The last generation of typewriter repairmen (2010)
Not quite typewriters, but my dad started working for Burroughs in the UK during the 1960s repairing their adding machines.  They were the ones with blocks of every number and you&#x27;d press one digit in each column to select it and then perform the calculation.  I don&#x27;t remember those, but it was lots of levers to clean and adjust.<p>He then moved onto coin counting machines, this I do remember quite well.  They were fully mechanical with a spinning disc, not too dissimilar to a meat slicer, and the coins would filter off and pass through a channel &amp; mechanical counter into cloth bags.  In most machines the coins would be pre-sorted, this would be bagging up say 200 coins per batch.  The heavy cotton bags were then sealed with lead crimps.  These machines were fully mechanical, every component could be swapped out and adjusted.  [1] looks very much like the early ones I remember, but I knew the electric ones.  These machines were full of rubber drive belts and micro switches.<p>Many things in our house were stored in those cotton bags, they were great and I’ve still got quite a few to this day.  He also collected the used lead seals from them.  Every year or so we’d smelt them down into lead bricks to sell for scrap.  He built a &#x27;blast furnace&#x27; in the garden powered by a 1950s cylinder Hoover, they sucked at one end and blew out the other!  Image searching it looks similar to a ZA55 Electrolux [2].<p>Sometime in the late 1970s the machines changed and gradually became electronic.  They had modules you just changed, the display unit was about the size of an A5 folder with a row of Nixie tubes along one edge; I had loads of dead modules to play with as a kid - if only I’d have kept them!<p>They then moved onto LED modules and with even fewer moving parts in the machine.  It was about this time my dad retired, he was getting fed up with the job too.  He didn’t want to be the engineer, yes he did wear a white coat over his suit for work, who just changed modules.  He loved the mechanical and problem solving aspect of his work.<p>Slight diversion, but sometimes customers would place &#x27;traps&#x27; for the engineers.  He went to one place and found a coin in a place he knew a coin could never get to.  He Araldited it back in the same place.  When he left the owner asked &quot;did you find any money in there&quot; and my dad replied &quot;if there was any in there, it&#x27;s in the same place&quot;.<p>Another tale, a toll tunnel used their system and he was called in because it kept jamming.  He worked through the problem but during that found a lot of coins &#x27;lost&#x27; under the conveyor belt between the toll booths and the cash room.  The curios thing is, for years the cash collected by the toll booths had exactly matched the cash counted…..<p>Sorry third one, when we had a telephone installed there should have been a 6-9 month waiting time, but because my dad serviced the machines which did the wages for a lot of companies we not only got one quickly, it was also on the priority repair list along with doctors.  It was still a party line, we shared the phone line with the neighbour and had to press a button on the phone to &#x27;claim&#x27; the line.  If the office wanted to get in touch with him urgently, they would phone the customers they thought he was at that day.<p>I was also one of the first people in the UK to spend a £1 coin.  Because my dad had to configure the machines he initially he had blanks but then had real coins. On the day they were launched he let me have some to spend, so I bought my breakfast at collage with them at about 08:30 on launch day.  That was before banks opened so &#x27;normal&#x27; people wouldn&#x27;t have had access to them.<p>I know I’ve rambled, but this triggered some memories and I though to add them here and hope someone enjoyed reading.  I will add this to my &quot;family scrapbook&quot; as I&#x27;ve not thought about these for years.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.catawiki.eu&#x2F;l&#x2F;16108097-icc-intercount-v2-bank-coin-counting-machine-ca-1950-60" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.catawiki.eu&#x2F;l&#x2F;16108097-icc-intercount-v2-bank-co...</a><p>[2] Sorry for deep link <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.ebayimg.com&#x2F;images&#x2F;g&#x2F;FgoAAOSweFJfZjmg&#x2F;s-l300.jpg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.ebayimg.com&#x2F;images&#x2F;g&#x2F;FgoAAOSweFJfZjmg&#x2F;s-l300.jpg</a>