FORMER metallurgist Trefor Morgan has very kindly lent us a selection of old photographs of the Whiteheard torpedo works and Wellworthy’s at Ferrybridge.

He found the pictures dumped in a skip in 1994 when the factory closed and has kept them ever since.

They are sure to bring back memories for a lot of local people.

He said: “I was one of the last people in the factory and I found them when I was clearing out the lab. I thought it was a pity that they were being thrown out so I picked them up.”

The pictures range from old aerial shots to interior pictures and staff photographs. In one, you can see women at work making aluminium pistons.

Trefor said: “The women were given that job because it was ‘cleaner’ than working with other metals.”

The one colour picture, which Trefor took himself, is of a container of sodium cyanide.

He said: “Cyanide becomes dangerous when it is at a strength of seven parts in a million and there is enough in that container to kill everyone in Dorset and further afield as well.

“It is molten salt, heated up to 890C.”

Another photograph is an aerial shot of Wellworthy’s and the surrounding area. You can see the torpedo jetty reaching out into Portland harbour and the Weymouth to Portland railway line running along the side of the factory. On the other side of the building you can see the old ferry bridge running across the Fleet. Another interesting image is of a model of the factory with a ‘possible new Portland Weymouth link road’ stuck on to the harbour side of the mocked-up building.

After leaving Wellworthys, Trefor and a group of his former colleagues set up a new company called Weymouth Pin. They operated out of the Lynch Lane industrial estate in Weymouth making gudgeon pins and their design was taken up by Formula 1, superbikes and the Indie car circuit.

Trefor said: “We were determined to make the best pins in the world. In an engine they link the piston to the con rod so they have to be the strongest component in the engine.”