NextBackHarold Jones’s coal yard was based at the railway station in the Goods Yard. Malcolm Hall the Heating Engineer, had his stores in a shed that he rented from Harold Jones. His main offices were in Orchard St. about half way down. I worked for Malcolm Hall for a number of years, and spent many an hour at the shed issuing materials to the lads each morning before going about my job as service engineer in the heating and plumbing business I later set up the electrical division for Malcolm Hall as this provided a complete service for the gas Board. This proved so successful that we had to employ another electrician to cope with the ever increasing demand for Central Heating in the Redditch and the surrounding area. In 1972 Natural Gas came to Redditch and Bromsgrove, and because we were involved in the installation of central heating we also had to undertake the conversion of existing gas appliances. included gas fires and some gas cookers
The other outstanding building in the picture was the public weighbridge, seen to the right side of the picture.
I met a lot of interesting people on my journeys like Ken Mallam and his brother Harry. Ken was an installation inspector for the MEB down in Windsor Road. Harry was an inspector for the Gas board. Both men were very conscientious about their duties and would regularly contact each other if there was a problem with a job for fear of treading on each others toes, I must say that I got on with both of them. I met Ken in 1959 when I first came to Redditch to work for the MEB as a contract Wireman and stayed with the MEB until 1962.
In 1964 my brother in law Tony Fisher started up a Taxi business in the town and asked me to work for him .We drove Austin A55 estate cars with Air-
I stayed with Tony Fisher for about 2 years until he moved down to Seaton to take up the post of ambulance officer for that part of the country
