Nut screws washers and bolts...

I'm taking a few days R and R to indulge my passion for making things, and you'll never believe what's going to be next. As usual, a story goes with it...

Several years ago, I worked for a Scottish industrial building company. They were a hard bunch of guys - and gals as well, and it would have been easy to be intimidated by the business environment they all worked in. Scottish engineers are still alive and kicking, and the chaps I worked with were a great bunch of innovative, design-proud, commercial characters, and we all got on pretty well, despite the fact that I came from near Tunbridge Wells, which is a bit of a downer in certain company...

We concentrated on packages of work for prisons, universities, hospitals, and, best of all, retail sheds. It was during the big boom in out-of-town shopping, and huge stores were cropping up everywhere. They all looked very much as they do today, but the building obstructorenti were nervous of the Italian materials we used, (until UK Inc's dead-handed regulators eventually let us make them here), and each scheme was always a slow starter.

On one particular job, which I cannot of course identify, (Homebase in Hendon), we were having a hard time; a very hard time. In fact it was rapidly becoming a Ken Disaster! Writs were forming by the minute and lawyers were dribbling at the prospect of a dishevelled Scrobs, crawling stark naked through the trenches...

The conversation between Glasgow and London went something like this: -

Scots Business Director (God):- "Scrooobs; yiew down there? Can ye hear me? Wha's happening a' Haindon eh? Tell me wha's goin' on!"

Scrobs:- "Er, morning Dairek, er - the subbies didn't turn up today; or yesterday... in fact they weren't here last week either..."

Scots Business Director (God):- "Aye. Aye! (long agonising pause) Well; wha' you goin' ta do aboot it then Scrooobs?"

Scrobs:- "Er, well, (gulps), we're chasing them hourly, but the fax machine is broken, so all the new details are somewhere between here and the Isle of Dogs; ha ha ha; (gulp)..."?

Scots Business Director (God):- (softly, in the most terrifying voice imaginable) "Scrooobs, will ya listen to me! I wan' you thaire every waking hour, to supervise an' make sure our money is safe. D'ya unnerstand...?"

Scrobs:- "Er, yes of course, Dairek!" (lapsing into the accent was a secret weapon, and occasionally defused any further commercial banter/libel/violence)

Scots Business Director (God):- "Good man Scrooobs! Aye; ya'll be reporting to us early each day, eh?"

Scrobs:- "Er, fine, er I'll, er, do that..."(wondering how on earth he'll swing all this...)

Scots Business Director (God):- "Aye Scrooobs, you will!"

Sound of telephone handset being gently replaced on Bakelite receiver somewhere near Paisley...

So Scrobs was set a target of completing the job in two weeks, which meant leaving home in the dark, and also getting home way after bedtime. The subbies did return, slowly, rather like that scene in 'The charge of the Light Brigade' when they all trudge back with limbs hanging off, and we began to see daylight, or, rather the reverse, as we were in fact fitting the roof then...

On one occasion, I had my usual daily arse-wrenching meeting with the Main Contractor, explaining how much over the contract time we might be. Luckily he was a kindly man, and always stopped at physical abuse, (although the mental scars are still prevalent in the occasional nightmare), and we got on pretty well under the circumstances.

My Uncle Jack (the Builder), had told me once that he personally used to sweep up his building sites every evening. It may have been just a house, or maybe a factory, but he did it himself, as he was on a salary, and the men were paid hourly. When a Director from the firm visited the site once, he asked Uncle Jack, "Why spend your time cleaning up now - you're in charge"!

Uncle Jack replied "Well, it's so the men have a clean place to start work tomorrow, and they'll do much more if they don't have to work with muck everywhere'" There's no argument to that, and his site was always spotless at the end of the day, and the job was much better organised.

So, Scrobs, on the long drive to Hendon, decided to take a leaf from all this, and one evening, swept the whole site, which was after all, a DIY superstore and not exactly miniscule! There was an urban myth around about that time, where the MD of a roofing firm had gone round the site one evening, and collected all the bolts, screws, etc, which had been dropped during construction and had not been used. He piled them all on a table, costed them, and deducted the value of all these fittings from everyone's wages. That really stopped the waste!

I finished up with a huge cardboard box full of hundreds of these fixings! They were all unsorted, and I could just imagine the problem of getting them back in their boxes, as I really did want to get home some time that night...

So they went into the boot of the Scrobmobile.

This was back in 1982, and after all these years, I still have a hundred or so of these expensive bits of kit, which cost a fortune at B and Q, (perhaps Homebase as well...), and I've used them on almost every job I've ever done since that fateful day!

And if anyone recognises the kid's lunch box which keeps them safe, it's because there are also some other things I can never throw away...