In praise of Coal Men

[ComedyPilot]

My coal bunker has been frozen shut under a foot of ice and snow, so my coal man left me 4 bags to top up with.

I am not a small person, nor lacking in a bit of muscle, but those 4 bags took some lifting!

anyone wanting to get fit etc would be hard pressed to find a better way of getting that beach-body

 

[asterix]

Doing building work I lift 35kg cement sacks now and again and they are undoubtedly heavy. I'm very glad they don't use 1cwt sacks any more!

When I worked on the docks there were men who'd started long before containerisation and by their 50's they had usually damaged their backs beyond recovery other than ops to fuse vertebrae to alleviate the damage.

So perhaps not the best way to a beach-body if you do it too long!

 

[Gerry Attrick]

My coal bunker has been frozen shut under a foot of ice and snow, so my coal man left me 4 bags to top up with.

I am not a small person, nor lacking in a bit of muscle, but those 4 bags took some lifting!

anyone wanting to get fit etc would be hard pressed to find a better way of getting that beach-body

Could I just mention that three letter word "age"?

Not to worry CP, it comes to us all.

 

[PBancroft]

Some people are damn strong.

I had a few old scaffolding boards which had been treated with all sorts of nasty things you don't want going into your food (!) and makes them rather weighty delivered to my allotment a few months back. These things are about 12 foot long, and the guy was picking four up at a time and taking them across the field for me as if it was his tea break.

I decided to give him a hand... no, maybe I'll try two... maybe just the one...

Blow me. FOUR of these things. Jeez.

 

[Night Train]

Some people are damn strong.

I had a few old scaffolding boards which had been treated with all sorts of nasty things you don't want going into your food (!) and makes them rather weighty delivered to my allotment a few months back. These things are about 12 foot long, and the guy was picking four up at a time and taking them across the field for me as if it was his tea break.

I decided to give him a hand... no, maybe I'll try two... maybe just the one...

Blow me. FOUR of these things. Jeez.

About ten years ago I was watching a fencing contractor building fences at the back of a block of council houses. He was carrying the 8' long concrete fence posts on his own, over his shoulder, about 10 per fence and 15 fences, one after another he just walked back and forth over the rough ground behind the houses dropping the posts near where each was going to be 'planted'.

I thought he was doing well moving that lot and then, once all moved, he began planting all the posts and then brought in all the panels and left a stack in each garden ready for installing the next day when the concrete, that he also mixed, had set.
That was his day there.

A few years ago I had the opportunity to get a couple of the same size concrete posts and thought of this contractor carrying one on his shoulder so I did like wise.
Geez they're heavy! They also hurt!

I moved the first post over my shoulder and decided to get help with the second one!

 

[Arch]

Last summer, we gravelled the front of the Environment Centre. The gravel was delivered in a big heap to the carpark, and we had to barrow it in to the compound, with a mini digger loading the barrows.

All the lads were taking a bucketload in a barrow. I tried, and my arms nearly came out of my shoulders. Next time I got to the front of the queue, the digger driver scooped up a bucketful, looked at me, and tipped half the bucketful back out again...

 

[surfdude]

About ten years ago I was watching a fencing contractor building fences at the back of a block of council houses. He was carrying the 8' long concrete fence posts on his own, over his shoulder, about 10 per fence and 15 fences, one after another he just walked back and forth over the rough ground behind the houses dropping the posts near where each was going to be 'planted'.

I thought he was doing well moving that lot and then, once all moved, he began planting all the posts and then brought in all the panels and left a stack in each garden ready for installing the next day when the concrete, that he also mixed, had set.
That was his day there.

A few years ago I had the opportunity to get a couple of the same size concrete posts and thought of this contractor carrying one on his shoulder so I did like wise.
Geez they're heavy! They also hurt!

I moved the first post over my shoulder and decided to get help with the second one!

thats how i did my back in . on a good day i could do 15/20 panels up a day . what did me in was walking down a bank with an 8ft corner post on my shoulder and i slipped .very much an ouch

 

[meenaghman]

I was a bit of an animal when younger. Could carry 2 oxygen bottles, one under each arm on site. However nothing compared to sheep farmers. I think it was Wayne shelford who famous tackled sheep. These farmers would crack your hand when,shaking it and I'm no wuss. I'm still useful if someone gets a puncture.. seem to be one of the few can prise tight tyres onto rims.

 

[Noodley]

Fencers and sheep farmers/shepherds will win.....

 

[slowmotion]

Just to go back a bit...we had a coal shed when I was small and the coalmen would fill it up every once in a while. I was fascinated by them as they lugged the sacks from their lorry and dumped the contents. Most of all, I wanted a big brown leather jerkin like the ones that they wore. Do coalmen still wear them?

 

[Noodley]

Just to go back a bit...we had a coal shed when I was small and the coalmen would fill it up every once in a while. I was fascinated by them as they lugged the sacks from their lorry and dumped the contents. Most of all, I wanted a big brown leather jerkin like the ones that they wore. Do coalmen still wear them?

The jackets with the extra leather over the shoulders? I wear one to bed,,,

 

[slowmotion]

Beast

 

[MacB]

I did a variety when I was young and witnessed some prodigious feats by others, I did general labouring, hod carrying and roofing. I was big, strong and sports fit, playing rugby regularly, but couldn't hold a candle to some of the smaller, wiry, types. For straight forward power I had the edge but once you threw in scooting around a site and up and down ladders....no contest. I also nearly bust a gut once trying to pick up a roll of lead, I was green and I just didn't think something that size could weigh that much.

The hardest work I ever did was loading out plasterboard sheets in an office block via the staircase. This was for a complete refurb and you started at the top and worked your way down...about 20 floors. There was a definite technique, you carried one or two boards on your back and had to keep everything smooth. If a wobble got going the board could end up snapping and the upper part whacking you on the head, not pleasant. You also had to keep everything centred as boards with the corners all bashed up didn't make you popular.

I never suffered any ill effects that I'm aware of but pretty sure 20+ years of that sort of stuff would take its toll.

 

[slowmotion]

You were lucky.


View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lV-iP1jSMlI

 

[Globalti]

When I was an industrial temp the job we all feared was at Ferro, an enamel factory in Wombourne, near Wolverhampton. The pay was good (£0.75 an hour!) but the conditions terrible, an 8 hour continuous shift with no break, taking 50kg bags of flaked enamel off a bagging machine every 7 minutes and loading them onto pallets. All this in a filthy environment with red-hot kilns just above your head and so much noise that you couldn't talk to your colleagues. I also got put onto loading containers with 50 kg bags, that was hard work.

One day the double screw that charged the powdered enamel into the furnace snapped because water got into the powder. Several tons of powder spilled out and filled the narrow gap behind and around the brick kilns so the foreman asked me to go up and dig it all out. There was about a 2' gap between the red hot kilns in which I had to work, the first thing that happened was that I touched a piece of steel where welders were repairing the machine and got a huge belt off it, nobody warned me. I sweated buckets and the foreman kept coming up to check on me and give me bottled water but I got it all cleared up. Nightmare job really.