Thank you Dean-Royal, Luddite and Pickles for these great stories. Now that these heavy industries are generally taking place in other countries and out of sight to many youngsters I feel that there is a lack of reality in much developmental thinking. Even those who lived in areas away from heavy industry were well updated with exploded diagrams in Eagle and other illustrated popular publications promoting the virtues of British engineering. Mention of the heavy crane brought back memories of that wonderful 'toy', Mecanno, although that particular model was well out of our price bracket at the time. I think it featured on the cover of one of their catalogues for many years.
