A newly promoted Estates Officer at the Bradford District Care Trust, who began his working life as an apprentice electrician aged 16, and whose varied subsequent career has seen him spend 19 years in the NHS, is among the latest tranche of new IHEEM Associate Members (listed right).
Martyn Mallinson almost became a television engineer at 16 when, having decided ‘A’ levels were no longer for him, he was faced with a choice of two jobs on offer at the time – television engineer, or apprentice electrician. Choosing the latter, he began his apprenticeship at a small contracting company, spending much of his time on commercial and industrial work for the ‘dwindling’ textile and engineering trades. He said: “One of my first jobs, however, was on a Barclays Bank refurbishment, where I soon got to grips with the relatively new plastic conduit system, learning to warm the conduit up by rubbing a cloth up and down it before bending it, and then trying to find a spring that wasn’t kinked or sprained.” Leaving the firm after 14 years, Martyn Mallinson joined one of the company’s customers, a mill which required a fulltime electrician. He said: “We had the usual mix of old (some machines converted from belt and pulley to motor- driven) and new equipment (I remember some spinning frames with a soft start apparatus, where each phase was connected to a water tank, and used the resistance of the water to start the machine without breaking the threads). The textile industry was, however, in decline, and after three years the company ceased trading. The day I learned I was to be made redundant, however, I rang my old company, who told me I could re-start there immediately.” When the electrical company subsequently ‘felt the pinch,’ he began seeking a new job, and in 1993 applied for an electrical craftsman position with Bradford District Care Trust (a mental health and community health Trust). He spent 10 years in the role, responsible for all maintenance, fire alarms, intruder alarms, generators, and central stations, before becoming a technician, with the added responsibility of Authorised Person for electrical safety. Martyn Mallinson said: “I was recently promoted to hospital engineer in charge of planned preventative maintenance (or Estates Officer as it is known at the Bradford District Care Trust), so will have a new set of skills to learn, including management duties. I am looking forward to the challenge, and equally to many years of IHEEM membership.”
