In contrast to the modern mechanised production
line methods proudly promoted in The Big Mill (1963), this footage shot inside
the Etna steel mill records the old hand processes which were about to disappear
with the imminent closure of the Etna works in the late 1960s. The steel mill
owners Colvilles, arranged for a professional filmmaker to record the old
methods of manufacture of steel billets.
The heated billets (short lengths of red hot
steel) shoot out of the reheating furnace and are caught by the fettlers, men
equipped with large pincers, and fed manually into the mill roll. The catchers
wore aprons that sometimes caught fire from sparks and intense heat or, as the
clip reveals, often no effective protective clothing at all, despite the
proximity to molten metal. The film was shot silent. On the factory floor there
would have been a cacophony of machine noise, men shouting to each other and
searing heat from the furnaces. By today's standards of health and safety at
work, this was a hard, dangerous job in an unpleasant
environment.
Janet McBain
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