THE smiles in this photograph mask some seriously bad news.
Mr Eric Lawrence of Waring Avenue, Parr, St Helens, tells me that the picture was taken 21 years ago today - on Friday, October 14, 1983.
Eric and fellow vehicle builders at the Horwich Loco Works were handed redundancy notices at 10am that day.
The picture was taken before they all clocked off for the last time at 4.32pm. Eric and about 20 of his colleagues worked for British Rail in Earlstown until they were made redundant in 1964.
They all transferred to Horwich, but history repeated itself in 1983. Some of the men in the photograph are holding their redundancy notices.
"We all put on a smile," says Eric, who is second from the right on the front row. "It was either a brave one or a false one."
When the works closed on December 23, 1983 it marked the end of 97 years of locomotive production at the works.
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