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Thread: In my formative years

  1. #1

    In my formative years

    There is a headline in today's DT "...ex-baggage handler revives bid... to rival Heathrow's third runway".

    The bidder is worth £1.2bn but "ex-baggage handler" makes a good headline. I have checked and I'm not yet worth £1.2bn but if I were I would suggest:

    - ex-Pfizer Terramycin bottle washer...

    - ex-golf club car park attendant (who did see Ian Fleming's Studebaker Avanti when it was the only one in Europe)...

    - ex-steam locomotive fitter (assistant)...

    I am not sure what I will bid for with my £1.2bn if/when I achieve it - but my headline is being polished now.
    Last edited by Graham Breeze; 28-03-2022 at 12:34 PM.
    "...as dry as the Atacama desert".

  2. #2
    Master molehill's Avatar
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    I am working up to a reply, I may trump you with one.

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    Master PeteS's Avatar
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    https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/nor...-been-23524750
    I see Pete's Eats is up for sale. I'd be quite tempted if I had £650k and I wouldn't even have to change the name....
    Pete Shakespeare - U/A

    Going downhill fast

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    Master Travs's Avatar
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    I've generally worked in m&e engineering (with a couple of brief spells in oil &gas) since i left full time education.

    But did do a couple of less salubrious jobs when out of work or things were tough...

    Worked in a scrapyard.
    Night-shift in a warehouse
    Put automotive parts in a blasting machine (and then took them out again) all day.

  5. #5
    Grocery delivery boy around Ambleside with a big heavy black bike with the traditional big basket. One shilling and sixpence per hour I think, every night after school and Saturday mornings. Training and getting paid for it - not quite the closest I've been to becoming a professional athlete (I later trained as a PTI through work) but a good start - my mates could never understand why I could ride my own bike up hills when they had to get off and push.

  6. #6
    Master
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mark G View Post
    Grocery delivery boy around Ambleside with a big heavy black bike with the traditional big basket. One shilling and sixpence per hour I think, every night after school and Saturday mornings. Training and getting paid for it - not quite the closest I've been to becoming a professional athlete (I later trained as a PTI through work) but a good start - my mates could never understand why I could ride my own bike up hills when they had to get off and push.
    Similar to the above: a paper round, 7 days a week, for three years, round Wharley End, the village where I lived. Used a bike at first, but then switched to doing it on foot. It was supposed to take half an hour, but I started challenging myself to run it as fast as possible on Mondays to Fridays, and got it down to 18 minutes. Saturdays and Sundays I dawdled round, reading the papers as I went; anyway, with the weight of all those Sunday Times's and Observers in the bag, there was no way I could run on Sundays.
    In his lifetime he suffered from unreality, as do so many Englishmen.
    Jorge Luis Borges

  7. #7
    Moderator Mossdog's Avatar
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    In the early 1980s, at a time of high national unemployment, after leaving university I was forced to move to London to seek my fortune.

    I immediately got a temporary job (spotted at the Job Centre) at the London Chest Hospital in Bethnal Green, a short stroll away from where I lived. I worked 6 months there as an Operating Department Orderly (basically a non scrubbed GoFor who stood at the feet end of the operating table).

    Day one on the job I watched some poor fellow, on the table, get his chest opened by a circular saw and then his rib cage wrenched apart by a gurt big clamp, at the conclusion of which everyone else in the operating theatre turned to glance at 'the new boy' (me!) to see if I was still standing. I passed (but not out!) the initiation. Many happy hours followed over the next few months emptying suction bottles of blood and guts plus other rank fluids down the nearby sluice and sweeping up post-op tiny body bits
    Last edited by Mossdog; 30-03-2022 at 09:51 AM.
    Am Yisrael Chai

  8. #8
    Senior Member
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    I was going to write an anecdote of my formative jobs (wielding sickle but no hammer) but I can't beat "blood and gore sweeper".

  9. #9
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    Ex-condom and catheter sleeve warehouse packer. (Same company made both)

    Ex-tribute band musician playing Working Men’s clubs prior to the bingo. (Motown)

    Playing at a club in Wigan on a wet Wednesday after a long day on teaching practice, returning to Brum for a repeat in Coalville on Thursday made me the man I am today.

    Now living the sedate life of a 2km bike commute to a lovely secondary school. So one day I’ll be an ex-teacher…not for a few years yet though.

  10. #10
    Master molehill's Avatar
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    Many varied jobs, a small sample includes: working in car parts factory (about 1970), organic meat butcher for wholesaler, custom fishing rod builder and traffic warden 💪.
    There's plenty more!
    Don't roll with a pig in poo. You get covered in poo and the pig likes it.

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