h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It does go well to the tune of "See you later Alligator" but otherwise there is not much going for this job. I had to operate a hospital incinerator in the days when smoke reduction was merely the demand of the people who lived next door.

The hospital had two incinerators but only used one. The other was there for emergency operation if the first one needed servicing or broke down. The incinerators stood about three meters high and looked a bit like big safes. Porters would bring the rubbish to the shed next to the incinerator and leave it there for the incinerator operator (in a while crocodile ) to deal with it.

My day would start at 6 am if I was doing the early shift. Clock in, strip off, don overalls, breathing mask and rubber boots and open the two large retaining levers on the front door of the incinerator and open it. Before today's rubbish can go in yesterday's ash has to be brought out.

I had to climb inside the incinerator, which even though it had been cooling all night was still at about 100C. The ashes were raked out and shovelled into bins to be taken away. The air holes in the pipes had to be cleaned with a wire and blown through with the compressed air hose and the air bricks above the burning chamber had to be removed, blown through and replaced to stop big bits floating up the chimney during burning.

When it was all clean and ready for use the first load of the day's rubbish had to go in. This was the only time the rubbish could be loaded with the front door open. once loaded the front door was closed and any access for rubbish etc. would be through a smaller trap door high up in the front door.

I then had to light the gas and let the rubbish start to burn. When the temperature was high enough on the thermometer turn off the gas as the rubbish will continue to burn and get hotter on its own.

Time for a short rest but listen for the phone. The phone would ring when there were "special things" that needed burning. Once loaded the incinerator would take about 20 minutes to get to full temperature and drop down to the temperature at which the trap door could be opened for putting in more waste. "Special things" couldn't be left for 20 minutes lying around and would need to be put in straight away so the porters needed to find out which point in the cycle the incinerator was at so that they could bring the stuff at the exact right moment to go straight in.

One of the bonuses of the job was being able to read a lot. Loads of books would be sent to be burnt. Left behind after patients had gone home they would not be circulated within the hospital but would be sent to be burnt. Maybe burning books was another bad thing about this job.

One day I was sitting on my chair reading an Agatha Christie whodunnit. I was at the point where the murder was taking place and the murderer with hands like a monkey was strangling the life from the victim. I was totally engrossed in the book and didn't hear a porter coming up behind me. He looked like a tall version of Boris Karloff and in my memories he even spoke like Boris Karloff.

"I've brought the limb!" He announced. I nearly had to change my trousers. He'd brought a severed human leg for me to burn. You couldn't see it as it was in a plastic bag but the weight was considerable and the thought of handling it even through plastic was very unpleaseant.

Anyway, it went into the incinerator and he walked back to the porter's station to have a cup of tea.