Fun on the Job, and Lodging Experience

Of course we had plenty of laughs as well, at least we could laugh afterwards if not at the actual time in some instances.

On one job there were seven of us all lodging in the same place. It was a really a cafJ, with a summer trade only, and we all slept in what was the restaurant area. We each had a single iron bedstead, very narrow, with few and inadequate bedclothes. It was just before Christmas, bitterly cold and with a lot of snow. We were comfortable enough up to bedtime as there was a roaring wood fire in the lounge, and we had a card school every evening. But when bedtime came ‑ oh dear! Every time we turned over the bedclothes finished up on the floor, and we woke up half frozen. In the end we didn't bother to undress, but even like that we were still cold. One morning one of the chaps woke me up and whispered "Look at George". There he lay, snoring his head off, in all his clothes including his overcoat, scarf, cap and to top the lot, his rubber boots as well.

George was always good for a laugh. We were working in a village near Chippenham, just the two of us, and on Saturday evening we decided to visit the local. The draught cider they sold was really potent stuff. I never was much of a drinker, and satisfied myself with a pint, but George had four or five. He was merry enough when the landlord called time. To get to our digs, there was a short cut across a meadow near the farm buildings where we were working. George was decidedly wobbly, so I took his arm and led him. Now, about halfway across this meadow there was a ditch. This was absolutely filthy as it took all the effluent from the cow houses and piggeries. At the crossing point someone had put a stepping stone. The drill was to take one step down from the bank on to the stone, and another step up to the other bank.

The night was fairly dark, so to be safe I stepped down on to the stone and struck a match so George could take the first step down. He landed safely, and I repeated the process up to the other bank. Unfortunately the match blew out just as he took off. I made a grab at him, but I was too late and George missed the bank and fell with an almighty splash into the liquid filth. He then, as he always did when he had one over the eight, started to laugh. This was too much for me and soon I, too, collapsed into helpless laughter. As I helped him out I took good care to keep him at arms' length, as the smell was awe‑inspiring.

Still laughing, we got back to the digs where I deposited George in the garden shed, while I went and explained the situation to the landlady. Fortunately she and her husband were good sports, put a big saucepan of water on to boil, and gave me an old tin bath. George stripped off, had a good wash, put on some clean pyjamas and went to bed. I piled all his filthy clothes into the bath, topped it up with water and left them to soak until next day when George washed them properly, so all was well again.

It was in Devon, near Bideford, that once again cider and George combined to give me another hilarious memory. The good folks where we were lodging were very religious, and strict chapel‑goers. On our first Sunday we told our landlady we were going down to the village for a drink. She looked down her nose a bit, explained that chapel started at two and that dinner was at one sharp. After a couple of hours in the pub, George was good and merry. I had one or two, but was sober enough except that I forgot to keep a check on the time. When I did look it was past one already, and we had a good fifteen minutes' walk into the bargain. After a rather unsteady journey we arrived. I knew we were in for a cold reception, which we duly got.

The family had finished eating, and with a black look she brought our dinners in and laid them on the table without saying a word. I stood George up against the table, supporting him with one hand while I pushed the chair under him with the other. It would have been all right if it hadn't been for the chair. It was one of those hardwood ones with a highly polished seat. Alas, as soon as George hit the seat with his bottom he shot off it straight under the table on his back. He started to laugh, as usual, and I followed suit. We must have sounded something like the laughing policeman. To my amazement, it was too much for the family and they had, willy nilly, to join in, and we all finished with tears rolling down our cheeks. Eventually I managed to pull him out and got him seated, still laughing. So we got a belated dinner and also a good telling off, which we thoroughly deserved.

On our travels, the quality of the different digs varied enormously. In some we were accepted as one of the family, but in some we were only tolerated as an extra source of income, and never felt really comfortable. One good outcome of living in lodgings, at least as far as I was concerned, was that it soon cured me of my fads and fancies concerning food. Mother had always spoilt me, giving me just the things I really liked. I soon found out that in digs you either ate what was available or went hungry. I certainly didn't intend going hungry, and it wasn't long before I ate and enjoyed many things I had fancied I hadn't liked previously. That is, all except tomatoes. I never did fancy them, and still dislike them to this day.

Looking back, I still have a chuckle about some of the experiences. We were sent to Watford on a job and soon found digs. It was too late for any work that day, and we accepted the landlady's invitation to sit and rest until teatime. I sat on the sofa and George took an armchair by the fire. We sat there yarning, when we heard the back door open. It was the man of the house arriving after his day's work. He came in, went straight up to George parked comfortably by the fire and said "You can get out of that ‑ that's my chair!". George hurriedly moved and I thought "What a greeting". But we were soon to find out his bark was worse than his bite, and we soon fitted in comfortably.

In the meantime the landlady came in and apologised for not having much in the house, and did we like kipper paste? Neither of us had even heard of it, let alone taste it, but we were hungry and said anything would do. We sat down to a pile of bread and butter, and a whacking great jar of this dark brown paste. It wasn't at all bad, actually, and we filled up all right. Next morning for breakfast there was the jar of kipper paste again. We ate it, but not with the same relish as the night before. She gave us each a packet of sandwiches and a bag of cakes for lunch, so off we went to work. When lunchtime arrived, we unwrapped the sandwiches and you can have two guesses as to what they contained ‑ yes, you're right first time ‑ kipper paste! We went home to tea with much trepidation as we both felt another lot of kipper paste would be the absolute end, but glory be! there was a smashing hot meal all ready. We lodged there several months and lived very well indeed. The paste was usually on the table, but I'm afraid we didn't patronise it much after that.

Regarding the cost of digs in those days, twenty‑five shillings a week was the most we ever paid. A fair average was a pound, and occasionally even as low as eighteen shillings. Shades of 1981! Fancy a week's lodging for the price of a packet of fags!

Another experience we had concerned kippers, not paste. We were sent to Shoreditch from Potter Street to help on some office buildings and arrived in the Raleigh around teatime. We had an awful lot of trouble finding lodgings in that area, but eventually succeeded. We took our cases in, but neither of us was much impressed about the look of things. We came downstairs to the basement kitchen, where we found the rather ancient landlady, still in a dressing gown and festooned with hair curlers and a fag hanging from her lips. She asked us if we liked kippers. We had got to the stage now when we liked anything; in fact I was quite fond of them. She laid the table and produced a pair of big fat kippers. Imagine our consternation when she turned on the hot tap at the sink, held the kippers under it for about a couple of minutes, and plonked them on our plates.

Can you imagine anything more revolting than a warm raw kipper! They were as vile as they sounded. Thank goodness we were let off the hook, so to speak, when the old lady pulled on an old wool coat and asked us if we could manage as she was going out for a drink. We ate the bread and butter, and then the problem arose as to how to dispose of the kippers. We couldn't boil them properly as we couldn't find a pan anywhere. There was no rubbish bin, and kippers are the last thing to secrete anywhere else. I wrapped them in some old paper, stuffed them into a paper bag and went out to try and dispose of the evidence. Easy enough in the country, but not in a city. I couldn't find a rubbish bin anywhere, but as I passed some public toilets the solution came. I went in and flushed them down the loo! I could just as easily have done this in the house, but I didn't think of it at the time. We stayed the night, having nowhere else to go, but in the morning I cooked up a yarn about having to go to another job, paid up, and left thankfully for pastures new.

Even this wasn't so bad as on the occasion when we were sent to Skegness to put up some glasshouses at Butlins. We had been travelling all day, and as it was wintertime I was anxious to make the most of the scant daylight, and never stopped for a meal en route. To cap it all, the front tyre of the Raleigh was punctured and the stop to repair this made us later still. It was pitch dark when we arrived, and raining as well.

There was, I suppose, no lack of accommodation in the seaside resort in winter, but I was tired and ravenously hungry and took the first place I tried, much to my subsequent regret. When the lady answered the door, the whole place was full of cats. She said we could say, and we carried our cases up the stairs followed by a herd of cats of all shapes, sizes and colours. God knows how many there were, but it seemed like scores.

We went down to the kitchen feeling hungry enough to eat the hind leg off a donkey. As we sat there waiting for the lady to dish up, the cats, apparently as hungry as we were, invaded the table. They were helping themselves out of the milk jug, licking the butter out of the dish and tentatively nibbling at the bread! My appetite started to disappear, and when one particularly mangy specimen decided to sit on my plate in vanished altogether. When the lady came in, she swiped around with a tea cloth which sent the animals flying in all directions, and said she hoped we didn't mind cats and were we staying long, a question we very soon answered. We excused ourselves by saying we weren't hungry, and were going out for a drink. We soon found some fish and chips and had a good blow-out. We had to go back there to sleep, which we did after clearing a dozen or so cats off the beds, and shutting the doors and windows. Next day we soon found up fresh digs, and all was well.

Next day another erector from Norwich came along, bringing his wife and his St Bernard with him. The next Saturday we decided to come home, and it was a laugh when we were loaded up ready to start. George sat with me in the front, and Arthur and his wife in the back. Old Mac in crossways, lying on Arthur's and Violet's knees, with his head out of one window and his tail wagging merrily out of the other. Anyway we made it all right.

When I mentioned earlier that I didn't drink much, I forgot that once, and only once, was I drunk. We were working in Bishop's Stortford erecting a conservatory just before Christmas. There was a lot of snow with the usual biting wind, which made work difficult. The job was so near completed that we decided to work on as long as we could the day before Christmas Eve, so we could travel home in good time for Christmas. We had our petrol lanterns, and had just about done when the customer came along and asked us if we wanted a drink. We both said yes, and the gentleman came back with half a tumbler full of what we thought was whiskey and water, but was in fact raw spirit.

The next thing I knew was waking up, frozen stiff, sitting on the greenhouse floor. I got up very gingerly, and when I looked at my watch I was astounded to see it was past nine. George was laid out with his head in the tool basket, still flat out. I suppose it was a combination of the neat spirit on an empty stomach, and the cold. I woke George up with difficulty, put out the lights and we made our unsteady way to our nearby lodgings. I felt absolutely frightful, and certainly learned a painful lesson.