Frank

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Content Count

    1,456

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Posts posted by Frank

  6. The Dungeon Reunion

    in Keep the Faith - Soul and Motown

    Posted

    In the past, lots of people have pledged to attend one of the many Nottstalgia 'Meets' in the Poacher, however, only a few of us have bothered to turn up.

    My thoughts...........if you want to make sure it's a good night, invite lots of 'none Nottstalia' people....... and then charge a nominal fee on the door.

    P.S. Make sure the venue serves decent ale!!!!!! and I might be interested. (I'm not a Dungeon person as I was married and bringing up a young person during my early years)

  9. Refrigeration in Nottingham

    in General Chat about Nottingham

    Posted

    Hi All, just come across these messages, certainly brings back memories both good and bad. Been trying to work out who each of you are and Kath for sure is Brian's husband how are you both.

    Well just to clarify a few of the facts, my dad started John S. Hall Refrigeration just after end of World War 2 not sure of exact date but I think around 1946 he originally served his apprentaship at W.J.Furse and was mate to Claude Bilby. He left Furse around 1937 to join Eric Helliwell to start up E.Helliwell & Co Refrigeration a company eventually taken over by Prestcold. My dad started his business in the garage from home 9, Elmhurst Ave, Mapperley (also place of my birth 1938)he later moved his business to 81/83 Cliff Road as you commented an 8 storey building against the cliff side with a fifth floor access to Commerce Square on top of the Cliff accessed from High Pavement.

    Yes BICC were next door in Commerce Square and eventually G.T.Ranby Electrical Contractors moved in there with Alan Key joining on the upper floor creating Ranby & Key motor rewinds. From memory I believe a further associated company was there Nottingham Transformers. I also remeber well Ranbys Cafe which was a regular place for lunch.

    Back to John S. Hall Ltd., we were distributors for York and covered mainly the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire areas, unfortunately as Brian will remember my father died rather suddenly at only 53 years of age which left me in charge having had little experience of running a business of this size. All of my time had been spent on the pratical engineering aspect of the business and although I say it myself I was quite good but was too easily led by the wims and wishes of York to grow the business and move into new not so familiar air conditioning fields in which we made many very costly mistakes which largely contibuted to our downfall. Changes of top brass at York were no longer supportive and eventually forced us into liqidation in 1967. I tried to pick up the threads with a few of the staff and a number of loyal customers trading as East Midlands Refrigeration but lack of capital made it difficult to sustain and I tried to change from service work to wholesale component supplies which went reasonably well but this required even more finance to develop it. I established a good supply of components from Thermofrost Cryo and eventually became their local stockist for the area but eventually I decided enough was enough as I did not want to end up as I had with John S. Hall so decided to cease business at end of September 1984. TFC asked me to join them which I did on 1st October 1984 where I stayed until I retired in 2001. I now devote all of my time with what was my long term hobby of photography.

    I would love to hear from any of the others on this thread and perhaps can help fill in a little more of the past.

    Hi Anthony

    Were you involved with the East Midlands Refrigeration Society? I may have met you at Basford Hall College on one of the meeting nights where you tried to re-invigorate the membership? I was there with Brian Killan and others......

    Sorry to say, but I'm not the Frank you are thinking of.

  10. Port & Lemon

    in Owt' Abaaht Nowt !

    Posted

    Are you telling us that Mrs Frank is a lagger? :)

    Not quite Eric....just related to a few :-) (com'n Mick - get the smilies sorted! )

    Her brothers have spent most of their lives in the lagging game and are now paying the price with Asbestos related health issues.

    Conjures up an interesting picture though doesn't it?....Mrs Frank in overalls in the attic rolling out bales of fibreglass ha ha ha ha ha

  17. Port & Lemon

    in Owt' Abaaht Nowt !

    Posted

    bighug Nottingham Laggers (insulation engineers) used to drink Brown & Mild..............for some reason it was the 'drink of choice' in the sixties/seventies. preferred pubs were Dog & Partridge x 2 (opposite each other) on Parliament street!!!!!!!!!!!

    Hi Paulus

    Do you know the 'Ryans' from the lagging game?

  19. Aviation day

    in Owt' Abaaht Nowt !

    Posted

    I remember a good few years ago when running a big job down in Gravesend and one of the lads brought his latest mucky mag in to the site cabin/office to show me, as this particular month it included some of those red and green glasses in a paper frame.

    Well, here am I, sat behind my desk with these glasses on trying to make out the 3D photo's in the mag when in walks the Manager and Director from Head Office. As I looked up, one of them looked green and the Director looked red.

    It was a little difficult trying to explain it I can tell you!!!!

    Laugh about it now though whenever I meet up with the lad who liked mucky mags.(Fiesta, I think it was called)