Yen's stories

[yen_powell]

15 minutes ago, XTreme said:

Any pics from that era Yen?

No unfortunately.

[yen_powell]

After the gymnasium we were led into another room to be shown various big bangy guns and allowed to play about removing some of the parts. Back then the T.A. were still using the self loading rifle which I'd only seen my action man using in the 1970s. The real army had moved on and were regretting it I recall, their new gun had a habit of falling in half at critical moments. This SLR was placed in my hands and I don't know how my Action Man coped, no wonder his realistic hands fell apart. It weighed a ton. Sod running about with that. We were also shown the general purpose machine gun we would be using if we passed and were accepted. I say we, it was a three man team on a machine gun they said, someone to load, someone to pull the trigger and someone to say, "Shoot at him Geoffrey, he looks a bit foreign to me". You've probably seen them before, big thing, tripod or bipod, belt feed and a load of spare barrels. I hadn't realised till then that you had to change barrels if firing for a long time, at least that was what I was told. I had never seen John Wayne have to do this, must be inferior equipment. We also got handed some sort of hand held rocket launcher thing and what we all excitedly called a sten gun, but apparently was actually a Sterling.

After this it was lunch time, more ready made super sweet mugs of tea, some not too bad food and me wolfing as much of their sticky syrup fruit salad afters as possible for energy, because the basic fitness test was coming up later on that day.

We were driven in lorries to another part of Colchester, a large green, some M.O.D housing and a rectangle of roads. A week after the events I'm writing about took place, a military policeman was badly injured in the same place when his car exploded. The car bomb had been set by the IRA, the MP lost both legs and some fingers. We sort of forget about the IRA nowadays with all that's happening in the world, but terrorist bombs were quite common on the UK mainland when I was growing up. The last one I remember was the one in Canary Wharf which put our jerry built office in docklands into a permanent tilt despite it being about 200 metres away from the explosion.

Anyway, with freshly rolled trouser legs I listened as a large red faced man in a track suit explained that it was a 2km run which had to be completed in 11 minutes to pass. You started by walking quickly and as you passed a certain point you started running and were timed from that point. Well off I went, legs in all directions, my boiler suite billowing. 2 minutes later I was ready to bring my dinner back up. 8 minutes later I am looking for a hole to put my foot in so I can twist my ankle and cry off. That's when the twats who had paid attention in the morning chat grabbed me, team work you see. Despite me crying and telling them all to fuck off, they dragged me along. I think I came in 30 seconds over the 11 minutes. I was doubled over ready to honk, but this NCO started screaming at me not to bend forward, to stand up straight and to definitely not besmirch his nice clean grass.

After my head had stopped throbbing, we all piled back on to the lorries and then waited for the man with the ball bag slings to walk in, he was still waddling along it seemed. I say piled back on, I think it took me a few attempts to get in.

It was back to the hall which was now filled with desks. It was intelligence test time!

[Sir Fallsalot]

And that reminds me of this are you sure you weren't private Pyle 

 

[Pedro]

@yen_powell, there might not be enough for a book but it sure is for a tv show, your own twist on faulty towers and black adder.

Looking forward to the intelligence test!

[yen_powell]

So about a 100 blokes are sitting in a large hall with test papers and a pen each in front of them. I would say that about 70 were holding their pens the wrong way round, eating their paper or asking for crayons as they weren't allowed sharp writing implements. A large sergeant told us to turn the papers over and start answering the questions.

Can't recall too much, but I think there was some basic English language questions, bit of maths and then lots of diagrams with pullies and gear wheels and you had to predict what happened to the last item in a sequence if one turned at the start followed by stuff with weights on balance arms at different distances to the fulcrum. I've always finished exams very quickly, not necessarily correctly, but speedily. At school I would be sitting bored out of my brain for an hour plus, getting glares from other pupils and teachers, so this time I took a piece of scrap paper and doodled stuff for ages instead. When the papers were finally collected, I quickly turned over my scrap paper with all the knob pictures before it was seen by the sergeant. Some people were still writing as their papers were snatched away.

After we completed the tests we were taken into another room for a lecture. What it was about I have no idea, but the unexpected exercise had started taking a strange toll on everyone. There seemed to be a continuous round of farting from everyone, including me, followed by the deadliest stench permeating the room. I was in a confused state. Everyone likes the smell of their own farts, but is this still okay if everyone's smell the same?? The officer giving the lecture gulped and stopped and said that it might be best if everyone went outside for 10 minutes and got it out of their system. He kept some people back to open windows.

[XTreme]

4 minutes ago, yen_powell said:

So about a 100 blokes are sitting in a large hall with test papers and a pen each in front of them. I would say that about 70 were holding their pens the wrong way round, eating their paper or asking for crayons as they weren't allowed sharp writing implements. A large sergeant told us to turn the papers over and start answering the questions.

Can't recall too much, but I think there was some basic English language questions, bit of maths and then lots of diagrams with pullies and gear wheels and you had to predict what happened to the last item in a sequence if one turned at the start followed by stuff with weights on balance arms at different distances to the fulcrum. I've always finished exams very quickly, not necessarily correctly, but speedily. At school I would be sitting bored out of my brain for an hour plus, getting glares from other pupils and teachers, so this time I took a piece of scrap paper and doodled stuff for ages instead. When the papers were finally collected, I quickly turned over my scrap paper with all the knob pictures before it was seen by the sergeant. Some people were still writing as their papers were snatched away.

After we completed the tests we were taken into another room for a lecture. What it was about I have no idea, but the unexpected exercise had started taking a strange toll on everyone. There seemed to be a continuous round of farting from everyone, including me, followed by the deadliest stench permeating the room. I was in a confused state. Everyone likes the smell of their own farts, but is this still okay if everyone's smell the same?? The officer giving the lecture gulped and stopped and said that it might be best if everyone went outside for 10 minutes and got it out of their system. He kept some people back to open windows.

So you stunk the fucking room out Yen? 

[yen_powell]

1 hour ago, XTreme said:

So you stunk the fucking room out Yen? 

Yes, just clearing the tubes for the medical a week later when I was sexually assaulted by the doctor.

[yen_powell]

Eventually the day ended and we were free to do whatever we wanted in our Victorian barracks with luxury downstairs stables and horse troughs, all at no extra charge as well. Someone asked if we could go to the pub and the answer was yes, but anyone not there in the morning when our names were called was failed.

Myself a a few others walked across the parade ground and out the gate to a pub in town somewhere. This had some of the sergeants in there already so I bought them all a drink to ensure better marks if they saw me dragging my self along the ground crying. I think this worked actually.

Coming back later that night we couldn't find the gate we had come out of, we got a bit lost. So rather than walk right round the huge outside we climbed a large wall instead to get  into the parade ground. We did it the old fashioned way, none of that leaping on each other stuff like earlier when I got muddy hair. Then we jogged across this huge expanse till our buildings appeared.  Back in the room I squeezed into the awful supplied sleeping bag which had a distinct sweaty feet smell. On the other side of the room was the bloke with the damaged plums. He was telling everyone loudly that someone had swapped his sleeping bag because it definitely never had a broken zip when he got it. A voice in the dark told him to go to sleep or they'd chuck him out the fucking window. I zipped mine up and snuggled down to a guiltless sleep...

In the morning we did the assault course again, poxy thing. I was even floppier across it than before, but I think my beer buying paid off here. Then we got taken to a store and top government experts measure my feet and wrote it down carefully, hopefully against the right name. If my overalls were anything to go by, I might have to stuff the toes of any future boot with paper or cut the toecap off. I then went into the next room and a respirator was stuck over my perfectly formed face. This was then tested by someone putting a hand on the filter and asking me to breathe in. Nothing happened, I just went blue and the veins stood out all over my head. Apparently this meant it was a good fit.

The rest of the day passed in a blur, I think they had me upside down doing the sit ups again because my guts felt like I'd torn a foo foo valve. Finally we got our results individually before being sent to our respective lorries for transport back to where we had started from at the crack of dawn the day before. I was told I had passed subject to the medical. The man with the squashed spuds was one of our group and he moaned all the way back to Tilbury because they had failed him.

A week later I had an appointment at Laindon medical centre. My sweaty mate came with me. He kept sniggering as we sat in the waiting room, but wouldn't say why. I was soon to find out.

My name was called and I was told to go to a particular room. I knocked on the door and heard a female voice tell me to come in. Bugger I thought, woman doctor. I predicted I would be dropping and coughing at some point. I opened the door, hoping she was awful looking.....No such luck. Ask me to take my clothes off in front of a female medical person nowadays I wouldn't think twice. 22 year old me was a bit more worried about it.

So, I was weighed and my height measured. The doctor was quite fit and when she bent down to do something to the scales I got a flash of cleavage. Brilliant I thought, that's all I need. I thought about Maggie Thatcher as hard as I could.

Then she asked me to lay on a trolley and pull my trousers and pants down and my shirt up. As I lay there she started poking me in the guts. She saw me wincing, as the upside down pull ups were still having their after effect. Then she grabbed my bollocks and gave them a quick squeeze. This woman must be marvellous at selecting supermarket fruit I recall thinking. Then I swear she flicked my knob about a bit with the end of her biro.

NOW, the next bit....you have to remember I was still young and naive. So when she asked me to turn on my side and draw my knees up under my chin, I did so not realising what was to come. "Just relax" was what I heard before I nearly shot off the trolley. As I lay there stunned and violated trying to go to my happy place she was already washing her hands at the sink. I'm off the trolley by now, still with my trousers and pants round my ankles, hopping up and down. "What did you just do?" I asked. "I just put my little finger up your bottom she said". I was shocked, we hadn't even been formally introduced and she had not bought me dinner or anything. "Are you sure it wasn't a thumb??"

Still hopping about from foot to foot, I complained it was still stinging a bit. "That's because it's a very tight muscle" she replied. "That is because NO ONE has done THAT before, are you sure you're a doctor, you're not just here to empty the bins or something are you?" says I. "Look on the bright side", she said, "you'll never get piles., err, you can pull your trousers up now.

[XTreme]

16 minutes ago, yen_powell said:

Eventually the day ended and we were free to do whatever we wanted in our Victorian barracks with luxury downstairs stables and horse troughs, all at no extra charge as well. Someone asked if we could go to the pub and the answer was yes, but anyone not there in the morning when our names were called was failed.

Myself a a few others walked across the parade ground and out the gate to a pub in town somewhere. This had some of the sergeants in there already so I bought them all a drink to ensure better marks if they saw me dragging my self along the ground crying. I think this worked actually.

Coming back later that night we couldn't find the gate we had come out of, we got a bit lost. So rather than walk right round the huge outside we climbed a large wall instead to get  into the parade ground. We did it the old fashioned way, none of that leaping on each other stuff like earlier when I got muddy hair. Then we jogged across this huge expanse till our buildings appeared.  Back in the room I squeezed into the awful supplied sleeping bag which had a distinct sweaty feet smell. On the other side of the room was the bloke with the damaged plums. He was telling everyone loudly that someone had swapped his sleeping bag because it definitely never had a broken zip when he got it. A voice in the dark told him to go to sleep or they'd chuck him out the fucking window. I zipped mine up and snuggled down to a guiltless sleep...

In the morning we did the assault course again, poxy thing. I was even floppier across it than before, but I think my beer buying paid off here. Then we got taken to a store and top government experts measure my feet and wrote it down carefully, hopefully against the right name. If my overalls were anything to go by, I might have to stuff the toes of any future boot with paper or cut the toecap off. I then went into the next room and a respirator was stuck over my perfectly formed face. This was then tested by someone putting a hand on the filter and asking me to breathe in. Nothing happened, I just went blue and the veins stood out all over my head. Apparently this meant it was a good fit.

The rest of the day passed in a blur, I think they had me upside down doing the sit ups again because my guts felt like I'd torn a foo foo valve. Finally we got our results individually before being sent to our respective lorries for transport back to where we had started from at the crack of dawn the day before. I was told I had passed subject to the medical. The man with the squashed spuds was one of our group and he moaned all the way back to Tilbury because they had failed him.

A week later I had an appointment at Laindon medical centre. My sweaty mate came with me. He kept sniggering as we sat in the waiting room, but wouldn't say why. I was soon to find out.

My name was called and I was told to go to a particular room. I knocked on the door and heard a female voice tell me to come in. Bugger I thought, woman doctor. I predicted I would be dropping and coughing at some point. I opened the door, hoping she was awful looking.....No such luck. Ask me to take my clothes off in front of a female medical person nowadays I wouldn't think twice. 22 year old me was a bit more worried about it.

So, I was weighed and my height measured. The doctor was quite fit and when she bent down to do something to the scales I got a flash of cleavage. Brilliant I thought, that's all I need. I thought about Maggie Thatcher as hard as I could.

Then she asked me to lay on a trolley and pull my trousers and pants down and my shirt up. As I lay there she started poking me in the guts. She saw me wincing, as the upside down pull ups were still having their after effect. Then she grabbed my bollocks and gave them a quick squeeze. This woman must be marvellous at selecting supermarket fruit I recall thinking. Then I swear she flicked my knob about a bit with the end of her biro.

NOW, the next bit....you have to remember I was still young and naive. So when she asked me to turn on my side and draw my knees up under my chin, I did so not realising what was to come. "Just relax" was what I heard before I nearly shot off the trolley. As I lay there stunned and violated trying to go to my happy place she was already washing her hands at the sink. I'm off the trolley by now, still with my trousers and pants round my ankles, hopping up and down. "What did you just do?" I asked. "I just put my little finger up your bottom she said". I was shocked, we hadn't even been formally introduced and she had not bought me dinner or anything. "Are you sure it wasn't a thumb??"

Still hopping about from foot to foot, I complained it was still stinging a bit. "That's because it's a very tight muscle" she replied. "That is because NO ONE has done THAT before, are you sure you're a doctor, you're not just here to empty the bins or something are you?" says I. "Look on the bright side", she said, "you'll never get piles., err, you can pull your trousers up now.

Rectum stretching? This is getting worse! 

[yen_powell]

There's more medical yet, tomorrow though.

[Pedro]

43 minutes ago, yen_powell said:

I zipped mine up and snuggled down to a guiltless sleep...

Cold hearted!

[yen_powell]

So I've pulled my trousers up and I'm still in shock and not paying too much attention to the doctor. I finally realised she is waving a very small transparent pill container at me and speaking. The container is a few inches long, has a label on it and a screw lid. She wanted me to go to the toilet and provide a urine sample. Not easy with such a small container, but I did my best and gave the outside a good wash afterwards.

I handed over the still warm container and the last thing she did was sit me down and open a book in front of me. I recognised it at once. It was the book of numbers they test you for colour blindness with. I first did this test at an opticians when I was 8 years old. I can only see the first number, the rest is just a sea of dots. I have even asked people who can see the numbers to trace them with their finger and I still can't see them. Strangely every eye test since they have made me do it again, like I am going to be miraculously cured of being colour blind.

So of course, I fail the test as usual. Oh dear she said, you can't join the T.A. if you're colour blind!!!!!

Now why didn't she tell me that at the start, we could have skipped the anal foreplay and gone straight for the rejection! Not only that but I could have spent my weekend previously indoors in the warm instead of running up and down an assault course. I left the room and went out to the waiting area. My mate was waiting with a smirk on his face, knowing what I'd gone through. "Don't worry" he said, "As you get promoted they put more fingers up. Become an officer and you get the whole bloody arm!"

A few days later I go back to Tilbury and see the sergeant who first signed me up and sent me on the 2 day testing weekend. He's seen all my results. He's especially upset about the colour blindness because I got the highest score in the intelligence test out of the 100 blokes there, not that much of a feat as I said, some could barely write. He asked me if I was still keen to join. I asked how that was possible being colour blind. He looked around to make sure no one was listening and then told me to go to another regiment and apply all over again. Then I could learn the colour blindness test and fake it. I thought about it for a few seconds. "I'd have to have a medical again wouldn't I?" "Oh yes.".

"I think I'll leave it if it's all the same to you, cheerio........."

[XTreme]

2 minutes ago, yen_powell said:

So I've pulled my trousers up and I'm still in shock and not paying too much attention to the doctor. I finally realised she is waving a very small transparent pill container at me and speaking. The container is a few inches long, has a label on it and a screw lid. She wanted me to go to the toilet and provide a urine sample. Not easy with such a small container, but I did my best and gave the outside a good wash afterwards.

I handed over the still warm container and the last thing she did was sit me down and open a book in front of me. I recognised it at once. It was the book of numbers they test you for colour blindness with. I first did this test at an opticians when I was 8 years old. I can only see the first number, the rest is just a sea of dots. I have even asked people who can see the numbers to trace them with their finger and I still can't see them. Strangely every eye test since they have made me do it again, like I am going to be miraculously cured of being colour blind.

So of course, I fail the test as usual. Oh dear she said, you can't join the T.A. if you're colour blind!!!!!

Now why didn't she tell me that at the start, we could have skipped the anal foreplay and gone straight for the rejection! Not only that but I could have spent my weekend previously indoors in the warm instead of running up and down an assault course. I left the room and went out to the waiting area. My mate was waiting with a smirk on his face, knowing what I'd gone through. "Don't worry" he said, "As you get promoted they put more fingers up. Become an officer and you get the whole bloody arm!"

A few days later I go back to Tilbury and see the sergeant who first signed me up and sent me on the 2 day testing weekend. He's seen all my results. He's especially upset about the colour blindness because I got the highest score in the intelligence test out of the 100 blokes there, not that much of a feat as I said, some could barely write. He asked me if I was still keen to join. I asked how that was possible being colour blind. He looked around to make sure no one was listening and then told me to go to another regiment and apply all over again. Then I could learn the colour blindness test and fake it. I thought about it for a few seconds. "I'd have to have a medical again wouldn't I?" "Oh yes.".

"I think I'll leave it if it's all the same to you, cheerio........."

Why didn't they put the colour blindness thing in the initial papers?

Save everybody a lot of time!

[Pedro]

6 minutes ago, XTreme said:

Why didn't they put the colour blindness thing in the initial papers?

Save everybody a lot of time!

My guess is the instrctors needed someone to punish and laugh at?

[Pedro]

11 minutes ago, yen_powell said:

So I've pulled my trousers up and I'm still in shock and not paying too much attention to the doctor. I finally realised she is waving a very small transparent pill container at me and speaking. The container is a few inches long, has a label on it and a screw lid. She wanted me to go to the toilet and provide a urine sample. Not easy with such a small container, but I did my best and gave the outside a good wash afterwards.

I handed over the still warm container and the last thing she did was sit me down and open a book in front of me. I recognised it at once. It was the book of numbers they test you for colour blindness with. I first did this test at an opticians when I was 8 years old. I can only see the first number, the rest is just a sea of dots. I have even asked people who can see the numbers to trace them with their finger and I still can't see them. Strangely every eye test since they have made me do it again, like I am going to be miraculously cured of being colour blind.

So of course, I fail the test as usual. Oh dear she said, you can't join the T.A. if you're colour blind!!!!!

Now why didn't she tell me that at the start, we could have skipped the anal foreplay and gone straight for the rejection! Not only that but I could have spent my weekend previously indoors in the warm instead of running up and down an assault course. I left the room and went out to the waiting area. My mate was waiting with a smirk on his face, knowing what I'd gone through. "Don't worry" he said, "As you get promoted they put more fingers up. Become an officer and you get the whole bloody arm!"

A few days later I go back to Tilbury and see the sergeant who first signed me up and sent me on the 2 day testing weekend. He's seen all my results. He's especially upset about the colour blindness because I got the highest score in the intelligence test out of the 100 blokes there, not that much of a feat as I said, some could barely write. He asked me if I was still keen to join. I asked how that was possible being colour blind. He looked around to make sure no one was listening and then told me to go to another regiment and apply all over again. Then I could learn the colour blindness test and fake it. I thought about it for a few seconds. "I'd have to have a medical again wouldn't I?" "Oh yes.".

"I think I'll leave it if it's all the same to you, cheerio........."

A book, Ian, there’s a book in there.

[yen_powell]

15 minutes ago, Pedro said:

A book, Ian, there’s a book in there.

Yes, all pictures in black and white.

[yen_powell]

Just found this picture when looking for something else. Me standing next to someone else's bike. Mine is the black AT at the other end. The one I'm standing next to belongs to the person in the Chuck Berry story on page 3. Strange Dave is fettling at the back.

[XTreme]

40 minutes ago, yen_powell said:

Strange Dave is fettling

Strange looking fucker for sure! 

[yen_powell]

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.

[XTreme]

34 minutes ago, yen_powell said:

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.

Wow! You've known some interesting people Yen.

I was only thinking recently how there are so few "characters" left these days.

Just fucking boring bastards!

[boboneleg]

Another great story Yen , keep 'em coming

[Tango]

35 minutes ago, XTreme said:

Wow! You've known some interesting people Yen.

I was only thinking recently how there are so few "characters" left these days.

Just fucking boring bastards!

When I did my apprenticeship and worked in the factory there were some real characters around, but where have they gone? I guess that some of the stuff we used to do or have done to us would get people sacked these days. 

[yen_powell]

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.

[yen_powell]

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.

 

 

[yen_powell]

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?”