SEEKING EMPLOYMENT
Written by Ronald MizonPublished on January 2018
“I was accosted by an American Soldier Policeman who wanted to know who I was and where I was going. After I presented myself correctly we talked together and what a thrill it was to speak in the same accent. He would not explain where the path was or where it went to.”
After about two weeks of settling down Dad suggested I find myself some employment. Having agreed, he came home one day and informed me that he had a talk with a Mr Humble who was a senior man in the employment office of the South Durham Iron and Steel Co where Dad was employed. So, one Sunday morning, I went with Dad to meet Mr Humble, a friendly tubby man who interviewed me and the result of my meeting was that he offered me a place in the rolling mill (of steel that is) as a checker.
As the long hot strips of steel came rolling along a chute it was my job to block their passage by letting down a large steel block. Behind me there was a small cabin with three ladies (I use this title loosely) and their job was to measure the rails, as it turned out to be, for use as railroad tracks. The operators sliced up the rails at a given signal. I released them and waited for the next one, etc. Incidentally, the white hot steel ingots, after leaving the blast furnace, were first rolled down shrinking it from its huge size about a diameter of approximately two and a half feet wide. My job, as checker, was not a difficult one but my presence being in close proximity with so much heat in a semi-gloom made me very tired and the females in the little cabin were not very ladylike towards me in their use of the English language and were rude towards me.
So, in my break time, I went to see the manager and he just laughed at my reparte with the females and with the workers. He then offered me another job in the company stores as a handyman/boy. It was like being in a shop and the customers were workers from various parts of the site requesting tools, valves, oxygen cylinders, nuts and bolts, etc. This job was much lighter but I soon became the butt of the men and other boys. It transpired that I went to work in my baseball cap and a coloured windcheater. Within a couple of days I was nicknamed “Chicago Red Socks” and if I was a bit slow in the stores I was dubbed the Yank and at other times Canuck. It wasn’t a bad job really except for one boy who was older than I. He was always picking on me and finding fault. As it happened, he was a member of the Army Cadet Force and I had the idea that he thought he was in charge of me just because he was a Sergeant in the Force. One day he argued with me and literally threw his weight by hitting me on my shoulder. I saw red and retaliated. This caused him to punch me and I returned his volley by punching him on his nose and made it bleed. He backed down and slunk away and do you know he left me alone thereafter, though the manager told me off for making him bleed and terminated my employment. I left feeling very upset and dejected after this but from that I looked around for other jobs and espied one with the Silkburn Coal Company. This consisted of loading sacks of coal and delivering them to various homes in Middlesbrough. As I progressed I was delegated to go to the colliery to collect coal straight from the mine. Trucking it home (sometimes me driving) we arrived at the depot, unloaded and weighed the coal into sacks for delivery.