Re: Chinese Take Aways
UK has lost much of its manufacturing base and much of its technical expertise. My background was/is in the electrical/electronics sector. We manufactured equipment mainly for the process industries. Steel mills, paper making, anodising, water treatment works etc.
Almost all the components we used were sourced overseas although we bought them through UK distributors. Switchgear, push buttons, indicator lamps, fuses etc. were manufactured in India, carbon copies of European brands.
During my working lifetime I have seen several steel mills and paper mills close.Even our water supplier is no longer British owned. We seem to have priced ourselves out of the market.
A tale from the past. A paper mill in Grimsby closed down. A company in Taiwan bought one of the paper machines. This included some of the electrical equipment we, my company, had updated but much of the original kit dating from the 1950s remained. These included slate panel regulators. I'll spare the technicalities.
A local electrical company in Taiwan wanted to extend the system. But had no slate locally. What they had was marble. When I went back there a few years later there were these polished marble panels with gleaming brass studs. Most impressive.
That said, they "stole" a bit of British technology that was decades out of date