yen_powell

That pairing of James Bond and Han Solo makes that film one of my favourites ever.

Dartford, if anyone even just looks at the bridge or tunnels in a funny way then the whole area comes to a grinding halt. I was supposed to drive to Aveley last week just north of the bridge and just before I was due to leave I checked google maps for the traffic situation. Everywhere around there was black with standstill traffic (might have been dark red, but colour blind and all that). I had to grab all my stuff out of the car and start strapping it to my bike at the last minute.

yes, you got one right. The one who blew his hat off.

Farm's still going, do a nice set of market stalls on a Saturday now. I had to resurface the whole length of Stepney Way a few years ago and I offered to sort out their puddle filled crossover at the same time but they said they couldn't close it any day of the week to let me do the work so it got left. My resurface of Stepney Way was a second attempt due to snow a few weeks earlier. I didn't actually have a legal road closure the second time round but told everyone I did and got away with it. When I turned up on the morning before closing off the road what do I find? A car wrapped around a lamp post, a boy driver in custody and a ring of police vehicles at jaunty angles after a high speed chase. I asked the rozzer in charge if he was going to measure any skid marks because they wouldn't exist in an hour or so.

Three Mills. This is actually a few feet away from a massive Tesco car park and about 50 yards from the A12 Blackwall Tunnel Approach Road. Lots of artistic types running about outside as there is a film/tv studio attached. Lovely building on the river Lea. https://spitalfieldslife.com/2021/08/26/at-the-house-mill-o/ Streetview so you can look around at the not so pretty surroundings. https://goo.gl/maps/chiGNHdbhiofyPoV7

Tidying up my favourites folder last night and found this one. I knew I kept it for a reason, cracks me up. Guess my favourite two people out of the whole collection.

I didn't even know they had Butlins in Spain??

We set off along the dark steamy tunnel. I was doing my duck like shuffle. My hands were held to each side pushed hard against the old brickwork in a desperate attempt to ensure perfect balance, thank god they'd given me gloves. No way was I going to fall forward or backwards. At least there wasn't any room to fall side ways! The water came up to just below my crouched down backside. It had turds and toilet paper floating on top and underneath the water was a thick bed of sludge. I was warned to not kick the 'silt' too much, but rather to tread on it gently otherwise I would be releasing possibly dangerous gases. The bloke at the top proved correct, there seemed to be no horrible smell now I was down here. There were no rats either, although I saw a few bait holders screwed to walls in some of the manholes. I was told that they would know we were down here and usually went into hiding till we'd gone again. As we moved along we occasionally came into slightly wider parts where there was a manhole above our heads. This allowed a brief moment to stand upright before ducking down to waddle again. In one we saw a sewer worker slightly up some of the rungs, doing some pointing work, the lid open above him at one of the vented manholes. I was told that some men even took their sandwiches down with them if working at lunch time, I took that to be a joke, but you never know. After about 10 sections between manholes the sludge started to get higher and higher until it finally blocked our way forward. The lead man called it a day and said we all had to go back to the next open manhole to exit the sewer. This was easier said than done. By the time I had managed to turn 180 degrees, desperate not to stumble forward, I think my waders were still facing the original direction and the seat of my fetching yellow rubber suit seemed to be in front of my bollocks now, cutting off my testicular blood supply somewhat. We made it to the next open manhole and climbed the rungs up to the road. After struggling to get myself and my battery pack through the lid again, I gratefully stood up in the cool air and crossed the road to a waiting man who had connected a stand pipe to a hydrant. He hosed us all down and gave us black sacks to put our gear in. For some reason they didn't want my suit, boots or gloves back, so I kept them in my locker for many years until I lent them to a friend to clear a castle moat with. He never gave them back, every time I asked about them he'd purse his lips and say, “Ooooh, don't mention the waders”, wink and walk away. I googled some pictures to show you what sort of thing we had gone down, the black and white picture looks like a slightly bigger diameter, but otherwise is pretty accurate. The colour picture is the usual view I got when going through the video surveys, only with a fatburg instead of shite.

On holiday, no gloves, jacket or boots, too hot usually or don't have them there. If I stop for groceries on the way home in the UK, no gloves for the 800 yards between the supermarket and home. Mostly I wear gloves and helmet on the bike because bugs hurt when you ride through them.

I've got my Mad Max DVDs as a good substitute, although not as many dwarfs in those.

No, I will stick to the civilised parts of Europe and islands off the coast of Africa between now and death I reckon.

Very atmospheric photographs. I fancy a doughnut now though. Too late, just got back from the shop as well....

You're getting fussy nowadays.

I was the other way round, spent the first 5 years of life abroad, then came home in time to start school in England. Didn't go abroad again till my school trip to Boulogne at the age of 13 and then not again till I was in my 20s.

Today's article, one of my favourite types, just an ordinary person's life. I've worked out what road he lives in so will keep my eye out to see if I can spot it. https://spitalfieldslife.com/2021/08/25/stan-jones-of-mile-end-x/

Rashid, the Afghan who's name I have finally recalled, took me to one end of The Highway. This is the main road that runs east west across the top of Wapping and ends at Tower Bridge. It used to be the edge of the marshes before Wapping was formed by draining them. This is shown in it's former name, The Ratcliffe Highway (red cliff highway) scene of a famous murder mystery in the 18th century, worth looking up. Waiting for us were some sewer workers who had coned off a couple of manholes along the centre of the road. That was it, just some plastic cones to protect us from the heavy goods lorries bombing up and down a few inches away. They had opened up manholes at each end of the stretch we were to walk in order to let any poisonous or explosive gases vent out. One of the sewer workers opened up his van and started to dole out some kit to me. First was an all in one yellow rubber suit with hood. Before you ask Pete, I don't have it any more. I put this on followed by thigh high white woollen socks. These were covered by thigh high rubber waders. I was dressed as a dirty old man's dream boy. I was then given a plastic hard hat with a lamp attached and a connected battery on a belt. I felt like Arthur Scargill on holiday. The boots had metal studs in the soles (for grip in shit I suppose), so I clicked and slipped across the road between speeding vehicles to the open manhole. I was told to sit on the edge of the manhole with my feet on the rungs set into the old Victorian brickwork. Someone ran up and gave me the gloves they had forgotten earlier. I put these on gratefully and turned to climb down the ladder. First problem, the battery on the belt jammed on the frame. I had to grab it and do a bit of twisting to get past the frame and into the slightly wider manhole. The stink of shit wafted up to me and I gagged a little. “That's a bit ripe” I said to the sewer worker. “Don't worry, your nose will switch off when you are down there, it only smells up here”. He was right actually. I started to climb down the rungs. There was dried shit on some of them, proof of how high the water could get during heavy flooding. The sewer workers said they checked for rain many miles away before planning a visit down below to prevent drowning. At the bottom of the manhole was the cement benching with the semi-circular base of the sewer running through it and a small arch, slightly bigger than the sewer itself on either side, which I was told to squat down in so the next man could come down the ladder. So I'm crouched down with my face near the turdy water and the next bloke knocks a bit of dried crust off one of the rungs and it plops in the water splashing my face a little, good start!! It was very hot down there, like a green house on a summer's day. When there were four of down there I was told I would be the 2nd in line to move along the main pipe, behind the man with the gas detector. This was not the large pipe you see in old films. This was an egg shaped brick built pipe which I could only get along by squatting and waddling along, hard work on the thighs I can tell you. They are egg shaped to make them self cleaning. “If you get cramp Ian, you just sit down in the water until it passes” said the gang leader. “Ahh, the rubber suit will keep me dry and clean then will it?” “No, they all leak, cheap and nasty crap, but it will help with the cramp. Ready?”

When I first started at the Council they had an informal training scheme where you had to do 6 months in each team. I'd done 6 months in Traffic Management, then another in Highways Planning. In those I'd done simple traffic scheme design, added stuff by hand to information maps and then legal type stuff to do with highway enquiries, street naming/numbering, land charges, searches etc. My third department was Mains Drainage. A small dark office which contained an Arab manager, an Afghan with very shaggy eyebrows and an obvious wig, two cockney wide boys and an Indian. They were pleased to see me, because they had work no one wanted to do and they all liked to go home early but had to provide office cover to 5pm as a legal requirement. I was shown a tv set with a video recorder and a cupboard full of VHS tapes. These were tapes made by cameras being dragged along every foul sewer in the borough, yes, they were shit tapes. There must have been a few hundred as well. The Arab manager told me I was to go through every tape and grade the sewer condition between each manhole. They were to be graded between 1 and 5. 1 was perfect, 5 was crushed flat and you could see the sky. Any training with this I asked? He said of course, they weren't amateurs. He then gave me an A2 sized poster with 5 sewer pictures on it, a number next to each picture. Training was over. I could only use the tv set after 11am, as at the time Stingray was being shown each morning and the Afghan would insist on watching it, the bloke loved it. I always thought that was a result of coming from a landlocked country. The tv was in a cabinet and the doors to the cabinet had to be angled carefully so the Borough Engineer couldn't see what was on the screen from his office window across the quadrangle. The first 15 videos of 3 hours each were in black and white, that was grim enough. But I soon got the hang of it and the manhole numbering system and I started to slowly cross sewers off as done on large scale plans of the borough. Then I hit on an idea. I went and saw the Arab and suggested that coming all the way in just to watch videos was a waste of time, why didn't I just take a load home and work from there, I could even start before 11am and not cause an incident at the Khyber Pass. He agreed and my poor parents were treated to the site of about 60 videos plonked in their front room in dusty boxes. I had agreed to do two videos a day (6 hours of tv). All went well till they had obviously upgraded to a colour camera. My poor Dad walked in many times from work to eat his dinner, only to be confronted by a picture of brown horror on his tv screen. I soon found I could fast forward and still see all the details, so the work speeded up considerably. I also found that some tapes only had 30 minutes on, I didn't pass the information on, just stuck to my two tapes a day routine. After about 2 months I decided I needed to do something else or my time would be wasted. I asked if I could actually go down one of the sewers large enough for a person. The Arab (Omar) took me to the shaggy browed Afghan and commanded him to make this happen. So a few days later I found myself in the Afghan's car. Worst driver in the world!! I still recall my terror when he used to put his arm through the steering wheel to cancel his indicators. This was fine if he had already straightened up, but on one occasion he was still turning a corner, stuck his arm through the wheel and when he tried to straighten his arm got jammed and we carried on turning, ending up on the footway, pedestrians scattering in all directions.

I've sent him an email a few minutes ago and he said they are doing both tunnels soon, just waiting for dates from the contractor. I have replied that I will start padding my boy bits now, it might be because I'm doing it wrong, but those harnesses always rub me up the wrong way.

There are still characters about, there are certainly many on here, the motorcycling fraternity is by it's very nature full of contrary, stubborn and colourful people. When I left the structures department for a new job in a devolved council I was asked if I would still work weekends for Structures as they had lots of drawing work and very few draftsmen. Being low paid, I jumped at the chance. There was a bit of a row with my new employer over it, but the head of Structures sweet talked him and it was allowed. Time and half on Saturdays, double time on Sundays, happy days. My first weekend working session I met my Structures replacement for the first time, a young Arab looking lad called Abed. He was later to be called Rabid Abed or sometimes Mr Bean. The last nick name was because he owned an Austin Mini. He was not the full shilling. He was a Rotring short of a full pen set! He apparently kept a spare engine in his front room for the Mini just in case! At this first meeting we were introduced by the manager and then left to start work. Abed asked me if I had a degree and when I said no he never spoke to me again, just blanked me from that point on. I didn't care, I just put my Walkman headphones on and wacked up the volume to Nirvana and ignored him. Years later they recombined the council and cutbacks in staff were made. Rabid Abed by this time had upset a lot of people with his strange behaviour and loud rages, so he was made redundant and put on the list where they would try to place him in a different job if possible. When I heard they were interviewing him for a job where I was based I'm afraid I might have put in a bad word or three for him. Interviews were carried out in a small narrow office. One of the people doing the interview had strange ideas. He put some maps and other posters up on the wall upside down to see if anyone commented. No one said a word apparently. Last one in was Rabid Abed, I think they were looking forward to him after my comments. I needn't have worried about them giving him a job. The first thing he did was ask if he could move his chair a bit, then turned it 90 degrees and sat with the side of his head to them through the interview. I don't mean he twisted his neck to look at them, I mean he never looked at them at all and they spoke to his left ear throughout. The last I heard they put him on a front desk dealing with the public. That only lasted a day or so, he went off on one and he ended up being made properly redundant.

In my early days at the council there was a legendary character, known to most people as Grouty, or Len of Bow. He worked at that time for our Highways Construction team, but spent most of his time either in other offices giving his opinions which were always right and varied, he thought he knew everything about every subject. He also spent a lot of time doing his own private work. He was our union shop steward as well, which is probably why he got away with so much. In those early years when I was still a trainee he would sometime be lent me to help him, supposedly carrying out levelling surveys. Usually I would be left guarding the surveying equipment whilst he nipped off for a few minutes, these minutes usually ended up being a few hours. He had a van so awful looking that once he went away on a foreign holiday and the council towed it away as an abandoned vehicle and crushed it. BUT it did have the advantage that he would just pull up and not bother locking it or even winding the windows up on a hot day. He was married to a Finnish girl at that time, nice lady met her all the times we had to call home on the way to a site so he could collect or drop off things to do with his private work. After a few years he moved, or was pushed to various other departments. He spent a while in our Structures team and so took his turn doing tunnel and bridge inspections. Seeing an overtime opportunity followed by a day off, he volunteered for the unloved night time tunnel inspections around the Brick Lane and Petticoat Lane areas. He would open them up so that people like BT or Gas board could get down to their plant, then check they were undamaged and lock them back up in the wee small hours. He did this for quite a few months. Now these areas are where Jack the Ripper did his work lowering the prostitute numbers back in 1888 and although he is long gone, the ladies of the night still thrive. The first week or so, they would walk up to him sitting in his car waiting for BT and ask if he wanted female company. He would gently explain he was only there to do work and tell them what he was doing. By week 3 he was on first name terms with them and they with him, they even got him coffees and he got them some in return. All was well until his wife suggested she could come to work with him one evening as she hardly saw him these days. He spent so long talking her out of it that she sulked for ages. But as he told me, what if she had come along and a procession of prostitutes had walked past, all gaily greeting him by name and asking him if he wanted his usual yet (coffee). Many years later he went a step too far workwise with something and got suspended. He was escorted from the building and the contents of his desk were seized to check for financial irregularities. They had no chance, I'd seen his desk, he couldn't find stuff he knew was there, they had no chance. He ended up off work on full pay whilst the investigation went on. This at a time when he was doing up a house from a ruin as well, they couldn't have timed it better! He got his own back against the man who had him suspended. He was in our Drainage section when it got taken over by Thames Water and they took most of the staff over as well. Now he didn't work for us he could stand for councillor, representing the Labour party. He won as well. He was doing that for 4 years, he made that man's life a misery until he finally left, became chief exec at some coastal authority I think. He got the sack from Thames Water in the end, kept forgetting to turn up for work I heard. Grouty is still about, now he works for himself lending his huge knowledge to local developers. He's on wife number 3 or 4 and child number 8 I think. I have to go to meetings with developers about works he is involved with and he is banned from them because he has put formal complaints in about almost everyone I work with. I'm alright though, I think he likes me. Historical note. I did hear that his father took the rap for a certain crime family's misdemeanour in the 60s as a favour (See Tom Hardy's film list for the family name) and got given a pub as a reward. His father went to prison for their crime and his mother moved another bloke in to the pub and told him she never wanted to see him again. His father hanged himself in prison. I've been in the pub and it has a very strange extra bit of triangular wall in the kitchen that shouldn't be there, I am sure there is someone walled up behind it. It mostly catered for market workers having their lunch at 2am, but is now a trendy wine bar.

I want to go and look round HMS Belfast at some point. Never been on that at all. I'll speak to my mate at work and get another tour of the underground communications tunnel near Aldgate and Petticoat Lane, this time with a camera. The Aldgate tunnel is Victorian and contains two giant gas pipes that you walk between with smaller pipes above. It is under the centre of the road and every side street has a street nameplate (often the street above has been renamed since) and matching side tunnel. To get into the side tunnels you have to go between the pipes which are like a giant old fashioned mangle. It has a dirt floor except for a narrow line of slabs with rat holes at the sides. The Petticoat Lane tunnel crosses a council boundary, so we followed it along to a locked door with City of London written on it. Just thought of a story to do with that, so will pop to that thread.

You hooligan.

Inside Tower Bridge is good as well.

I hope so, that's the only reason I took photos. As you will know Pete, all Brits live in either a castle or at the very least a house no younger than 300 years old and with a ghost in residence. We all sweep chimneys for a living and speak with unconvincing cockney accents most of the week except on Thursdays when we adopt a cut glass accent and wear a deer stalker and cape whilst assisting Scotland Yard in unravelling baffling crimes. We thrive on a diet of fish and chips during the week and grouse at weekends.

Amongst the photos you will see a pimped cannon (for Tym), a three barrelled breach loading cannon, strangely square in form (for Tym) and a broken chair which is a result of a German spy being executed by firing squad in 1941. Apparently due to the low height of the bullet catcher, which I hope is a device and not a tradesman, he needed to be sitting down to be shot. In the dock pics you will see some of the Queen's jubilee barge, I couldn't get far enough away to get it all in. Lots of gold leaf, can't believe no one has pinched it.