The AGM and Barrie Yates’ Talk – Thursday 24th Sept 2026
by John Aldersley
Your roving reporter attended the AGM and talk and I must say we discussed lots of things during the evening. As always this report is only my thoughts and I have used my artistic licence and made up the rest as per usual.
Graham Roper, our president, thanked Tim for opening up for the event. What a great host, I have thanked Mark Moody, Sam Wilkinson as without WDS’s help the association would have struggled, WDS do not charge the association for allowing us to use their board room.
We had a very good attendance, compared with last year, but your reporter would like to say, please attend all events as we put a lot of effort in to arranging them, if you feel the events need changing to suit your needs please let the council know, as we would love to hear from you, it’s your association.
Gordon Toulson was our scribe and he had his work cut out trying to record the main parts of the AGM, so please read them when they are published.
A few things that I found interesting were Barrie’s concerns about the way the association was going. Barrie feels that the association has lost a lot of its professionalism (my words) and is not taken seriously. Barrie suggested that the function of the association needed to be re-instated. we discussed this topic. Graham, our President, said unfortunately the world has changed since 1865 and the association must change to fit in with new ways.
I sat with Ben King and Harvey Court, both working at Kirkstall Precision, Ben is in his early twenties, to whom we presented our student of the year award, see photo. Ben had previously won a gold award at WorldSkills in the UK. In my view that makes him probably the best in the country at CNC milling, programming, beating students backed by multi billion pound companies. Harvey is 19, and opposite us we had John Bentley at 90, Alex Rogers 93, then Barrie, I believe he is 84, where else would you have this range of experience.
Here is a link to:- Kirkstall Precision
We had a minute’s silence in memory of Ian Scholes. Graham read a card of thanks from Ian’s widow Pat, thanking us all for the flowers that Malcolm organised, and for those who attend Ian’s funeral service. Graham said a few words, saying Ian was a quite stalwart of the council, extremely diligent in all he did.
To Barrie’s talk :- ‘A Generalist rather than a Specialist.’
I had asked Barrie when he rang me a couple of weeks ago, if he would consider doing a further talk on his working life. Your reporter would like to hear from you all, as he believes it should be of huge interest to the association and those who look on the website.
So luckily Barrie told us about his working life starting at 15 leaving school with little in qualifications, with dyslexia and wanting to be a rocket engineer, which came from his Dan Dare comic. He actually achieved this by presenting himself with so much enthusiasm at an interview, that he was set on at 15. Learning in the first year, prior to starting an apprenticeship, a lot of things, basically Barrie was a sponge and took it all in, then proceeded to complete a 5 year apprenticeship. Due to the secretive work Barrie had signed the Official Secrets Act, along with that he was taught precision, something that was lost with this reporter, who did and still struggles to hold ⅛ of an inch in the filling and fitting stakes, Barrie was talking ‘tenths’. Older engineers often talk in this foreign language but it’s actually an English measurement and easy to convert using the formula 25.4 to convert an inch to mm. 1 tenth of a ‘thou’ is 0.0001” of an inch or 0.0025mm (around 25 microns if you haven’t fallen asleep with this drivel). So Barrie was a very good fitter (just like Ian Scholes).
Because working to close tolerances was embedded in Barrie’s apprenticeship, it stuck with him and later Barrie took up design work and was aware of tolerances and how to apply them when parts are fitted together. This is fundamental, but not all engineers get that. So Barrie had a very good standing.
There was mention of guided missiles, cones for rockets, truly Dan Dare, fancy making a dream come true, amazing.
He decided he wanted to do something new, getting on to a new venture. I believe his next step was something that many of us, in fact none of us are likely to experience, Barrie went to Vauxhall, for those who want to learn more about the great British brand I have a link here.
Here is a Wikipedia link to:-Vauxhall history
Barrie was involved in saving the company money, with a car dropping off the production line every 45 seconds. A second saved per component made can make a massive difference. Whether Barrie was a time and motion study engineer, work study engineer, we may also know this as method study. Barrie was on it and achieved success doing it.
Barrie stated that Vauxhall made every part of the cars, with just a few exceptions. Can you imagine, the seats, dash, chrome work, steering wheel, suspension, transmission, engine, bodywork, brakes. Just a few parts, tyres window glass and later wiring looms, but most other parts are made by them. This involved 20,000 people in its heyday, as I said what an opportunity.
We found out that throughout Barrie’s working life and still today he is obsessed with how things work, how a part is made, and loves analysing things. His talk was as a generalist rather than specialist. He said he wasn’t alone at doing this and we heard from Alex, who happened to mention that he had been working in Africa for a massive world leading oil/gasoline company and returned to the UK and started a job involving one arm bandits. Picture below as not everyone will know what your reporter is on about.
Some know them as fruit machines, Some will know they will take every pound you have, hence the bandit.
What Barrie was getting at in my view was that a good engineer can turn their hand to many tasks. This is the general side of engineering, specialists can be slightly at a disadvantage, especially in today’s market place.
Barrie had over the years found out so much about so many things and has a lot of knowledge about a great deal of things. Barrie would dip into something of interest and find out more if required. So he ventured into working for himself, supplying parts and assemblies purely down to knowing where to find someone who had the skills to make each part. As he had made so many friends in the industry paying them in 30 days he found he had around 150 different companies and or people with the skills to work for him as subcontractors.
Now I worked in subcontract and may have had 30 such people and companies, so Barrie really did have a massive grasp on the situation.
Barrie spoke of the bureaucracy of the MOD (Ministry of Defence) and how projects were taken on and took years, then were dropped or given away. He has a passion for nuclear power and has given talks in the past. A system from years ago was mothballed and the info was left to be found, so China didn’t have to do much to resurrect it and is now using the technology for free.
We heard that Barrie had a stint at a company called AC Delco, who produced parts for the automotive industry.
A link to a video about AC Delco:- AC Delco info
Some may know them as a spark plug manufacturer, Barrie told me some time since that the company were using multi spindle (six spindle autos) to produce the spark plug body but during his time they introduced new technology in the form of cold forming, let AI explain it.
I bet that was an interesting transformation, taking some very clever engineering thinking.
We really ran out of time. Barrie did say how pleased he was to see the younger members doing so well. He wanted them to think outside the box. I do believe he puts them in high regard and sees something of himself in them.
Barrie will no doubt have his head in the New Scientist as I type my report, he will be drafting up a strongly worded email to someone and putting them right over something and rightly so. Barrie has been and still is a driving force to the association, outspoken yes, correct, yes he is usually.
N.B.
Here is a little story of when Barrie came to visit me at work. Dave Hall, who was our labourer/ driver, saw man and toilet wrecker, called into my office, saying there’s a bloke just pulled up outside the front door in a MX5 top down, flat cap and cravat at has a London accent, looking for you. I thought hello sounds like Barrie Yates and low and behold, right behind Dave there was Barrie, waltzing straight in, the car blocking the main door hole, with him saying I am here to see John.
In the next hour, Barrie had met everybody, the MD, company secretary, toured the shop floor, welding, offices, toolroom, clutch department, inspection, all before I had written a risk assessment. Then no sooner had Barrie arrived he was off up the road waving at Dave.
John Aldersley – September 2026
.