Old Pictures

When a firm has been going as long as this, you never know what you might find lurking around the place. Yesterday, while sorting something in one corner of the workshop I suddenly noticed three pictures propped up by a pipe again the wall.

My first thought was that they were paintings; the years of grime mixed with the slightly surreal colours of old images combined to remind me for a moment of some of my dad's old paintings in his workshop. A couple of seconds and a slightly closer inspection revealed them instead however to be photos of some of our pumps.

What I found really intriguing was the last one (at the bottom here). It was obviously a very old style pump. Scott (our chief engineer) vaguely recognised it as one of our old Screed pumps from the 1980s - possibly from before Schwing and Stetter had joined forces or Schwing had patented the Rock Valve (both happened in 1982).

Scott also mentioned that one of our long serving old employees, Jack, features in the one in front of Tower Bridge (click of the image to enlarge it).

A few minutes with a damp cloth and some paper towel managed to remove most of the dirt from the pictures and so I was able to get the shots of them here on the right before placing them back where I had found them, albeit a little cleaner and brighter.