First day at work and end up with a horse.

[cuttsie]

not my first job but at 16 I joined the Merchant Navy, in oz two of our resident gays was caught making moves on one of the young lads they was thrown over the ship side into the harbour by the very tough greasers the gays never returned to ship so as a steward at that time had to work double shift untill we could pick up two more in Sidney I think they must have been warned before signing on DONT TOUCH

Reminds me of a tale my owd mother in law told me about a young lad at Joseph Rodgers who in his first week was getting rather horney with the lasses.

The older buffer women grabbed him and greased his wedding tackle after throwing his trousers on the fire!

[flyer]

Reminds me of a tale my owd mother in law told me about a young lad at Joseph Rodgers who in his first week was getting rather horney with the lasses.

The older buffer women grabbed him and greased his wedding tackle after throwing his trousers on the fire!

 

much later on just left the army got a job with the towel and smock cleaners (Driver)one always had to be very carefull when changeing the towels in" LADY's" wash room being a gent I was always in good stead but do know one lad getting a little mouth got the same at "Smiths" potato crisps had to drive home with no pants and more greasy chips than he could eat in one sitting:hihi:

[Jim Hardie]

I look forward to both Cuttsie and OldTups stories, they are brilliant, they should write books.

 

Seconded, and for a younger lad Zakes is the business.

[cuttsie]

Seconded, and for a younger lad Zakes is the business.

Jim for a slightly younger bloke Zakes is the business, I look forward to his ramblings the same as I used to looked forward to the Beano and Dandy every week ,If see he has posted on the forum I cannot wait for the latest ramblings from his childhood, a star and a scholar,

And now a mate.

Edited August 30, 2013 by cuttsie
A marvelous thing is the forum!

[cuttsie]

After a couple of years at Parkins of Rotherham learning to build manholes ,garden walls, stone gables and swear I decided my building trade education needed upgrading.

One Saturday morning walking down Castlegate I spied this enormouse crane towering above the Street with the words William Moss and sons Loughbrough in big letters written on the jib.

 

Now this set me thinking as here was a different type of building work than the one I had been used to at Parkins of Rotherham ,for one it was in my favourite part of Town .Two I knew that a couple of mates where already working on the site one of them being a lad from the Woodthorpe who's name was Brian Newman .

 

Now Brian had some how got himself the job of site time keeper which in its self was a laugh as I have never known him turn up on time for ow't in his life.

Anyway I found him in his little time cabin and asked if he would put me a word in to get me a start to further my building career.

 

He had a word with the forman bricki Norman Staicey who told him I could start as soon as I had served my weeks notice at Parkins.

 

So a week later I started on my first big site .

 

What a difference it was to the laid back olden ways I had been used to at Parkins ,for a start there was different nationalities working on the Market,Jamaicans, Poles, Ukranians,Italians, and lots of Irish lads.

 

The agent on the site was a Mr Dring and thats what you adressed him by MR !no farting about with first names it was Mr or else .

 

Mr Dringe put me to work with Norman Stacey and our hod carrier was a Half Chinese half West Indian lad called Johny Lee.

 

Johny was my first introduction to working with or even knowing a black man and he was and still is one of the nicest guys I have ever met who guided me through my first weeks working among a very rough mix of blokes working on the Market[one who had recently been released from Dartmoor after doing a long time for manslaughter].

 

Norman my new bricklaying partner was leg ore mad and from morning till night he would relay to me and Johny the wildest stories of his sexual exploits and made me wonder if and when I could jump on the bandwagon as it seems that all the lasses I was meeting up with at that time where wearing two pair of Knickers with a roll on on top,[Although suspenders still twanged around the stocking tops thank god.

 

But my main memories from the Market job were the Irish labourers and their ganger man Jim Quirke.

Jim was a tough man who called a spade a ------- shovel and treated me the new little kid on the block as some one to have a bit of fun with whenever an opurtunity arose.

 

One day I was told by Jim to go on the roof and work with a an Irish kid called Ted Lawla?

 

Our job was to sit on what was little more than a plank with a hand rail and be lowered over the side of the Market dangling on the end of two ropes ,we then had to patch up some areas of rough concrete face.

 

The Irish lads new I was dirtying myself at the prospect and decided to have a laugh by lowering the plank **** eyed so that me and Ted where crushed together at one end, and Just to liven things up a bit Ted himself started to kick our plank out from the building while at the same time holering out that we were going to ------- kill ourselves .

 

I came through this and think I gained some respect from the Irish by not showing how freetened I had been and that night on the way home from work they took me in their local [i was 17 at the time] The Red House on Solly Street.

 

Well they got me ****** as a newt! and clubbed together to send me home in taxi singing" Baby face youve got the cutist little baby face " as the cab pulled away.

 

Ive never forgot those Irish lads who worked on the Market they toughned me up and at the same time taught me some songs that I only found out years later where very dodgy if you sung them in certain parts of Ireland but thats another story.

 

The Italians who worked on the Market where the Terazzo men who layed the wonderfull floors and steps that are still as good as new in the Market today.

 

The main Terrazzo man was called Terrazzo Joe[ real name Joe Pologrina? ]who lived on the Whybourne or Manor and Joe would not let you into the room or area where he was working saying that his father and his grandfather before him had taught him the secret of mixing Terrazo and no Englishman was going to find out the secret.

 

Joe's son also called Joe is [was] also in the concrete finishing trade and became a successfull buisnesman running a Concrete goods company on Effingham Road.

 

The Ukranians on the job where a strange lot as I being a nosy sod was interested how they had come to be working in Sheffield but all I ever got out of them was that they never went home after the war a war that had finished some 15 years before but I never got them to tell me why they were not ever going home.

 

As the Market job was drawing to a close the gaffer sent me and Ted Lawla to build the spirell staircase that climbs up the outside of the Lift shaft on the roof of the Market this staircase can be seen from many aspects in Sheffield and when I am on a tram or bus and get a fleeting glimpse of the staircase as I speed pass it brings back those memories of a rough and ready time in the building trade with not a health and safety man in sight ,a time when every man had to look after himself and hard hats were for fairies but that again is another story.

 

Anyway the job was coming to an end and I helped a few of the traders who were moving in, some of who are still in there to this day as they like me were sixteen or seventeen year olds at that time learning their trade just like me , and just like me they will roor when the old Castle Market closes for the last time along with its charictors,memories, ghosts,whilks,mussles,fish, smells and a site history that has been part of the Sheffield scene as long as there has been a Sheffield.

 

P.S I sneeked up onto the roof a few months ago and stood on the Spirell steps that me and Ted had built over fifty years ago and do you know theyv'e not moved an inch.

Edited August 30, 2013 by cuttsie

[Da link went]

Good story cuttsie and well written. I also started work at 14 in the building trade but on my first day the foreman asked me what my trade was, I said, Painter and Decorator, Oh! he said, then tha can go and put some lime in't tub and fill it wi watter. Off I goes and started throwing the lumps of lime in the tub and filled it with water, well you know what happens don't you? no, well I'll tell you, it starts to boil and spit and if you're careful you get burnt.

 

Anyway the chargehand told me I was a useless painter and decorator, which was no surprise to me since I hadn't even seen a paint brush, so he informed me I was a plasterer which surprised me even more because I didn't know the difference between pink thistle and Paris whatever they call it.

 

One of the blokes was a right bar steward, he made my first day at work a complete misery. As every apprentice knows one of the main jobs is mekkin't tea and sometimes cocoa. Any way misery guts told me to tek is mash can and put boiling watter in it, so id did but only about a quarter full, I needed to go so I filled his can up with that killing two birds with one stone so to speak, he drank every drop without a word.

 

When I'd been working as a painter and decorator for about three years and old bloke and me were decorating a bedroom and in those days we were, as apprentices, only allowed to work 8 hours a day so at 5 o-clock the old b*******r put a pair of steps across the door so I couldn't get out, excuse me, I said got to go now, no answer, O tha deaf, av got to gu. still silence. So I nudged him but he still ignored me so I kicked the steps from under him. Not long after I got called up for National Service.

[cuttsie]

Good story cuttsie and well written. I also started work at 14 in the building trade but on my first day the foreman asked me what my trade was, I said, Painter and Decorator, Oh! he said, then tha can go and put some lime in't tub and fill it wi watter. Off I goes and started throwing the lumps of lime in the tub and filled it with water, well you know what happens don't you? no, well I'll tell you, it starts to boil and spit and if you're careful you get burnt.

 

Anyway the chargehand told me I was a useless painter and decorator, which was no surprise to me since I hadn't even seen a paint brush, so he informed me I was a plasterer which surprised me even more because I didn't know the difference between pink thistle and Paris whatever they call it.

 

One of the blokes was a right bar steward, he made my first day at work a complete misery. As every apprentice knows one of the main jobs is mekkin't tea and sometimes cocoa. Any way misery guts told me to tek is mash can and put boiling watter in it, so id did but only about a quarter full, I needed to go so I filled his can up with that killing two birds with one stone so to speak, he drank every drop without a word.

 

When I'd been working as a painter and decorator for about three years and old bloke and me were decorating a bedroom and in those days we were, as apprentices, only allowed to work 8 hours a day so at 5 o-clock the old b*******r put a pair of steps across the door so I couldn't get out, excuse me, I said got to go now, no answer, O tha deaf, av got to gu. still silence. So I nudged him but he still ignored me so I kicked the steps from under him. Not long after I got called up for National Service.

I like the pee in the tea story, as aprentices on Parkins we had to clean the posh houses out before the tennants moved in , the gaffer would run his fingers on top of doors and in the airing cupboard looking for dust if he found any he would quater us,

Any way Snuff Taylor an apprentice bricki got our own back on this gaffer by s------g in the airing cupboard and depositing the pile on the top shelf exactly in the spot where the big heerd used to rub his fingers .

Job done so to speak.

[normanmarina]

I remember my first day vividly. Apprentice joiner Bradbury construction. Turned up at the joiners shop, mid june 1973. First job and one that lasted all day everyday....Sweep up the machine shop....Never seen so many piles of wood shavings....I hated every bloody minute of it, building trade was awful generally, couldn't get out quick enough.

[cuttsie]

I remember my first day vividly. Apprentice joiner Bradbury construction. Turned up at the joiners shop, mid june 1973. First job and one that lasted all day everyday....Sweep up the machine shop....Never seen so many piles of wood shavings....I hated every bloody minute of it, building trade was awful generally, couldn't get out quick enough.

As usual the joiners had it easy.

 

One of my first jobs on Parkins was learning how to carry the hod.

This tool of torture weighed over 100 lbs when full of Sheffield brick co reds ,the same weight as me trying to carry the bloody thing.

 

An apprentice at Parkins was just cheap labour for the company although in the end you could do the job the reason being that you had to !.

 

---------- Post added 04-09-2013 at 22:32 ----------

 

As usual the joiners had it easy.

 

One of my first jobs on Parkins was learning how to carry the hod.

This tool of torture weighed over 100 lbs when full of Sheffield brick co reds ,the same weight as me trying to carry the bloody thing.

 

An apprentice at Parkins was just cheap labour for the company although in the end you could do the job the reason being that you had to !.

 

To be continued just testing to see if Im on hols first [been a bit daft in't footi section.

 

---------- Post added 04-09-2013 at 22:46 ----------

 

So the Market job was coming to the end and one day A bloke turned up driving a big flash car it was a Jag or Bentley or summat like that.

Any way this bloke turned out to be Nicki Moss the company owners son and he stopped to talk to me and Norman asking us what we would do when the job was finished.

 

Norman was O.K because he was an old company employee who just moved from job to job with them.

But I was just an aprentice who lived in Sheffield and had no idea what was going to be my next move.

 

I told Mr Moss this and he asked me if I would like to work in Loughbrough where the company had its head office I replied that I would ask my Ma if she thought it was a good idea.

 

The out come was that on the next Monday I was on my way to Loughbro to start work on the new University building in that Town.

 

By this time I was the proud owner of a Matchless G9 500 cc motor cycle reg no TRA 991 bought from Greys on Bridge Street for £100 at 10 bob a week over for years.

 

So there I was 17 years old sat astride a big motor bike with a travel bag and panniers on the back heading for Liecestershire.

 

When I reported to the site that Monday the forman Jack who was a milatary type bloke with a pencil tash told me that Mr Moss had told him that I was coming to work on the site and that my first job was to go and get some lodgeings.

 

Now I was 17 never been away from home before and had no idea where to start but Jack told me that the main road through Town had plenty of boarding houses that took in working men.

So of I rode and in 5 mins had seen a sign stating board and lodgings attached to a large Cafe.

 

In I went and to my suprise was shown into a barrack type room above the Cafe and told it was seven and a tanner a night with breakfast.

As the company was paying for this I could not care less so I booked in and so started my first day in Loughborough as a out of town building worker.

 

That first day I just got to know my way around the job and at Six pm I walked to my new home.

 

I had my tea at the cafe and after a walk round Town and a pint [underage still] I decided to turn in and I then experianced one of the most bizare nights of my life.

 

It turned out that this big Cafe come lodgeing house was a lorry drivers stop over and the beds were aranged barack room style along the top floor of the building to my dismay a lot of my fellow roomers were walking about bolocko and at the same time swearing ,farting, belching and making lewd comments about the youngster in their mist namly me!

 

I never slept a wink that night as every ten mins or so some one got up to use a large bucket with a lid in the corner and the snoring from all corners had to be heard to be believed.

Apart from that the bloke to my right was fast asleep with his hat on and this facinated me as I kept wondering if it would fall off.

 

The next morning after breakfast with the residents I arived at work knackered without a wash and Jack asked me how my lodgings were I told him and he was concerned that I had got myself into the wrong place and so decided to find me somewhere himself.

 

This he did and for the following four weeks I stayed at Mrs Mansells Guest House which was a vast improvement on the transport cafe as I had my own bedroom and my meals with the family [Four Daughters no dad]?.

 

The Job on the University was different to what I had been used to on the Market as the apprentices worked in teams under the guidence of Jack and it was obvious that I had more experiance than them as I had more or less had to do the job from my first day on Parkins two years before.

 

This did not go down well with Jack as he took his job in charge of the lads very seriously and continously bolocked me for not paying attention to his instructions on the complicated subject of Brick bonds ,flat or struck pointing.perps beds and blocks as I thought it was old hat and that I knew it all anyway.

 

After four weeks Jack told me that to keep my job at Wm Moss and Son I had to become a bound apprentice the same as all the other lads on the job and I told him to stuff it up his arse as I had no intention of staying in Loughbrough until I was twenty one living in crap lodgeings on low money and eating hard sausages for breakfast at Mrs Mansells so for the first time of many in the building trade I got the sack!

Edited September 5, 2013 by cuttsie

[Da link went]

We had a man and his son working at WW Axe and Sons Nether Edge and the father had a hook for a hand, his right hand if I remember. Anyway, he used to have a kip at lunch time so me and the other apprentice unscrewed his hook and put it in his overall pocket, it was the big pocket you see on painters overalls. Anyway 1 o,clock came and time to start work again and hooky, as we called him, cruel sods we were, started climbing a ladder which he did by hooking the rungs, well he ended up on his backside in a bucket of wallop, a kind of distemper. He went bonkers and chased us round the school we were working on, not a hope of catching us but I got a thick ear from his son who was about 23

When I'd been working about two and a half years the boss told me I was going to be a charge hand painting the railings at Southey school and I would get two helpers, who just happened to be mentally retarded, Anyway the boss told me to start one at one end and the other at the other end and on opposite sides, so I did. I had to go for a P so off I went knowing exactly where they were because it was my first school, I was there for nearly 5 years 1934 - 1938. When I got back the two idiots were standing either side of the fence splashing green paint on each other., they were both in their 40s or 50s. I went spare, they were both covered in paint and the ground was soaking in it. I went to the headmasters room and asked him to phone the shop and tell him what happened, the son turned up and laughed his head off. I got the job of cleaning up the mess but I worked on it a few minutes and said sod it I'm off and went and got a job with a firm on Ecclesall road.

 

There wasn't much work in winter so one Autumn a mate said he was off to Blackpool, why, I said, work mate, decorating the B & Bs oh! I said, al gu wi thi, so off we went, it was great, no lodgings to pay for and we were paid full wages.