Industry's Lost Soul

The above photo is of the old GEC Tower in the Stoke area of Coventry. It was taken in 2010 as the factory was being demolished. It stands proudly yet poignantly looking down at the debris of the once thriving telecommunications plant. It's as if it knows it is soon to go itself and is making one last defiant stand, a stark reminder of a place and time consigned to history. 
After the Second World War, Coventry reclaimed its place at the heart of British industry. Mainly car manufacturing, it provided jobs and a good living for the City's people and those who settled here to work and live. The sixties was a boom period. Pay was good and, like in the rest of Britain, there was a feeling of a nation reborn. Jobs were plentiful. You could leave one factory job on a Friday and walk into another post on Monday morning. Or you could stay loyal as many did.
The factories were like mini community's. There were social sections, sports teams, ballrooms and clubs. Many folk met somebody at work who was to become their partner for life. Britain was at a peak of rebuilding and not just necessities but leisure. A car was still then a luxury, almost a big a purchase as your first home. Your family motor was not just a vehicle but a statement of social mobility. You'd arrived in the class system and were moving up the gears fast.
But the good times didn't last. Like all over the Country, in the 70's, Coventry was rocked by a series of crippling strikes as unions and the government clashed head on. Like in every war, the loser was the common person. The three day week, power cuts, all of a sudden it was about survival through grim times once more. With the advent of the Thatcher Government, the ante was upped. Boom times were replaced by recession. Other nations became production centres with cheaper labour. It was like being attacked on all sides including, from within.

This photo was taken in the sixties of the bludgeoning Humber car factory in Stoke by where I was born and still live. The sheer size of it illustrates how the car plants became like large villages and beyond, in some case dwarfing the districts that surrounded them. It was fairly standard you would leave school and go and work in your large local factory or a smaller sundry supplier. Apprenticeships were plentiful in the heyday and people were the holders of a skilled traded. 
It all seems so different now. The massive car plant pictured is now a new housing estate. The same for where the GEC factory once stood. The Stoke area, once a provider of thousands of jobs now has little in the way of local employment. Incomes come from warehouse jobs, cold call centres and service industries. We are being told that things are on the up again. But for most, the days of good wages and living standards that go with it, are long gone.
There are exceptions. Skilled Coventry folk still earn good money at Birmingham's Jaguar and Aston Martin plants. But boy, do they earn it, as the the companies now hold the upper hand and can change lives at a whim with shift patterns to suit their requirements. But in general, like most places, Coventry is a service centre at best, or a benefit trap place at worst.
There was a time nearly everyone had a skill, now its a rarity, almost an honour. All Cities and Towns seem to have museums, homages to a golden working era now gone. Whether it has been sufficiently replaced is highly doubtful. Not just in money terms but in matters of pride, personal self worth. Places that were once hotbeds of industry are now prey to human vultures such as loan sharks and drug dealers.
Coventry is no exception but it has gave home to exceptional people who rebulit the City from the depths of Hitler's carnage, The exceptional people are still here. They need to be helped, encouraged to find new skills, and not left to rot in the wastelands created by the manufacturing collapse. The ghosts of good times gone by, are everywhere. It is now time for government and business leaders to give something back to the lost souls of industry.