And was it strenuous work?

Oh yes in many cases it was. To load the cupolas with cast iron scraps for instance and to load the furnaces until they closed down with their raw materials- iron ore and scrap and so on - it meant put this stuff into barrows and wheeled the barrows until they found an opening in the furnace to put it into. It was extremely strenuous in those days.

(Jack Smith)

We always understood that we were paid a salary and when I became the assistant foreman and the foreman of the Cupola department in the 1948 days I would be down at work at seven o clock in the morning. The men in the cupolas. We only had a day shift in those days and the men in the cupolas had to have molten metal ready at seven o clock when the moulding department had their moulds ready to receive it . so they started at six o clock and I would be down there before seven o clock in the morning to make sure everything was ready for casting and I would come away - the cupolas would finish at about 3 or 4 o clock in the afternoon depending upon demand and then I would have some office work to deal with and I suppose I came home at five or five thirty in the afternoon.

(Jack Smith)