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.
WrAnTz 