TARMAC LTD

My early days were spent in and around the sites for building homes, with my father Eric and his brother Bob who were small house-building contractors. An old pal of father’s was ‘Bunny’ Barlow, a nickname given to him when he was a Spitfire pilot in the Second World War, he got shot down in flames over the English Channel. In 1946, he returned to his position quite high up in the management of Tarmac Ltd, he suggested to father that I should apply to Tarmac Construction to be a trainee civil engineer, which I did in 1956.

I started working for Tarmac Ltd in the Civil Engineering department in 1956, as a junior in the drawing office. I had to go quite regularly to a large drawing office for the Roadstone department, to get prints of drawings by senior engineers from Construction department. There were five men in that drawing office, among them was my uncle Ken Jackson, he had worked for the company since pre-Second World War until his retirement in 1970. By the time of his retirement, he was the Health and Safety Officer