I remember when

[arbboy]

I love all this stuff. Real men doing a real days work. Nowadays a days job for some feckers is walking to the job centre to get what they are entitled to.

[RED-DOG]

Wooden dropside panels I notice. All Aluminium nowadays. I work for the UK's largest Aluminium stock holders for the body building trade.

I can give you a good price on some antiluce fittings if any of you two gents would like any (for old times sake). I will waive the postage as a gesture of goodwill. 

Antiluce? Really? I'm buying it so I hope you're not pulling my pisser. I've never seen it written down before.

[RED-DOG]

I love all this stuff. Real men doing a real days work. Nowadays a days job for some feckers is walking to the job centre to get what they are entitled to.

As Tony says though, it's so satisfying to just forget about everything and lose yourself in some hard physical labour.

We've outgrown the old turning circle at my place, so on Christmas day, my eldest daughter and I began constructing a new car park. We dug off the topsoil and moved it into the field, concreted in the edging kerbs, backfilled with hardcore and topped with gravel.

We spent a few hours every day and we finished last Friday so it took us about two months. We used no machinery whatsoever, just a pick, a shovel, a spade and a wheelbarrow. I estimate that all told we moved well over 100 tons.

I loved every minute of it, and I bet my daughter would say the same.

  

Click to see full-size image.

Click to see full-size image.

Click to see full-size image.

[RED-DOG]

Mrs Red & I can both remember when listening to this programme with our parents counted as an evenings entertainment.

We didn't just listen to the wireless either, we sat and looked at it.

[RED-DOG]

Who remembers this? (No Googling)

[bobAlike]

Is that in Brum Red? Looks really familiar.

[RED-DOG]

Is that in Brum Red? Looks really familiar.

Nope.


This was the view from below if that helps.

Click to see full-size image.

[Steve Swift]

Mrs Red & I can both remember when listening to this programme with our parents counted as an evenings entertainment.

We didn't just listen to the wireless either, we sat and looked at it.

Cheers Tom, the wife and I just listened to all of that, simpler times.

Steve

[tikay]

Mrs Red & I can both remember when listening to this programme with our parents counted as an evenings entertainment.

We didn't just listen to the wireless either, we sat and looked at it.

Oh my word, Tom, that programme was my worst nightmare, it drove me nuts with it's sickly sweet harmonies & lyrics.

But you make the wonderful point that in that era, with no TV, or a TV that was only turned on for specific Shows, we all actually stared at the wireless when listening to it. Ridiculous.

We had a different viewing pattern for TV then, too. We only switched it on for specific programmes - & when the programme finished, we switched it off.

A few years later, TV had taken over, & killed the wireless, & my parents became TV addicts, & the TV was never turned off, no matter what was on. That was where my loathing for TV began. I think they may have topped themselves if the TV (a Radio Rentals affair, 10/- per week) ever broke down. 

[RED-DOG]

Mrs Red & I can both remember when listening to this programme with our parents counted as an evenings entertainment.

We didn't just listen to the wireless either, we sat and looked at it.

Cheers Tom, the wife and I just listened to all of that, simpler times.

Steve

Bloody Hell Steve, I had you pegged as a youngster. Now I'm guessing you go back to somewhere between Dick Barton - Special Agent and Dr Finley's Casebook.

[tikay]

As Tony says though, it's so satisfying to just forget about everything and lose yourself in some hard physical labour.

It's been the fat end of 45 years since I did any hard manual labour, & I'd quite forgotten how satisfying it felt afterwards.

I wonder if we would see so many petty arguments & so much childish bickering on Twitter, Facebook & the like if more of us had ardous physical jobs? We have so much more spare capacity these days, physically & mentally, & I cant help but think it contributes to the aggrerssive & argumentative nature of so many of us on the internet.

[Steve Swift]

tbf  I listened to it and the good lady kind of wanted it turned off after about 30 secs.

56 is young right ?

[RED-DOG]

tbf  I listened to it and the good lady kind of wanted it turned off after about 30 secs.

56 is young right ?

Well it's younger than me.

When I was a teenager I thought anyone over 30 was at death's door. Now 60/70 seems like the prime of life.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

[RED-DOG]

Phones were big.

Click to see full-size image.

[david3103]

As Tony says though, it's so satisfying to just forget about everything and lose yourself in some hard physical labour.

Having stopped working for a living nearly two years ago I have begun to tackle lots of jobs that previously would either not have been done, or we'd have 'got a man in'.

Cleared the borders in the garden and shifted a tonne of slate chippings. That's a bugger to shovel. The bag was delivered to the drive and the whole lot had to be shovelled into buckets and dragged across the lawn on my trusty garden trolley (purchased for use at Glastonbury where the car park is often a mile from where you may be camping). A great piece of kit which manoeuvres really well and gets through all ground conditions. Including the infamous Glasto mud.

Click to see full-size image.

For me, the satisfaction came from completing the task, not from the labour itself.

Decorating and joinery are a different issue, there is something about the processes that fills a mental need as well as a physical one. Currently I'm in the planning stage of building a window seat/storage space for the bay in my daughter's house. Later I'll be measuring three or four times before cutting since past experience tells me that this t-shirt is very appropriate for me.