Interviews of Bill Boone aged 80

Biographical interview with Bill Boone (b. 1937, Glasgow). Bill grew up in Glasgow and completed his apprenticeship in engineering and a BSc at Strathclyde University before moving to Teesside to work with ICI. His main job was designing new factories and this work took him to Ireland, Australia and Brazil, as well as Dumfries and Galloway. Bill provides an overview of how the ICI Dumfries plant was developed, describing the different parts of the process for designing and then running and developing this resources, which at one time employed 1,500 people on-site plus a further 1,000 through contractors. He also describes how the development of digital technologies, especially in film and video, led to the decline of the factory.

Talking about his role as a commissioning engineer, Bill said that this work was very enjoyable and challenging. Working with a group of people to realise very difficult projects resulted in a strong team in which every person was part of the resulting success. On this note, he remarks that in the UK there was a tendency to want things to work perfectly right away whereas he had learned in Australia that sometimes it's best just to get on with the implementation and learn from any mistakes which transpire. At the end of the interview, Bill says that he's very glad the project is gathering in this information before it's lost. He's now been retired for 26 years and was surprised he could still remember so much.