ALL IN A DAYS WORK

BUILDING & BRICKLAYING

by DON LODGE

PAGE TWO

If they were kidding one of lads up, someone would climb up a scaffold pole, 28 feet high, especially when we’d only got us first lift so scaffold was only about 4 foot off ground, and put the lads jacket over the scaffold pole through the arms. It’d take the lad all his time to get up top of pole but he couldn’t get the jacket off without a lot of help from someone else. There’s always tricks like that. Snap bags would be nailed to the floor or lads would be sent to fetch a sky hook.

The men weren’t superstitious, we never used to think of ladders. Me dad used to tell me how he was walking along Ropergate with Mr Smith, the architect, and they came to a ladder.

"Are you superstitious, Mr Smith?" asked father

"No" said Mr Smith, "but I never walk under ladders." And he nipped round onto the causeway.

Sometimes we’d put a flag up when we topped out. On two occasions it paid off. We got ten shillings off Mr Fozzard of Knottingley and at Houndhill Lane, Mr Cook sent a pound to be divided among us all. Some people would put a stone with the date or initials on for a bit of fun but that were dying out at my time. Mr Fozzard though,, he put a bottle with the current Pontefract and Castleford Express and some coins in it under a corner of the foundation. He was a milkman and I heard later that his boss sacked him saying "If you can afford to build your own house you must be twisting me."

Not many people owned their houses, mostly they were built to rent. In 1938 a cheap two block house, semi-detached they’d call it now, would be about £380. Single houses would be up to £600. I remember people coming to me dad "I’d really like one of your houses, Mr Lodge. But I can’t afford deposit."

"Well I’ll lend you forty pound and you can pay me back at ten bob a week."

He did that for several people and he didn’t charge interest. It meant he got the house sold.

A tradesman bought his own tools. Labourers were issued with a shovel by the firm. As soon as a man came me dad would say "Give him a shovel and get started." I didn’t get any special preference because I was one of the sons, I bought me own tools. On our firm me dad always sent brick hammers and chisels to the blacksmiths for sharpening at twopence per tool. Joe Clayton, her were the best blacksmith in Pontefract. I don’t know how these lads manage today, buy a new brick hammer and they’re rubbish. Ours would last and last. When they wore down too short we’d take it to blacksmith and ask "Will you lay me a piece on?"

There were no safety regulations, everybody pleased themselves how they did anything. We’d no safety rails or ‘owt like that. I remember being sent to mastic round the clock face on the tower of Wilkinson’s liquorice factory. There were two windows underneath the clock so I cantilevered a plank out of each window and managed to get a plank across then two to work from. If there’d been building inspectors they’d have gone mad! Mrs Kirkdale opposite daren’t look out of her window, she couldn’t bear to see me up there. When I finished I found I couldn’t get the cross plank back in. I had to get somebody to tie a rope from the tope end and we swung it in.

There were accidents. Len Dukes, an apprentice, fell off going up a ladder as he didn’t know they’d changed it for a shorter one. I was off eighteen months with a broken foot and wrist after falling twenty-foot from a pointing job when scaffold gave way. The plank I was on fell and hit me on the head so I had concussion too. You’d get sick benefit from your Lloyd George.

All the men would carry bricks on their heads to leave their hands free. Caps used to wear a hole in the middle. You’d make a circular pad by rolling your wife’s lisle stockings round a bottle to give a bit of shape, then put that in your cap. Some liked a little pad and some liked a real thick one with three or four stockings. All the labourers round here did that, it was special up north. Then you’d put your board on top of your cap, just a bit of floorboard it’d be with the corners rounded off with sandpaper. You’d get seven bricks on the board, common bricks stacked three and three with one across top other way; best bricks stacked four and two, on edge with face uppermost, and then one across. You’d always protest best bricks, common bricks would be put nearest the ligger and best bricks further away so they didn’t get splashed with mortar. When you were throwing bricks up you’d always throw facing bricks face up so you could see the face was undamaged. That were time and motion before time and motion were thought of.

Mortar was carried same way on a board about 21 inches by fourteen. We’d like our mortar soft, how they managed to carry it without it slipping off I don’t know. They could walk and climb that smooth. I could easy put ten bricks on me head and carry them but I couldn’t balance them for long, I had to keep hold with me hands mostly. Figs Firth, he could balance ten or twelve bricks on if he was in a hurry. He could even carry a bucket with a shovel in it on his head, just like a circus act. He'’ do it just for devilment. Or he'’ put seven bricks on his head, one on top of another, and go up ladder on his knees. Figs were a Knottingley man, he got honoured by the Queen somehow, but I don’t think it were for his acrobatics.

They were skilled men in those days. I don’t know how lads manage today, modern brick’s is rubbish. Old bricks had a frog for mortar to go in, it gives a better key. Modern ones with holes in centre, they’re horrible flaming things. You can’t split them length-wise. I used to be able to split a three-inch brick into three pieces length-wise, you couldn’t do that with modern bricks. You can see on an old building where you get cracks the crack is stepped down through the mortar. On a new one, cracks are vertical, the bricks themselves give way, they’re not as strongly made.

The only thing I’d have liked to have had a bit earlier is them new concrete pumps. They came in just at the end of my time. We’d to shift all concrete for floors by hand. Now they park mixer and pump outside and you can stand three floors up with concrete pouring out of the tub, it fair whips it up!

Don Lodge

'Building' by Don Lodge, is reproduced from 'All In A Days Work - Wait While I Tell You No.2', edited by Richard Van Riel and published by Yorkshire Arts Circus.  It is reproduced with the permission of Richard Van Riel.

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