In June 1968 I was to have two weeks paid holidays, so I made a decision to leave the house I lived in. It only had gas, no electricity - so no tv or record player.
I had been living there ,fifteen years (except for a few months in 1966) in the army ,till an accident(they called it), and i discharged not fit for army service anymore. I had to give my mother all my wages again get back a few pounds ggrr - it was called "tipping up" - and only got back what she gave me - a pittance - and it was nearly my 21st birthday.
So on Thursday the 30th of May 1968, I left work for the last time, with intentions to leave on a coach to another town at random on the Frida,but mother started off wanting money when I got home, so I left after packing my suitcase with the 400 i had hidden away. I had stashed, and the 4,000 the boss had been taking out over the fours years i worked there. I set off at 4.30pm for the Chester Street bus station.
I walked to the station, so it was nearly 5pm when I arrived, and as it was the coach station, there was a few to choose from. Why I dont know, but I boarded the X33 to Manchester ,as the bus was leaving I saw my niece waving on the platform. Mary was still a schoolgirl ,so she would have run down to see me off.
The bus ride to Manchester would have been about two and half hours. When I got there, I left the bus station after putting my suitcase in a left luggage locker.
As I came into the street, I was suprised to see thousands of people in the centre , so I asked police officer what was happening. Turns out it was the night Manchester United was doing the homecoming lap of the town on a open top bus. On the Wednesday ,29th of May 1968, they won the European Cup.
At first I was stumped what to do, then I thought, ask the policeman, and he told me, to get across the square to a certain road, and at the top was the old police station, that had been opened for backpackers and people like me, arriving with nowhere to go.
So I set off throught the edge of the milling crowd, and just then the opentop bus came into view, in the distance I could see a player at the front holding the cup, and people just pushed forward, and an opening to the other side I wanted to be, just appeared, so I hurried into the street and headed to the police station.
As I opened the door a policewoman asked where I had come from. I told her Bradford. She said to a policeman to take me to the old cells. There were no doors on them, but I was put in with a young lad, a backpacker, and we said hi. He was from Wales on his way to London, we had a cup of tea, and a sandwich, and at eleven the lights went off, and there I was, in a strange town, sleeping in a police cell, what was the next day going to hold for me.
Next morning, Friday at 8am, we got up, washed and shaved, and went out into the town, that was being cleaned up from the night before. Should I stay in Manchester or a smaller area.
I decided to get the bus to Salford , that also went past Weaste to Eccles. On the ride I passed the Coronation Street set, it was just a front with wooden beams holding it up. What a let down.
The bus went past the Trafford Road and the docks. I stayed on till it stopped at the halfway area, that was Weaste. I looked round and saw the firms all around me: Whimpey's Construction, Bison Construction, Lancashire Tar Company and more. Then I saw the Salford
Rugby Ground, so I got off the bus and decided this was the end of the road. If I couldnt find a place and work here, there would be something wrong.
There was a horn so loud behind me, I nearly jumped out of my skin. I turned around and there was along row of houses on each side of along street, and at the end was a ship towering over the houses just moving slowly into the docks down the channel, I was at my new home.
I looked around for somewhere to get a drink. Not tea, I needed something stronger. I saw a Working Mens club - The Royal Air Force Club - and since I had my club case I went in, got a lager, and the bartender asked me if I was new there, he hadnt seen me before. I told him I was, and needed to find a bedsit.
The bartender - who I later found out to be the steward - told me to go across the road to a house that he knew had a vacancy, so I left my beer on the bar and went over to see a lady that owned the house, and said the barman had sent me over.
She took me to a room on the second floor looking over to the club. It had a single bed, dresser, wardrobe, gas cooker, table, two chairs an a Ariel for a television
And small unit. On the landing was a loo and a bathroom with a meter to heat water for the bath. I was in heaven. Then it hit me, how much was the rent? She said ten pounds paid on saturday's when she came to collect and empty the meters. I couldn't get the ten pound out fast enough, she gave me a rent book, my own door and front door key .To think I had lived in a house most of my life with no carpets, open fire, two gas rings , gaslights and a
grotty outside toilet - and had to bathe in front of the fire in an old tin bath. And use a Comode at night.
I locked my door, and went back over to the club, and sat drinking my beer. It was now a pint from the landlord ,Could my luck hold out to get a job?.
I was soon to find out. The steward asked if I wanted to help out for a few days? Pot collecting saturday and sunday. Collect glasses and bottles from the tables and wash the glasses? He would pay me ten pound for the Saturday night. And twenty if I helped to clean and pot collect on the Sunday. Thirty pound altogether? You bet I did!.
After my drink I went to the bus stop and went back to get the suitcase. Then I went shopping to get pans, frying pan, cheap alarm clock, plates and a set of knives fork's and spoons. In the unit I found there was a small fridge freezer. So had a meal, listened to a radio I had, then went to sleep. In my own bed.
Saturday night I watched the show, while collecting and washing glasses till eleven O'clock, then the boss paid me the ten pounds, and took me and the other staff to a chip shop for fish and chips, then I went home to my room again. What a day!.
Nine o'clock next day I went over to the club, and sorted empty bottles. Then at eleven o'clock the room filled with men and a few women. The other women and kids had left to another room. The day was about to get interesting. The music started, the men cheered, and out stepped a young lass. Within twenty minutes she was all but naked - I was watching my first ever strip show.
But I had a job to do so I went to get the glasses, but as I walked by the stripper, she took my glasses off. I'm more or less blind without them, so I just stood there ,petrified. Then she put them back on my face and I set off again to the bar and didn't look back. I was shaking, but I have to admit, I wouldn't have missed it for the world.
That night the steward called me over to talk to a man he knew, and the man asked if I wanted a job in the open air. I would be reeling in a steel cable from a winch. I was told to be at a shop, with B.I.C.C. (British Insulated Calender Cables)on it at 8am on Monday morning. So that night I went to bed, set the alarm for 7am, and the next day I was at the pickup point, and that was my first day on my new job for the next eleven months. I didn't even need to sign on.
While I was with the company two major things happened, one was scary, one just blew my mind The scary one was when my gang was putting a cable in the ground outside a biscuit factory. The road was down hill then up hill. Two lads were on the cable reel, two in the center grate, they had to make sure the cable didn't snag as the winch man pulled the cable through. The boss was in the truck, the driver near the truck. I was near the winch man to get the wire cable on the return wheel.
The winch man started the pull and all was going good, then without warning the heavens opened up ,water was running past me and the winch man. Then someone realise'd the water would be heading from both sides into the center grate where two lads were! We took off running. We, the boss, the driver, the reel men. Someone grabbed a rope on the way.
The rope was quickly looped at both ends and lowered down as the water was reaching the hole .They put a foot in a loop and put their arms round each others necks as the boss told them, and we pulled against the water. And slowly slowly we got them up a bit at a time.
The water was starting to beat us, it went over their heads, but we wouldn't give up. Just then two men from the factory had come running across, and they pulled with us, we got them out.
But the yuck from in the hole was in their mouths so the boss grabbed a container of water we had for the trucks radiator and poured some in their mouths, then an ambulance arrived, someone from the factory had called one.
The two lads where taken off to hospital and as the storm was only a flash one, we finished the cable pull, then packed up and went to the hospital. Both lads where okay, but one didn't want to return. The other was scared to enter the center grate again, so I let him do the cable recovery and I did the center ones. We ran out of jobs to do, I was offered the Liverpool gang but decided to stay in Manchester and get another job.
But as I said there were two things. Just before we broke up to go or own ways we had one big job to do. It was to blow my mind.
One morning we set off for Manchester to the Cafe we had breakfast at before going on a job. This time when we got there we found another five gangs waiting for us. We had breakfast and got in the trucks, a cable truck had joined on the end, and we setoff miles outside Manchester to a very large telephone building.
We where told we wouldn't be on the surface till at least eleven pm or later, and if anyone was claustrophobic say now. Then we all went into the building, and we where in turn given a number, mine was eighteen. Then we went through a door in turn to a spiral staircase. In total there were thirty of us. One by one we followed the two bosses down the stairs to a second level. Then a third. And on and on. We stopped at certain places and sat on the steps then set off again.
We had been going down for over an hour and no end in sight. It had been hours now and still heading down to who knows where or why, then off to the side was a boss, and he was looking at each of us to see if we where getting stressed. Till later we didn't know it was the point that we were to experience the "pop" in the ears from the depth with change of pressure. I passed the limit and kept going down.
Then without warning my ears popped. It was weird but mind blowing.
We carried on for a while then stopped, each of us was given a thing with four wheels, called a cable skate, and took it down into a long tunnel with cables on racks each side, going off into the distance. The first thirty had to put the skate on the ground and walk to a rope to pull the cable that was coming down from above along the tunnel, the rest to fit the skates and make sure they stayed in place, and we at the front started to pull the cable along the tunnel.
After an hour of walking along, the boss was at the side with a paper bag with two chicken sandwiches to eat as we carried on, then twenty minutes later we got a cup of tea, and farther along found bins to throw the bag and cup in.
We went on pulling the cable for ages till a whistle was blown to stop, the cable was at the area it was for, then the others back at the end started to lift the cable on the rack it was to go on, till we could see them lifting it. The skates where being collected, and a tub on wheels a bit farther down was brought to put them in, the last of the cable was inplace.so we setoff along the tunnel to a point to get out to daylight - or night as it was - again.
It was only 9pm, so we had a long way to go yet ,so we sang such as "Roll out the barrel" and "Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum" and many more, till hours later we where shattered and in the center of many tunnels going north, south, east, and west. And in the middle a big round stone table, with stone seats, and on the table was fish and chips, peas, beer, bread, what a sight, we ate the lot. Then it was time to return back to the town above. This time we only had half hour of steps, then a lift that took ten at a time. As we reached the top room, the numbers where taken in order from us, then we where taken to a dim lit room, then a brighter one, till our eyes where ready for the outside.
We came out at eleven thirty pm, into Picadilly in the center of Manchester. The trucks took us back to our areas, and we where told not to come to the shop till dinnertime next day, have a sleep in. I slept like a log, but what an experience, something you cant buy.
A week later I was starting a new job at the Lancashire Tar Company, but that's another story I wont be writing.LOL
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