Doug Fattic wrote:- <Does anyone know anything about C.F. Hill (C as in Charles) Frames? He had an establishment on 856 Old Kent Road, London S.E.15. In 1973 I visited that shop and bought a frame that had been hanging from the rafters for some time>
< What sticks in my mind was that they got paid per frame (not a salary or hourly wage) and that it took them on average just over a day to build each one. What shocked me was that he said they got paid a bob a frame. (A bob meant shilling like a buck means dollar. Oh my, it's been awhile since I've thought in these terms. There were 12 shilling to a pound and at that time a pound was worth $2.40 to $2.50.) His recollection of this wage scale must have been from the 50's and perhaps the 60's.> I don't remember C.F. Hill but found Doug's tale most interesting but I'm not sure he is right about the pay rates. Nor was there twelve shillings to one £. There were twelve pennies to a shilling and twenty shillings to a £ (making 240 pennies to a £)- pay attention at the back! In the fifties a skilled manual worker would earn about £10 a week, maybe a little more in London. So to earn a typical wage at a "bob" a frame it would be necessary to build 200 frames a week! I am sure Doug is right that the frame builders were paid by results (called piece work in the UK) as this was normal in manufacturing of all kinds (my mother worked in a firework factory on piece work, not really an occupation were you wanted to be cutting corners!) It is hard to imagine that too much time was spent mitreing the tubes when "time was money" in the frame building shop. Ray Green, Harrow, Middlesex