My Dad worked in a garage,so some Saturday mornings or during the school holidays i would go into work with him and take bits of cars, he even taught me to weld and braze with Oxy Acetelene bottles!! im sure you cant do much of this stuff in this horrible new world.it was a great experience,did you get to go into work with your Dad as a kid??
Going into work with your Dad when you were a kid
- Thread starter gary r
- Start date
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Bluebell72
New Member
- Location
- Hull, East Yorkshire
Yes, in the school holidays.
He was a lorry driver and me and I loved sitting up in the cab of a big artic, seeing the road, and going to the trucker's 'caff' stops all over the country.
While he was loading up, or off-loading, he'd leave me in the care of the cafe ladies, who would sit and draw with me - I went everywhere with a bag full of notepads and felt-tip pens.
Happy days
He was a lorry driver and me and I loved sitting up in the cab of a big artic, seeing the road, and going to the trucker's 'caff' stops all over the country.
While he was loading up, or off-loading, he'd leave me in the care of the cafe ladies, who would sit and draw with me - I went everywhere with a bag full of notepads and felt-tip pens.
Happy days
smokeysmoo
Legendary Member
- Location
- Bolton, not very far from Nob End
My old fella always worked in sales, I used to spend some days with him in the hols. Always had a great lunch when we were out 
Fnaar
Smutmaster General
- Location
- Thumberland
My dad worked in a mental handicap hospital. So did my mum. We used to spend long days in the summer hols at the open air swimming pool in the staff social club. Totally unsupervised, along with kids of other staff. It was great! Free childcare for my parents, plus we'd get a lemonade when dad came off shift, while he had a beer.
Mozzy
New Member
- Location
- Taunton Somerset
Aye, Dad (gord rest his soul) was one of a handful of hexperts on hardwood timber selection. Nah didn't mean much to me either. We used to go to what is now Docklands in London, West India Dock, and so on, cranes and falling stuff all over the shop and there was little ol me with Pop, just poncin around. Personally I found it as boring as feck.
Mozzy
Mozzy
Night Train
Maker of Things
- Location
- Greater Manchester
When I was little my Dad was a building contractor working on the Chinese restaurants in London and down to Hampshire.
He used to take my late brother and me to work with him during the holidays.
My brother, two years older then me, wouldn't do anything unless he was paid. I just wanted to be with my Dad but Dad, having learnt from dealing with my brother, only offered me money for doing stuff. Never wanted his money, just wanted him to want me there and be proud of me.
Anyway, I spent a lot of time, from about aged 5 playing in the woodshavings and sawdust with the chippies and they would help me make toy cars from the off cuts. That is where my love of carpentry came from. I then grew into sweeping up and tea making duties and then labouring by moving bags of plaster and piles of bricks about the site to where they were needed.
I also had the chance to 'go up chimneys' in the sense of crawling along lengths of extractor trunking with a bag of washers. Where ever two sections were joined someone would drill holes, insert a rivet and I would then have to add a washer to the inside of the rivet and hold it there while the rivet was set. For round sections of trunking it would be rolled back and forth to get rivets all the way round the joint, the rolling often made me feel dizzy inside the trunking! It was a noisy job and H&S hadn't invented then.
I witnessed a lot of different building processes and the occasional serious accident, including a chap taking his thumb off with a circular saw because he was being lazy.
I also spent many a time sleeping on makeshift bedding at night, on site, as often there was no other acommodation and having workers on site was good security.
It was a good upbringing as I learnt a lot of good stuff and also how to be careful and safe in a dangerous environment.
It was a good opportunity to bond with my Dad but he was conditioned by 'number one son' to pay for our presence and that formed a wedge between Dad and I for much of my life.
I often think that if I had a little kid I would have him or her in a papoose with me while I am doing dust/noise free work in the workshop and teach some practical skills from an early age.
He used to take my late brother and me to work with him during the holidays.
My brother, two years older then me, wouldn't do anything unless he was paid. I just wanted to be with my Dad but Dad, having learnt from dealing with my brother, only offered me money for doing stuff. Never wanted his money, just wanted him to want me there and be proud of me.
Anyway, I spent a lot of time, from about aged 5 playing in the woodshavings and sawdust with the chippies and they would help me make toy cars from the off cuts. That is where my love of carpentry came from. I then grew into sweeping up and tea making duties and then labouring by moving bags of plaster and piles of bricks about the site to where they were needed.
I also had the chance to 'go up chimneys' in the sense of crawling along lengths of extractor trunking with a bag of washers. Where ever two sections were joined someone would drill holes, insert a rivet and I would then have to add a washer to the inside of the rivet and hold it there while the rivet was set. For round sections of trunking it would be rolled back and forth to get rivets all the way round the joint, the rolling often made me feel dizzy inside the trunking! It was a noisy job and H&S hadn't invented then.
I witnessed a lot of different building processes and the occasional serious accident, including a chap taking his thumb off with a circular saw because he was being lazy.
I also spent many a time sleeping on makeshift bedding at night, on site, as often there was no other acommodation and having workers on site was good security.
It was a good upbringing as I learnt a lot of good stuff and also how to be careful and safe in a dangerous environment.
It was a good opportunity to bond with my Dad but he was conditioned by 'number one son' to pay for our presence and that formed a wedge between Dad and I for much of my life.
I often think that if I had a little kid I would have him or her in a papoose with me while I am doing dust/noise free work in the workshop and teach some practical skills from an early age.
Mozzy
New Member
- Location
- Taunton Somerset
Cracking post NT; I enjoyed that
Mozzy
Mozzy
biggs682
Itching to get back on my bike's
- Location
- Northamptonshire
my dad was a site manager for a house building company , so most schoo; ho;s thats where i use to go doing all the jobs listed below
collecting returnable pop bottles and being allowed to have the return fees
picking up all the broken bits of bricks and stacking them together
fetching dinner and cups of tea etc etc
digging out blocked stream
i was even allowed or made to dig a trench between 2 houses down to a depth of 2ft so they could tip some hardcore in for making a path .
i will always remember going in to mess hut/office area 1 lunch time to have some chips for lunch and rested my back on a couple of stacked pains of glass and after a mins sure enough they broke , so then i had that to clear up .
it was slave labour at its best
collecting returnable pop bottles and being allowed to have the return fees
picking up all the broken bits of bricks and stacking them together
fetching dinner and cups of tea etc etc
digging out blocked stream
i was even allowed or made to dig a trench between 2 houses down to a depth of 2ft so they could tip some hardcore in for making a path .
i will always remember going in to mess hut/office area 1 lunch time to have some chips for lunch and rested my back on a couple of stacked pains of glass and after a mins sure enough they broke , so then i had that to clear up .
it was slave labour at its best
accountantpete
OAP
My Dad worked at Rolls Royce Motors and security was too tight to get in ( but non existent going out when slim young men wearing macs in the middle of summer invariably looked to have put some weight on during the day).
Uncle was a guard on BR - so had a few day trips in the cattle van.
Uncle was a guard on BR - so had a few day trips in the cattle van.
Yes, in the school holidays.
He was a lorry driver and me and I loved sitting up in the cab of a big artic, seeing the road, and going to the trucker's 'caff' stops all over the country.
While he was loading up, or off-loading, he'd leave me in the care of the cafe ladies, who would sit and draw with me - I went everywhere with a bag full of notepads and felt-tip pens.
Happy days
My dad was a lorry driver too and getting to go with him for the day was a real treat.
Before motorways so it was all A roads and B roads and we had tea and dinner at some quaint fantastic cafes set in the middle of nowhere. I can't smell that blend of hot oil/diesel/leather without thinking of my dad.
What a hard job it was though. No power steering, no power brakes, no synchromesh gearbox, unload and load by hand.
My dad must have been as strong as an ox in his prime. Having to deliver 3 x 2 concrete paving slabs to the new towns being built around London in the late 1950's each one would weigh something like 140 lbs and he had to shift a lorry load of them everyday, day in day out. Each slab had to be manoeuvred to either the back or side of the flat bed so someone could take it from him. Sometimes, if the town was not so far away he would have to do two runs.
Mad Doug Biker
Banned from every bar in the Galaxy
- Location
- Craggy Island
Nothing very exciting, but my Dad woked as a service engineer when Kodak still did photocopiers (later Danka and now Capital Solutions), so we had a free supply of colour photocopies for school projects and the like 
My Mum was a primary school teacher, so we would go and help her get things ready for the coming year during the summer holidays.
Hardly anything exciting, but it was better than nothing.
My Mum was a primary school teacher, so we would go and help her get things ready for the coming year during the summer holidays.
Hardly anything exciting, but it was better than nothing.
gbb
Squire
- Location
- Peterborough
I did and my dad would have been strung up for it
He was an airframe fitter in the RAF, when i was about 13, he took me in one Sunday and he took me up into the cockpit of a (decomissioned) Vulcan bomber....awesome !!!!!!
I remember asking, how on earth do they know what to look at, what switches to switch etc etc etc. The banks of switches, dials, instruments etc etc was mind boggling. But of course, everythings laid out in order, hydraulics, avionics etc etc, he said you're looking at the whole thing when the pilots only interested in one section at a time.
Remarkably cramped, spartan, but incredibly exciting all the same...
and my dad would have been strung up for it He was an airframe fitter in the RAF, when i was about 13, he took me in one Sunday and he took me up into the cockpit of a (decomissioned) Vulcan bomber....awesome !!!!!!
I remember asking, how on earth do they know what to look at, what switches to switch etc etc etc. The banks of switches, dials, instruments etc etc was mind boggling. But of course, everythings laid out in order, hydraulics, avionics etc etc, he said you're looking at the whole thing when the pilots only interested in one section at a time.
Remarkably cramped, spartan, but incredibly exciting all the same...
