Smudger Snippets
Created | Updated Mar 24, 2004
I suppose it's because I have so much time on my hands these days, that all these memories come flooding back to me.
The Thunder Box
It was when I was up in Stornoway working at the Lewis Offshore construction company that I had the misfortune to come across an unusual toilet system. You see what actually happened was a mistake in communication between two trades, in this case, a joiner and a plumber.
It all started when around twelve hundred of us Subbies were put on board this old Indian cruise ship called the Najla as our accommodation while working on the yard. At the peak on the contract there were around two thousand of us working there so space was at the optimum to say the least. Now being an ex sailor myself, living on this ship was no problem for me and, in fact, I chose a cabin right above the generator room as the heat from below kept the deck (floor) nice and warm. The noise did not bother me at all, but it did cause a few of my work mates to find cabins elsewhere so it was not long before I had the area right above the generator room all to myself.
Life on board this ship, which was tied up alongside the jetty, was different to any other lifestyle I had previously experienced on board a ship. In fact, we were searched for alcohol every night when we came back from our trips into Stornoway and, on Sundays, they used to have two Group 4 security men with Alsatian dogs patrolling the ship for the inevitable trouble that came every Sunday when the men were drinking and gambling. There always seemed to be enough alcohol to go round every Sunday, however. The reason that this was all kept until Sunday was because it was the only day we had off from work due to the religious rules that were in force up there at the time. We were all earning big money while were up there and a lot of the men liked to gamble and play cards on their day off. The rest of the week we had to work twelve hour shifts every day, and even more on occasions if the work was falling behind. In fact, we used to look out for the local minister every Saturday night as he arrived on the site at eleven thirty and used to drive round the site shutting all the power plants down to make sure that we all stopped work before midnight. Once he had shut it down it was more than your job if you dared to restart it up again. Even the catering staff on board were subcontractors like ourselves, as none of the locals would work on the Sabbath and all the subbies who were in digs only got cold sandwiches to eat on a Sunday.
After the first few weekends when the trouble on board got out of hand, the local council gave two of the local pubs permission to open for two hours every Sunday and the company ran buses to take us all into town. So life up there at the time was different to say the least. The trouble was not always started by alcohol however; the first rumblings were started when the management never took our complaints about the toilets on board the ship seriously. The toilets, at the time, were just a row of holes in the floor, with no privacy at all. The fact that the management took too long to solve this problem was the cause of the first riot. We were all subcontractors and, as such, were used to living - well lets call it 'differently' - but this was a bit too much even for us. It was hard to find somewhere to keep a low profile on board that day when the riot took place, as to be caught up in it meant instant dismissal. I must admit that, although I was against it at first, I could easily have joined in myself, but the threat of losing my job held me back as I needed the money and that was the best going contract at the time.
When it was all over and order restored, a meeting was held with the management, and our union reps somehow managed to save the jobs of all who took part. This was no bad thing, as if it worked out that men were going to paid off, I can't help but think that the trouble would start all over again.
So it was then, that the plumbing and joinery department came on board to alter the toilet situation. It seemed such a shame, after the joiners had installed these nice new partitions, that the plumbers had not told them that they should have been at least another two feet high. The reason for this being that they had to build a box about two feet high from the ground to fit all the vacuum pump equipment inside. This resulted in us all sitting shoulder height above the partition walls when we sat on these new toilets.
Mind you, this had some advantages. We could pass along toilet paper if required and swap newspapers as we sat there. The only downside was that management could tell at a glance who was in the toilets at the time.
Another downside of these new vacuum-style toilets, which we discovered after some poor soul was almost sucked to death, was that it was not advisable to flush the toilet if you were still sitting on it. A point that was brought home to us all after the poor subbie had to be taken away by ambulance to hospital and later spent two weeks a home on sick leave. There was also the noise problem when they were used during the night so, needless to say, all the cabins near the toilets were soon empty. It was with great apprehension that I flushed the toilet for the first time, as the sudden rush of air followed by that roaring sound could put the fear God into anyone who was not used to them.
The rest of the site had been built in a rush to take advantage of all the work that was ongoing at the time and the fabrication shop had been built close to the sea. This created a problem because they had built it right on a sheep track, so it was quite normal to see the sheep wondering through the shop totally oblivious to all the noise and sparks and other sounds of heavy engineering work ongoing around them. There were a few other differences on that site compared to others where I had worked, but I must admit that it was the state of the toilets on board that ship which comes to my mind when I think back.
