Drop Ten, turn and face’
Quiltys Football Yarns 28
People often speak about the short term jobs they did growing up. When discussing work, my standard response is to say, 'Work experience is more about discovering what you don't like than what you do'. Looking back I certainly found out this reality in jobs I did as a youngster.
My late friend Johnny Burnham was one of the hardest working people I ever knew. He lost his dad as a young teenager and seemed to dedicate his life to working hard to try to make up his families loss. Two jobs I remember him doing were in Percy Ingles bakery and with Pyrock a firm that sprayed 'fire retardant' on the ceilings of new buildings.
Thus as a fifteen year old I went to work with him at the bakery for three weeks. Starting at 1.00 am it was hell. Percy Ingles baked all their bread and cakes on site. When you came in to the shop the dough was already in the mixer having 'proved' from the previous morning. The loaves and rolls were rolled by hand and placed on 'stretchers' ready for the oven. The doughnuts were also rolled and ready to go in the fryer. All this in a bakery with insanely hot conditions, especially near the oven. Putting the bread in the oven was a two person job and Johnny worked like a Trojan being hard to keep up with. His clothes and steel toe-capped boots being literally caked in dough and flour. Being a rookie in a busy bakery can be dangerous. Thus, as we were putting the bread stretchers in and out of the oven several loaves fell to the floor but we were so busy it was difficult to shift them form under our feet. After about ten minutes a moments break came up, so I thought I'd do the right thing and shift the loaves that had fallen. Wrong! I picked them off the floor with bare hands and then realised they were still scolding hot searing my finger tips. A lesson learned very painfully, I'm sure i still have scars on both thumbs. As the night progressed more jobs came up all with deadlines. The doughnuts being sugared and jammed. The bread being cut and packed on the machine and then, just as daylight was peaking through the shop windows two jobs I grew to hate. First was the mixing of the dough for the next day in the giant mixer. Then at the end of each night shift came the clean up of all the equipment. I think that was the thing I disliked the most. Having to return the work area to a pristine condition before we could go home into the early morning light. I felt that that was drudgery. Having said that it gave me a respect for those that did the bakery work regularly as their job. When Johnny also lost his mum, he would often come to my parents house in Laxfield Court, Pownall Road. He lived further down the street. A lasting memory of Johnny was him turning up at our house early on a Saturday morning wearing his sheepskin coat, with his arms full of bread, cakes and the morning newspaper.
A few years later Johnny had moved on to a job just as hard but this one with regional and international travel. The job was with 'Fire retardant' firm Pyrock. At times Johnny and the team went off to Saudi Arabia to undertake contracts. His reports of the poor conditions and the way overseas workers were treated were harrowing. The Brits who went were spared much of this treatment but they had to surrender their passports while on the job. More than once the Saudi authorities and Pyrock were in dispute and the workers were prevented from leaving the country. Thus, when Johnny told me they needed workers on a London job I went along with a bit of trepidation. The work consisted of standing up on scaffold in newly constructed buildings and spraying a wet cement mixture up onto the ceiling. This was a skill in itself but to do so you had to hold and direct a 'hopper' from the which the mixture flew. Get the angle wrong and the wet cement came down on your head. This was 1970 and I have my suspicions that it wasn't the healthiest product to work with. I lasted a week at Pyrock, the pay was good but coming home covered in damp, cement covered clothes was not for me. As a matter of fact my mum would make me strip to my underpants at the front door before being admitted to the house. Anyone who knows Maureen would have no surprise there.
Another job I did as a 16 year old during the holiday's, was working with my mate David's dad, Bert Bass.
Bert was a master plasterer. He had skills that were from a previous age. He could form and shape the intricate cornices on the outside of building's. Sadly such skills had been superseded by pre-made products and Bert tended to take on general building work. At times he had employed dozens of workers but in the end was happier to work for himself avoiding all the aggro of employing staff. Thus, I was quite honoured when he'd walk across the square and shout up to my mum, "Can your little soldier come to work with me today?"
Work with Bert was quite an experience. Typically we'd be making good or pointing the walls of old buildings. Sometimes we'd build staircases or pathways. Bert really came into his own as a plasterer. We would work all over London often in areas where I was unfamiliar. He sub-contracted for another builder called Hennessy. We would always be on the job by 7.30am for an early start. Bert would do an amazing amount of plastering for an hour and it would be as much as I could do, just keeping up with him mixing the 'shit' as he performed miracles, on decrepit old walls. Then as quickly as we had started he would say
"Come on Quilt, get your coat, we need to get some breakfast." Bert could easily do what looked like four hours work, in just one hour. So off we'd go down to the local cafe. There we would enter at the counter of the restaurant which was teaming with all sorts of tradie's. There he'd order our breakfast.
"Two bacon sandwich's, two cups of tea, no sugar and make it snappy, you ugly bastard".
With the warmth of him being well known in the shop I said,
"Do you come here a lot Bert?'
"No", he'd say, never been here in my life!"
That was Bert, a dry cutting sense of humour. His contractor boss Hennessy was continually frustrated because we never on the job when he'd arrive but the work was always finished. 'Finish and go' was Bert Bass's motto. In this case he had given me another opportunity to find out about jobs I wasn't suited for.
Probably the last job with which I had such an experience, was as an adult later in life. When we first came to Australia I worked in catering for my brother in law, John Cassidy. John was brilliant at what he did. He and his wife Sharon built their firm Cassidy's Catering from scratch. In trying to secure teaching work in those first few months I'd do weekend work for them, around the North Shore. Bar B Ques, Spit Roasts, Parties and Weddings were all on the agenda. Unfortunately, I disliked working Saturday nights feeling that you could never quite relax knowing you had to work on the night. That said, it was always a good laugh working with the Cassidy's team, when you got there. John was a boss who led from the front, shifting equipment and setting everything up. However, it could be dangerous working with him. Moving pans of hot food with him, being especially dodgy. I probably did about thirty such jobs with John. Often he'd have several functions on on one night and would need managers to run the jobs. Eventually he asked me if I fancied doing a manager role. My answer went something like...
"John I enjoy working with you and appreciate you training me up. However, I'd rather have needles in my eyes than ever be responsible for delivering a wedding function with all the stress it involves!"
So there it was, my flirtation with catering came to an end. I still believe that if you ever mucked up someones wedding they would pursue you for the rest of your life. Fortunately, I quickly got a job as a Football coach, impersonating a Teacher of Business and Economics.
