The Reyrolle Story: Eighteen - Preparing For Invasion
...Perhaps it was just as well that Reyrolle was never bombed, because it is debatable if the Company had sufficient air-raid shelters to accommodate its thousands of workers. Frank Pearce, a post-graduate student, remembers: "Our instructions in the event of an air-raid were to proceed downstairs in an orderly manner and to stand under a row of trees near the football field!"...
Continuing his history of the giant enginneering concern Reyrolles, Robert Owen tells of wartime security measures.
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Just as in the First World War, Reyrolle were in continual conflict with the government bureaucracy, between the years 1939-45. This time, the villain was a Lt. Col. R.G.C. Buck of the Intelligence Service at the War Office, who demanded specific precautions for carrying out service contracts. Much against the will of the Company, 'Protected Places' were designated with 'Restricted Entry'. Fences and lighting around the works were found to be inadequate and had to be improved. The Company had to register the employment of aliens, and letters flowed to and from the War Office about possible 'suspects', who in the meantime, had to be kept off any government work.
Many people must have thought that the huge Reyrolle works - including the 'Protected Places'- sandwiched between a railway line and a river - were a sitting duck for German bombers. Fortunately, the works remained untouched, apart from superficial damage on the night of Thursday 21st October 1941, when two bombs fell on nearby Glen Street, killing 13 adults and 2 children.
Perhaps it was just as well that Reyrolle was never bombed, because it is debatable if the Company had sufficient air-raid shelters to accommodate its thousands of workers. Frank Pearce, a post-graduate student, remembers: "Our instructions in the event of an air-raid were to proceed downstairs in an orderly manner and to stand under a row of trees near the football field!" The suggestion of the trees as a protection against bombing has to be questionable, but fortunately this quaint Reyrolle practice was never tested.
Another war time precaution included the purchase of a house and grounds at Slaley, near Hexham as a store for essential drawings and records. The problem of how to get these from Hebburn was presumably not anticipated to be difficult. However, in October 1941, the Reyrolle Board attempted to purchase a second-hand Austin 8, two-door saloon for the use of the Managing Director on his journey to Slaley. Although there was an attempt to justify the vehicle as essential to the war effort, the Ministry would not budge, so the M.D. had to make do with a Reyrolle van!
The Reyrolle Board of Directors must have also considered a possible invasion by Germany in 1939 as forty five years later, when renovations were taking place at the New Town Works, a false drain cover exposed access to a concealed storage area. Was this where the Company was to store its war-time secrets? In September 1943, as part of a National Day of Prayer, the Bishop of Jarrow and Vicar of St. Oswald's conducted services in the Works. The Reyrolle Review reported "The huge congregation of staff and workers in the large workshops made an impressive sight".
