Having started the project off by absorbing knowledge from various sources (our visit to Magna Science Adventure Centre; delving into the archive at Corby Heritage Centre) it’s time for us to start talking to the people who lived and worked in Corby and, in particular, those with connection to the steel works.
There has been utilisation of the natural iron deposits in Corby since long before Corby was a town. The village of ‘Corbei’ is noted in the Domesday book in the early 11th Century as an ironworks site. Industrial scale iron extraction began in the late 1800’s with Stewarts & Lloyds opening their new blast furnace in 1910. The steelworks were already in place, and the population swelling, before Corby became a town in 1939. However, all things cannot last and the steel works closed in 1980 after manufacturing nearly 2.5 million tonnes of steel.
With the steel works, at times, employing about 40% of the towns population, most lives of those who live in Corby will have some connection to the plant, be it: working there themselves; parents who work there; or just the light emanating over the town at night. But with the unending march of time, many of the people with the closest association to the steel works (those who worked closely making the steel) are sadly getting older or are no longer with us. It is a key aim of this project to capture this heritage at risk and preserve it for the future. Through working with our partners in Corby and putting ourselves into the community, we have been lucky enough to speak to a number of people with varying different experiences of working and living with the steel works. A full playlist of all the interviews can be found in the archive, but we wanted to tell you a little bit more about some of the people we spoke to:
Frank
We sat down with Frank in the Library at Corby Cube. He was a tall older man, proudly displaying his union badge. Although initially quite quiet, and speaking in a raspy husky voice, acquired from breathing in particulate from the steelworks, he proudly talks about the sense of camaraderie in the steelworks. Even while working there, he was working towards making the working environment better for his fellow steelworkers. Originally hailing from Ireland, he’s now a tried and true Corbite (along with the Corby accent - which if you’ve heard it you know!), and you can hear the pride in his voice when he talks about the people of Corby as “the best in the country, the most generous”.
“ “often wondered what hell would look like, but now I know”. ”
We’ve read a lot about the steel making process, but this is an opportunity to talk to someone who was actually there and actually did it. One area we’ve been puzzling over is how steel ingots get made into tubes. Luckily Frank is a wealth of information and describes the rolling process in detail. We know we want to show some of the steel making process in the final experience, and having this first hand account will help us make it as true to life as possible. But more than just technical descriptions of how it worked, we get how it felt to be in the steel works. Frank describes a conversation he had with a fellow worker that they “often wondered what hell would look like, but now I know”. Ordinarily this would be a damning description of your workplace, but its said with a smile, a chuckle and wistful look in the eye that shows the affection the steelworkers had for this “hell”.
Linda
We meet Linda in the Corby care home she is currently living in. We’ve also interviewed her husband, who worked in the steelworks, but for this project we want to make sure we’re capturing the larger impact the steelworks had on all the people of Corby. It’s really powerful hearing how, even for those who didn’t work there themselves, the steelworks were an ever present part of their life.
“ “women and men were parading around with placards saying don’t close the works’”.”
Growing up in Corby, Linda remembers how the furnaces would “.. light up the whole sky …”. She also told us about the closing of the works and that “women and men were parading around with placards saying ‘don’t close the works'”. Although we don’t learn much about the mechanics of steelworking from this interview, what we learn about what the steelworks mean to Corby is immeasurable. We’re not just making this project for people that worked there, it's for all of the people in Corby, both past, present and future.
Alan
We meet Alan at the Corby Cube. Having found him through our research, when we reached out to him, he enthusiastically volunteered to get involved. Although he left the steelworkers for academia, he still, to this day, thinks of himself as a steelworker because “that’s where it began”.
““[The other steel workers went as far as] doing a whip round to send [him] to night school”.”
He’s incredibly articulate in how he talks about his experience in the steelworks and, where his passion really lies, in his work with the unions. Coming directly from school into the steelworks, Alan talks fondly of the care shown to him by the older steelworkers. Having not fitted in as well at school, the familial atmosphere of the steelworks was a welcome change. The other steel workers went as far as “doing a whip round to send [him] to night school”. Unlike others who started at the same time as him, he was not scared of the hotter and more volatile areas of the steelworks, in fact he sought them out and, as a result, has worked across so many different areas of the steelworks. This means he can, and does, talk at length about the full breath of the steel making process, giving us valuable insight into the mechanics, but also the sounds and smells of the plant, something we want to capture in the final experience.
These are just some of the stories we captured, but there’s lots more that can be found in the archive. We’ve learned all about the mechanics of steel working; we’ve delved into the history of Corby; and we’ve heard the stories of those who have lived and worked in the steel works. Now all we have to do is bring it all together into an experience that honours the past but also looks to the future of the town. The bubbling pot of molten ideas is simmering away and the time has finally come for us to tease out the story and start forging the experience.