Photos of you/your work from days of yore.

[PeteB]

[woody paul]

When I worked for someone. My job was to pull with winch truck. 

 

[Stubby]

2 hours ago, woody paul said:

When I worked for someone. My job was to pull with winch truck. 

 

Nice old Bedford .  S type ?

[woody paul]

41 minutes ago, Stubby said:

Nice old Bedford .  S type ?

RL, I had a hand in building it from ex-army to setup on the back. 

It came from Vass of Ampthill near Bedford. 

[PeteB]

Vass' and Rocket Site at Misson! Used to gaze longingly at their offerings and stocklists and then their webpages!

[PeteB]

We didn't often/routinely carried a camera but old stories suffice? I'll put one up copied from a group - if you want more then periodically,  I'll add them!

Friday Story
Doing the overheads around this area meant we got to see the changing landscapes and developments across a swath of the East Midlands. Early 80's we did a lot of work making sure trees were kept out of the overheads for the surrounding coalmines and there were quite a few. Then when they finished, we saw the pits knocked down and overheads removed etc. Some of the pits have been re-purposed but some are still scar on the landscape and in many minds too. 

Bagworth Pit is still a scar on the landscape but Ibstock Opencast is now a beautiful park and the railhead at nearby Ellistown is an industrial estate and the long conveyor between them is gone and it is now a footpath. After most of Bagworth  Pit had gone - just leaving the pithead baths etc, it was going to be used as a temporary yard facilty by Balfour Beatty while they rebuilt a nearby pylon line which was being put in to account for future development of the area into distribution centres and factories. We somehow ended with the job of erecting some chainlink fencing and posts along with some gates in the pithead carpark so that Balfours had a secure place to store stuff. All the plans and site meetings took place and I discovered that I had the job if I sourced all the material from a supplier in Loughborough. Terms were agreed and I shot of to the supplier with the list. I was met by the Contract Managers spitting image - the supplier was his brother and they fixed the prices and he had the supplies waiting for me! Funny how you win these jobs at times. 

We started the job and told not to bother hand digging anything as all the utilities had been  out and nothing was live, the water was disconnected and the sewers block off! So we started and if we found a cable, out came the hacksaw and it was chopped off! If it was a pipe, it got smashed! Good progress was being made and this temp structure was almost permanent spec! The CM called one day, could we dig a big hole for a sceptic tank and do some plumbing to some portacabins that were going to be delivered? The spoil could be dumped by the pithead as that was due for demolition soon. I declined that job as that was pushing my level of plumbing experience! We could have done it as I employed a chap who had been a hod carrier and knew these things but I had enough tree work to get on with.....

By the time we had finished, we had a couple of wheelbarrow loads of copper cabling offcuts from the holes (and elsewhere on the site I must admit) which got weighed in nicely! We then found out that the digger driver who came to do the big hole had found a live 11kv cable which no one knew off and that did for his bucket! It made me sweat a little when I think of the lads cutting through anything with a hacksaw!