health and safety at work

[elsparko]

this man was relatively unknown to me till today, from what ive seen he seems a bit on the mental side

i know there is folk that ---- and moan about health and safety but can see why access equipment is all the rage nowadays

i refuse to go up ladders if the building is above 2 stories nowadays, cant get the staff to hold the bottom , this guy is climbing vertical on ladders that are only secured on the bottom, and held by a metal pin chapped into a wooden block inside a hole (old rawl plugs) until he secures the top pin, no safety rope either

hes either brave or stupid, or both, i realise this was filmed in the 70s/80s but shirley some common sense tells folk that standing near a chimney/tower that is being demolished is potentially not good for your life expectancy?

even if you offered me a million in cash per hour i would not do what he does/did

he only charged 7k for taking down a huge chimney 1 brick at a time from the top down

got to use a shitty scaffold tomorrow for a 2 man job and im dreading that, never mind having to set up on a chimney though.

 

[Strima]

Good old Fred, one of my childhood heros and I still love watching him today. A sad loss when he went.

He died on my birthday...

 

[Pete999]

this man was relatively unknown to me till today, from what ive seen he seems a bit on the mental side

i know there is folk that **** and moan about health and safety but can see why access equipment is all the rage nowadays

i refuse to go up ladders if the building is above 2 stories nowadays, cant get the staff to hold the bottom , this guy is climbing vertical on ladders that are only secured on the bottom, and held by a metal pin chapped into a wooden block inside a hole (old rawl plugs) until he secures the top pin, no safety rope either

hes either brave or stupid, or both, i realise this was filmed in the 70s/80s but shirley some common sense tells folk that standing near a chimney/tower that is being demolished is potentially not good for your life expectancy?

even if you offered me a million in cash per hour i would not do what he does/did

he only charged 7k for taking down a huge chimney 1 brick at a time from the top down

got to use a shitty scaffold tomorrow for a 2 man job and im dreading that, never mind having to set up on a chimney though.

Where is Shirley?

 

[telectrix]

fred was a legend round here. think he was about 13 when he climbed a 200ft. chimney for a 10 bob bet.

he died from cancer 2004. sadly missed.

 

[Strima]

Watching him scaffold this chimney makes me shudder:

 

[snowhead]

and held by a metal pin chapped into a wooden block inside a hole

Much like climbers do today, without the wooden block.
A safety rope would have been no good at that height, you'd be dead from suspension trauma in the harness (20 mins or so) by the time someone got up to you.

He wasn't mental, what he did was very common up to his time.

Anothe Dibnah fan here.

 

[KEV 1 N]

i realise this was filmed in the 70s/80s .

At risk of sounding like an anorak, the Land Rover in the video is W reg (1980-81)I’d say that was filmed in the early to mid 90s
He was a legend who spoke his mind and knew his stuff!
Would you climb up this....?

 

[elsparko]

i still think its a bit stupid regardless of how good he is at his job to have been up there on ladders when there is access equipment that would SHIRLEY be easier to work from and much safer

Id need to be paid with a planet twice the size of the sun just to tempt me to go up those ladders

 

[elsparko]

At risk of sounding like an anorak, the Land Rover in the video is W reg (1980-81)I’d say that was filmed in the early to mid 90s
He was a legend who spoke his mind and knew his stuff!
Would you climb up this....?

absolutely not, im getting vertigo just watching him up there with all that weight on his back, nutter

 

[static zap]

Are we pricing our selves out of these jobs -Due to RED tape-
( to competition that has yet to translate the HSE regs )
....We did take risks in the past with Loco boilers ....
When it was about staying ahead of the competition.
I wonder if hang-gliding is still as popular !

 

[elsparko]

if someone is willing to sway about 200ft in the air without a harness/access equipment then they can have the job LOL

think of all the humphing of tools up and down the ladder too, id rather be priced out of a job than die as a result of cutting corners to save dough

i dont want customers who dont want it done right

 

[ipf]

i still think its a bit stupid regardless of how good he is at his job to have been up there on ladders when there is access equipment that would SHIRLEY be easier to work from and much safer

Id need to be paid with a planet twice the size of the sun just to tempt me to go up those ladders

I knew Fred pretty well. Although many people think he lived on the edge, in fact, he was a stickler for ensuring the safest way to carry out his work. He did things his own way...did he?...He was taught to do his job by others, who knew the correct way to go about things with the equipment available. Just take a look at some of the scaffolding he put together. Sometimes at great heights, yes...but done with great skill and means in times when it was necessary. Methods and safety standards may have changed during his working life but did he ever suffer any serious accidental injury? No. Work done in a safe manner, much more so than some of the things we come across today.

 

[Lucien Nunes]

Indeed. Steeplejacking the way Fred did it, was not about saving dough or cutting corners. Feats of strength and endurance were needed in the days before telescopic booms etc, and he was simply carrying on doing it that way because he was highly competent at it. His attitude and approach don't sit well with modern management strategy, but they worked.

There are workers who can knock in ten thousand nails without once hitting their fingers, or drill a thousand holes without one being out of place or out of round. This is the same but more so; a kind of mental and physical certainty in one's actions and a self-reliance born of that certainty, the likes of which we only normally see demonstrated by the very best sportsmen and women.

The impeccable control of a top snooker player comes to mind, except that Fred played snooker with scaffold boards 300 ft in the air, perched on a ladder in all winds and weathers, which takes a different kind of balls.

 

[KEV 1 N]

Remember working on a Wates site in 2010, absolutely sh*t hot on health and safety! Gloves, safety specs, hard hats worn at all times....no exceptions. They were more concerned with that than any issues with completing the job! A plumber was chucked off site for refusing to wear his hat when connecting the taps under the bath!
I used to get headaches wearing the specs and inevitably the dust on site would stick to the plastic, you ended up cutting the fingers off the gloves so you could feel what you were doing, the hard hat would mark the painted ceiling when connecting light fittings that had awkward grub screws in them.
Some months later in winter time, some labourers were carrying materials from out side to inside. As the lads were perspiring the safety specs were steaming up from the temperature change going in and our frequently. One of them tripped over and claimed he couldn’t see properly because of the specs.....the rule was lifted by the end of the day...eye protection to be worn when necessary!
Common sense should apply to Health and Safety

 

[Strima]

Common sense should apply to Health and Safety

It normally does but there's some self important ----s out there who think they know better and have no common sense.

 

[telectrix]

It normally does but there's some self important ****s out there who think they know better and have no common sense.

too true.one sweltering august, roofers rdfused to wear hard hats on the roof, as the only thing that could hit them on the head was a turd from the bog of a 747. H&S ----- kicked off, so the whole gang (20+) downed tools. main contractor blew a gasket.losing £20k/day so H&S pratt was replaced.

 

[elsparko]

I knew Fred pretty well. Although many people think he lived on the edge, in fact, he was a stickler for ensuring the safest way to carry out his work. He did things his own way...did he?...He was taught to do his job by others, who knew the correct way to go about things with the equipment available. Just take a look at some of the scaffolding he put together. Sometimes at great heights, yes...but done with great skill and means in times when it was necessary. Methods and safety standards may have changed during his working life but did he ever suffer any serious accidental injury? No. Work done in a safe manner, much more so than some of the things we come across today.

all it would of taken would of been a slip, as fred says himself in one of the videos, i still respect this bloke from what ive seen, he did a hard job for a fair price

 

[elsparko]

Remember working on a Wates site in 2010, absolutely sh*t hot on health and safety! Gloves, safety specs, hard hats worn at all times....no exceptions. They were more concerned with that than any issues with completing the job! A plumber was chucked off site for refusing to wear his hat when connecting the taps under the bath!
I used to get headaches wearing the specs and inevitably the dust on site would stick to the plastic, you ended up cutting the fingers off the gloves so you could feel what you were doing, the hard hat would mark the painted ceiling when connecting light fittings that had awkward grub screws in them.
Some months later in winter time, some labourers were carrying materials from out side to inside. As the lads were perspiring the safety specs were steaming up from the temperature change going in and our frequently. One of them tripped over and claimed he couldn’t see properly because of the specs.....the rule was lifted by the end of the day...eye protection to be worn when necessary!
Common sense should apply to Health and Safety

yea ive been on sites where gloves/specs/hat and boots are mandatory , i was walking to the container one day and got ---- for not having my specs on, like really?!?! im just walking to the container for a shmoke, guy almost started crying as if i had just dragged a dead body to his feet and asked him to deal with it.

 

[elsparko]

cant smoke in the explosive atmosphere, but grinders spewing out hot metal are fiiiiine, gas torches for plumbers? absoloutely fine, a tab for shmokes? nope!

 

[telectrix]

you need to see that in the 60's and 70's when Fred was at his peak, it was not possible to get 300ft cranes/telecsopic hoists etc. any where near those chimneys due to access difficulty. even if they could, the cost would have been prohibitive.

 

[elsparko]

you need to see that in the 60's and 70's when Fred was at his peak, it was not possible to get 300ft cranes/telecsopic hoists etc. any where near those chimneys due to access difficulty. even if they could, the cost would have been prohibitive.

i have butter fingers so would not like to take my chances at those heights

im not even that afraid of heights, i just like somewhere to put my feet and not worry about falling back if i make a slippy slip, 30 ft of ladder is about my maximum though

he was obviously very good at his job, how many other steeplejacks have a t.v series, im just saying u wouldnt catch me up those ladders

ive abandoned jobs when the equipment has been substandard for purposes, 30ft ladder at full extension, reaching round to the side of a house to fit a spotlight, i was only in my 2nd year at the time and did not feel less than £7 an hour was worth the potential risk of the ladder slipping on the slabs below, the other guy would not have been able to stop it if it went, his attitude was slightly different as he was scared of telling the boss so he went up the ladder and i held it for him lol, funny thing is his brother worked at the same company and fell out of a tattie bucket on a manitou , the bucket fell from the forks and missed his head by inches...

---- happens even to the best of us

 

[static zap]

.... a tattie bucket on a manitou.....

These nothing like traveling in style-out of mud -Down on the farm !
(if you can hack the ruts bouncing you about)

 

[elsparko]

These nothing like traveling in style-out of mud -Down on the farm !
(if you can hack the ruts bouncing you about)

ive been taken to a pumphouse othr side of a farm in a digger bucket, that was an experience i wont soon forget lol..

 

[elsparko]

needless to say i walked back to the van

 

[freddo]

I would have loved to work with Fred on the chimneys, I have absolutely no interest now as the health and safety and paperwork that would be involved aren't worth the effort. I used to love climbing sports pitch lights to do repairs, climb on up, attach linemans belt at the top so you had both hands free, no harness or any of that. Not allowed to do that now...

Working on another site where everything was banned, step ladders, hop-ups, orange high viz jackets, you name it it was banned. Had to first fix using these useless podium things, wobbling about on their wheels, too wide to get where you needed so you had to overreach. We were told we had to use the chain that went across the top of the steps to stop us falling out, a nightmare when you only want to wack some clips in and move on. I forgot the chain was there, stepped back, and because the chain was so low it ended up tripping me backwards and I fell off the thing. An accident that wouldn't have happened had h+s kept their nose out and I had been using a step ladder.

On the same site 2 of us nearly fell down a stairway thanks to a 'safety' barrier. The barrier was heavy and constructed like a hurdle out of scaffold poles, the one on the floor we were working on had not been fixed. We were looking into the stairway for cable runs when we leaned on the barrier it tipped. Fortunately we were able to grab it, if it had tipped forward the base of the barrier would have hit us from behind and knocked us both down the open stairway. If the barrier was not there, we would not have been in a position to fall.

I have really good eye/face and hearing protectors, but the larger size means I can't wear them with a hard hat. Not being allowed to remove your hat indoors, I was forced to risk damage to my hearing and sight by wearing less protective eye and ear covers just to tick a bloody box. Fortunately all the work we are doing at the moment allows us to follow the guidelines of the HSE rather than some ----er in a site cabin, and use PPE that is appropriate for the task being carried out.

He even forced the BT chap to wire his DPs and phone points wearing building gloves...

On a similar health and safety mad site, one bloke cut his fingers off with a circular saw, and another fell out of a window and died. I stood back and watched the blokes working, and you can see they were so used to everything being super safe that when there was an unexpected hazard they were completely oblivious to the danger.

One lot of sites had none of that, but everyone working there was aware and acted accordingly. No accidents, no near misses.

 

[KEV 1 N]

Yes, I’ve had a few nipped fingers off them podium things! Usually when your having to move them or collapse them to get through a door.......although they tend to disappear off site when all the finished door frames are put in and carpets fitted, painting etc.....so step ladders are banned except when the buildings nearly completed and they don’t want things damaged by clumsy access equipment ?

 

[freddo]

They wanted us to first fix the tiny flats using scaffold tower, the podiums were a compromise!

 

[elsparko]

usually the podiums only take you a foot off ground level, useless shits of things, robertson site agent tried to get me to use them, was safer and more practical to stand on top of the sprinkler pipework to fire in some of my cleats

 

[elsparko]

farmer dumped a bale of hay behind my van yesterday, i couldnt see anything in my sideview mirrors so reversed straight into it, thought id hit a horse or something to start with as its a stable, should claim whiplash from the farmer

 

[ruston]

These nothing like traveling in style-out of mud -Down on the farm !
(if you can hack the ruts bouncing you about)

You would have fit in well in mines and quarries then.

 

[GB.Kayak]

Watching him scaffold this chimney makes me shudder:

Thanks S, for this 'timeless' classic. If I remember correctly I was first introduced to Fred via Blue Peter in the late '70s or early '80s. I admired his 'northern' grit and determination then, I think that he among others has shaped my 'passion' for former ways of doing things!

Yours Aye

GB

 

[GB.Kayak]

i still think its a bit stupid regardless of how good he is at his job to have been up there on ladders when there is access equipment that would SHIRLEY be easier to work from and much safer

Id need to be paid with a planet twice the size of the sun just to tempt me to go up those ladders

Hey ... Elsparko ... and what would that access equipment be? Who is Shirley again?

Yours Aye

GB