Quote:
Originally Posted by rivetlad
Although I don't recall your name, we most probably have met up in some Hell Hole of a Todmorden boilerhouse. Commencing in the mid-1960s I worked in several " fire 'oles " in Todmorden, Cornholme-** Manchester Rubber Co **--replacing defective rivets, welding repairs on the furnace tubes of " Gradely Owd Lancashire Boilers, retubing the odd heavily-scaled packaged boiler et al. During the dinnertimes of them far-off days, after grafting all morning perhaps in the soot-filled side-flues or combustion chamber, my trusty Boilermakers and I would down pints of Yorkshire bitter or Guiness in the bar of the many local pubs; aye, and go back to work to complete perhaps another 6 or 7 hours! Halcyon Days!---And I miss 'em!
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I guess that you downed a few pints in the Waggon and Horses if you worked on the boiler at Cornholme. Worst job I ever had was to weld bolts all along the top side of a fire tube so the fireclay (I think) would have something to stick to. I was laying on my back trying to hold a welding rod at the correct angle and in the other hand the welders screen. That really called for a few pints of Stones bitter.
It must be nearly fifty years ago but I van vividly remember sliding head first up the tube and praying nobody would pull the cable out and slam the fire hole door on me, I also remember the Stones bitter afterwards and my father kicking my backside when I got home because I was driving the works Bedford Dormobile.