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Arthur Phillips has sent us his recollections of the people in the above photograph …… 1 Reg Simpson, Electrical Test, my mate Reg was a footballer he started with Ditchburn in 1952 or there about while playing for Preston North End football club. 2 Alan Steer, Driver for juke boxes the only driver we had at head office. 3 Ernie Bennett, worked in the Stores he started in 1955 and continued till the end. 4 Charlie Bream, Machine Shop, he was a wizard on all the machines in the shop. 5 Frank Lever, Machine shop, he was a very quiet director starting with Ditchburn in 1948. 6 Leslie Dyson, Mechanism shop manager he started in 1955 just before Ditchburn bought the mk2 from Hawtin with 30 juke boxes. 7 Peter Wilkinson, from the paint shop He started in 1950 and was in charge by 1960 and left when the company closed 8 Bob Hawkey, he was assistant manager to Bill Andrews, we played football together and could only just get a team. When he left Ditchburn he went to work at Bispham Police Station as a civilian. We used to call him Hawk-eye, he retired to Spain which he had always wanted to do and died there. 9 Bill Andrews, the production manager to the juke box division, Bill died in 1981 he had been ill for years but no one knew as he kept it quiet. I could write something on most of them, they were all good friends and colleagues, some of them were sort of family members . Bill Andrews was at school with my mother in 1905 he left when he was 14 taking on an apprentice ship with Cunliffes who were gas engineers and later electricians, Bill served his time as plumber electrician but he always had something wrong with his eyes his vision was not normal he had pinhole spectacles, one of the blokes thought he would catch him out but was very surprised when bill took him on one side and told him he might have pinhole specs but he could see more than anyone else, but bill could not drive because of his limited vision. Bill Died in 1981 on the day I was going to visit him, RIP Bill. Arthur Phillips
Job Titles:
- Ditchburn 's Statistics Manager
For most of the early years Frank and Percy Hawtin were manufacturers of some of the best British amusement machines available, Our friends at Penny Arcade have a great section dedicated to the machines made by Hawtin's, This has been produced in conjunction with Simon Hawtin ( Percy's Grandson ) Please click on the Penny Arcade image below to visit the site.
Job Titles:
- Ditchburn 's Top Salesman