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I worked with Mr Cox who was the builder. He was the one who tried to teach
me how to be a builder and what a labourer did. I cant say that all he tried to teach me sank in but many times after leaving the building trade I have been pleased about what he had managed to get me to take on
board with some of the jobs I have undertaken. My employment took me through most aspects of the trade from small repairs to extensions and new builds where we started from scratch and built a new property.
One of the first jobs I was involved with was at the School House at Worlaby where renovations were underway when I first started work. On the first day there a job was being carried out on the roof. I don't
remember what it was exactly but this was the first time I had been on a house roof. I had to take a bucket full of mortar up to where the work was being done.
I had to climb to the top of the ladder and then step off it onto the roof, a rope was hanging down and to get to the work I pulled on the rope and walked up the gap on the lead where the two parts of the roof joined.
A new floor was laid in the kitchen and when the concrete had dried out we were to lay a plastic type tile onto it for the finished surface. This was what for me was the best bit as the weather was rather cold
and I was stood with an enclosed tank with a spout sticking up from it to refill with water when required and let out any steam on a gas burner. The purpose of the tank was when heated to have placed on it the tiles
so that they became pliable ready to be laid onto the floor that had been given a coat of glue to stick them onto it.
This job involved travelling daily from Winteringham along the A1077 road past the River
Humber to South Ferriby before turning right at the top of Sluice Road onto the road that ran through the low villages to get there. Our day started by loading the truck with the materials that we required for the
day. Once this was done and I was sat as comfortable as possible in the back as the cab only had room for two people in it we would be on our way.
On one particular day our journey was to get more interesting
than normal, as we reached the part of the road that ran alongside the river the lorry in front of us came to a stop. We followed his actions.
Moving so I had a better view I saw two people moving around at the side of the lorry and thought for some reason that there had been an accident from their actions but thankfully I was way off the mark. As we sat there the lorry driver and the other man lifted a cycle onto the back of the lorry and then the driver helped him up beside it. Once the driver was back in his cab the lorry set off again. I regained my seat still somewhat puzzled but not for long as we progressed along the road it became obvious why the lorry stopped and picked up the cyclist. The River Humber was in flood and had flowed over the road and into the fields on the opposite side. At that time the road was much lower than it is now and that's the reason the river covered it during very high or flood tides. I must admit that I was surprised at just how much of the road and land that I could see covered by the water as we drove slowly through it. When well clear of the flooded road the lorry stopped and the cyclist helped down so he could continue his journey.
Water, Water, Everywhere ...
Only once did I make a journey down this stretch of road when it was flooded on my cycle .
Not wanting to have to go back home as I had reached this far into my journey I sat and watched the water moving over the road and found that the white line was still just visible this was normally the highest
part of the road. So setting off in a low gear I started to pedal through the water as close to the the middle of the road as I could. Once on the move I was able to change into a higher gear. Slowly I rode
down the road with little waves passing over it till what may be described as the point of no return with no visible distinction between road and river and the white line gone only the marker post showing the depth!
It was a case of keep going.
The water was just catching my pedals at their lowest point most of the way though and the added bonus of being the only one there at the time passing through I was soon at the
other side and onto dry roads By the time I returned all there was to show for the earlier flooding were the fields on the opposite side to the river as they started to drain away through the dykes and pipes
into the river and a road with the odd wet patch on it.
This part of the A1077 flooded a number of times during the year and most of the time traffic was able to travel slowly through the water but some
times the depth was too deep to safely continue through and then it was a case of waiting for the tide to turn and the water become lower.
As a teenager, it may have not been obvious to me at the time about
the danger of what I was doing. Falling off my cycle could have resulted in being washed away and trapped in one of the flooded fields or out into the River which could have seen me being drowned in either
case or if traffic was on the road at the same place and time the result could have been getting run over or the cause of a very nasty accident.
Hanging Around!
This memory of work was only a few minutes walk up Ferry Lane from home in
Winteringham to what was in about 1967 the Abattior at the top of it on the right hand side and gives an insight to the two jobs that I was involved with there. The reminder of this job is a line from the Bee Gees
song Come First of May that I muddled up and still do when I hear it and sing along to it. The line `When I was small and Christmas trees were tall.` For some reason I always sing when I was tall and Christmas trees
were small I don't know why but that's the link that reminds me of this job.
Early morning frosts were starting to last longer as winter approached when I first
received a ladder, scraper and wire brush from Mr Gray and was shown how to clean the rails that ran round the building suspended from the roof that allowed the carcasses of the dead beasts to be hung from and
either worked on or moved around the building. This preparatory work was carried out before the rails were to be painted.
From my work position I had a full view of the room that contained a large metal
container into which the cattle were driven one at a time to be killed by the slaughterman. The container had at the other end to the entry a ladder or steps up to a platform for the slaughter man to stand on when
killing was taking place. This was done by shooting them in the forehead with a special gun that shot a steel bolt into the brain killing the animal but still remained attached to the gun for reuse when the
gun is reset and loaded again .
There also was a large tank full of hot water this was used when pigs were killed,
I know it was a `scalding tank` and the water was used to help remove the bristles from their skin. The hot water tank became useful to me one day as my watch kept stopping. Maybe it was the cold weather but a
few seconds in water soon started it up again and it kept going. The walls were painted red to about three quarters of the way up them (someone said `its so the blood does not show up so much`). Only the blood when
splattered on the wall showed up as black marks .
While having a break and talking with the workers I was told to keep an eye open when they were killing as they have had cattle get up again and move around
even though dead. - just like a chicken when it has had its neck broken to kill it. I thought that my leg was being pulled but still kept an eye on the proceedings as each beast was shot. One of the lads said that
if it happened I should forget trying to get down my ladder and grab onto what ever I could and hang on. Nothing happened for a few days the cattle were killed an the slaughter men carried out their jobs. `Bang` a
beast was shot and the lever pulled that opened the side and it rolled out as I turned back to my job someone shouted look out and there was the dead beast getting to its feet and started to blunder about . I was
off my ladder and onto the rail and with my arm round one of the stays and hung on. Below the mayhem carried on for a few minutes before the beast crashed to the floor and things were back to normal and I was back
on my ladder cleaning the rail.
After that job was finished we moved outside to work in the crew yards where we dug
out all the old manure. From the smell and the way it was compacted I would think that it may have been there for quite some time and was a bit like concrete.
The best part about doing this was that you kept quite warm. With this part of the job completed the ground was prepared ready to cover in concrete for the walls that would make new pens for the cattle as they were brought in for slaughter. With this being a large area to cover the concrete was brought to the site already mixed by lorry instead of us having to use a concrete mixer from which we could not have produced the required amount fast enough. By using ready mixed the lorries would pull in and tip their load and we would spread it into place in time for the next delivery. This was carried out until that part of the job was completed.
The walls were built from breeze or sinter block, that were approximately eighteen
by ten by ten inches with two square holes through them along with bricks in their construction. The gates and fittings I think were made at the North Iron Works at Winterton by Fletchers.
The Creature from the Black Lagoon
One of the new houses we built was down Booth Nooking Lane in the field beside the
farm of Percy Ogg that was for his son. The job started by rebuilding the bridge that lead into the field by digging out so that concrete could be put down to form a base that could be built on when construction
started. With a means of entry to the field, the hut that held our materials and doubled up as a mess room was erected.
Trenches that showed the ground floor walls were dug out and when completed were filled
with concrete to form the footings on which the walls were built. The house was built in a yellow coloured brick. A lot of the time the site was a thick gooey mess when it rained and we worked in wellington boots
due to the mud, but the other times when the sun shone the ground became very hard. Most of the material deliveries luckily arrived when the ground was hard but the odd one did not make it and the lorries ended
sinking down to their axles and Mr Ogg then helped out with his tractor and a chain to get them moving again. During the building of the house I remember both Mr Ogg Senior and Junior taking a tractor with a shovel
like that of a JCB on the front and a trailer down one of their fields to where the NLLR ran through, filling the trailer full of ballast that had been between the sleepers when the railway was in operation.
It was deposited as infill for the bridge or between the bridge and house to make a hard standing to help the lorries that arrived in the wet.
The house progressed until one day I was told to go with the
driver of our truck as we had to go and pick something up. Our journey was as far as Winterton where we turned off Earlsgate onto what now is Grange Field Estate. We stopped at a hut and our driver went in after a
few minutes he reappeared with a workman who pointed across to the back side of the building site. Setting off again we slipped and skidded through the thick viscous mud as the truck followed what would later become
roads. Our driver sought out one of the men that was working there who pointed to a large stack of bricks with which the houses were being built - they were yellow in colour just like we were using back home. Having
collected our load we made our way back the way back to the hut and saw the same chap again then it was back to our job at Winteringham where we used the bricks.
I will add this small account that was very
funny to my work colleagues and I can see why now ... but not possibly at the time of it happening. While working on Mr Ogg's house the toilet we used was across a deep narrow dyke spanned by a wooden bridge with no
hand rail that was maybe only two feet in width.
We all had crossed the bridge many times without incident but on this day my luck ran out, as I returned to work I started back across the bridge and found myself six to twelve feet down in the bottom wet and covered in mud. By the time I had picked myself up two laughing figures were stood on the bank top and offering help to get out of the dyke. When back on dry land so to speak and their laughter had nearly stopped the older of the two asked what I was doing and stated that When I was half way over the bridge I had placed one foot firmly on the planks and the other in fresh air and then the bottom of the dyke. To this day I have no idea how I missed my footing and took a dive but admit it must have been funny to have seen. Fortunately I did not see any one with a camera because I must have looked like something from the black lagoon stood there dripping mud and water. After cleaning up and putting on clean clothes at home, it was back down to work where I was still the source of amusement.
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