Going into work with your Dad when you were a kid

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postman

Squire
Location
,Leeds
It was 1961 and i was eleven years old when my Dad said come and learn how to be a Decorator.He worked for himself.So during the long summer holidays i was taught how to prepare a room for decorating.A gift i have used for 50 years.Keep your work place tidy especially as it's someones house.Use quality paint and do the job properly and you only have to do it once.Outsides had wooden guttering i wonder how many of you remember that.Burning off with a blow lamp and they were always losing power.Underline walls before papering.We were on strike at Royal Mail when he died during his sleep in Feb 1986.And i went round to the house he was painting and finished the job off.Earning myself some money through the strike.
It was very sad to go throught his work bag which he carried his sarnies and tea and milk.Plus his racing papers.But 50 years later i thank him for his wisdom.And it has saved me thousands and also put a bitof money in my pocket when extra was needed.
 

Globalti

Legendary Member
My Dad was a doctor and once or twice he took me along on his rounds. That was in the days when the village doctor did surgery in the mornings then rounds in the afternoons. I used to help him by digging out the patient's notes from the pile he had brought along from the surgery then I used to wait for him in the car.

He was the first GP in Britain ever to commission and build a purpose-built surgery; until then all surgeries had been old shops or something else converted. It was quite revolutionary and people came from all over the world to look around and write it up for magazines.

My Mum was a physio (still races around like a nutter at the age of 81) and she worked at Littlemore mental hospital in Oxford. I remember going in with her a couple of times to meet the patients; they were geriatrics and all I can remember is thinking how eccentric they were.
 

Ajay

Veteran
Location
Lancaster
My dad was a builder, in my younger years I'd play around on his sites - playing "army" in the half-built houses was always dangerous fun!
As I got older and stronger I became more use to him and would do basic labouring duties, no hard hats or hi-vis then. One of the highlights for me as a teenager was to get a sneak at some of the "gentlemen's literature" that he and his mates had stashed in the old caravan they used on site for brews / shelter.
Nowadays I visit construction sites with my job and the amount of PPE kit I have to wear never ceases to amaze me!
Those were the days - I even used to ride my bike without a helmet...
 

Glow worm

Legendary Member
Location
Near Newmarket
My Dad worked for many years administering a college of further education (as they were then - now part of a university no doubt). My Mum however taught A level in a girls school. Strangely enough, I always preferred going to work with my Mum!
 

RedRider

Pulling through
My dad worked in the body plant of a car factory. He let me sit in the cab of his fork lift. Exciting stuff seeing the cars coming off the line. Lined up summer work for me with industrial cleaning sub--contractors in the same place when I went to uni.

He had a sideline as a wedding photographer so I spent many a Saturday holding bags, pointing flashes and rounding up important in-laws and other guests trying to avoid having their photie taken. One Saturday a wedding coincided with the Liverpool v Everton cup final and I became a pundit passing updates and goal flashes to men aghast their mate would agree to marriage on such an important day.
 

hobo

O' wise one in a unwise world
Location
Mow Cop
My Dad was a car mechanic and once he came home for lunch in a fancy Range Rover and took me and my sister for a spin in it around the block. This was in the 70's and about 20 years later my Dad recognised a bloke off the telly and said oh i use to service his cars. It was a article about Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath. So i reckon it was his Range Rover. Oh my Dad was quite an eccentric but thats another story.:biggrin:
 

slowmotion

Quite dreadful
Location
lost somewhere
My father was, and still is, a vet. When I was about five or six, he took me to see a cow calving. I was quite used to blood and guts having watched him operating on small animals in his surgery from a very early age before then. The calving did not go well. My Dad had his arm well into the cow's womb, half way between his elbow and his shoulder, it seemed. The calf was dead but still had to be extracted from its exhausted mother. A rope was attached to it internally, and two cowhands pulled with all their might to yank it out onto the concrete floor of the cowshed. I still remember all the slime that came out with it. What really made a lasting impression was that the mother didn't seem that concerned by all the fuss.
 

plainlazy

Über Member
Location
South coast
In the early 70's my dad worked for a removal company and drove one of these - http://www.flickr.com/photos/cagiva1994/5415746535/.
One school holiday in winter time he took me on a trip from Portsmouth to Largs in North Aryshire. It took us 10 days to do the round trip, as the weather was horrendous. I remember it was so cold One morning that he had to light a fire under the fuel tank to thew the diesel.
It must have been either 1971 or 72. The lorry use to do 50 flat out if you managed to have a couple of miles of clear road to gather up speed.
Used to love stopping in the cafes used by the lorry drivers and sleeping in the cab.
Great memories, RIP Dad.
 

gbb

Squire
Location
Peterborough
In the early 70's my dad worked for a removal company and drove one of these - http://www.flickr.co...94/5415746535/.
One school holiday in winter time he took me on a trip from Portsmouth to Largs in North Aryshire. It took us 10 days to do the round trip, as the weather was horrendous. I remember it was so cold One morning that he had to light a fire under the fuel tank to thew the diesel.
It must have been either 1971 or 72. The lorry use to do 50 flat out if you managed to have a couple of miles of clear road to gather up speed.
Used to love stopping in the cafes used by the lorry drivers and sleeping in the cab.
Great memories, RIP Dad.
Gawld, i remember those vans, Commer, Dodge and Leyland made them. The last one i saw was a mobile workshop in the late 70s, and someone had painted a letter Y on the end of the Dodge badge :biggrin:
 

Mad Doug Biker

Banned from every bar in the Galaxy
Location
Craggy Island
Go to the Scottish islands, there are always old abandoned vans and trucks quietly rusting away because it would cost too much to dispose of them.

Certainly quite a few potential restoration projects there.
 

Little yellow Brompton

A dark destroyer of biscuits!
Location
Bridgend
I used to love going to work with my dad. He was in the print. He worked a classic old Heidelburg printing machine. Like this
heidelberg.jpg


They were so fascinating to watch in action. I can still remember the noise and smell.

SNap!

But Heidelburgh plattens are still in use now, often for printing raffle tickets with numbering boxes, but many have been converted to hot foil stamping uses for items such as banknotes or tickets.
 

Little yellow Brompton

A dark destroyer of biscuits!
Location
Bridgend
They had a small lab at the back and I remember being shown how the colours of dyed swatches of fabric could be quite different changing from natural light to tungsten bulbs and various types of flourescent tube.

My first job was in textiles , back in the 70's . We had a 4 tube cabinet for checking that dye recipes were pure under each light. Then M&S threw the industry into a panic by installing "Low Energy" tubes in all their stores to save power by running cooler.. This meant new cabinets to allow for the M7S tubes , but more inportantly and expensively new dye recipes to cope with 5 tubes. The after about 3-4 years M7S discovered the laws of thermodynamics and that the new low temperature tubes were being compensated for by the heating being turned up in the stores!
 
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