Monday, March 26, 2007

Bikers




In the fifties and sixties, when ABB was still known as ASEA, very few workers (many of them early immigrants from Italy and former Yugoslavia) could afford a car. Most of them went by bike, and all of them going to work at the same time early in the morning was said to be a sight of its own - such a sight that it generated a monument fifty years later.


Gotta love it! Both the phenomenon itself, but also the fact that someone actually appreciated it enough to realise that it's a "working class hero"-kind of city history well worth to preserve and honour with a monument.

Better not forget the lunch box.

"I simply GOTTA get ahead of that guy!"

5 comments:

jams o donnell said...

I like it. forgive my ignorance, what is ABB?

It;s nice to see lots of non military monuments but the UK and its history... the biggest memorial here in Romford is to the soldiers killed in WWI and WWII and to the civiliams killed in german bombing raids during the blitz. When she was a 6 year old the not-wife's (what the hell - Shirl's) mum was trapped by the wreckage of a V2 missile that destroyed their house. The family had their bomb shelter under the greenhouse they were stuck there for about 6 hours before they were rescued.

But I digress...I envy a nation that last went to war during the Naopleonic era!

Siv said...

Oh! http://www.abb.com/

(I'm so used to it, I simply forget that ABB is not "ABB" with everyone around the world :))

And YES, we are lucky not to have suffered any wars for so long.

Cecilia said...

Lovely bikers!

jams o donnell said...

Ah is that who you work for? The local big firm used to be the Ford plant at Dagenham few km away

Siv said...

I did, for 13 years :)