Standard Triumph Ladies – Trim Shop. Mavis Langdon Pt1

A great series of images from Carmel Langdon have been sent in featuring her mum Mavis and a number of Standard Triumph staff in the sixties.

Carmel says “Mum was in various factory shops and moved continually around” the photos look like a trim shop, there are certainly sewing machines and bits of trim in some of the photos. Mavis can name a number of the people in the photos, so we are working on that too.
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That’s Me! Ron Thompson

We have a match! 
We posted the original photograph from our archives for the site launch at the end of January of this year, it shows a group in the TR section of the Assembly Shop at Canley.

The photo was from the Standard News, the in-house company newspaper dated May 1959. The subject is Fred West and Fred was 69 and for six years worked as a sweeper in the section. He retired Easter 1959. Handing over the retirement gift of a wallet and £11 is Shop Steward Jack Griffin. Continue reading “That’s Me! Ron Thompson”

Standard or Triumph?

A Brief History: The Standard Motor Company was founded in Coventry in 1903 by Reginald Walter Maudslay. By 1924 the company had a share of the market comparable to Austin, but by the late 1920s profits had fallen dramatically due to heavy reinvestment, a failed export contract and poor sales of the larger cars. John Black joined the ailing company and by increasing productivity, masterminded the huge success of the company in the 1930s.
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Strikes!

Strikes were a huge part of the motor industry, arguably the leading factor into its downfall. If there was a dispute at BMC, for instance, the unions would bring in all the other manufacturers so the ‘Big Six’ would all be effected. 

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Veronica Lenehan

Not sure of year – thinking late 60’s. I am in the middle with very short hair. The woman with a bun was Eileen and the guy on the right is Peter Murray. Looks like we are playing cards during lunch.

Triumph Works Canley
Triumph Works Canley

More to follow…

The Last Innsbruck – Derek Hitchins

I started in August 1959 and for over 20 happy years I worked in the new Assembly Hall known as the Rocket Range as a Line Inspector and over the years I was promoted to Quality Foreman.

When the plant closed I accepted a position in the South African motor industry in Pretoria where I now live.
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