While I was sitting in the Sauna last night an older fella asked me my occupation and when I told him I was in H&S he called me a 'bloody do gooder' and it got me thinking why I got in to H&S: At sixteen I worked on a Job Creation scheme and witnessed a lad of 16 working on a roof put his feet into a bucket on a pulley system to see if he could lower himself down, he feel breaking his shoulder. No Training. I worked ripping out old house ceilings, walls plaster etc. The dust mask was my jumper rapped around my face. I worked for the same firm digging out old drains and replacing them, the older fella I worked with ended up with Weils disease. Working from a wooden ladder 3 storeys up with the base on cobbles and no one footing it. I worked for a cleaning contractor at ford motor company Halewood, Cleaning paint booths were the primer paint left you with burns and sores all over the body very little PPE unless you could find it yourself. Working in the lower levels, hydropac tanks where there was only one way in and out about 40ft, smell of paint fumes as you chipped away creating sparks as you scrapped the paint off, getting high of the fumes (no confined space planning then). Also in Fords an oven full of asbestos being demolished and us, shovelling it into wheel barrows no dust masks etc. Can any of you do gooders remember the good old days. Making cups of tea, walking up and down stairs still needs to go from the R/A process and specific work tasks all that is dealt with but the way this government are heading won't be long before were back to the good old days.

I started my career cutting up blocks of graphite with a circular saw to make brushes for electric motors. Extraction - never heard of it. Guards - none. As the old hand who taught me said: "Only an idiot puts his hand in the blade, and then only once!" To get ourselves clean enough to use the company canteen (very forward thinking for the 1950s) we used the 'trike' tank. Ah, yes - the "good old days"! Chris

Having wan dered through the "good old days" in similar situations to Fletcher, I sometimes wonder how I managed to get to this day...

Started out in light engineering - apprentice marine engineer. Worked for a one man band, where H&S was pretty much non existent. Manual handling - just lift it, you'll build your muscles up quicker. Dusty work - hold your breath while you're grinding then. Moved onto another engineering company - worked as a saw sharpener and tool maker for 12 years. Grinding wheels throwing out sparks due to no guards - move out of the way then. Switch not working on bench grinder - switch it off from the main switch on the wall (3 feet away) then. Caught your fingers on the grinding wheel - pay more attention then. Grinding wheel exploded - duck quickly. Yes, sometimes I do wonder how I'm still alive...

Oh - nearly forgot. 12 years of breathing in tungsten dust with no PPE. Mmmmmmm, nice. Not to mention the amount of sparks I got in my eyes due to safety glasses not really being up to the job, (and if wearing a full face flip down mask, some joker tightening up the spinner adjuster on the back so your head feels like it's going to explode (thank you, workshop manager)).

Don't worry guys, the way things are going with the current administration the good old days will soon be back again. Now get back up that chimney, stop complaining and start sweeping again!

Just had a thought ! IS IT FRIDAY ALREADY?

As it's Friday, guitar man and I will sing to you...as long as its a Dylan tune or Cohen tune

Something by "Men Without Hats" perhaps? ;-)

Given the recent thread about OTT H&S; Motorhead did a great song called "Over the Top" Andy

Or- #16 "High Voltage" Either AC/DC or Electric 6 Andy

Regarding Cohen (the man more dead than alive) he has made some happy tunes... I just can't think of any right now :-( Z with a blade and ...Dylan...what big ears you have...

HaHa! just put my earplugs back in to find "Canary in Coalmine" playing. How fitting!

Lifting 2x50Kg bags of shot (one in each hand) just to show it could be done. Dismantling a dust extractor from inside using a lump hammer and a cold chisel (hit the bolts hard enough and the heads ping off?). PPE? Well, this was 1976 so they gave us some, but we didn't wear it. Happy somgs by Cohen? I know, there's dress rehearsal rag, er, no, how about Joan of Arc, or, er, or Let's Sing Another Song Boys... There must be some, I know! First We Take Manhatten! No? Well then, what about Hallelujah? That's a word of celebration, surely.... John

It has to be Safety Dance by Safety Dance surely?

I worked at a pot bank years ago, and when they were laying off staff, and trying to find work for the ones that were left, me and another guy were told to clean out an old storage warehouse. Some of the windows had been broken a long time before, so pigeons had decided to move in. The place was caked in pigeon poo- we had to clean it all out. PPE? None. We had a shovel each and a never ending supply of empty plaster sacks to put the poo in. We had a great time!!! Andy

Okay.... so now I mentioned the worst ever jobs, I better relay at least one of them. Young boy at sea (RN) 1971 (engine room dept) the ship was driven by steam turbines and I was in the boiler room... got the picture? Time came for cleaning the boilers.. two types of clean, internal and external (both of them are actually inside) the external was cleaning the furnace and in between the water pipes, this was done with no PPE, no ventilation and as much light as a hand held torch would allow, that was the easy part. The internal clean was to clean the steam drums and the insides of the steam tubes, this was a two man job, done in the dark, in confined spaces that should have been ventilated for 24 hours prior to starting. The man up top would drop steel ball bearings which were the exact same size as the internal diameter of the tube (about 2") through each tube and the man at the bottom (lying on his back) would catch the ball bearings in a bag, the tubes were about 12' long and the speed of a 2" ball bearing meant precision handling was imperative. all went well until the guy up top decided to liven things up by going out of sequence and speeding the process up, guy at the bottom often suffered severe bruising if lucky and broken things if unlucky..... sigh... good old days Other jobs (which I had to clear the mess up) included superheated steam leaks that had cut a crew member in half, steam drenching the boiler room (by accident) that cooked the boiler room crew and the final clean up was on an open front boiler, which was just that and required the boiler room to be pressurised to force air into the furnace. The boiler room door was a double entrance and acted as an air lock, so as not to decrease the air pressure in the boiler room, unfortunately, somebody opened both doors at the same time and the flames from both boilers blew back into the boiler room, incinerating everything and everybody... I think we have moved on a little since then

For me it was 'Carbon Black' Ashland chemicals UK located in Port Tenant Swansea as a young electrician. The was so much carbon in the air and everything had at least 2 inches of the black stuff on it including switchgear. To even touch anything electrical was an experience I'll not forget. Dust masks? Never saw one. Safety electrical gloves? No chance. H&S people? 1976 what are they then? Does inhaling carbon black hurt the lungs? No idea

Also ex RN and while serving on "Happy Hermes" in the 60's I witnessed them carrying out removal of lagging in one of the boiler rooms. The air was thick with the stuff. It looked like a blizzard in there. Of course what was flying about was Asbestos and no one in the area was wearing any protection apart from their overalls. Ah ... the good old days. Jomo

Can't believe Motorhead hasn't come back with one of his own lines already from his biggest hit Ace of Spades: "That's the way I like it baby, I don't wanna live forever"!