I started work at the Selmer factory in Holborn,
London, immediately after Easter 1964, as a Test Technician. John
Crocker
started the same day, also on Test. The chap in charge of Test was Ron
Fowler. Ron was born in Buenos Aires but had been brought up in Jamaica
and spoke with a West Indian accent. In looks he always reminded me of
a Mexican bandit, as depicted in films.
Amplifiers were coming off the production benches by the dozen so we
were kept very busy. Remember this was 1964 and every street in the
country could boast of at least one pop-group among its younger
residents, and they were all clamouring for amplification equipment.
(ED - at this time Selmer were making the hugely popular croc-skin
covered amps).
It has been my understanding that when the Davis brothers retired to
live in the south of France, they sold Musical & Plastics
Industries (MPI) to a Midlands firm which manufactured (among other
things) umbrellas! (ED - MPI was the parent company which owned Selmer
and also Selcol, a company which made plastic products). Apparently,
the umbrella business was on the rocks and they borrowed money from
bankers to buy MPI believing that the profits from MPI would pay back
the loan and also dig the umbrella business out of the mire. This did
not transpire, and the umbrella business dragged MPI down with it. The
bankers, fearful of losing their money, ditched the umbrella firm and
put a man of their own in to bring MPI back into the black. That man
was John Cochrane, an elderly and rather short of stature person, who
had worked successfully for them in the past. He came in as Chairman
and Managing Director and appointed Dick Twydell as Production
Director, in charge of the Theobalds Road, Holborn factory. And so it
was when John Crocker and I joined Selmers.
Selmer had been building organs for several years, but they used valve
circuitry which made them rather large, and they were mainly only
suitable for use in church halls and similar establishments. With the
advent of transistor technology organs could be made much smaller such
that they became suitable for home entertainment, and this opened up a
whole new market. Selmer began importing organs from Chicago Musical
Instruments (CMI), a large American company, but because of high import
duties they were rather expensive and this limited their sales. In the
early 1960's MPI concluded an agreement with CMI which gave Selmer the
franchise to build Lowrey organs from kits of parts which were shipped
over as 'Traypacks' and assembled into cabinets made by the Selmer
subcontract cabinetmaker, Rawson Sparfield. As the kits could not be
classified as complete instruments they did not attract a large import
duty, and this combined with excellent sales in the home entertainment
market, made the arrangement quite lucrative. At the beginning they
shipped over a model known as the TLO which was quite basic with no
frills, but gradually more sophisticated models were introduced which
incorporated Leslie speaker units, reverberation, automatic rhythm etc.
In the autumn of 1964 'OXFAM' organised a Pop Competition whereby
amateur groups throughout the country could enter regional heats, to be
judged for best performance, these being gradually whittled down and
the six best to be finally judged by a panel of celebrities at a gala
televised performance in the Prince of Wales theatre in Piccadilly.
Selmer were invited to provide the amplification equipment throughout
the event to which Twydell agreed, as it gave the Company an excellent
advertisement . The South London heats were held in Lewisham Town Hall,
and various members of our staff took turns to attend in order to keep
an eye on the equipment and to deal with any associated problems which
might arise. I was also in attendance at the Prince of Wales theatre,
and I recall that Cilla Black was one of the judges and that the
Manfred Mann group were engaged to play during a break in the
proceedings.
Initially, the test room personnel were also responsible for servicing
any returned equipment, but early in 1965 it was decided to separate
these functions, and two of the test staff were detached and relocated
in another area of the factory to carry out the service operation. This
left myself, John Crocker, Ron Fowler and two women inspectors. In
addition, it was arranged that the test facility would be carried out
in a small 'greenhouse' type structure erected in the production shop
rather than in an enclosed room away from the manufacturing area. I had
become quite friendly with Ron, and we often went out for a drink
together, and I was not surprised when he told me that he had accepted
a better job with a large firm nearer to where he lived. However, this
turned out to my advantage as shortly after he left, Mr Twydell asked
me to take over his job, and I was able to recruit Allan Baldwin to
join us.
At that time there were two people in R&D. John Hosey and Brian
Davis. John Hosey was responsible for the 'upside down' black and blue
range of amplification which came after the gold finish (ED :
croc-skin) range, also the PA100, which was based on a Mullard circuit, the Twin Lead 30, and the Stereomaster,
which the sales people wanted because the were selling stereo guitars. Brian
Davis developed the Taurus 60 (later called the Saturn 60) which was an all transistor
amplifier. Unfortunately it did not go well due to the frequent failure
of the germanium output transistors. In fairness to Brian it should be
stated that our competitors were not faring much better with their
transistor efforts, as these devices were quite new to us at that time,
and few people had much experience in using them.
.jpg)
February 1967 Selmer advertisement showing
the range of "upside-down" Blue-Black amplifiers referred to above.
Soon after Ron went, John Hosey also left, and then a little later,
Brian Davis took a job with Marconi. This left no one in R&D, and
the hierarchy took on a man as Technical Director. I cannot recall his
name, but he strutted into the laboratory with two assistants and
proceeded to do precisely nothing. At this time the Twin Lead 30
was causing problems due to it being a valve amplifier, but with a
germanium transistor pre-amp stage. These transistors became hot due to
the output valves being in their close proximity, and thus they failed.
Dick Twydell was under pressure from Sales to do something about it,
and he asked me what I thought could be done. I suggested that the
transistor needed to be replaced by a valve but there was very little
space to spare in the case. However, I said that I thought I could
figure it out and he told me to go ahead, and I believe that is what I
am doing in the photo published in 'Beat International'. With some
difficult manoeuvring I managed it and I took my prototype to Dick. He
told me to give it to the new Technical Director with the message that
he should prepare it for production. This I did, but the next day the
Technical Director came to me with the request that I make another
prototype. When I asked what
had happened to the original he told me that they had taken it to
pieces and were unable to put it together again! To say that I was
livid would be an understatement, and I blankly refused to have
anything to do with it. However, Dick asked me to collect the pieces
and organise the thing for production, and it was later re-launched as
the All-Purpose 30 (AP30).
.jpg)
October 1967 Selmer advertisement introducing
John Weir's new All-Purpose Twin 30, together with the new 100 watt Zodiac
and Thunderbird heads.
Because competition in the industry was fierce at that time, new
products were always needed, and the hierarchy decided that they wanted
an amplifier similar to the PA100 but having six channels with
reverberation on two of them, and this to be ready for showing at the
1967 Music Industries Fair which was held every summer in the Russell
Hotel in Bloomsbury. This assignment was given to the Technical
Director and his assistants.
As the 1967 Fair drew near, the Directors wanted to know where the new
amplifier was, and when it became obvious that the Technical Director
had failed to achieve anything at all, they were not best pleased to
state the least. All of the Selmer dealers had been told that the new
amplifier would be demonstrated at the Fair, and this was going to
leave the hierarchy with egg on their faces. After a great deal of
discussion they decided that a dummy would be made. An empty cabinet
with a front panel adorned with knobs and switches. This would be shown
at the Fair, with the comment that a few final touches were required
before it could be released. And so it was, but the hierarchy had had
enough. The Technical Director and his assistants were required to
resign forthwith. However, this left the company with a further problem
in that within a few months the next Music Industries Fair would be
upon them and they still did not have the 100 watt amplifier to show.
By this time I had rebuilt the AP30 and it had gone into production,
and largely on the strength of this, and also out of desperation, Dick
Twydell asked me if I thought I could tackle the design of the large
model. I had to weigh up the pro's and con's. To my advantage was the
fact that we already had a 100 watt amplifier with four channels, so
that I would be able to use some of the existing circuitry, but I would
have to add reverberation circuitry with two more channels. The
disadvantage that I saw was that I would have to use the same external
design and layout as the dummy model which had already been seen by the
Trade at the previous Fair. This I thought may or may not affect the
working of the finished unit, however, I saw this as my big chance and
felt confident that I would be able to overcome any problems, so I
accepted the challenge, and forthwith moved into the laboratory to
begin work.
After many problems, some of my own making, I managed to complete a
prototype six channel amplifier, and the Marketing Director came up to
the factory to hear and inspect it. Fortunately for me he gave it his
approval and it went into production as the PA100R in plenty of time for the 1968
Music Industries Fair. After this I continued working on various
development projects, including a small 5 watt amplifier (ED - the Mercury model)
to replace the 'Little Giant' which had been popular as a practice amp,
and the Directors showed their gratitude by promoting me to Technical
Manager.
.jpg)
February 1968 Selmer advertisement
introducing John Weir's new PA100 Reverberation amplifier.
The Selmer operation occupied three locations; the factory at Holborn,
the warehouse in Clerkenwell, and the showroom and head offices in
Charing Cross Road. The wind instrument repair shop was also at Charing
Cross Road, under the control of Charlie Wicks. Having assessed his
task, the Chairman concluded that the overheads on the three
establishments in central London were too great, and decided that it
would be financially advantageous if they could be brought together
into one unit, and preferably out of London. At that time the
Government was eager to encourage firms to move out of the city, and
the incentives they offered were very attractive. Cochrane looked at
several possibilities; even Dumfries in Scotland. However, our
associate company Selcol was situated in Braintree, Essex, where they
manufactured plastic mouldings, mainly of garden ornaments and toys.
(Ed - See Selcol's Plastic"Junior Beatle" Guitar
elsewhere on this website.) They were not doing very well and in late
1967 Cochrane sent Dick Twydell to Braintree to ascertain whether it
could be made viable. For various reasons it was not thought possible,
and a decision was made to close it down and move the whole Selmer
business into the Selcol premises, leaving only the Charing Cross Road
showroom and head offices in London.
During 1968 various people were interviewed and asked if they would
consider moving to Braintree, including myself. One of the Government
perks of moving was an allocation of houses and flats, and I was told
that I would get a flat if I accepted. As I seemed to be getting on
well I did not relish the thought of leaving Selmer, but on the other
hand, I liked living and working in London. I found it a difficult
decision to make, but in the end I agreed to go.
Twydell was given the task of arranging the evacuation of the Selcol
premises, and the transfer of the manufacturing plant from
Holborn. It was hoped that as least some of the employees at Braintree
would agree to remain and be trained to undertake the new work, but
unfortunately the management of the plastics business were less than
pleased with what was happening, and persuaded their staff to refuse
the offer.
On Friday 22th of November 1968 I was working at the Holborn
factory when I received a phone call from Braintree. It was Twydell. At
the last minute he had persuaded six of the female staff to stay, and
wanted me to be at the Braintree premises at 7.30am on Monday 25th, to
greet them and begin their training. He had taken the liberty of
booking me into a small hotel, 'The Old Court', which was fortunately
situated only about 100 yards along the road from the factory, and so
it was that I drove up and booked in at the hotel on the Sunday
afternoon.
Having to be at the factory at 7.30am the next morning, I wanted to be
sure of being on the premises early, and left the hotel just after 7am
which was too early for breakfast to be served, but luckily I found a
drinks machine in the factory and managed to get a cup of coffee. I was
soon confronted by six ladies who arrived for training, albeit somewhat
anxiously, as they were convinced that they would not be able to do the
work. However, my problems were only just beginning. I had been promise
that a couple of workbenches would be left in the production bay, with
sockets connected to the electricity supply, but because the management
were so sour about the transfer, they had made sure that all of the
benches were disconnected and moved into awkward positions.
I had brought an amplifier with me, so I placed it on an empty bench
and asked the ladies to examine and discuss it while I tried to sort
something out. Although the premises had been vacated, the toolroom
still existed in a small separate building, and the toolroom manager,
Keith Taylor, was going about his business. Unlike the others who had
left me in the lurch, Keith was very sympathetic and helped me to drag
two heavy benches into a suitable position, and wired a cable into an
adjacent fuse box to supply power to the benches. I soon had soldering
irons heated up and went to fetch the girls. Having looked closely at
the amplifier I had brought with me, they were now even more convinced
that they could not do the work, and my main problem was in persuading
them that if the London operators could do it, so could they. However,
I showed them how to solder some scrap pieces of wire together and left
them to practice for a while Then with some suitable compliments from
me with regard to their efforts, they settled down in a better frame of
mind.
It had been decided that a complete set of parts and equipment to build
25 PA100 amplifiers, would be sent down by lorry, and the consignment
duly arrived, and work was commenced. This kept us all busy, and as
there were no inspectors or test technicians I had to take on this job
myself. I should point out here that once the ladies had overcome their
initial doubts, they picked up the wiring and assembly skills
remarkably quickly, and I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of their
work. Dick Twydell visited us several times as also did the Chairman.
At the end of January 1969 the London operation closed down, except for
the Charing Cross Road showroom, and lorries began bringing all of the
stores and equipment to Braintree. I had started recruiting some staff
to augment the six girls, and things went fairly well at first, but the
lorry loads of materials were arriving so fast that it became
impossible to cope. I remember complaining to Twydell, but he had
promised the Chairman that the move would be completed by a certain
date and there was nothing to be done about it. I felt rather
despondent, especially when I viewed the huge mountains of materials
piled up over every inch of the floor area, but eventually staff were
sent up from London temporarily to assist in getting everything
straight, and so the problem gradually subsided.
Because most of the staff were new, it was necessary for me to spend
the majority of my time on the shop floor dealing with various
production problems, as well as keeping an eye on product development,
but I had engaged a reasonably good engineer, John Lawrence, and so for
the most part I left him to work on a new transistor amplifier, which
was to become the Taurus.
Nevertheless, due to the upheaval, we were unable to produce anything
new for the 1969 Music Industries Fair, much to the chagrin of the
sales department. However, I had been working on a 'Fuzz-Wah' foot
pedal before leaving Holborn, so this was completed and put into
production.
.jpg)
June 1986 Selmer advertisement for John
Weir's Fuzz-Wah pedal
A major change took place during that first year. I had been aware even
during the years in London, that Dick Twydell consistently made
promises to the sales department with regard to the availability of
goods being produced, which were not possible to be met by the actual
production
facility. Needless to state, this situation was causing considerable
upset, and the Sales Manager
kept complaining bitterly to the Chairman,who in his wisdom, decided
that Dick had to go. Although Dick and I had crossed swords on numerous
occasions, we had always understood each other and in fact it was
largely due to him that I had achieved my
position as Technical Manager, so I was rather sad that it had turned
out this way.
They engaged another Production Director before Twydell left. This guy
knew all the right things to say in order to impress the hierarchy, but
I soon realised that he was hardly suitable for our operation. He had
previously worked for a large television and radio company, and so
thought in terms of large scale production flow lines. This was
entirely unsuitable for our business where we needed flexibility to
produce a number of different types of amplifier and speaker in batches
of 25 or 50. He succeeded in alienating most of the production staff
and their output suffered. During this time the Chairman engaged a
manager to oversee the Service Department. He was also given the task
of devising a complete new look for our products. For this he hired a
Designer on a subcontract basis, who had no technical knowledge but was
in fact an artistic designer. After some study, the man put forward a
report complete with coloured drawings of what he felt was required.
His ideas would have probably been suitable for domestic Hi-Fi
equipment, but were totally unsuitable for our type of products which
had to stand up to the rough usage of people performing in pubs and
clubs, as well as looking attractive.
At the end of this first year I was told that a new range of
amplification equipment would be required for showing at the 1970 Trade
Fair. I had already anticipated this and had been giving the matter
some thought. Our dealers, having become disillusioned with transistor
amplifiers, had made it clear to our sales people that they were only
interested in purchasing valve equipment. I knew our existing range
well, and I had been made aware of what was currently in vogue, and on
the basis of 'If it ain't broke don't fix it', I decided that our
current products were quite good, but that by eliminating the weaknesses
and incorporating some new ideas put to me by young guitar players, I
should then have a suitable range, particularly if I gave it all a new
look, with thick, chunky cabinets which were then the fashion. Although
the Artistic Designer had not achieved what had been hoped for, I noted
that he had put forward an idea for the front panels which intrigued
me. This was that the panels of all similar models should be of the
same size, and all hole punchings should be made on the same matrix, so that
even those which only needed a few holes could be placed over any of the
others and the holes would line up. This would also make production cheaper
and easier. I incorporated this as far as possible into the new range, and
together with the other changes, produced a set of prototypes for the
approval of the management and sales staff. They were well received, and
launched as the SV range at the 1970 Fair.
.jpg)
September 1970 Selmer advertisement
introducing the new "SV" range.
At about this time there were rumblings of discontent among the organ
sales staff. It appeared that the American public preferred different
models to the British public. CMI refused to accept this and started to
discontinue those organs which did not sell well in the States. This
included the GAK which sold very well here. They began sending new
models over which failed to gain popularity in this country, and sales
were falling as a result.
Unfortunately, Selmer were never able to sell their amplification
equipment in the USA. I cannot be certain why this was, but I believe
it was due to an American company with the same name, objecting to the
import of goods with their logo. Obviously it would have made quite a
difference to the sales figures if this had not been the case. (ED -
this could have been due to rivalry between Henri Selmer's US company
and Selmer UK).
By 1971 the Sales team had realised that the trend was for more
powerful
amplifiers, and I was asked to develop a 200 watt outfit complete with
suitable speakers. A competition had been set up within the company to
find a name for it, and the winner put forward the name 'CHIEFTAIN', which was met with general approval.
I was requested to incorporate some features which had proved popular
in past models, such as push button tone changing, and this I did. In
order to take full advantage of the power, I had words with the guys at
Celestion and they came up with a 30 watt horn speaker. I incorporated
this into a cabinet with two 12 inch dual cone units for the high
frequencies, and also had a vented cabinet with four 12 inch units for
bass. Two of these set-ups were given to 'McGuiness Flint' who were a
popular group at that time, and they told me that they had to use them
with the horn units on the floor, as if they had them up higher they
blew their heads off!
.jpg)
July 1971 Selmer advertisement, showing
McGuiness Flint with their Chieftain amplifier outfit on the left.
About the summer of 1971, Dick Twydell's successor, after a succession
of disagreements with the Chairman, resigned and left the company.
Cochrane then called me to his office and told me that I was to take
over as Production Manager. I felt obliged to do so, but was not at all
happy about it, as I much preferred the technical development work
which I had been doing. However, the production figures had not been
good, due to the flow-line mentality instigated by the previous
Production Manager, which had upset the operators. My first move was to
revert to the batch production technique we had used previously, and I
put the operators on a bonus scheme so that they were able to earn more
for increased quantity and quality.
In early 1972 John Cochrane retired. His replacement was Michael
Nugent, a much younger man with a reputation as a Wizz-Kid. He
certainly proved to be a much better boss than his predecessor and
things improved quickly. However, his reputation spread to CMI and he
was soon invited to join their business in Chicago, so in barely a year
he left us for America, but the Board of our Holding Company refused to
release him from his contract until he had found a suitable person to
succeed him. He quickly found Malcolm Parkin, a man of similar age to
himself, but whether due to his haste to get to Chicago or not, his
choice soon proved to be a disaster.
Parkin and I did not get on too well, and the situation between us
quickly deteriorated as far as I was concerned. There were also strong
rumours that CMI had made an offer to buy Selmer in order to establish
a UK base. I therefore began thinking seriously about leaving, and
started investigating possible positions with other companies.
In September 1973 I left Selmer. Not long after, Chicago Musical
Instruments bought it, and it started to go downhill fast. Parkin
resigned and his place was taken by Dean Kerr who had been Marketing
Director. Dean was a fine trumpet player and had previously played with
the 'Clyde Valley Stompers' in his home town of Glasgow. I always got
along OK with Dean but he was not cut out to be Chairman. After a while
it became too much for him and he asked to step down. He was made
Managing Director and another Chairman was brought in. Due to the
attitude of the Americans regarding which model organs should sell well
in the UK, and the fact that they failed to develop any further
amplification products to meet the approval of the market, the business
gradually dwindled down. They eventually had to move out of the
Woolpack Lane premises, and into a much smaller unit on a factory
estate. I am not certain when they finally closed, but I believe it was
during the very early 80's. The Woolpack
Lane factory was used by another firm for a while, then stood empty
(and vandalised) for years. It was eventually bulldozed down in the mid
1990's and the site is now a private housing development.
So died a Company that had everything going for it during the 60's, but it all went wrong in the end. It's very sad.
JOHN WEIR
