We hosted the British Engines Annual Awards 2023 this week at the Crowne Plaza, Newcastle!
Each year, we celebrate the achievements of our apprentices as well as employees that have been with the company for 25 years. This year, employees who were celebrating 15, 20, 45 and 50 years were also in attendance.
We looked back to 1998 to find out what happened 25 years ago when some of our employees started their careers with the British Engines Group…
20th January: TV show, Dawson’s Creek, premiers on WB in the USA.
25th January: Victoria Beckham (Posh Spice) and David Beckham get engaged.
7th February: The 1998 Winter Olympics open in Nagano, Japan.
15th February: The Angel of the North by Antony Gormley is installed in Gateshead, a large-scale steel sculpture standing at 20m (66ft) tall! Fun facts about our local icon include:
- It’s the UK’s most famous piece of public art and is visited by some 150,000 people every year.
- It was funded primarily by the National Lottery and cost over £800,000 to build.
- The A1 motorway next to the sculpture means it is seen by one person every second – that equates to 33 million people every year!
- The wings stretch out to 54 metres, which is wider than a Boeing 757 jet.
24th February: Elton John is knighted by Queen Elizabeth in Buckingham Palace, becoming Sir Elton John.
23rd March: Titanic wins 11 Oscars including Best Picture at the 70th Academy awards. 25 years later we’re still debating if there was enough room on the door for them both!
10th April: The Good Friday Agreement for Northern Ireland is signed by British and Irish governments.
5th June: The Truman Show starring Jim Carrey is released in cinemas.
2nd July: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is published in the UK, as of 2021 3.5 million copies of this book have been sold in the UK.
24th July: Saving Private Ryan, directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Hanks and Matt Damon is released in cinemas.
15th August: The Troubles: After 30 + years of conflict a ceasefire is called.
25th August: Lauryn Hill’s debut album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, is released, going on to win 5 Grammy awards that year.
4th September: Google was officially founded by American computer scientists Larry Page and Sergey Brin, meaning we’ve only been able to google things for 25 years, what did we do before? Sadly, I think we all have a faint recollection of Ask Jeeves.
4th September: Who wants to be a Millionaire? hosted by Chris Tarrant debuts on ITV.
29th October: 77-year-old John Glenn breaks records as the oldest person to go into space on the Space Shuttle Discovery, he was also the first US astronaut to orbit earth! William Shatner, who went into space aged 90, is now the record holder.
19th December: 42nd President of the United States Bill Clinton is impeached by the House of Representative and Congress for lying under oath, the second president to be impeached in the USA.
Congratulations to everybody who received an award! If you thought what happened in 1998 was interesting, join us next year to find out what happened in 1999…
Are you interested in a career at the British Engines Group? Take a look at our latest vacancies!