About Me

Adrem78? What an odd name — and no, it's not Adam! Allow me to explain…

If you've ever been to London by train, chances are you've disembarked at St Pancras station. Once inside, steer your gaze a few degrees skyward and, in that magnificent station building, you'll see the original steelwork and stanchions — each marked with a plaque stating they were made by Butterley Engineering of Ripley, Derbyshire.

If you've been to Portsmouth, you'd be hard pressed to miss the beautiful steel structure that pierces the skyline above Gunwharf Quays, standing some 170 metres tall — again built by Butterley Engineering.

Travel north to Falkirk in Scotland and, just like the Spinnaker in Portsmouth, you'd be hard pressed to miss the famous Falkirk Wheel — a magnificent piece of structural and civil engineering: a rotating boat lift connecting the Forth & Clyde Canal with the Union Canal. It has to be seen, or better still ridden, to be believed. You won't be surprised by now to learn that the Falkirk Wheel was also built and installed by Butterley Engineering.

I grew up literally a few hundred yards from this leviathan of a works, from a time long gone when England ruled the world of engineering feats. The Butterley Company, founded in 1790 by Benjamin Outram, went on to produce some of the greatest and most formidable steel structures in the world, until the gates finally closed in 2009.

Butterley played a huge part not only in my life but in my family's, especially in my younger days. I started my working life there and stayed several years in various capacities, alongside my father, who'd been there most of his. Both of us worked in the joinery shop — odd, you might think, for an engineering works to need a joiners' shop, but you'd be surprised how much wood the steel industry gets through!

Since the gates closed I've collected Butterley memorabilia and ephemera: steel makers' plates, paperwork, images, even colliery tokens. And within that collection are many copies of — here's the spoiler — AD-REM, the Butterley Company house magazine.

It was published four times a year from 1950 to the mid-1970s and was hugely popular with the office staff and the hundreds of steel workers and machinists alike — it even had a pin-up! The title is a play on the Latin phrase ad rem, meaning "to the point" or "to the matter".

My name is simply an homage — not only to the Butterley Company, but to my father, whom I miss every day. And finally, surely you don't need me to tell you what the '78' refers to!