MEMORIES OF A NATIONAL SERVICEMAN

                                                            Gibraltar  1953/54

                                         Trevor Sidaway
                              ROYAL ELECTRICAL AND MECHANICAL ENGINEERS

 

                                                        The REME badge

Before moving into the drawing office I spent a few weeks helping to erect an overhead crane in one of the

side workshops in the main REME factory

The crane was not new but was in good shape and went together reasonably well—we had the help of as

 many Spanish labourers as we needed, especially useful when we raised the overhead rails and crane

platform into place. The workshop was to be used as a non-ferrous foundry and this complimented the

 iron foundry that was well established

Colonel Matthews made good use of this new foundry for some of his pet projects, one of them was to

 produce a sign in the form of a very large REME cap badge, this was to be mounted on a suitable

backboard and installed at the bottom of the ramp leading up to the REME camp at Governors Cottage

I was in the Drawing Office by this time and I’d already had some experience at producing designs for

oversize cap badges, for a number of the Colonel’s military friends.

These were about three times full size, cast in brass and mounted on small shields that had a hinged prop

to  enable them to stand on a suitable flat surface—a little like a photo frame however, this REME badge

had to be on a different scale and to be clearly visible from the coastal road  alongside the Camp

                                                                                Three foot high

 


                                                          

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                       A reconstruction of the REME sign, cast in Brass and Aluminium and

                            mounted on a backboard painted in Regimental colours of dark blue, yellow and red

 

The height of the REME badge was settled at three feet, this was the maximum size of drawing that I could 

produce on my drawing board, the drawings were to be used as full size templates by the Woodwork/Pattern  

shop--a procedure that had worked well with the earlier smaller scale cap badges

                  I recall that I made four separate drawings to enable four separate castings to be made;

                                                              the lightening flash—cast in brass

                                                          the horse and world—cast in aluminium

                                                               the scroll-----------------cast in brass      

                                                               the crown-----------------cast in brass

            The procedure to cast the chain was left to the discretion of the Patternmaker and Foundryman

 

To produce the drawings I used a grid system that enabled me to use a small scale drawing of the badge so

that each box of the grid had a small outline of part of the badge that I could enlarge and transfer on to the

grids of my larger drawing

I also specified thicknesses at various critical points on the paper templates

 

The master patternmaker—Sergeant Robinson—did a great job, using his abundant artistic skills in carving

some of the finer topography of the badge—especially the crown and chain

The master foundry man--an unknown corporal—also showed that he was as much at home with non ferrous

casting as he was with iron casting

 

The assembled sign was handed over to the Quartermaster, installed on a post at the entrance to the camp,

and served as an example to the manufacturing skills of the Workshop

                                                                                                               photo courtesy George Staples

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


                                      The sign was installed at the bottom of the ramp, leading up to the camp,

                                         where it joins the main Coastal Road—shown in the left foreground

 

The Quartermaster took the trouble to come into my office to compliment me on the project adding that

I’d  obviously had the good sense to refer to the Electrical and Mechanical Engineering Regulations

(EMERS) which specified   that;

                                          “A line drawn through:

                                                                            the centre of the World,

                                                                            the Horses eye and

                                                                            the centre of the pearl on the top of the Crown

                                          Should be straight and vertical”

 

                 I didn’t even know that such an EMER existed but I pretended that I knew all about it

 

                                                                          The Quartermaster

 


                                                

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                      name unknown—who was also a keen supporter of the REME 1st eleven football team

 

 

The only known photogtaph of the badge is shown in this photograph, taken at a specialist REME Workshop

 based in Gibraltar town

                                                                                                                          Photo courtesy of Norman Holland (3rd from left)

                               

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                       #  Better than the Bahamas  #

 

                                             #   Playing trains with Prince Charles & Princess Anne   #
 
                             #   More about the models  #                # "Resting" in Tangiers--at the EL Farhar   #

 


                                      

 

   The Workshop was responsible for the maintenance and repair of the fleet of Garrison cars and motor bikes

 

                              #   Football in Gibraltar (Part one)    #            #   Football in Gibraltar (Part two)   #
                                                                                                                                                

                                                                         #  Keeping the Laundry going and other Sports   #

 

                                                                                #   Home   #


                         email me   trevor_sidaway@hotmail.com                        Link to "Black Country Stories"