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| Still from 'Matchbox Cars' (1965) © British Pathe |
Hardly emblematic of the warmth and
generosity of the book as a whole, I have meanly cut a paragraph from Primo
Levi’s The Periodic Table to suit my ends. Amongst the other elements, he
writes a bittersweet chapter on ‘zinc’, from which the following
dismissive-sounding excerpt comes:
“It is not an element which says much to
the imagination, it is grey and it salts are colourless, it is not toxic, nor
does it produce striking chromatic reactions; in short, it is a boring
metal. It has been known to
humanity for two or three centuries, so it is not a veteran covered in glory
like copper, nor even one of those newly minted elements which are still
surrounded by the glamour of their discovery.” (1)
Oh, but the things you can do with it! Countless thousands of ingots of this
boring metal slowly made their way up the Lea River on barges, from Dead Man’s
Wharf on the Thames to Lee Conservancy Road in Hackney, to be transformed in to
the little Matchbox Toys that would delight countless thousands of children all
over the world.
Last week I interviewed Andrew Smith, son
of Matchbox co-founder Leslie Smith.
Zinc was fundamental, and it flowed through every part of the
conversation as it once flowed through every part of the factory; if you weren’t
melting it, you were moving it, pouring it, pressing it, fettling it, rumbling it,
painting it or boxing it.
“Yeah, the pallet would
come in with a hundred ingots, just like you see in the vaults of the bank of
England, exactly that same shape, not heavy, not particularly heavy, you'd pick
one up in your hand and move it around without any problems. Silvery colour, dark silvery
colour. Melts down and away you
go. Pure zinc is 98% zinc, it’s
got a little bit of nickel or bronze in there as well, but it's just to help
stabilize it, that was all you put in, there was no need to add anything else,
you could just spray on top. They
used to be known as white metal, when they come straight out the press, they
are shiny - shiny silver colour - then within hours really they start to dull,
a bit like galvanised fencing, a bit of oxidisation happens and it starts to
dull, and you spray that one way or another, and off it goes.”(2)
(1) From Primo Levi, The Periodic Table, 1985, p27
(2) Excerpt from my interview with Andrew Smith, August 27th 2013
(1) From Primo Levi, The Periodic Table, 1985, p27
(2) Excerpt from my interview with Andrew Smith, August 27th 2013
