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Team work!


Meg

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Meg and Mog, you are right, it is amazing. You just can't imagine that sort of thing happening nowadays. This reminds me of a program I saw a few months back on the BBC. Perhaps someone else saw it, it was about some of the worst jobs in history.

There were many but one that sticks with me, they had some old footage of mainly Italian immigrants in the early 1900's involved with tarmacking roads in the UK. It was just unbelievable. They wore very thin soled shoes and would work with and have to use their feet to even out surfaces of extremely hot tarmac. The presenter tried to carry out the work just as it was done then and just after a short time he would have to stop. His feet full of blisters etc.. not to mention that it was very physical. He said these men did this day in and day out for very little money. It is hard to imagine how difficult life was back then. However, your clip is a good example of how people worked together and how important teamwork was.

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My paternal grandpa was a blacksmith/coppersmith/boilersmith.

He was a VERY skilled man, working almost all his life for the Manvers Main colliery at Wath upon Dearne, S. Yorks. I still have his origianl miner's lamp.

I  also still have some of the tools he made for his apprenticship.

I well remember in my first car, (a Ford Anglia, of course[:P]), running into the back of a man who stopped his car suddenly without warning.

When I got home, and showed my dad the twisted bumper, he sent me to my grandpa's. I remember asking, "why, what can grandpa do?".

He had me remove the bumper, examined it, then hit it a few times in seemingly random places with the rounded end of a ball-pein hammer.

When he handed it back, it was properly shaped, with just the scuff marks to show for it's accident. I was, and remain, amazed at the skill of the man.[blink]

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Slightly off subject but thinking about the worst jobs in history idea. Did anyone see the footage of Chernobyl when they were sending effectivly un protected humans (mostly soldiers under orders) to the edge of the radioactive hole in the reactors roof to shovel in by hand two or three measures of rubble. Life expectancy was less than ten mins. Most of these guys got around 15 pounds in extra earnings and a medal for bravery. The consequences of this to their health has never come to light but many I am sure will now be dead.
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