Well while I am waiting for submissions I thought I might as well put a story on to start the ball rolling.
When you become an Apprentice, you get used to becoming the butt of many practical jokes, one of which I remember well. One of the rites of passage was your introduction to the two old geezers who ran the Print Shop. One was called Glyn, the shorter one I believe and I can't recall the name of the other guy. Anyway they couldn't wait for you to go in there and mention that you had a cold. They would rub their hands with glee and say we have just the thing for that, everybody uses it. They would find an old rag, soak it in the Ammonia that was use to develop the blue prints and advise you to hold it against your nose and breath the fumes deeply "to clear your chest" they would say. Of course being naive and thinking that they knew what they were doing, I along with many others over the years followed this advice. After your eyes had stopped running and you had finished coughing your lungs up, you would see them and any other men in the Print Room falling about laughing.
However bad the effects were on you, this didn't stop you from wanting to see others falling for the trick. I remember recommending it myself to other unknowing victims who had colds and escorting them to the Print Room. Then I would ask the geezers with as straight a face as I could manage, can you help friend? and then join in the ensuing hilarity as another victim went through the agony! Misery loves company as they say.
Who knows today with all The Health & Safety issues, how breathing in straight Ammonia affected us in later life, but in those days we didn't think of such things.
Colin Watkins
From Krys Bather
I was a shorthand typist in the sales typing pool from 1963 -1965, then worked for Den Nicholas, in a tiny office opposite the telephone room, then transferred to Sir Alfred's office as junior secretary then got promotion to worked for Mike Newman as his personal secretary.
My initiation into practical joke territory happened like this: On my first day in the typing pool I was asked by one of the engineers to pop upstairs to the Drawing Office for a long weight (I thought) thinking this was a tool of some sort that the engineer needed. I was told to take a seat and after some 15 minutes I asked one of the draughtsmen what was happening about the weight and they all fell about laughing and said hadn't I "waited" long enough. Oh the awful embarrassment I felt. I walked back into the typing pool red-faced to see all the sales engineers laughing their heads off and to inform me that I was the record holder for the longest wait so far. The shame of it!
There must have been about 40 engineers and they all had a wicked sense of humour, but they were the happiest of times and I have some super memories of them all and often think about where are they now.
Love the idea of this site.
Krys Bather 6/24/08
The Drawing Office Blues
For those of us who completed our Apprenticeship went into the Drawing Office to become Draughtsmen, there was a situation which caused us great dissatisfaction. The Apprentices who went to the Shop Floor were immediately classed as skilled men and got paid accordingly. We were classed as Junior Draughtsmen until we got to be 25, and our pay rate was well below what the guys who went to the Shop Floor were earning. We complained loudly and often to the Union Representatives, namely the Office Committee about this disparity, but it fell on deaf ears. The attitude of the Senior Draughtsmen and the Office Committee was that if it was good enough for them it be good enough for us. In other words if they had to do it we had to do it. So it was then, that every Birthday was looked forward to with great eagerness because we would get a pay raise. When the magic milestone of 25 was reached, for some reason the pay raise was invariably not included in the pay packet when it arrived. To add insult to injury, after so much anticiaption, it was necessary to visit the Wages Department to find out why.
In about 1973 as junior Draughtsman, I decided to immortalize this situation in a poem which I called "The Drawing Office Blues", as follows:
A young draughtsman is a happy bloke,
he'll have a larf, he'll tell a joke,
The pays not much and the hours are long,
but as works he'll sing a song.
Till 25 he's still a boy,
Looks forward to that day with joy,
But when it comes his pays not right,
So he storms up Wages all uptight.
The girl says "your right - you'd 'ave 'ad it too,
if the Birthday memo had come through"
So he goes down Personnel hell bent,
To find the Birthday memo had been sent!
They show him a copy to prove they're not wrong,
It was wages blunder all along,
Although by now he feels like crying,
He's not the sort to give up trying.
The bloke in Wages says "now we know,
we'll put it right in a week or so"
He works that Saturday - but Surprise!
it's not put in with his Birthday rise.
He soon gets used to the Senior Man's slog,
reading the Sun in the sweet smelling bog.
Silence abounds as he sits for ages,
All he can hear are rustling pages.
Fumes drift over from Trap three,
a scrumpy drinker probably.
Hurriedly he pulls the flush,
out into fresh air in a rush,
The Office Committee's gone once more,
more secrets for the tight lipped four.
Short time?, redundancies due to inflation?,
the same old rumours in circulation.
They come back looking very grim,
our chances must be bloody slim!
Then they smile and say "don't worry,
they want a million pounds out in a hurry.
An incentive bonus we don't get,
the Shop Floor profits from our sweat.
There's groans in the Office and ill feeling,
as the Shop Floor bonus goes through the ceiling.
A sense of humour's what you need,
'cause draughtsmen are a special breed.
Their philosophy is "have a jar,
'cause if things don't change, they'll stay as they are!"
Colin Watkins circa 1973