Continued from
http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=30601.msg886659#msg886659Once a pipe was cracked, it was just a case of working steadily away until the whole thing was broken into manageable pieces. Hard, but not impossible. Once we got going we discovered that some of the pipes were damaged already, which was a real blessing.
My grandad and I helped by gathering up the pieces of cast iron and loading them on to the trailer. Well, my grandad was a help; I suspect I was more of a hindrance because my dad had to smash some of the pieces up into extra small bits so that I would be able to lift them.
Eventually we had as much scrap as we thought the lorry would carry. My dad was very good at estimating the weight of a pile of scrap iron, and it was a very useful skill to have. When he was buying, he could underestimate a little, and, if he was selling to a yard with no weighbridge, (A common occurrence in those days) he could make sure he was on the right side of the bargain.
Hauling the trailer full of scrap back up the hill made the tractor engine roar like a lion. As a boy, I used to see engines as sort of living things, and even now I tend to have conversations with things mechanical, sweet-talking them into compliance. “What’s wrong sweetheart?” I might say to the car, “Too cold for you to start this morning? There you are then, I’ve re-heated your injectors now let’s go.” Or occasionally, “Right, that’s it, if you don’t shape up, I’m weighing you in.”
I murmured a few words of encouragement to the tractor, “Go on, you can do it.” The tractor responded gamely and roared even louder, digging its wheels deeply into the soft earth as it scrabbled forward.
We pulled alongside the Bedford and transferred the load. My dad estimated that there was just shy of 3 tons. On this occasion though, estimating wasn’t necessary, he had made an agreement with the farmer that he would do all the work, breaking and loading the pipes, then he would haul them to the scrap yard and weigh them in, standing to the fuel costs himself. He would save the weigh in receipt, which had printed upon it all the details of the transaction, and this he would show to the farmer. They would then split the money fifty fifty.
For some reason, I can’t for the life of me remember which scrap yard we weighed in at. It could have been Sam Payne’s in Mansfield, C.F. Booth’s in Rotherham, Tommy Ward’s in Sheffield, (Remind me to tell you about Tommy Ward one day) or any one of half a dozen others, but all these yards seem too far away. What I do remember is my dad stopping at a bakers shop on the way. My grandad had an Eccles cake, my dad had a bag of salted crisps, and I had an oven bottom with thick butter. The woman behind the counter asked me about my hood and cape, and then she gave me a piece of paper with a slice of ham wrapped up in it saying “Here, stick that in thee bread cake.”
All together, we made four trips that day. On the last run, the farmer came up to my dad just as we were transferring the scrap across to the lorry for the last time. “Of course” He said, “I’ll have to charge you for the hire of the tractor. My dad looked at him in silence for a long moment, and then said “Fair enough.”
At that time scrap was a very poor price, and what’s more, all the expenses came out of my dad’s share. What was left had to be divvied up with my grandad. It was precious little for all that effort, and the profit margin certainly didn’t stretch to paying a trumped up “Tractor hire fee.”
Typical of my dad, he didn’t argue the toss, he just made a detour on the way to the scrap yard and threw a ton or so of scrap down next to the caravans, ready to be weighed in at a later date rather than shared with the farmer.
What with breaking the pipes and loading and unloading the scrap, my dad must have been absolutely exhausted that day, but I didn’t realise that back then. I knew little about his worries, or about how hard those times really were. Along with my mother, he worked all hours to make ends meet, often with the added pressure of being harassed by prejudiced Gorgers or by the authorities.
I too worked hard, and I did without, but that didn’t bother me at all. Life was fun, and I was insulated from its harsh realities. Wrapped in a cocoon of love.
As I lay in bed that night, I remember hoping that one day, I would be as wise and as strong as my dad.
All these years later, I’m still relying on the things that he taught me back then, and slowly I’ve come to appreciate his most important lesson.
Real wisdom isn’t all about remembering to bring your coat, and real strength isn’t all about swinging a big hammer.
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