I owe a great deal to Mr. Smith.

The original photographs are held at the archive of the National Museum of Wales and form part of a series of 31 photos of engineering workshops at Penarth and Barry Docks. The lower images in each case have been colourised. [Museum item number : 87.202I/22 & 29] [629] [20180328]