Day: August 20, 2010

Identify These Vandals – Make Them Clear Up

“Portsmouth Central Library has closed until further notice after a flood”.


Although unconfirmed it seems likely that vandals were responsible for the damage caused to Portsmouth Central Library.  ” The News has been told the flood was caused by vandals who blocked the sinks of the third-floor arts centre toilets with tissue paper and left the taps running all night.”

I struggle to understand what pleasure these mindless individuals get from causing so much aggravation for everyone else.

Apart from the actual repair work and the costs involved  the library will probably  be closed for at least two weeks. Library users are advised to use the other libraries in the area.

Lets hope that these morons can’t keep their mouths shut about what they have been up to and some right-minded citizen dobs them in to the police.  Then I can think of no better punishment than making them help with the clean up and repairs….with no pay and the threat that if they don’t turn up they go to prison.

My first job: A Voyage Into The Unknown


My first work experience, excluding the paper round, was working as a machine operator for Battle Engineering. The firm was based in an ancient stables building supported by massive oak supports.

I started, at the grand old age of 16, in 1968 and my working day started with me having to empty the swarf from the machines, sweeping the workshop floors and then making the morning tea for the machine operators having first collected then washed the enamel cups.

Only after that did I actually get any training to operate machines. For this I was paid £4 per week.

This job didn’t last long as the firm lost a contract with Guinness Hop Farms and so after 3 weeks I was given notice to quit. At the end of my notice the boss asked if I had found another job which I hadn’t. So he offered to take me on to do some decorating. So I spent that summer up a ladder painting the outside of the building listening to the pirate radio station, Radio Caroline.

The decorating job morphed into a reconstruction and refurbishment job inside the building where I installed a mezzanine floor, removed an office structure which hung from the rafters a bit like a Housemartins nest. This work continued for several months.

Eventually, I resumed my original task as machine operator where I remained until I left, in May 1969 to start a Fitter & Turner apprenticeship in Portsmouth Dockyard.

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