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Characters
Thinking back on my apprenticeship as a diesel fitter with a bus company it seems there was a lot more characters back then than there is in today’s workplaces.
We did 3 months at each section of the large workshops and this ranged from fuel pumps, engines, gearboxes to full strip down and rebuild of a bus, the items from the strip down went to the different departments and some of the things like brake shoes and steering boxes were done by the older guys who guarded their benches as if their life depended on it and try borrowing one of their spanners – no chance.
One person always sticks out in my mind, he was a small man in his mid 50’s and never said much but he chain smoked the old woodbine and had more nicotine stains on his lips than his fingers. If you approached him and asked if whatever was ready - if it was he would just nod in the direction of the completed jobs pile but if he stopped to take the woodbine out then the job wasn’t and no matter what time of day it was he just said ‘after tea break’ then woodbine back in and conversation finished. We tried to take the mickey asking the obvious ‘and which tea beak would you be referring to’ and although it raised a smile the woodbine stayed in.
It was my turn for going to the shop for the rolls etc and managed to get to this guy for the first and only time when I returned from the shop saying they didn’t have any woodbine – his woodbine came out this time along with every swear word known to man about trying the other shop and something about lacking mental capacity - then it dawned on him.
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