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by Philip Hamlyn Williams (Author)
There will be those who drove a Mini or wore a miniskirt. Some may recall the Intercity 125 train or may live in places where shipyards are now silent and mines closed. All will have benefited from antibiotics, but will fear the impact of hydrocarbons.
Seventy years ago one third of us made things, many in large factories. The television in the sitting room would have been made in England, so too the car outside and the clothes in the wardrobe; the wardrobe itself probably may have been made in a British factory.
It matters that none of these are likely now to be the case.
Things we used to do, we no longer do. Jobs like steel working, shipbuilding and coal mining which used to carry a status no longer exist in anything like the numbers they used to. This has changed the shape of communities, some of which have been blighted by decades of unemployment. Had we been lucky enough to buy a Jaguar, there would have been a glow of national pride; perhaps, no longer.
Vehicles to Vaccines explores what has changed in the world of manufacturing and why. It highlights what is new and exciting, what came and went and some of what might have been.
