Liverpool factory closed for decades where 'everyone got on'

A Liverpool factory that's now been closed for decades was a place where "everyone got on." For years, Standard-Triumph, a car manufacturing company, operated in Speke.

From 1959, Triumph relocated to the city and built the Triumph Herald, Vitesse, 1300 and others through the 1960s, the ECHO previously reported. The site also became known for manufacturing the famous Triumph TR7 sports car.

British Leyland later took over Triumph before closing its doors in Speke in 1981 after decades of delivering vehicles. Peter Sankey, now 70, worked on the production line for the TR7 in his early 20s and still has fond memories of his time there.

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As part of the Liverpool ECHO's How It Used To Be series, we spoke to Peter, originally from the city centre, about his memories of the former factory. He told the ECHO: "They were taking on extra shift workers because they were doubling the shifts up and doing a night shift so I think they took on 1500 men.

"I was working in an engineering factory in Kirkby and during our dinner I took a gang of three lads in my car to a job centre to do the registration forms. I had no intention to apply because I'd worked in engineering all my life.

"One of the lads said why don't you just fill the form out and see if you get the job so I did and I got an interview, passed the medical and started in 1976. I stayed there until the factory closed after the strikes in 1978."

On site, Peter would work as a "relieve man" on the production line, a job he said he loved to do "every day." He said: "I'd relieve ten or 12 people so they could go have a smoke or if they worked a block pattern where they'd stop the line for 20 minutes or half an hour, then I'd go and do absentee cover anywhere in the factories they had in that side of the road in the No.2 Plant.

"There were four factories and if my mind serves me right, the first was a body in white, the second block was paint, the third block was where they did the Triumph Stag which got shipped down Birmingham way and the final assembly was where they dropped the body onto the engine and gearbox.

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"The final assembly for the TR7 which was the block I worked in. If they had any snags on the car they also had a department called the garage that rectified any clawbacks picked up on the line.

"I loved it. I would have still been there if it hadn't closed."

In the late 70s, Peter said he and other colleagues would work two weeks of days and two weeks of nights and that within the large workforce working on the assembly line, everyone got to know one another by name. He said: "There was a good atmosphere and good banter with the lads.

"I wasn't doing the same job day in and day out. I was doing ten different parts on the line.

"I think on the line there may have been 200, 300 lads, assembling parts to the car, underneath the car and there was a top floor where you'd be putting the seats in, the dashboard, things like that." September 1974 saw the first production of the Triumph TR7 at the Speke factory and the ECHO previously reported how to mark the fiftieth anniversary, dozens of members from the TR Drivers Club gathered at the factory site earlier this month.

Peter also attended the event, where he spoke to fans of the TR7 about what it was like to work at the infamous Speke No.2 Plant. He said: "My brother has a Triumph Stag car that was built there so we often go to classic car shows so that’s how I met John and Dave from the TR7 Owners Club.

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"When I told them that I used to build them he said can we interview you for our members to see. At the event, they asked me to talk to the members there and I told them a bit about the plant.

‘"I love history and I was made up that I did it in the end. Even now the cars are getting on to 50 years old, they looked great."

Peter said Triumph in Speke is still remembered fondly and that if he could revisit the site he would. He said: "Everyone just got on with one another and worked - it was a good, friendly atmosphere.

"You knew everyone by their first name, even further down the line, because it used to be maybe 100 to 200 meters long. You got to know everyone."