From when I was a child I always have had an interest in how things worked and how they were put together to make them look and feel as they did.
Many a scolding was had throughout my primary school years from my parents when they found clocks, watches, the house phone, cars or anything could get apart with the aid of some screwdrivers, spanners, saws and most probably the odd hammer or two all being rendered unuseable by my curiosity trying to find how they went together and worked.
From the ages of 6 through to around 11 years old many an item would be resigned to the bin and a stern telling off not to do that again.
Fortunately I persisted and educated myself on how many things worked and the older I got the more I understood and eventually more items went back together in a working order than didnt, even managing to get some things working that weren`t working before.
In secondary school my metal work teacher told me I had a natural aptitude and used to leave me to my own devices with all the machine tools in the classroom.
Apart from metalwork and woodwork academic life was not for me and I wanted to leave school as soon as school allowed and I applied for apprenticeships with now all gone british industries and passed all the aptitude test they all put me through, it all depended on my academic results and I would be in one. But my academic apathy in school to the written word and mathematics meant I didnt get the results I needed and therefore punctured my hopes and opportunity.
I ended up working for a stalinesque managed agricultural dealership at teh age of 16, unable to drive my parents organised I get a lift with a neighbour which got me to work about an hour before work started and had to catch a busback over an hour after work ended, my day would start at 6.30 am ish, catch my lift and travel to work, wait in their car in the factory next door from 7.15 am to 8.30 am until my place of work opened, worked until 5.30, walk into town and catch a bus home at around 6.45, I didnt get home until 7.30 on any weekday. this carried on until I passed my test about a year later.
I called them stalinesque as it was a bit like slave labour, as I was allegedly doing an appreniceship and they claimed my pay was capped by the scheme, all of £17.50 a week, which in 1966 may have been a reasonable wage but in 1986 didnt go far even without having a car, it did creep up over my 4 years there and at the end when we parted company acrimoniously I was receiving the heady amount of £55 week !
I did finish the scheme they put me on, City and Guilds Agricultural Mechanic course, I did far better than anyone else had ever done on the course in its history in Carmarthenshire, a distinction on the course had never been acheived before, even won a prize from the college for my efforts which I was presented with my results at one of those passing out do things.
More ramblings soon 🙂
Upcycling My Life At 49 