 |
British Insulated
Calendar Cables and the Prescot Grammar
Schools |
|
|
| ......... |
| It may not be apparent now,
but Prescot was the centre of the cable
in Britain. The "BI" as it was
affectionately known dominated employment
for some eighty years in the town. It
contributed to everyone’s' lives
either directly as employees or other
traders who depended on the wages of the
workers! BICC
Ltd (British Insulated Calendar Cables)
was also a philanthropic company that
provided its employees with a social club
( now the leisure centre on Warrington
Road), Christmas parties for local
children, convalescence home in Lytham to
name but a few!
My father and his
siblings were all proud of the BICC. I,
myself, worked for five summers as a
student in the Telephone Cables Division.
Lots of PGS lads and PGGS lasses will
have started their employment lives at
the “BI”.
Sadly, it has all
gone and the Name BICC has disappeared
into Balfour Beatty Construction.
|
|
 |
|
| |
| Apart from employment,
investment etc ….. what did the BICC do for
Prescot? (Monty Python answers on a postcard
please!) What was
their level of support for the two grammar
schools in the town, which the Directors must
have seen as a great source of potential talent?
I recall the model railway
club at PGS, one of the highlights in the Physics
Lab was the donated ‘0’ gauge layout
that had been used by BICC to get a huge slice of
the Euston to Liverpool and Manchester Railway
Electrification contracts. When this monster of a
model was displayed, it took schoolboy’s
breaths away! Sadly, thanks to renowned PGS
arsonist, this layout did not survive into
posterity.
|
|
| Contributions
from Prescotian Readers |
|
| Susan Kay writes
"I was a proud recipient of the
BICC 400th Anniversary Governors' Bursary, (set
up in 1944), which provided an annual sum of £40
per year for each of my 3 years at university.
Not a fortune but it certainly bought me a few
books. And I got a very well paid holiday job at
the end of my second year , working in the HR
department, on the strength of it. Oh how I used
to love walking across the foundry floor with the
wages packets of a Friday... I also remember that as a member of
the choir, we were drafted in sometimes to sing
at BICC directors' funerals ! 'Let us now praise
famous men'... "
|
|
On this very website, we can see
evidence of the support given by BICC to the
schools, but I suspect that this is just the tip
of the iceberg ……
Advertising in the Prescotian
magazine as a potential employer
Providing speakers
for prize-giving ceremonies, 1945 and 1969
Providing the social club hall for
prize-giving when demand outstripped the old
school hall
Offering initial computing skills
seminars
Providing temporary
classrooms after the aforesaid arson attacks
Technology Today'
exhibition at the school with support from BICC
|
| |
| We look
forward to more readers' contributions about the
BICC and the Prescot Grammar Schools |
|
