Don't look down....

[Marian Gra]

Think 'skywalking' photographs are a modern craze? Vintage images show how brave souls were doing it in the 1930s | Daily Mail Online


Has the Trivia & interesting thread gone??

[Keith at Tregenna]

Has the Trivia & interesting thread gone??

Still at: http://www.merchant-navy.net/forum/t...resting-stuff/

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Hi Marian.
Fantastic pictures, I wonder if the health and safety people let them work like that today.
Not quite that high, but it reminded me of my first time up a mast, just over 16 years old and told by the Bosun to renew the gantline that had carried away up the foremast, 60ft up, I was ok on the lower mast ladder, but the last ten feet was just a pole, middle of the Indian Ocean hot and sweaty, a bit of fear while doing it but I did it and afterwards enjoyed the experience. I think it's something you have to have in order to do those jobs.
Cheers Des.

[Keith at Tregenna]

RE: Don't look down....

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/lifestyle/...cid=spartanntp

[Ivan Cloherty]

Hi Marian.
Fantastic pictures, I wonder if the health and safety people let them work like that today.
Not quite that high, but it reminded me of my first time up a mast, just over 16 years old and told by the Bosun to renew the gantline that had carried away up the foremast, 60ft up, I was ok on the lower mast ladder, but the last ten feet was just a pole, middle of the Indian Ocean hot and sweaty, a bit of fear while doing it but I did it and afterwards enjoyed the experience. I think it's something you have to have in order to do those jobs.
Cheers Des.

Used to enjoy it Des, like yourself just a nipper as they say in Yarkshire, then doing it with a light bulb in your mouth up the mainmast trying to get the lid off the mainmast light, a two handed job, but some how we managed it

[Captain Kong]

Apart from leaping aloft on ships, when I first got married I came ashore for a spell, 58 years ago. and got a job as a Steel Erector, doing similar jobs on high constructions and Bridges across the Ship Canal.
Height does not mean anything, if you fall off at 1,000 feet you are just as dead as falling 100 feet. So no problem./
We used to say, "You cannot fall as there is nothing to stop you".
We had no hard hats, no safety boots, No harnesses, or gloves or any safety equipment. Streel was very slippery when wet after rain or frost. when we used to run along the purlings,
I was injured a couple of times, five broken ribs when a man, Tommy Jackson, dropped some steel on me. he later fell 150 feet when we were building Sheffield Power Station. The Ambulance carried his body away and we carried on working. All part of the job in those days.

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Hi Brian.
Biggest fright I had was when I was in the building industry, we were building a factory the crane had been there to put the steel up and then had landed the purlin's on top 20 feet long 8 by 2 inches thick, we had to carry them to the top and bolt them in, I was used to walking up the slope, the other side a big Islander, the first one we carried were halfway up I was looking down to miss the cleats when I felt this tremendous jerk and nearly fell of, around forty feet and concrete below, I let the purlin go yelling to warn them below and it crashed down nearly killing a carpenter, the Islander said he couldn't do it and had let his end go nearly taking me with it.
Plenty of hairy stories in the high rise buildings, I saw one Islander come down 80 feet, he was shot blasting some girders on an old building without a harness, brains all over the floor, and there's me thinking they didn't have any.
Cheers Des

[happy daze john in oz]

My brother in law was a scaffolder with Wimpeys back in the 60's.
Fell one day from about 35 foot up.
Thankfully into soft sand which broke his fall along with his hip and arm.
On open watch for three days, but happy to say still alive now and a walking metal detectors delight.

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Hi John.
You reminded me of another job I was on. We were two stories up working inside when the Foreman yelled out smoko, a young apprentice walked over and jumped out the window, [Glass wasn't in] we all rushed to the window to see the young bloke picking himself up from a big heap of sand. He had watched the sand being delivered and knew it was there, BUT what if in the meantime there had been a delivery of steel on the top of it.
Cheers Des

[cappy]

##reminds me of silly youth having arrived in the evening in cyprus fully laden with aviation fuel for the RAF during some crisis in the 50s we were diving and jumping over the wall off the main deck .....not much hight as down to her marks ..we were then swimming round to the anchor chain and seeing how deep we could get down it......waking early next morning .......smarty thinks oh before i turn to i will swim ......trotting over to the rail and diving into into a great void as she had been discharging all night i turned over and landed on my back.... with no air left in my lungs and just about drowning ...i heard the old mans wife shout from the wing of the bridge is the water warm ......followed by another voice shouting pity it wasnt ten minutes later he would have ended up on the deck of the water tender......but somehow we survived as boys ......