John Nutter's retirement drink.

Farewell party for an old friend and colleague.

On the 7th of November 2008 a retirement party for Mr John Nutter was held at the Warren in Kettering. John had been off on the sick with a bad knee prior to his 65th birthday, so many had had little opportunity to say goodbye to him and wish him the best of luck in the future.


Mr Mark Styles organised a collection for John, and after some consulting with Helen(John's wife) it was decided to convert the collected proceeds into Garden Centre Vouchers. The amount collected was £170.


Everyone met at the Warren pub, which is situated at the junction of Stamford rd and Windmill avenue in Kettering. A presentation was made to John of the Garden Vouchers and a Golden Shovel that some of the lads had come up with. A good few pints were downed here by all present.

John open's one of his presents at the party, it was a golden shovel(a shovel wrapped in gold paper.

After a few drinks in the Warren, everyone retired to a "Chinky" resturant down the road situated in the former Buccleigh Pub. It was to everyone's liking, basically you ate as much as you could eat.

Card from John to his former colleagues thanking them for their generosity.

After everyone had a good stuff there, we all returned to the Warren for a few more drinks. Some bade him farewell a short while later and wished him the best, a few remained a bit longer finally saying goodbye when John's wife Helen came to pick him up. He enjoyed his night out, and I think a good night was had by all.

Message inscribed in the card.

Who was there?
John Nutter (Guest of Honour)
Steve Calver
Andy Cawthorne
Robert Farley
Ian Fraser
Alan Ferguson
Goeff Hackett
Ian Parker
Dave Scheina
Mark Styles
Steve Valentine
Kev (SAC's man)

John Nutter "Nutter"

Nutter?

What can you same about him? He's a hard worker, never been afraid of a bit of hard graft in his life. Will give his colleagues a helping hand without thinking about it, unlike some. John is pretty much "what you see is what you get", hard working, helpful, and relatively quite spoken and mannered. Not often that you see him get agitated, most of the time he's quite placid. He's had quite a hard working life, as his face shows literally.

Years ago he was the victim of an accident that evaporated his faith in union's, and it was hardly surprising. Before the type's of lighting generators we have today, we used to have one's that you cranked to start which were mounted on a wheeled frame that you could push along much like a wheelbarrow, and before them there were some big old green ones that you cranked to start, mounted on a 4 wheeled frame.

It was one of these last one's that was the source of much pain and discomfort over the years to him. One night they were going through the worksite starting the generators up, when one of the cranking handles became stuck and proceeded to spin like a propeller blade. He saw some staff in the vacinity, and moved forward and shouted a warning to them to get out of the way. As he did so, the crank handle and generator parted company and he was struck straight between the eyes by the crank handle which resulted in severe and extensive damage to his face.

At the time he was a union member, and a claim for compensation was initiated. The faulty generator disappeared with out trace never to see the light of day again, and the union eventually told him that they wouldnt progress his case despite available eye witness evidence, expert advice and medical opinion. This was a blow for him, and one that rocked his faith in unions for ever. He didnt give up though, and ended up having to fight the case on his own, a process that became that much harder and difficult without the unions backing. He won eventually, no thamks to the union.

The union clearly let one of its members down very badly that day, speculation as to the reason why could go on and on, back-handers, union officials in the managements mockets, any number of things. One thing is clear, at the time the union was a extremely poor performer when it came to provision of services to its members, protecting its members interests, instead it collected union dues off of members effectively but did not want to do a lot else. Times have changed somewhat, the union has placed far more priority on the services it provides to members and looks to represent their interests far better than in the past.

No real down side, perhaps only that at times he's inclined to get a bee in his bonet sometimes over things, sometimes its a result of getting the wrong end of the handle on something.

An old dog soon to retire, mid October.