Author: Brian Samways
ISBN No: 9780-9574725-6-3
Review date: 24/04/2024
No of pages: 180
Publisher: Forces & Corporate Publishing
Publisher URL:
www.forcespublishing.co.uk
Year of publication: 13/05/2016
Brief:
Protect & Secure: My 30 years in the contract security industry 1980-2010, by Brian Samways for sale on Amazon; or directly from the author, priced £8.25 plus £1.80 postage and packing. Published 2016 by Forces & Corporate Publishing, ISBN 9780-9574725-6-3
price
££8.25 plus £1.80 postage and packing
Protect & Secure: My 30 years in the contract security industry 1980-2010, by Brian Samways, is a rare, interesting and welcome window on manned guarding company management from the 1980s on. With Brian’s agreement, we offer here an extract. Protect & Secure is for sale on Amazon; or directly from the author, priced £8.25 plus £1.80 postage and packing. Published 2016 by Forces & Corporate Publishing, ISBN 9780-9574725-6-3.
It’s Monday, August 5, 1985, and Brian has received a telephone call from Bob O’Hagan, inviting him to have dinner with him at the Tower Hotel London, the following day ….
The restaurant, famed for its cuisine, is located many floors up in the hotel, with a commanding and panoramic view of Tower Bridge and the River Thames, which at eight o’clock that evening was illuminated and I could see the lights of the evening traffic traversing along the embankment as we took our seats to eat.
Bob came straight to the point of our meeting, ‘Have you ever considered forming your own company?’ he said. I answered that obviously I had, but what had prompted the question. He then explained that Phase Two of News International’s plans to move their operation from Fleet Street to the near finished premises at Pennington Street, Wapping was imminent and that it would entail a tremendous amount of additional security due to the fact that they would be changing the production technology which would be rejected by the workforce and they envisaged massive hostility and protests from all the print unions involved. The new technology he referred to had been pioneered earlier that year by the entrepreneur, Eddie Shah, who had produced a newspaper called ‘Today’, using a revolutionary process using computers instead of the established, traditional method of typesetting, which enabled him to produce a paper with full colour photographs and text for the first time. Eddie Shah whose proper name was Selim Jehan Shah, had several jobs in the early years, and, after being dismissed by The Manchester Evening News, decided to create his own newspaper, which he financed by selling his home and soon afterwards was the owner of six local papers.
Shah is the first person credited to evoke Margaret Thatcher’s anti trade union legislation which brought him into conflict with the NGA (National Graphical Association) in 1983, as a result of which, over 4000 trade unionists attended a mass picket. Police Support Units from five police areas were brought in to deal with the matter which caused scenes reminiscent of the street battles in Northern Ireland during the troubles there. It was little wonder that Rupert Murdoch feared a similar situation.
Bob told me that he wanted me involved in the security and that it was an ideal time to put together my own company to accommodate this. The idea was very attractive, but, in reality, for me the timing was not right. I was not in a position to raise the finances for such a venture over a hundred miles from my home and the life of this project, no matter how long it was drawn out, was limited. I told Bob my reasoning and said it was not possible, but, nonetheless, he stated he still wanted my involvement, and I said I would do it with Paramount to which he agreed. The incumbent company at the site was still Sunlight, although they were responsible for fixtures and fittings so to speak, and control in and out of the site and buildings, but would not be responsible for securing the perimeter and any confrontation with any protesters, that would be the responsibility of Paramount. Bob concluded that the move had been planned for January, the following year (1986), hoping the cold weather would curtail the activities of the protesters, however, the contingency plans were in an advanced stage of preparation for what was to become the ‘Battle of Wapping’.
Having started my own working life in a print shop as a trainee hand compositor (one who sets type) I had a certain sympathy with all those persons employed in trades that stretched back to Johannes Gutenburg in 1476 and the print chapels that dated back to when printing was controlled by the Church, which honours the origins of the trade unions, when non-conformist churches acted as cover for the unions, which at that time were illegal, and within the chapels are titles such as father or mother of the chapel (FoC and MoC) and clerk of the chapel, (the shop steward). The Graphical, Paper and Media Union (GPMU), was founded in 1991 from the National Graphical Association (NGA), the Society of Graphical and Allied Trades and the Society of Lithographic Arts, Artists, Designers, Engravers and Process Workers (SALAD), but at the time of Wapping, SOGAT (formed in 1966 from the Nation Union of Printing, Book Binding and Paper Workers, (NUPB & PW) was the leading union. The initial contract was to supply six security officers, on 12-hour shifts each day for a total of 1,008 man hours per week, however, by January 14 the site was besieged by hundreds of protesters which swiftly developed into nightly riots necessitating the deployment of vast numbers of riot police from the Met, as a result Bob O’Hagan increased our commitment to 12 security officers per shift, taking our weekly man hour total to 3024, but this was often exceeded due to the fact that because of the barricades it was impossible to withdraw the day shift and get the night shift on site, so News International had to meet the cost of both shifts until the changeover was effected. The problem of conveying all of the strike-breaking staff and our security staff to and from the site was a complicated operation which involved a fleet of coaches which had been armoured with steel mesh screens over the windows, supplied I believe by a firm in Scotland, that had to take a lot of battering as they traversed the picket lines, and were probably only fit for scrap at the end of the operation. A series of pick up and drop off points were established throughout the capital which were changed on a daily basis, with only a minimum of notice, given on a ‘Code Word’ which was communicated to our control-room, and our guards were requested to perform additional duties by protecting the passengers in transit. The dispute spread far beyond the picket lines as the Rail Unions became involved by refusing to transport any news print emanating from News International and many distribution companies refused to deliver the papers to newsagents and other outlets, but, undeterred Rupert Murdoch engaged the logistics firm TNT to transport the papers by road, with which he was said to have a connection. This added to the problem of getting those vehicles on and off the site to independent distributors, however, many of the deliveries were vandalised before they reached the news-stands. Just how long would this conflict last and could the protesters sustain this nightly onslaught?
About this time I was in negotiations with Ken Parker and Keith Thompson of the Western Morning News based and published in Plymouth, who were also moving towards adopting the new technology and were seriously considering employing Paramount to handle their security, and in an attempt to perhaps influence their decision, I suggested they might benefit from a visit to News International. They both leapt at the opportunity and eagerly accepted my invitation, all that was left to do was to arrange things with Bob O’Hagan and he was only too pleased to oblige, saying we should all meet for lunch at the Tower Hotel, then ‘run the gauntlet’ in his car through the picket lines, after which he would give them a conducted tour of the premises. The visit took place on Thursday, March 13, 1986, and, after a very congenial lunch we boarded Bob’s vehicle which was already well battle-scarred, with dents on the bonnet, roof and boot from the continual thumping it received from the pickets. We passed through the gates to the cries of ‘Scab’ from the rows of pickets trying to block our way, but once inside Ken and Keith were given Send in the cavalry, Wapping 1986 their tour and returned to Plymouth extremely impressed with what they had witnessed and the performance of Paramount, as a result of which, from the 1st April that year we were contracted to provide the security at their Plymouth premises, by which time the ‘Battle of Wapping’ was over, the new technology had won the day and triumphed sealing the fate of the Linotype operators, the compositors, the printing press machinists, the case and galley workers and all the associated trades. It was a time of mourning for the print chapels and a period of reflection for the unions.
