[BITList] Divide and rule

[HUGH]

John,

Quite a man.  Though I refrain from commenting on it, my eyebrows were 
raised more than a little by : "men from those more feudal parts of Europe 
were sometimes struck by the easy social acceptance of a craftsman by 
England's scientific gentry."

I suppose the dividing heads used in Kincaid's toolroom were descended from 
Ramsden's machines, as are Vernier gauges and micrometers, not forgetting 
the Johansson gauges we were offered as the epitome of precision and 
accuracy in Kincaid's apprentice school.  If the firm actually had the 
latter (I don't recall) they were kept in a temperature controlled niche in 
the toolroom and we didn't see them, but pictures of the others were flashed 
up on a screen for our education, and we had 2 seconds to shout out the 
reading and whether Imperial or Metric, or else.  When I left after my 3 
months I found myself in the care of a paid up member of the Ramsden 
Society, Bernard Kok, an irascible Dutchman with fixed ideas about finish. 
Many a mirror finished item (finished by me with draw file, fine emery and 
oil) was shut up in an oil bath never to be seen again.  "Nobody will ever 
see it," I would complain.  "I can see it - you can see it - so yost polish 
the ploddy thing," was the standard reply.  When I moved a few benches along 
to Mr Petersen (probably Norwegian, but he didn't sound like it and he wore 
a beret), his idea of fun was to have me file the ends of pieces of quarter 
inch square steel dead flat and at right angles for use in governors.  I 
then took the finished articles along to the toolroom to have them hardened. 
I always paint the tops of doors, for old Bernard is up there somewhere, 
looking down at me, yost checking.

Hugh.