14-Jan-2004, 04:20 PM
Welcome Kevin, Interesting contribution on Leylands. Many Forum members know that I have been very proud to have been associated with Leyland Motors Limited as an apprentice Toolmaker, joining them before the War started. I was proud to be a Leyland Motors Apprentice, and that was something we had in those days, pride in our work. With the coming of the War, things changed, pride in your work disappeared, a false pride developed. The pride to hate the Enemy, to help to build a tank which was going to be used to kill people. We made bombs with messages on showing our hatred, we made Oeriken shells which were going to be used to kill more people. After the War, we were given a false sense of belonging to a country which had beaten the Enemy, we were proud of the mayhem and death which had been spread by our hands, the rest of the world now "owed us" a living. The Company declined, take-overs, mergers, we were getting away with it, the Victors taking the spoils of war demanded recognition, sat down and let others overtake them. Too late, we woke up, the world didn`t owe us a living, and we were reluctant to fight for survival, but fight we had to do. We had to recover that which we had squandered, history will record if we succeeded. Pride was beaten by apathy, I have written a lot on this subject, but we in Leyland, were not alone in self destruction, it happened all over the country, we thought we were owed a living, sadly, we weren`t. William R.