Courtesy of Scottish Screen Archive

In contrast to the modern mechanised production line methods proudly promoted in The Big Mill (1963), this footage shot inside the Etna steel mill records the old hand processes which were about to disappear with the imminent closure of the Etna works in the late 1960s. The steel mill owners Colvilles, arranged for a professional filmmaker to record the old methods of manufacture of steel billets.

The heated billets (short lengths of red hot steel) shoot out of the reheating furnace and are caught by the fettlers, men equipped with large pincers, and fed manually into the mill roll. The catchers wore aprons that sometimes caught fire from sparks and intense heat or, as the clip reveals, often no effective protective clothing at all, despite the proximity to molten metal. The film was shot silent. On the factory floor there would have been a cacophony of machine noise, men shouting to each other and searing heat from the furnaces. By today's standards of health and safety at work, this was a hard, dangerous job in an unpleasant environment.

Janet McBain

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