26th David Penhaligon and Holman's R and D

 

I met David Penhaligon in Holman’s R and D department. David Penhaligon — the Liberal MP with the trademark grin, the motorbike, and the ability to talk to absolutely anyone without a hint of pretension.

Holman’s was where the clever tinkerers, the practical inventors, and the quietly brilliant engineers lived. David always had a soft spot for that world — the real Cornish economy, not the postcard version. He worked there before his parliamentary existence and I did a stint in R and D during my apprenticeship

Holman’s R&D in those days was a proper crucible: bright young apprentices, old‑hand engineers who could machine a part to a tenth by feel alone, and the odd future parliamentarian quietly absorbing how real industry worked. Penhaligon having been one of the lads there before politics explains so much about why he resonated with people — he’d actually lived the graft, not just toured it.

Me doing a stint in R&D during my apprenticeship helped I think with the way my early career zig‑zagged through the practical, the inventive, and the quietly technical. Holmans was exactly the sort of place where I could soak up a lifetime’s worth of mechanical intuition without even noticing it happening.

I love the fact that as an apprentice I crossed paths with a bloke who’d later become one of Cornwall’s most recognisable political figures.

At that time Holman R and D were working on something called the Shand Hammer - a huge rock breaker to be mounted on an excavator arm. The Shand Hammer was a proper bit of kit. Not some polite little pneumatic pecker, but a full‑blooded, Holman’s‑grade, “let’s teach this lump of granite some manners” machine. Mounted on an excavator arm, driven by serious hydraulics, and designed by people who understood rock the way fishermen understand weather.

Holman’s R&D was not lab coats and clipboards, but big forces, big tolerances, big consequences. The kind of place where an apprentice like me could learn more in a week than a university course could teach in a term.

I remember a prototype hammer the size of a small coffin, thick heavy hoses, a test rig bolted to a concrete block, engineers with pencils behind their ears and hearing defenders permanently around their necks and me watching the whole thing shake the earth.

They would test it, then strip it down, inspect it, make a few adjustments then test it again, and again etc.

The eternal rhythm of R&D: build it, break it, strip it, swear at it, rebuild it, tighten it, run it, break it again. That’s where the real learning happens — not in the tidy drawings, but in the oily, stubborn reality of metal and neoprene misbehaving.

When a machine like the Shand Hammer finally goes, it’s not subtle. It’s not “running”, it’s announcing itself. The whole workshop shifts from chatter to a kind of instinctive, animal alertness. Everyone stands just a little further back than they meant to. Someone folds their arms. Someone else pretends to check a gauge but is really watching the casing for movement. And the floor… the floor develops that low, physical hum you feel through your boots.

As an apprentice, it felt like a proper rite of passage. I had helped to build it, stripped it, rebuilt it, cursed it, tightened it, and now here it was — alive, shaking the air, doing exactly what it was designed to do: hit the earth so hard the earth flinched.

There’s something special about seeing a prototype like that run for the first time. It’s the moment where all the drawings, all the machining, all the “that’ll never hold” conversations suddenly become real. And Holman’s was the perfect place for that. No nonsense, no glamour, just proper Cornish engineering muscle.

I liked R and D, but I liked the test mine best I think, the workshop taught me mechanics but the test mine taught me reality.

In the test mine, everything changed: the acoustics go from clatter to that deep, swallowing hush, the air has that cold, mineral smell you only get underground, every sound carries meaning — a crack, a ping, a change in pitch, and the machinery suddenly feels alive, not theoretical

It felt like stepping into a different world — half industrial, half prehistoric — the strongest memory I have is wrestling with a pick on an airleg. Nothing says “proper Holman’s apprenticeship” like being half‑dragged across a stope by an airleg that’s decided it’s had enough of your nonsense.

An airleg with a pick on the end isn’t a tool — it’s a living creature. It kicks, it bucks, it twists, it tries to climb the wall, and if you relax for a heartbeat, it’ll spin you like a maypole dancer. Every old hand knew the truth: you don’t operate an airleg, you negotiate with it.

And underground, in the test mine, that negotiation becomes a full‑body conversation. The rock is uneven, the stance is awkward, the air is echoing, and the leg is hammering away with that bone‑deep thud that goes straight through your ribs. You’re braced, leaning into it, boots slipping on dust, trying to keep the damn thing pointed vaguely where you want it.

I can still remember the vibration through my gloves and the way the leg tried to “walk” itself sideways along the rock.