The Grove - alumini on RMWeb?

[Mike Storey]

4 hours ago, MyRule1 said:

Has been uploaded to the intertnet;

 

http://www.rastall.com/grove/story.html

 

 

 

Many thanks for this - the pics bring back a lot of memories, as do some parts of the articles.

 

[Northroader]

I got to Watford in late 60s, but the CCE place on a Plasser course (05E was it?) Then before then there were trips to the Derby place on diesel courses, plus the obligatory outing to Ripley. Then there was Westbury, where I modestly remarked if I had any managerial talent, I’d be at Watford, not here.  This ensured I had a target on my back for the rest of the time there. Me and my big mouth.

[Oldddudders]

The other place I recall having a week at was Faverdale Hall, Darlington, on some sort of speaking and presentational skills course. My abiding memories are two - the positive one being a fellow-student who gave a really interesting talk on Barmouth Viaduct, the teredo worm and the gribble, while the negative one was the non-availability of coffee at breakfast! 

[Northroader]

On the subject of diet at training colleges, the one I remember was Derby Training School in the sixties. At dinner there was the principals table, and about half a dozen hobbldehoys tables. We were invited to dine with the lords anointed in rotation, and the distinguishing feature was that the cheeseboard included Danish Blue Cheese. Wow!!!

[Oldddudders]

2 minutes ago, Northroader said:

On the subject of diet at training colleges, the one I remember was Derby Training School in the sixties. At dinner there was the principals table, and about half a dozen hobbldehoys tables. We were invited to dine with the lords anointed in rotation, and the distinguishing feature was that the cheeseboard included Danish Blue Cheese. Wow!!!

It hadn't changed much in the early '70s. Being required to be there over Sunday night, with Winter salad as the dinner, was pretty boring, but the formality of the meals was tedious indeed. The line of uniformed bottle-blonde mature serving ladies awaiting the call to serve dinner was ridiculous. No rotation via Top Table took place, and the Student President - an engineer on a long course - was always the guest there. 

[APOLLO]

Some interesting tales, some akin to North Western Gas Boards management training college at Mere near Knutsford Cheshire. A very grand building set in the countryside, and now a swank hotel.

 

 

Us plebs (engineers) attended a few courses there over the years, but mainly it was a bolt hole for the upper echelons. It boasted a superb library, bar and restaurant, to which we were summoned at Lunch by a huge gong.

 

Privatisation (1986) and subsequent reorganisations saw the place sold off. I drove past it a few weeks ago on my way to the Tatton Park classic car show - it has hardly changed except for the signage.

 

Happy days !!

 

Brit15

 

 

[MyRule1]

1 hour ago, Oldddudders said:

while the negative one was the non-availability of coffee at breakfast! 

You had it easy, Autumn 1974 was the time of the great sugar shortage and student were banned from having access to it for tea and coffee. This probably did my long term health a great amount of good, as II never went back to sweetening drinks.

 

The other diet related story was that the chefs were on some sort of training from BT Hotels. Which is where I learnt about hotels serving roast meat on Monday followed by the same meat in pies, curries etc for the rest of the week. This was OK the first time around but it seemed to be on a 3 or 4 week cycle and we were there for twelve weeks.

[Mike Storey]

3 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

The other place I recall having a week at was Faverdale Hall, Darlington, on some sort of speaking and presentational skills course. My abiding memories are two - the positive one being a fellow-student who gave a really interesting talk on Barmouth Viaduct, the teredo worm and the gribble, while the negative one was the non-availability of coffee at breakfast! 

 

Faverdale was an interesting survivor. We (as on the ER and later GNER) were still using it into the 90's, for meetings, outward bound courses and the occasional training course. It had privatised to some extent (there had been a management buyout, but which was funded to some extent by railway sources), but most of its business was still railway. It remained much cheaper than alternatives.

 

Indeed, I presented there at quite a few "privatisation" courses, where the intention was to prepare staff for the great unknown. My only qualification for this was my many years as an external lecturer, and examiner, at a college then University, in Bedfordshire, on Business Studies degrees. But horns were drawn in, and such courses were confined to York, and eventually disbanded, once it became obvious that the management buyout of IC East Coast was not going to win.

 

Even under GNER, we (as in the Passenger Ops part) still used Faverdale for two day conferences, as indeed did the Director Engineering and some others, but even this was curtailed eventually by a certain MD, brother of a prominent female Tory MP, who insisted all such events were done "in house". When it was pointed out that the facilities available "in house" to hold such events did not really exist, they were cancelled completely. That is almost certainly when GNER lost the plot, and a short while later, had to give up the franchise, due to completely unattainable targets and deadlines, that Sherwood and his increasingly isolated team, had signed up to.

 

Faverdale meanwhile went bust.

 

 

[Wheatley]

4 hours ago, Mike Storey said:

Faverdale meanwhile went bust.

That was a shame, I liked Faverdale. I did a week's course there in 1993 having volunteered as an assessor for BR's short lived excursion into the Duke of Edinburgh's award. 

 

Highlights of the week were a guard attempting to cook his own breakfast on a Trangia stove on a very highly polished table during a briefing for the day's route march, and a Controller falling off the climbing wall at 3am after several of us got lost between the bar and our rooms. 

[St Enodoc]

11 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

MS 1 Asst AM - and £1,500 a year worse off due to all those Sundays I'd worked in the previous year.

As Depot Manager Craigentinny in the early 1980s (MS1) I was the only member of staff in the entire depot that didn't have to declare my PT and free travel to the Inland Revenue - because I didn't earn enough.

[St Enodoc]

9 hours ago, Northroader said:

On the subject of diet at training colleges, the one I remember was Derby Training School in the sixties. At dinner there was the principals table, and about half a dozen hobbldehoys tables. We were invited to dine with the lords anointed in rotation, and the distinguishing feature was that the cheeseboard included Danish Blue Cheese. Wow!!!

Yes, and you were allocated a napkin with a silver ring that had to last all week.

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, Wheatley said:

That was a shame, I liked Faverdale. I did a week's course there in 1993 having volunteered as an assessor for BR's short lived excursion into the Duke of Edinburgh's award. 

 

Highlights of the week were a guard attempting to cook his own breakfast on a Trangia stove on a very highly polished table during a briefing for the day's route march, and a Controller falling off the climbing wall at 3am after several of us got lost between the bar and our rooms. 

I never went to Faverdale. The main reason folk were sent there was for the infamous Methods of Instruction course, which I didn't fancy at all and, thankfully, managed to avoid.

[The Stationmaster]

21 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

It hadn't changed much in the early '70s. Being required to be there over Sunday night, with Winter salad as the dinner, was pretty boring, but the formality of the meals was tedious indeed. The line of uniformed bottle-blonde mature serving ladies awaiting the call to serve dinner was ridiculous. No rotation via Top Table took place, and the Student President - an engineer on a long course - was always the guest there. 

It must have been very ordinary as I can't remember much at all about the meals there.  I suspect the formality was down to a certain Mr James when he was the Principal.  I recall it being rather different when I went back there to give a lecture on TOPS after he'd retired - the whole atmosphere was different.

 

Windsor was by far the best for food as it had become the training centre for WR restaurant car crews and an overnight stay there for the 'big' Management Training Scheme interview was a very pleasant dining experience.

 

When I was in South Wales one of my Signalmen went on an MoI course at Faverdale (I reckon it was mainly because of his involvement with the First Aid movement) and he came back saying that it was rather gruelling but he'd enjoyed it immensely.   Although later promoted he remained a Signalman until he retired but I understand that he was a pretty good First Aid class instructor.

 

Did anyone ever make it to the industrial relations course at Dillington House?  It apparently had a very good reputation for food and comfort but by the time I was in line for such things the WR had pulled out of there and was running its courses at Westbury. (See above for my opinion of the food served there.)

[Oldddudders]

2 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

It must have been very ordinary as I can't remember much at all about the meals there.  I suspect the formality was down to a certain Mr James when he was the Principal. 

I think he had been the Board's barrister or some such? He was distinctly judgemental when a student on another course left a rather fruity note for the cleaner - Mr James wanted him sacked! 

[The Stationmaster]

5 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

I think he had been the Board's barrister or some such? He was distinctly judgemental when a student on another course left a rather fruity note for the cleaner - Mr James wanted him sacked! 

He definitely had a law degree.  On one course I was on there was some sort of recruitment exercise and one group had a candidate with a suspended sentence so they made Mr James day by sending somebody off to ask him for legal advice😮

[St Enodoc]

13 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

It must have been very ordinary as I can't remember much at all about the meals there.  I suspect the formality was down to a certain Mr James when he was the Principal.  I recall it being rather different when I went back there to give a lecture on TOPS after he'd retired - the whole atmosphere was different.

 

Windsor was by far the best for food as it had become the training centre for WR restaurant car crews and an overnight stay there for the 'big' Management Training Scheme interview was a very pleasant dining experience.

 

When I was in South Wales one of my Signalmen went on an MoI course at Faverdale (I reckon it was mainly because of his involvement with the First Aid movement) and he came back saying that it was rather gruelling but he'd enjoyed it immensely.   Although later promoted he remained a Signalman until he retired but I understand that he was a pretty good First Aid class instructor.

 

Did anyone ever make it to the industrial relations course at Dillington House?  It apparently had a very good reputation for food and comfort but by the time I was in line for such things the WR had pulled out of there and was running its courses at Westbury. (See above for my opinion of the food served there.)

Definitely Leslie H James when I first went there in September 1974. Very old school approach.

[The Stationmaster]

6 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Definitely Leslie H James when I first went there in September 1974. Very old school approach.

That's him - I couldn't remember his first name but very definitely old school approach.   Very different from Mike Casey who gave a smashing talk to the Management Trainee Induction Course I attended there in 1971 and who was the only other speaker I can remember from that course.  

 

Just for the record I asked Mike Casey if there was any possibility with the loco class numbering system if we would ever see locos renumbered to carry it - in continental fashion.  He thought it unlikely because of the cost but intimated that many of the M&EE fraternity were very keen to do it.

[602Squadron]

Oh, this thread brings back so many memories...

 

I was an ER Graduate Management Trainee between September 1977 and March 1979, although I had previously worked as a Parcels Porter and Booking Clerk fora year or so when I left school.. Within 2 days of turning up at The Grove for the first time, a fire broke out in the roof of the main building, smoke damaging a number of rooms, including mine, and I lost quite a lot of my clothes. For the next few courses some of us had to share rooms, and on one occasion we were billeted at the Civil Engineers School, which was an interesting experience to say the least.

 

Huw Jenkins was the Principal at that time - I remember him in overalls up on the scaffolding getting involved in the repair works, which didn't actually take that long - everything was back to normal by the beginning of Summer '78. I later worked with Huw when I was a Project Development Manager at Stanier House in Birmingham and he was LMR Deputy GM - a really nice guy.

 

The bar routinely stayed open until the wee small hours, although we sometimes walked down to the Clarendon Arms or ordered a taxi to go into Watford.

 

I was fortunate to be with a really good bunch of people in the '77 intake, including some who rose very high in the industry, and I have so many happy memories of The Grove. I went back in 1990 on a Middle Management course, which included a day of field work - getting up at 05:30 to paddle canoes down the Grand Union Canal and collect various items hidden on the bank, abseiling down a tower to collect a distributor arm to reactivate a Bedford army lorry before driving over to the Aquadrome at Rickmansworth, where we built rafts to recover a missile container full of champagne from the bottom of the lake. Without doubt, the best course I ever went on.

 

We had all our courses at The Grove except TOPS, which was held at Webb House, Crewe, a very old fashioned place run rather like a boarding school. I'd actually been there in 1972 when I was still at school and went on a BR Careers Course, and nothing had changed. High table, prayers before dinner and that bloody handbell being paraded around the corridors to wake you up in the morning. Unlike The Grove, the bar at Webb House closed on the dot of licensing hours.

 

Faverdale was also mentioned earlier. I went there in 1982 on a NEBSS course, which for some reason my then boss thought would be a good idea. That was another rather dull place, with an old fashioned vibe - I can't remember what the bar was like, and my main memory is of a minibus being hired to go down to the Haughton Working Mens Club for a dance evening. They were rather proud of their fresh vegetables grown in the Kitchen Garden, though.

 

 

[Hippel]

I too spent a week at the Grove on some sort of basic management course in the early nineties. Bought the tie, too. 

Talking about Robert Heasman, he got my name added to a list of interviewees for a depot relief CO1. His wife worked with my elder sister and offered to add me to the list but quite rightly couldn't promise me the job. I was interviewed by the staff office manager and my train spotting was discussed and if I remember correctly I ended up explaining to him how fully fitted brakes worked and the difference between vacuum and air systems.

Readers, I got the job!

 

Paul

 

[Sludger]

I was there on a  couple of occaisions in the late

80s/ early 90s.

 

Seem to remember something about time management

with a video starring John Cleese with some astute advice

about filing.

[Wheatley]

1 hour ago, Hippel said:

 ended up explaining to him how fully fitted brakes worked and the difference between vacuum and air systems.

Readers, I got the job!

I got my first job in the railway on the strength of knowing that Tyndrum had two stations. It was the "Where would you change for ...." question, and after answering all easy ones Interviewer 1 threw in Tyndrum.

Me: "Upper or Lower ?"

Interviewer 2: "(Guffaw) Are you going stop asking that bloody question now ?"

 

I didn't know there was a tie ...

 

1 hour ago, Sludger said:

Seem to remember something about time management

with a video starring John Cleese with some astute advice

about filing.

In the early days of RRNE my boss, Geoff, came to us from Production Training and had of course learned all the videos by heart. We had a super-efficient CO2 called Lisa, and any trivial  error (like forgetting the sugar) was usually rebuked entirely light-heartedly with "Why can't you be more like Lisa ?" in best John Cleese voice. 

 

It was even funnier when a Very Senior Manager who hadn't been on that particular course took him to one side and had a quiet word about not belittling people in front of their peers. We were crying. 

[1E BoY]

Found my copy of the original book

[St Enodoc]

On 26/09/2022 at 12:56, St Enodoc said:

Definitely Leslie H James when I first went there in September 1974. Very old school approach.

Two souvenirs from those times:

 

Induction course joining instructions.

 

Team photo from the Engineering Management Trainees' Diesel Traction Course in July 1975, with a mixture of pre-university sponsored students (like me) and graduate entrants. Leslie James is in the centre of the front row, flanked by his instructor colleagues Gordon Mellors (on LHJ's right) and Graham Miller (on his left). Not many of us are still in the railway industry. Note the symmetrical leg-crossing of the front row - not much happened by accident on LHJ's watch.

 

Happy days (mostly...).

[1E BoY]

On 26/09/2022 at 19:55, Sludger said:

I was there on a  couple of occaisions in the late

80s/ early 90s.

 

Seem to remember something about time management

with a video starring John Cleese with some astute advice

about filing.

 

At The Grove we had a large number of Video Arts training films. The company was part owned by John Cleese and he would appear in most of them. I remember Ronnie Corbett also being in one. I think one was about "Meetings b****y Meetings" in which he played a judge who sentenced those managers who called unnecessary meetings for the sake of it. Many of the films have been remade over the years starring later generations of actors and comedians.

 

Details of Video Arts can be found at www.videoarts.com

 

These were 16mm cine film which were shown on the latest Bell & Howell self winding projectors. However, I had to be in the projection room in case the well used films split and I had to splice them back together. Apparently my predecessor left a projector running and came back to the projection room to find a whole floor of film. i never had a split or a need to splice a film during my two years there whilst it was being projected in the class room. 

Edited September 27, 2022 by 1E BoY

[EddieK]

On the morning of Monday 15th September 1986, I travelled to Watford Junction on the St Albans Abbey branch line to then catch the staff minibus to The Grove to begin my BR career. I was on the Graduate Engineer Training Scheme, and that week at The Grove was a sort of general introduction to BR and how it all worked. I revisited once or twice thereafter and my career in BR and successor organisations lasted until 1st January 2016.