By Ron
I sometimes reflect on the quasi-criminal antics we got up to during our five-year apprenticeships at The Hotspur Press When I say ‘our’, of course I mean mine. It involved the Milk/KitKat machine installed on the stairway landing and the mystery of the ‘fake sixpenny-pieces’.
First, a quick background in the ‘tools of my trade/crime’.:
Moveable type (meaning individual letters assembled by hand as a single piece of cast lead) was a major money-maker for Percy Brothers, with the Composing Room containing approximately 40 compositors (including roughly 12 apprentices of varying ages). Type used in various publications produced at Percy Brothers was either set by hand or machine set through Monotype punch tape machines that were then fed into casting machines – brilliant-but-extremely noisy pieces of machinery that ‘pounded’ out long columns of type for magazines, books and the like. Generally this type was used on a flat-bed printing machine.
Counterfeiting Begins…
Early apprenticeship days were spent learning the layout of the type case of individual characters so they could be picked up by hand and assembled into headlines or sentences. Between each line, depending on how much space was needed, we used thin strips of lead. It just so happened, I discovered, that the 3pt lead was EXACTLY the same height and thickness as a sixpence (just over 0.7”). Plus, the mixture of tin and antimony made leads very easy to cut and file into shapes, in this case being the circle drawn around the sixpenny-piece of the day!
The next step was to try one of my ‘lead sixpences’ in the Milk machine. I held my breath as the little gem left my lead stained fingers. Then the BIG moment . . . I pressed the ‘Carton of Milk’ button, which immediately delivered my cold drink!!
My Biggest Mistake
Eureka!!! Now I got really busy. By the end of the day, I’d eaten two Kit-Kats to follow my milk. But, through youthful ego or just friendly, warped generosity, I made the huge mistake of sharing my discovery with at least two or three of my apprentice colleagues.
Of course it wasn’t long before the Vending Machine stockest/money collector produced a pile of lead sixpences on the desk of our overseer, Albert Coleman. Yes, in my naivety, the ‘end game’ had not even been a consideration. As far as I was concerned once that little bit of lead clunked inside the big machine and I pressed the button that rewarded my labours of cutting and filing, my thought was . . . ‘job done’.
One of the other apprentices described the interaction between the Vending Machine man and ‘Coley’ — as we nicknamed our kindly-but-firm boss – and his swift movement from his raised square cubicle overlooking the composing room, his little legs ending right next to . . . ME!
Again, being barely 17, and always up to mischief of one-or-another kind, my first reaction was amazement. How does he KNOW it was me? I still wonder. Had I been informed against or did my general demeanour mean that looked guilty? For a brief second I considered blatantly lying, but even my inexperienced mind of ‘small crime’ told me the game was up.
I got away with a very strong bollocking, and strangely enough, wasn’t even asked to pay any money back. After a few weeks a few counterfeits were once more found in the vending machine. Word must have spread throughout the whole factory and some other ‘dishonest bastard’ was reaping the harvest and milking the milk machine with leads and casting a brief prolonged shadow over me! Never did find out who it was. If anyone knows more, please get in touch – there’s a Kit Kat in my fridge with your name on it!
Ron Choularton
I’ll bet this bloke is in jail now!!?