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Gorton Tank – Recollections from Kenneth and Janine Hague

By Gurbir Dated: October 17, 2024 Leave a Comment

As part of the Allfm.org Gorton Tank Project, this interview with Kenneth Hague and his daughter Janine Hague was recorded on September 26th at the Manchester Central Library.

As you will hear, Kenneth Hague was born in 1941 and so was too young to have a career at Gorton Tank. However, here he recalls the memories of his father, Robert Edwin Hague (Jr.), born in 1909, and his Grandfather, Robert Edwin Hague (Sr), born in 1883. Both of whom worked at Gorton Tank.

You can listen here on this website. Scroll to the bottom. Alternatively, click the three vertical dots to see the download option. Once downloaded – listen whenever and wherever you want.

Gorton Locomotive Works, or Gorton Tank, was a huge railway plant covering many acres in East Manchester. It was located around where the New Smithfield market is today. It opened in 1848 to build and maintain railway stock and closed in 1966. During its time, it must have been the primary employer in the area, shaped the local landscape and  the environment. Its products – steam engines, carriages, cranes, junction control systems and later diesel engines would have been used across Britain but also in far-flung regions of the Empire.

In this recording, Ken recalls his childhood memories of Ashton-under-Lyne and Hurst. Hurst, or Coldhurst, is an area of Oldham.   His many fascinating memories include:

  • His grandfather helping his father find work at Gorton Tank. The interwar period was a difficult time. There was high unemployment in the shadow of the 1926  General Strike in Britain, the global impact of the 1929 Wall Street Crash, and the decade-long recession that followed.  Ken’s father was made redundant from Hurst cotton mill. Ken’s grandfather used his connections with Gorton Tank and got his son (Ken’s father) a job in Gorton Tank around the mid-1930s.
  • His father worked nights at Gorton Tank. Since it was a critical element of the national infrastructure, Gorton Tank operated day and night throughout WW2, and most of the employees, like Ken’s dad, were not sent to the front despite having completed the medical assessment. His job at Gorton Tanks was classified as a “Reserved Occupation.”
  • Ken’s limited memory of Gorton Tank is mainly of its closure. The Writing was on the wall for Gorton Tank following the 1963 Beeching Report. Much of the railway infrastructure was earmarked for closure to save costs, which for Gorton Tank occurred in 1966. Ken recalls his one and only visit to Gorton Tank with his Dad for that final time.
  • Ken recalls some of his father’s memories of working at Gorton Tank, including the night shifts, accidents at work, and work trips. You can see some pictures from around the mid 1930s of the Gorton Tank Works trip to Giant’s Causeway in Ireland. Ken also recalled his trips to Southport and the tradition of the Wakes weeks—a time when the factories shut down and all the workers went on holiday.
  • He also recalls his first trip in a car. Christmas Eve 1944, aged 4, he travelled in a car to see the devastation of the V1 rocket attack on Abbey Hills Road in Oldham. 

We conclude the interview by discussing Ken’s experience working at Ferranti Computer Systems Limited at Gem Mill in Chadderton. An industry that started in Lancashire about the time that Gorton Tank closed.  He recalled his grandfather was the first in Hurst to make a crystal radio set in the early 1920s. That is when the BBC was founded, and radios became popular. His introduction to leading-edge technology as a boy led him to his career in specialising in “clean rooms” for manufacturing silicon chips at Gem Mill in Chadderton that helped develop Britains First Super Computer. His career took him to the USA, and on one occasion, close to the Canadian border, he got a car crossed the border and and returned to get a Canadian stamp on his passport. 

Interestingly, he recalled a trip to Sheffield University to inspect a Clean Room in the early 1970s, during which he came face to face with a sample of Moon rock brought back by Apollo 11. 

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New Spacesuit from AxiomSpace

By Gurbir Dated: October 16, 2024 Leave a Comment

Private space companies produce a wide range of products and services for the developing space economy. Today, Axiomspace announced its Extravehicular Mobility Unit (AxEMU) or spacesuit here at IAC2024. This is the new generation of spacesuits for use on the lunar surface by NASA astronauts on the Artemis-iii mission.

Credit:Axiom Space

There are no “standout” major differences in appearance, but the development of technology since the 1960s will make these suits safer, longer lasting and more comfortable.Astronauts will return to the South Pole, an area not visited during the Apollo era, and there will be women, too. Some of the details that came out of the press conference and the Q&A that followed include

  • Apollo spacesuits were tailor-made. The new ones are modular and support men and women. The gloves are personalised.
  • Mitigation of the impact of lunar dust
  • Built-in nutrition.
  • The design incorporates the south pole conditions – lower temperature and the sun being mostly low in the sky.
  • Can accommodate operations for 8 hours
  • Builtin lights, HD cameras and cellular communication
  • automatic biometric monitoring

It is the product of a private company. Other companies and countries will be producing similar products. Although there is a recognition that international standards are required, none are currently established. At this early stage, the first spacesuit to attract widespread deployment will establish a foothold . That will most likely become the de facto standard.

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International Astronautical Congress 2024 – Milan, Italy

By Gurbir Dated: October 14, 2024 Leave a Comment

The IAC2024 kicked off this morning with the “Responsible Space for Sustainability” theme. There was a bit more pomp and ceremony because the President of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella, turned up. A couple of ceremonial soldiers accompanied him in colourful attire, very shiny swords and grandiose headgear.

The morning kicked off with IAF president Clay Mowry’s lively speech, in which he welcomed almost 7,000 attendees from over 100 countries. After thanking all the partners and sponsors, mentioning many individually, he made a startling announcement. A bit of space was here at the IAC.

He said that extraterrestrial material from space was making an appearance here in Milan. Samples of asteroid Benu from the US mission OSIRIS-REx, which returned last year, are on display at the NASA booth in the exhibition. In June, China’s Chang’e-6 lunar probe returned samples of moon rock from the lunar farside. The CNSA booth has a sample from that mission on display.

There are around 30 astronauts here at the IAC and two of them Samantha Cristoforetti and Luca Parmitano made it on to the stage.

Some awards were given during the ceremony. These included the IAF World Space Award for the success of Chandrayaan-3’s soft landing near the lunar south pole in 2023. ISRO Chairman accepted the award by standing in front of a picture of a large team of ISRO scientists and engineers.

Michael Gold, Executive Vice President for Civil Space and External Affairs received the “Redwire chief growth officer” award. He squeezed in lots of Star Trek references in his acceptance speech.

There was an odd “Time Capsule cam”. A camera on the stage was going to be capturing all the events, and then the footage would be sent up to space and sent to the ISS. Apparently, as a symbol that this commitment to space sustainability is not just for us here on Earth. The ISS has had full access to the internet for a very long time. If they wanted, the ISS crew could have streamed this ceremony on youtube like many others. I think I missed something!

This is the fifth time an IAC has been held in Italy and the first in Milan. 562 years ago, Leonardo De Vinci lived for two decades in Milan and made his initial designs for a flying machine there. If he is up there looking down, I can’t help but think he is looking at our progress and saying – what took you so long!

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Mount Tiede – Tenerife August 2024

By Gurbir Dated: September 28, 2024 Leave a Comment

The Teide National Park is a protected area and a Unesco World Heritage Area, centred on Mount Tiede with a summit at 3.7km. on the Island of Tenerife. It has such good astronomical seeing that since 1964, it has been used by professional astronomers as a site for an astronomical observatory at 2.3km and operated by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias .

Today there are multiple optical, solar and radio telescopes operated (mostly remotely) my a many institutions from multiple countries.

I visited the site on 12th August on 12th August 2024. Whilst the Perseids was not the spectacular display I hoped for, but the night sky was. The horizon-to-horizon canvas of stars, the bright naked-eye arc of the Milky Way, was something I had not seen for many years.

Here are some pictures and (below) a timelapse video of sunrise over the observatory.

Time lapse of Sunrise over the observatory – 13 August 2024

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