13-01-2013, 05:49 PM
I find stories of how our forbears lived are fascinating.
It's amazing how technology has advanced so rapidly in a short space of time. When people today say they have, 'twenty years experience' in many fields, such is the pace of change that some fifteen years of that will be hopelessly obsolete. I started work as an apprentice at the then Gas Board in 1954, aged 15. We were taught how to join lead water pipes in the same was as the Romans did two thousand years earlier by using a 'pot' of molten solder ('plumbers' metal') scooped out with a ladle, splashed over the pipe joint with a wooden stick, and shaped with a 'moleskin'. Only when we'd mastered that technique were we allowed to use a blowlamp. (I still have the Max Sievert petrol blowlamp which cost me a week's wages as a senior apprentice in 1957 - three years later it was obsolete - overtaken by propane lamps). All domestic water and gas pipes were lead, and gas pipes were joined with a meths 'mouthlamp' of a style which was hundreds of years old, used by jewellers, silversmiths etc. Within ten years, copper pipe with capilliary soldered fittings, needing no more than DIY skills, had supplanted lead pipes. There are still lead gas and water pipes in older houses, but before too long, these skills will be lost as people of my ilk go to the 'workshop in the sky'. (Joe now has the 'mouthlamp' that I made in 1954 on starting work).
My own experiences will of course be mirrored by anyone who started work at the same time in other spheres, notably radio and TV work. In the mid 50s, still repairing pre-war radios, gaining experience in TVs, popularised by the Coronation in 1953, then tape recorders, cassette recorders, newfangled transistors and ICs, music centres, colour TVs, VCRs, then along came the unthinkable - consumer electronics that became so cheap that things are no longer repaired but discarded, so skills built up over many years were no longer needed, and anything more than five years old will probably be irreparable due to using obsolete ICs. Who today would think about getting a printer repaired? Even if it went back under warranty it would probably be cheaper for the maker's to scrap and replace it rather than repair it.
I've got a small TV aerial amp which has gone on the blink. I've managed to open the plastic case, which was obviously put together to stay closed. The cap in the PSU section shows open circuit on my ESR meter, so I'll replace it and see what gives. Most would bin it right away without a second thought - there's no economic sense in repairing such things when a new one will cost no more than a tenner.
As to coal miners, what amazed me during the miners' strike in the mid 80s, (when we live in Rotherham, a mile from Orgreave pit - the scene of the 'battle of Orgreave' confrontation between the miners and police), was the sight of a ranting Arthur Scargill shouting 'We're not just fighting for our jobs, (incidentally, his job was flying a desk in a grandiose office), 'we're fighting for our children's jobs, and our children's children's job!'. I couldn't help but feel what a depressing ambition that was - that the only aspirations one had for one's children, was that they should end up in what was statistically the most dangerous and debilitating job at that time. I grew up in a mining area and as I recall, most parents dreaded the thought that all that life had in store for their kids was the Hobson's choice of a life down the pit.
Rambled and dribbled Yorkie
It's amazing how technology has advanced so rapidly in a short space of time. When people today say they have, 'twenty years experience' in many fields, such is the pace of change that some fifteen years of that will be hopelessly obsolete. I started work as an apprentice at the then Gas Board in 1954, aged 15. We were taught how to join lead water pipes in the same was as the Romans did two thousand years earlier by using a 'pot' of molten solder ('plumbers' metal') scooped out with a ladle, splashed over the pipe joint with a wooden stick, and shaped with a 'moleskin'. Only when we'd mastered that technique were we allowed to use a blowlamp. (I still have the Max Sievert petrol blowlamp which cost me a week's wages as a senior apprentice in 1957 - three years later it was obsolete - overtaken by propane lamps). All domestic water and gas pipes were lead, and gas pipes were joined with a meths 'mouthlamp' of a style which was hundreds of years old, used by jewellers, silversmiths etc. Within ten years, copper pipe with capilliary soldered fittings, needing no more than DIY skills, had supplanted lead pipes. There are still lead gas and water pipes in older houses, but before too long, these skills will be lost as people of my ilk go to the 'workshop in the sky'. (Joe now has the 'mouthlamp' that I made in 1954 on starting work).
My own experiences will of course be mirrored by anyone who started work at the same time in other spheres, notably radio and TV work. In the mid 50s, still repairing pre-war radios, gaining experience in TVs, popularised by the Coronation in 1953, then tape recorders, cassette recorders, newfangled transistors and ICs, music centres, colour TVs, VCRs, then along came the unthinkable - consumer electronics that became so cheap that things are no longer repaired but discarded, so skills built up over many years were no longer needed, and anything more than five years old will probably be irreparable due to using obsolete ICs. Who today would think about getting a printer repaired? Even if it went back under warranty it would probably be cheaper for the maker's to scrap and replace it rather than repair it.
I've got a small TV aerial amp which has gone on the blink. I've managed to open the plastic case, which was obviously put together to stay closed. The cap in the PSU section shows open circuit on my ESR meter, so I'll replace it and see what gives. Most would bin it right away without a second thought - there's no economic sense in repairing such things when a new one will cost no more than a tenner.
As to coal miners, what amazed me during the miners' strike in the mid 80s, (when we live in Rotherham, a mile from Orgreave pit - the scene of the 'battle of Orgreave' confrontation between the miners and police), was the sight of a ranting Arthur Scargill shouting 'We're not just fighting for our jobs, (incidentally, his job was flying a desk in a grandiose office), 'we're fighting for our children's jobs, and our children's children's job!'. I couldn't help but feel what a depressing ambition that was - that the only aspirations one had for one's children, was that they should end up in what was statistically the most dangerous and debilitating job at that time. I grew up in a mining area and as I recall, most parents dreaded the thought that all that life had in store for their kids was the Hobson's choice of a life down the pit.
Rambled and dribbled Yorkie
Regards, David.
BVWS Member.
G-QRP Club Member 1339.
'I'm in my own little world, but I'm happy, and they know me here'
BVWS Member.
G-QRP Club Member 1339.
'I'm in my own little world, but I'm happy, and they know me here'
