The Worker

April 1970

‘You’re taking the dockyard exam,’ said Dad, days after I’d left school.

I didn’t even know where the dockyard was. Luckily, the exam was being held at Collingwood, the dockyard apprentice training centre on Khyber Road – the dismal place I’d visited with the school just weeks earlier. 

I studied the full page advert in the local paper. Three hundred apprenticeships were on offer, open to boys aged between fifteen and seventeen. A full morning of English held no fears, but an afternoon of Maths was worrying. As one of the youngest eligible and as someone with something to prove, I was glad of my old maths books in the three weeks I had to prepare.

In the meantime I was summoned to an appointment with YEO. Not Brian the Gillingham forward, but the Youth Employment Office in Chatham. Other than the routine allocation of a National Insurance number, little came of it and I was soon strolling to the bus stop on New Road, where a solitary figure was waiting. As I got closer I recognised the solitary figure as someone who’d once subjected me to a merciless showing up at school. Though I kept a respectful distance, I needn’t have worried. My one time tormentor didn’t give me a second glance. Perhaps he didn’t recognise me without ink splashes on my face. It was Geoff Bray.

Boys from all over Kent descended on Collingwood for the dockyard entrance exam, including a few familiar faces from Upbury. The exam went well, I thought, but at the end of a long day, I could only wait and see.

A couple of weeks or so later Mam brought me a big envelope that had flopped through the letter box. From its officious appearance I guessed it was from the dockyard, though I didn’t dare to believe that the handwritten figure of sixteen, circled on the envelope, might be an indication of my placing. But when I opened the letter I had to believe it. I had come sixteenth. Mam was pleased and so was Dad when he came home from work. ‘You’ll have your pick of any trade you want,’ he said. I hadn’t given that a thought. I was just happy to have proved something to myself.

Dad was right; sixteenth guaranteed the apprenticeship of my choice. The boy who came first would get first pick, the second boy would get second pick and so on, until all the apprenticeships had been allocated. That was made clear to us at an open evening in the dockyard canteen. The allocation would take place in the near future but for now we only needed to consider our options, said a man who called himself the chief apprentices’ officer. At the end of a welcome speech he invited everyone to talk with representatives of the different trades.

On his feet in a flash, Dad steered me to the Electrical Fitters’ table. After quick chat with the man there, Dad stuffed a leaflet in my hand and led me out of the place. I thought we might have stayed longer and enquired about other trades but no, Dad had made his mind up and his nightly pint was waiting. ‘Be an electrician and you’ll earn good money,’ he said, as we hopped on his Honda 90 with my future sewn up.

MAY 1970

The apprenticeship would start on June 8^th. That wasn’t soon enough for Dad, who wanted me out earning my keep. He gave me another starting date when he told me to meet Bill, one of his boozing pals, at the Rainham Mark Social Club at seven o’clock the following Monday morning. Dad had contacts everywhere, it seemed.

Bill took me by bus to a building site in Brompton, dominated by a new tower block that looked down on the dockyard main gate. After introducing me to the site manager, Bill disappeared. A favour to my dad had been done, it seemed, as that was the last I saw of him.

For a fresh out of school, green as grass fifteen year old I didn’t do too badly. Walking face first into the side of an open window on a site hut wasn’t the cleverest thing to do, but a bloodied lump on the forehead was a fair price to pay for an early lesson in the school of life. Before a week was out I was running the tea hut on my own, mentored by Mick the foreman, a hard as nails, flat nosed Irishman. Mick tipped me the wink when he sent me to the bakers on Brompton High Street one morning for cheese, butter and bread rolls. ‘Make some cheese rolls for the lads and be sure to charge a penny or two more than you pay for them. Do it every day and you’ll make a few shillings on the side. If anyone gives you any problems, see me.’

There were no problems. Nobody messed with Mick. In addition to canteen duties I swept up, burned rubbish and had my eyes opened to a lot of things. After arming me with a broom, dustpan, scraper and bucket, Mick led me to the lift in the new tower block. Once on the top floor he jabbed a finger at a staircase spattered in white emulsion and littered with rubbish. ‘Get rid of the crap, scrape off the paint and sweep the focken lot down to the bottom.’

Between me and the basement were fifteen floors and an awful lot of steps, but in three days I had them all spotless. Every focken one of them.

All the men swore. They swore at me too, but the only time they turned nasty was when I nipped over to the dockyard to officially sign on as an Electrical Fitter apprentice. A formality that wouldn’t take long, I believed, and an excursion I’d got permission for but it took longer than expected. As the keys to the tea hut were in my pocket and the men didn’t get a tea break that afternoon, I wasn’t very popular when I got back. Thank God for Mick, who kept the hotheads at bay and saved me from grievous bodily harm.

Six quid a week was good money for a fifteen year old. Mam was happy with a three pound boost to her housekeeping and so was Dad. ‘A man’s work deserves a man’s dinner,’ he said, when we sat down to eat at night. I was happy too and not just because I was in Dad’s good books. Thanks to my cheese roll enterprise I was pocketing an extra quid a week that I kept for myself. A month on that building site did me a lot of good, but I wasn’t too sorry when it came to an end and I left to go in the dockyard.

Good news…

Gillingham avoided relegation, just, in a nail biting finish to the season that left me scratching my head. How any team could win away at Leyton Orient, Luton Town and Bristol Rovers – the top three that year – yet only avoid relegation on goal average, defied all logic. Mike Green and Brian Yeo celebrated the achievement with a large bottle.

Player of the year…