Smudger Snippets
Created | Updated Apr 1, 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 Welding Test
It was very common to have to sit a welding test before you even got a job with any company when working in the oil industry, and probably still is. Every time you started with a different company you had to sit yet another one. This is a story of such an event when I got a job on a construction firm up in Lewis in Stornoway.
It was way back in the early eighties, just after I had been paid off by another firm due to job completion. I found myself heading up there to start another job back on the tools1 as a welder again, after being an instructor for three years. I met another bloke at Inverness airport who was also heading up there to start at the same time. In fact by the time we arrived at the actual site we had met up with four other blokes also going to the same site.
After we had all checked in at the subbie site office, we were taken over to our accommodation which was actually a cruise ship tied up along side the dock.
It had been an Indian cruise ship and was called the Nalja. There were actually twelve hundred of us living on it and, to put it politely, I had lived in worse conditions, but not much2!
Anyway, once we had all settled in we changed into our work gear and reported to the fabrication shop for work. It was weird, really, as no one wanted to know us until we had completed and passed our welding test but, when we went up to testing area at the far end of the fabrication shop, there was no one there. So one of the blokes called Eddie went back up to the site office to ask them what we would do, but they did want to know either, and told Eddie that as long as we were on site, they were being paid for us and that's all they needed to know. So, once more, we all wandered down the bottom of the shop, only to be chased back up and told to stay there until the inspector came to test us.
This went on for all of that day and indeed into the next, so we decided to leave one man there while the rest of us went over to the Nalja and played cards as it seemed that no one wanted to know anything about us, despite all our efforts. We had no idea, however, that this situation would go on for four days! I must admit we were very surprised, as we were all well-travelled subbies and knew the score, as they say.
Eddie, who came from Liverpool, was a right comedian and kept us laughing all the time. He was one of those blokes who you enjoyed being in company with. He was a short bloke with really strong eye glasses, or milk bottle bottoms, as he called them. He had returned back from Libya where he had been working on an oil pipe line for the past three years, in fact he still had his sun tan. I had worked with one of the other lads before on a previous job, but the rest I never knew. We had all grown good pals over the past three days, but Eddie was the king pin at keeping things going.
Then, around dinner time on the fourth day, the bloke who had been watching out for us, came running over to the Nalja to tell us that the inspector had arrived at last, so we all scurried across to the shop and headed for the testing area. He was a tall bloke who looked very official in his white overalls with matching hard hat and shirt, in fact only his tie and shoes were coloured. He was the Lloyds Register agent for the site and, indeed, looked the part with the row of pens in his top pocket and his clip board. He came towards us apologising for his lateness as he looked at his watch and asked if he had kept us waiting long!
'Only four days' replied Eddie! Well, the look on this surveyors face was a picture to behold and I will never forget it. He pointed to the pile of nipples3 and told us to get started, making the point of telling us that we were not allowed to practice!
We all had a snigger as we set up the test pieces and prepared for the test. However we were not laughing for long as poor Eddie could not do conventional root run - welding upwards during the first run - as he was used to stoving only - welding downwards. He did try after watching one of us and, to be fair, the surveyor did give him two chances which is allowed, but even with that Eddie just could not do it. So it was a sad day all round, especially for Eddie as that meant he was out of work again.
The rest of us passed the visual all right, then the 'x' ray and mechanical test some two days later, but the atmosphere was just not the same without Eddie. So the rest of us were sent down to the shop to start work. We were there for the next ten months until the job was completed and then we all went our separate ways looking for work again. I suppose, looking back on it now, it was not just a job for us; it was more a way of life. Sadly those days are over now, but I will always remember them and the people I used to work with. They were the subbies or 'travelling men' as they used to call us.
