Free The West Winford Incident by John Parker Page A

mid-twenties. Dorinda McCann was generously built though not fat, she had a cheerful, ruddy complexion, grey wiry hair and had not completely lost her Irish brogue, even after thirty years away pursuing her professional career in both the USA and England. Her junior colleague, Collingwood, fresh faced, bespectacled, had only recently joined the Central Laboratories.
    Henry Fletcher poured coffee and they settled around the table. Almost immediately, they were joined by Miss Pauline Sage who, it transpired, had been appointed sub-committee secretary. She declined Henry’s offer of coffee as she efficiently settled, notebook at the ready.
    After formally opening the meeting, Henry introduced himself and asked the others to do so for the record. He continued by saying that, although he wanted this and subsequent meetings to be as informal as possible, they would have to observe certain formalities, particularly with regard to paperwork and reporting. Fortunately, he announced, Miss Sage, despite her youth, had a wealth of experience in committee matters and he felt sure that she would keep them in order. Indeed, this looked like being the case as she had already put into place a document recording system, which she outlined.
    Henry explained, possibly with some modesty, that he was unfamiliar with the details of the power plant and the circumstances leading up to the turbine failure. He wondered if Mr Griffiths would be the best person to give a brief outline of these. Dave was impressed by Joe’s response. He gave an excellent review from which it was clear that he was knowledgeable in matters of steam turbine design and operation, in addition to his metallurgical expertise.
    Henry then went on to discuss the allocation of work required to identify the cause of the LP turbine disc failure. Dorinda McCann offered her Department’s help in undertaking a worldwide literature search into any relevant information on localised corrosion of steels, together with preliminary laboratory tests, to determine the failure mechanism. Joe said he would collect together the background on any relevant previous failures of steam turbine components. He also announced that his company were intending to carry out laboratory tests on LP turbine disc steel, in a high-purity steam rig, in an attempt to reproduce the cracking observed.
    The meeting adjourned for lunch. Miss Sage led the way up to the dining area on the seventeenth floor, where an even more spectacular view of London greeted them. Over lunch they all chatted amiably on a variety of topics, though this did not include technical matters. Dorinda and James were good company, which was a pleasant surprise for Dave and led him to wonder whether his predisposed suspicion of them was perhaps unjustified. Certainly, there was a general paranoia within SSD concerning the Central Lab staff at Slough; a wariness regarding their reputed tendency to cream off the high profile jobs, leaving the more mundane, routine problems, for their Wiltshire colleagues. They returned to their meeting room.
    Dave had the uncomfortable feeling of being surplus to requirements, as he had not made a significant contribution to the meeting. However, Henry had clearly given some thought to his possible input, as he highlighted the clear need for some investigations directed towards establishing the particular operating conditions at West Winford. He pointed out that an important aspect of the whole investigation, in his view, was why West Winford? It was evident, from Joe’s earlier submission, that there were similar steam turbines at other locations, both within the Strategic Supplies Authority and at numerous utilities around the world. In many cases these had been operating for longer than the failed turbine. Why then, had they not suffered any problems? The rest of the members listened keenly as Henry developed his point. He didn’t believe that a more detailed consideration, of the actual