First day at work and end up with a horse.

The biggest day of your life til then arrives you are starting work!

I cycled the six miles to my first days ever work at the building site at Wollerton Road Bradway.

The first thing i did was introduce my self to the forman of Parkins Rotherham who,s name was Jack Horne.

Jack looked at me and asked if I was sure I was fifteen and then when convinced asked me what trade I would like to learn i said I would like to be a joiner, He replied that joiners were two a penny and I had better start with the bricklayers.

He then told me to start work by finding Bonny and taking the gobbo round to the bricklaying gangs.

I walked round the site and asked if Bonny was around and was greeted with lots of **** taking. Any way at last I found the mysterious Bonny who turned out to be the biggest bloody Shire Horse that ever walked.

Apparently my first job was to lead this great big bloody horse and cart around the various bricklaying gangs and load up any gobbo , lintels ,bricks,etc that they needed.

The problem was that if Bonny didn't want to move she just would not until she was ready and no amount of pulling and tugging would change her mind and then all at once she would be off like s--t of a shovel.

My other job was to fill the copper boilers with water and light them for the tea and dinner breaks ,this I

did using the bucket that I had previously given my new pal her oats in ,

When the water boiled I had to fill all the mashing cans and take them round the site to there owners.

I had much trouble with this task the biggest being smacked in the nose by a joiner who objected to having the bloody horses oats swilling around in his tea.

I also had to mash the formans tea [Jack Horne] who insisted on having his delivered to the site cabin in a china cup what a bloody first day in the grown up World.

P.S. I used to see the joiner who cracked me in the nose many years later in the Carlton Club at Gleadless and knew I could have got my own back ,He never recognised me so I let bygones be be bygones but as far as the bloody horse goes every time i buy a tube of glue I think of her.

Lol loving it! X

Lol loving it! X

Cheers puddinburner ,Hope yesterdays Yorkshire was O.K.

Well cuttsie, you couldn't say it was boring like a lot of youngsters nowadays would say.

I started work in the mid 60's and, it was a time when you could leave school on the Friday and start work on the following Monday, no "gap year" for us.

You could also leave a job on the Friday and find a job the following week so you were never out of pocket but then, we didn't have any benefits to fall back on so you had to be responsible for yourself.

I remember starting work at 15 at a soft drinks factory on Burnell Road,Leonard Goddard and Sons.From day 1 the old farts that had worked there since the year blob started to verbaly abuse me as though I,d commited some crime against them!.I was worked like a dog much of it heavy lifting,I developed a real hatred of one or two of em!,not all of the workers were like this only the insiders on the bottling plant.I suppose it was the boring drudgery of the job made them this way, from those days I swore I,d never work inside a factory ever,and I never did!.Not a very happy memory!

Very entertaining, cuttsie! My first day at work (as a bank messenger) was also one I'll never forget. It was at the Midland Bank, overlooking the late lamented 'ole in the road (it's now the Bankers' Draft pub - definitely a change for the better). The manager had his tea delivered to his lair in a Wedgwood tea service. Of course it was my job to make it - and my fault when I tripped on the stairs and smashed the teapot into a thousand pieces. I was then dispatched to Cockaynes to get a stainless steel one - I suppose you could see the logic in this. Some blokes were installing security glass over the counters - it was so secure you couldn't see it, and I walked into an unguarded corner and cut my head. One of the junior cashiers fluttered her eyelashes at me - then later I found she had at least three boyfriends on the go. In the afternoon they sent me to the station to collect a parcel from London that was coming via British Rail's much-vaunted "Red Star" parcels service. The train had arrived on time but the two scruffy old men in the parcels office were "just waiting for the porter to bring the parcels in from the platform". Exactly an hour later I was still waiting for the porter, and one of them sheepishly walked the few yards to Platform 1 and brought in the parcel. It was a case of "not my job" of course.... When I got back to the bank with the parcel, the manager wanted to know where his "Star" was (apparently it was my job to collect it from the newspaper seller up the road). I nearly told him it was coming via Red Star parcels....

Cuttsie takes some right stick on this forum, not on this thread I might add, for my money he's always worth a read. Good Sheffield sense of humor, knows his local history, and speaks his mind, this thread's OP is a classic.

Cuttsie takes some right stick on this forum, not on this thread I might add, for my money he's always worth a read. Good Sheffield sense of humor, knows his local history, and speaks his mind, this thread's OP is a classic.

I look forward to both Cuttsie and OldTups stories, they are brilliant, they should write books.

When my grandfather had to abandon his beloved cutlery trade, he collected some wonderful tales in the steel works. One of his favourites was about a young lad and a foremen at SPT & Templeborough. The foremen had it in for the lad, everytime he attempted to pick anything up by hand the foremen shouted, " spit on it silly bugger, if it sizzles it's 'expletive' hot, you daft young 'expletive' ".

One lunch time the lad was ordered to go out and fetch the snap, the foreman ordered a hot pie. On returning the lad was distributing the snap when the foreman shouted, "is it hot you daft young 'expletive'. Yes you've guessed it, the lad ended up with a free pie and the foreman left him alone in the future. :hihi:

not my first job but at 16 I joined the Merchant Navy, in oz two of our resident gays was caught making moves on one of the young lads they was thrown over the ship side into the harbour by the very tough greasers the gays never returned to ship so as a steward at that time had to work double shift untill we could pick up two more in Sidney I think they must have been warned before signing on DONT TOUCH

not my first job but at 16 I joined the Merchant Navy, in oz two of our resident gays was caught making moves on one of the young lads they was thrown over the ship side into the harbour by the very tough greasers the gays never returned to ship so as a steward at that time had to work double shift untill we could pick up two more in Sidney I think they must have been warned before signing on DONT TOUCH

Reminds me of a tale my owd mother in law told me about a young lad at Joseph Rodgers who in his first week was getting rather horney with the lasses.

The older buffer women grabbed him and greased his wedding tackle after throwing his trousers on the fire!

Reminds me of a tale my owd mother in law told me about a young lad at Joseph Rodgers who in his first week was getting rather horney with the lasses.

The older buffer women grabbed him and greased his wedding tackle after throwing his trousers on the fire!

much later on just left the army got a job with the towel and smock cleaners (Driver)one always had to be very carefull when changeing the towels in" LADY's" wash room being a gent I was always in good stead but do know one lad getting a little mouth got the same at "Smiths" potato crisps had to drive home with no pants and more greasy chips than he could eat in one sitting:hihi: