When I was 16yrs old I got a job in a local factory that only lasted 6months. I was working with a bloke who operated a large machine. On my first day he sent me to see the maintenance manager to get a long stand and some elbow grease. I went along to see the maintenance bloke who told me to wait outside his office while he went to another location. I stood patiently for around 15 minutes then everyone went to break. After the break the maintenance bloke said you can go now we have no elbow grease left and you have your long stand.

I worked one summer at SCA packaging - at the sheet plant next door on Oaksway..
Had a lad who was a bit basic used to come in and do a bit of sweeping up and the like, a couple of days a week
They often used to send him to the main plant for a bucket of Tartan dye and a couple of sky hooks!

Best one though was one of the fellas in despatch told the same lad that under no circumstances was he to upset me (as I'm quite a large bloke) but also that I was a black belt in Origami- and would crease him if I got pissed off!

This went on for weeks and culminated one lunchtime in him standing on half a pallet of cardboard on one foot doing some very bizarre moves - like a preying mantis- as he was told that's what I do to warm up!

It sounds like Feeney the boxer

My dad started his apprenticeship at Richardson Westgarths and one noted gobshite gave my dad his cap and told him to get a cap full of rivet holes and told him to go round the shop floor and ask all the fitters…. when my dad arrived at one particular bloke he took the cap off him and hammered numerous hols in the blokes cap with a gasket hole cutter and told him to take it back and tell him who did it if he has a problem.
Oddly enough, that bloke was to be his future father in law, but he never met him again because the Luftwaffe sank his ship three years later. Spooky in a way but pleasantly so.

That is so bizarre it really is Snowy what are the chances.

I worked at Deith Leisure for a while - who used the old bonded warehouse on Mainsforth Terrace as a location for their Hartlepool branch. Some may remember them as Ruffler and Deith.

There was a lad there who was known (behind his back) as "Sicknote" who rarely completed a full week after coming down with some imaginary illness - and we quickly realised that his reported malady when he returned would always be a condition listed on whatever page the large medical encylopedia on his bench was left open at. He had them all, from Green Monkey Disease to Galloping Cock Rot. The prescription-medicine collection stashed in his locker would put Boots to shame.

Anyway, his best one ever was when he had nearly a month off quarantined with his wife and kids - and we really thought the whole family had got something serious this time. The medical book was closed, so we had no idea what could be wrong.

The day he returned we were all in the canteen, and in he strolled. When someone plucked up the courage to ask him what was wrong (he was a big bloke) he told us him and the family had driven past the Nuclear Power station on their way home from Seaton Carew, and all of them were seriously ill within ten minutes.

"So what caused it then - dodgy burgers or fish and chips?" someone finally asked.

"No" he says, and with a completely straight face announced it was "Radiation poisoning."

I don't know who spat their coffee out first before laughing their tits off - but it took us ten minutes to clean up the mess.

He was last seen heading for the door calling us all a bunch of piss-taking bastards at the top of his voice...

My cousin was contracting in the 70’s. In the fab shop bait cabin a new lad started, when he returned to work the next day he came in very cool and quiet.
At the end of the day these three lads started laughing and asked him if his little surprise was found…at this point the other lads asked what had happened..the lad said his wife opened the bait box and found a dead rat inside and everyone started laughing….but the lad then said I just wanted to see if you all found it funny and you all did.
He then said he had a good sense of humour….and hoped they had too.
Looking puzzled, they a second or two and he told them to look in the water boiler and there was a well poached rat…apparently most of them shot outside and tried to spew up.

What a come back

One lad I knew who worked at ICI in the 70’s told of a lad always on the sick with various ‘causes’ ..the one that done for him was his message he’d be off for three days with…. ‘a touch of polio’

That has got to be the best ever sicky

Couple of years back the " fruit boy shop " in Elizabeth Way asked the wife to paint a metal sign of a kilt wearing bagpipe playing scotsman. It belonged to a customer who's husband ( scottish of course ) had it hanging on his mancave door, but due to weathering needed repainting. Took it back couple of days later and the shop lady was over the moon with the paint job and paid the bill. She then asked the wife about the special paint she used ? I said its not special it's the normal paint she uses...she then said I mean the tartan paint at which point I started laughing thinking she was joking but no she was serious and now upset that I laughed. She then went to lengths to explain its an easy mistake for anyone to make especially someone who never paints.

That made me chuckle. I can imagine him telling his wife he might have had a smidgen of syphilis...!

Factory nicknames can be very funny as well as stories. I remember a Scouser telling me about a bloke with thinning hair he'd worked with, who applied black shoe polish to his remaining locks for many years and actually died due to this as he didn't realise it was toxic.

Apparently it looked so obvious that Stevie Wonder would've spotted it, and everyone referred to him as "Cherry Blossom".

Flying out of Teesside back in 2005ish going to Alicante and four of us there daft O’clock on a glorious sunny morning surrounded by loads of Boro fans flying out their disastrous European final.
As we went through to check in I was last through, the wife, her sister and brother in law had got through and these two blokes collared me..they frisked me down in front of everyone and then asked me to take my shoes off to check inside them …I stood there as they had a discussion about me then demanded my passport, took down the details then asked me who my ‘associates’ were … ….when I asked what they meant they asked me who I was with …I pointed over to my lot pissing themselves laughing…. they looked over in unison and said..er, where are you going to? …’Alicante’ I replied …..they told me I could go…I pulled them to one side and asked what was going on?
Then it got surreal….they said they thought I was flying out with the Boro lot and because I had no Boro ‘insignia’ on I’d been highlighted as a sort of football villain as the real trouble causers look like I do.
I didn’t know if I should be flattered or sue

That's a good example of how stupid the world is at times

In the 70's we sent an apprentice down to Charlie Dickens for a box of hole-less washers.
He came back and said they haven't got any hole-less washers but they have some discs, if they would do.
One of the guys asked him if he thought hole-less washers were the same as discs. After a few moments thought he said no.
So we sent him down to Tools and Tackle.

Ah Charlie Dickens….I was popping in one day for som BA bolts and the new, really wet behind the ears big boss asked me if he could come with me…no problem.
In the 80’s getting served at the counter was a Dutch Auction and you had to catch the assistants eye to get served, unknown customers had a job getting served if busy.
When I got to be served he asked if he could place the order…I said no problem ..he asked what to say….I said ask for a 100 box of 6 BA bolts with cheese heads…straight away he had a big grin on his face and said he wasn’t falling for that… he fannied about for so long the lad served someone else.
I caught his eye and asked for exactly the same order which he went out and got and I signed for.
Outside he said to me in a fit of frustration “Aaaw, this just isn’t on”

That must have been the old premises, I remember going there when Dickens was still alive.

It was supposed to have happened at the Power Station, I heard the same story when I worked there.

A couple of guys I worked with had this yarn from working in the kitchens on a liner. Johnny a kitchen porter a bit slow on the uptake was the target of a cruel joke. As was the norm he had left his shoes outside his cabin while having an afternoon nap. Some one decided to shit in his shoes which he then put on. When he went for his meal in the staff canteen a chant rose up who shat in Johnny's shoes. This continued the following evening at which he stood on his chair and asked and who pissed in the soup you gastards are eating!!!!!!!

met some real thick buggers in my time on the buses. both road staff and passengers. both of them were involved the day this guy was given an excursion to do from huddersfield to blackpool. he ans his passengers never knew anything was wrong until he had gone a good few miles on the A64 from leeds to york. does make you wonder what people do in their time off work.

A lad I knew from school moved down to Leeds to be with a lass he'd met. He applied for a labouring job at a factory and got sent to the warehouse dispatch area, where the foreman asked "Can you work chalk?."

Took him a minute to work out that the job was chalking dispatch codes on the wooden packing cases - none of the dozy buggers labouring there could manage it

A lad I worked with was asked by his mates to take them to Manchester airport to catch a flight as he had a people carrier. He agreed and set of in the dark hit the M62 and while they were having a laugh and carry on spotted the sign for Hull….he went east instead of west, but no harm done.

Seal Sands 75.

No, it was the new premises, they had one big counter in there till Hornsey took over and made it how it is today…that’s when the regular staff left and opened up ‘Fixings’ in Burn Road.

A lorry driver friend of mine who has sadly passed told me a story about his work. He used to drive a articulated vehicle and one Sunday night he parked up at Dundee for a urgent 7am delivery next morning to Aberdeen. Next day his boss is on the phone at 7am prompt asking were he is because the factory in Aberdeen is urgently awaiting a machine part that is holding up 200 workers. He tells his boss its so foggy he can only see a couple of yards ahead and is only travelling at 25mph and will get there in about 30 minutes. His boss rings the extremely angry manager at the factory and explains the situation but the manager says bullshit it's a beautiful sunny morning in Aberdeen and he had also travelled up from his home in Dundee. Well his boss was ready to sack him on the spot after hearing the managers comments and called him yet again to find out what was going on. It turns out my mate was making a cup of tea while driving and the steam from the kettle on the windows looked like fog on the windows. He told me loads of cars passed him bipping horns because he was doing 25 mph on the A90. The factory manager remembered bipping his horn at the same wagon and laughed the whole thing off.

I could write a book about funny stories during my apprenticeship to many to repeat, loads of great characters thenwhich we don’t have now, people take life too seriously nowadays.
Nowadays the job has to be finished yesterday and under budget, we never had that but companies still thrived and survived..

We had a bloke at work whose nickname was "Billy Liar" due to the fantasy world he lived in. When he was asked why he'd been off work when the World Trade Centre attack took place - he replied that his auntie and him had flown to the US in her helicopter to assist in the search for survivors.

There are loads more like that, but my favourite was when we were all out on a shift piss-up, and were sitting on a bench outside enjoying the evening sunset. Someone told him it was his round, so off he went inside to get the drinks. One of the lads noticed a large dollop of dried seagull crap on the table and started grinding it to a powder with his thumb nail. We were all bemused, but when asked what the fuck he was doing, he just said "You'll see when that daft twat comes back."

As Pinocchio struggled through the door with the tray of booze, the lad pinched a straw from one of the lasses drinks, and pretended to be snorting the crushed cack.

Just as Bill Clinton put the last drink on the table, the lad asked if he wanted a toot. "Fuckin' right do ah" came the reply, and he sat down, grabbed the straw and snorted two nostril fulls and started to blink a lot and rub his nose.

The lad then asked him if he thought it was good stuff, and got the reply "Aye marra, canny shit that like."

It was dark by the time we all stopped pissing ourselves...

Love that seagull shit prank

One of the lads back in the 70’s had been over to Holland and when he came in the cabin, trying to play the big man, he put two books the size of kids comic annuals with hard covers … they were ‘jazz’ mags and as the 17 year old I got flattened when the lads all piled on as the pages were turned, it was an eye opener to me, when suddenly the main man walked in and everyone froze……he picked one up, flicked through it and announced…” I cannot stand women with dirty feet” and impounded them for ‘research purposes’….turned round as he left and said “Carry on”…..we all breathed out.

That was the first thing I noticed moving from school at 16yrs old to the men's world. While all older lads simply walked past the topless pictures ( which were all over the factory despite 70% of women workers ) I always had a double take if you pardon the pun. Looking back you have to ask how did they get away with it. It was the world of page 3 girls and normal behaviour. I never heard any of the females complaining about the pictures but surely it must have pisssssed them off deep inside.

I really don’t think the lasses gave a toss, When I worked the odd time in an assembly plant which was mostly female staff for a year, it was something no one ever complained about…maybe they were just more grown up in their attitude than the precious miseries who like to wield power today and get offended because they can.

Yes spot on Snowy

yes same here. they probebly expected them to be on view anyway. they have nothing different to what they have aothered when they stopped whistling.part from in most cases its packaged better. same with whisttling when they walked past. know her in the kitchen and a few more were more bothered when they stopped whistling.

you can say the same about football and the sunday league. sent my stepson off on his birthday for handling the ball on the line stopping a shot going in. his mum wasn,t happy when she arrived and found out what had happened. it was just a big joke as both teams knew who we were so none of the cautions and his sending off needed reporting. at least it saved my dinner from the dog. now they,d check up to make sure everything was officially reported.

A former work mate retired and moved back to his native Cornwall after coming here for 2 weeks work and staying for 28 years. Anyway he bought a old cottage that used to be a travellers lodge back in victorian days. It had been empty for 2 years needed a new thatched roof aswell has major repairs. He got the roof replaced and then set about replacing the wooden beams on the ceilings. The very first beam he pulled down had a wooden box inside which had a group of gold coins a cloth map and a scroll of people who owed the pub owner various amounts of debt. He sold the map n scroll for £280 and the Coins for £185.000. He paid £320,000 for the cottage then got back £185,280 for the finds. That's what you call lucky in life

⬆️ Brilliant story.

I go out metal detecting on a regular basis but gold alludes me!

Apart from once in my small change in Innsbruck, I picked up by chance a gold coin the size of a penny

Just remembered, try being in the big factories where there loads of women….I experienced it once on a course and they were worse than blokes before they broke up for Xmas

This factory had over 400 woman of all ages. The amount of times I got well teased was mad. One time I walked up to a woman on a sewing machine who requested some cotton when I arrived she turned around with her top pulled down and her boobs out They often smacked my arse and offered me various sex in various places I was only 16 yrs old and wet behind the ears but wish I had that job 2 years later

Did the long stand bit with a young agency worker a few weeks ago, and another to ask the facilities guy if the tartan paint or nail holes had arrived.

With all of you there fellas.

I was briefly the world's worst vending-machine engineer back in the day - and a call to the Courtaulds' knicker factory in Fencehouses was always fobbed-off if possible.

Having some 60+ lady grabbing you by the bollocks while you tried to sort out a coin-jam was not the pleasure it might sound to be at first - even if she was wearing a fucking balaclava...!

At least I our factory the woman's ages from 16yrs to 50ish

Give over Leggie.

Every factory has its "sex-sirens in their sixties" brigade - and the world of the shy young man is greatly enhanced by that..!

I hope she was wearing it backwards for your sake

know the local mill lasses scared me shitless especially the ones from south yorkshire that got bussed in. actually glad when the asians came over and took their jobs.

I knew three lads who worked in the stores at Dewhirst in Peterlee, and they had to barricade the doors on night shifts.

Back in late 70s a dodgy workmate of mine had a Capri which he got for £150 because the engine was totalled. I asked him why he bought it because he always skint. He said he had a plan and would update me on Monday morning. Anyway on the Monday he came to work in the Capri complete with good engine. I was gobsmacked and asked how he got that engine. Apparently his ex girlfriend's dad had a Capri and lived in the next road. This lad and his dad went to his ex girlfriend's house at 3am pulled up the garage door, pushed the car out onto the drive lifted the bonnet and his dad lifted the engine out by standing on the wings with a rope over his shoulders and they put in onto a barrow then pushed the car back into the garage and left. He hated his girlfriend's dad because he persuaded her to dump him. Him and his dad decided to pop round at 7.30am to see the reaction from her dad when trying to start his car for work. Apparently they seen him sitting in the car turning the key with no effect. He then got out lifted the bonnet then fell to his knees with total astonishment.

remember a similar story of when i bought a PB vauxhall cresta. went to look at it, did a test drive and it was spot on. when i went to collect it a week later i realised something was different as i struggled back home, the bastard had swapped the engine over. moral to this story is never buy anything from a birmingham as it was not the first time i,d been done by a brummie. even those living nearby to that city swerve anything for sale there.

[quote="accrington fan"]remember a similar story of when i bought a PB vauxhall cresta. went to look at it, did a test drive and it was spot on. when i went to collect it a week later i realised something was different as i struggled back home, the bastard had swapped the engine over. moral to this story is never buy anything from a birmingham as it was not the first time i,d been done by a brummie. even those living nearby to that city swerve anything for sale

I always had that opinion of the Merseyside lot but that probably comes from my two visits to Tranmere to see pools. Found the people really dodgy and the town left me gobsmacked such a place even existed in the UK