03 August 2009
Martin Jennings said in a recent article for the Industrial Diamond Quarterly issue 1/09: “2009 sees the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin – somewhat appropriate in these difficult times were “survival of the fittest”, will most certainly describe those companies that manage to work their way through the recession and be in a position to pick up the reins once global conditions start to improve”.
On a side note I play golf at a famous Welsh golf lynx course that has been voted the 70th best golf club in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. Our first captain in 1896 was Charles Darwin’s grandson, Bernard Darwin. His uncle started the course, Colonel Ruck, when he borrowed 9 flower pots from a lady in the village and cut nine holes in the march to place them in. Bernard Darwin went on to become a famous golfer, playing for England and a famous writer for the Times, reporting on Golf as his main sport. He also became president of our Golf club until his death in 1961.
Anyone who wishes to play the course please contact me at peterwhite@d-drill.co.uk and I will be glad to entertain you there as I am a past captain of 2007. Here is the course website if you would like to look it upwww.aberdoveygolf.co.uk. To get back to Drilling and Sawing with a world wide down turn of work most companies have had to down size their businesses and will have had to, to survive. Most of the big world manufacturers have decreased their manufacturing capacity.
Over the last 44 years that I have been in the business I have seen tremendous development in equipment and technology in the demolition, diamond drilling and sawing industries and I do hope that the expansion of these technologies do not cease due to the lack of funding for these projects. We need the most advanced equipment to be able to tackle the larger and complicated contracts that are being undertaken today. I do wonder where a lot of drilling and sawing business is going to come from in the future. For instance take the town I live in, Coventry, England it was one of the biggest manufacturing towns in Britain after the second world war and continued through the 90’s, where we had a variety of manufacturers in the town such as 4 different car plants, we also manufactured cycles, motor cycles, planes, farm tractors, forklift trucks, tanks and field guns to the world’s largest machine tool manufacturers. We had large foundries, pressed tool manufacturers and many supporting engineering factories. With all these industries there was a lot of work to be had and plenty of employment for the local residents. But they have all closed down and Coventry is now not a manufacturing town in any shape or form.
Although with the loss of industry a lot of drilling and sawing work takes place and I often wonder where the business comes from. Perhaps I should have carried out a survey in my own company to find out where the new business had come from.
I strongly feel that both government and banks have not supported industry in the Western World so much that manufacturing has disappeared from most of the European and Western World countries.
I hope that all members of Drilling and Sawing and Demolition associations support their manufacturing members so that development of new innovations for equipment and techniques may continue.
There is talk of green shoots the first signs of the recession lifting and I do hope that this is the case for the sake of all of us and wishing everyone a good coming year.
Best regards, Peter White
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