I left Rotary Hoes and then came a couple of years of fun with my friend Harry, who by then had done his National service, he just did his two years and went to Korea and we jumped from job to job enjoying ourselves, as we only had our “know what" to support we did not give a dam and here are some of the jobs we had.
We both went down to Shell haven as they were looking for labourers at Frankie Pile, a firm that was pile driving for the refinery tanks to be built on now this big Irish ganger came up to us in his big green wellies and said to us “It’s all pick and shovel work here" so Harry said “well I'm picking myself up and going" but I started work and my job was to hang up the top of this pile frame, twenty feet up in the air and guide the skips of cement into the top of the pile tube when it was lifted up by the crane, I stuck this for a couple of months then left
I then met up with Harry again and we both got a job with British Railways, the first job they gave us was on night work when the trains had stopped running unloading ballast from railway carriages, there were two men to every carriage and you shovelled the ballast out through a small door in the side onto the tracks so as it could be pushed under the railway lines, each carriage had two hurricane lamps which you balanced on the side of the carriage so as you could see what you were doing.

But Harry and me decided this was too hard so we kept throwing pieces of ballast at other peoples lamps and knocking them over, in the end the foreman got the shits and we got transferred to another job, this was a wonderful job as we were sent to Stanford-Le -Hope where a single track ran to the refineries at Shell haven (a distance of about six miles)
there was only us two and a ganger who we called Marcus Aralias (because he was an East European) and all we had to do was amble along the track checking for loose fishplate bolts and banging in the loose track nails (and clearing the odd weed or two)
when we had a lunch break Marcus went into a workers hut that was by the side of the track (this was made of old railway sleepers) and me and Harry used to stay outside now this hut had an open coal fire in the middle and Marcus always used to cook his breakfast on it and it was because of this we got the sack.
What happened was one of us (Harry says it was me and I say it was him) quietly climbed up on the roof of the hut and placed a sheet of tin with a brick on top over the chimney, all was quiet for a while then the door burst open and Marcus came rushing out, a pal shade of green and almost choking to death, we thought we had killed him and then for some unknown reason when he came recovered enough to speak he blew his top and told us to piss off and so ended another job.
Harry and I used to go to Southend a lot in the summer and go to the Gliderdrome which was a roller skating rink, neither of us could roller skate but we just went for a laugh and knocking everyone over as we tried to get around the outside of the rink, we used to form a long line and swing around and then the last person at the end of the row would let go and fly out and hit the outside wall.
It was whilst I was going with Harry that we got barred from the Premier Club, now this was a nice club down Lionel Road were we used to go for a few beers and a game of snooker we enjoyed going there but what happened was (and Harry says it was me and I blamed him) we were mucking about playing a game of snooker and one of us pushed the cue right through the green baize on the best table, the manager did his block and threw us out.
Then the truck driving urge burst out from both of us and we got a job with Hall & Company, which was a large sand and ballast merchant, driving tipper lorries we really enjoyed it working from a sand pit at Lindford we used to do six to eight loads a day to Shell haven or six loads a day to the new town they were building at Basildon.
We used to drive like mad and then go to a cafe in Stanford -Le Hope for our dinner, (there was a film made at about this time called Hell Drivers starring Stanley Baker about tipper drivers and we drove just like him). There was a driver called Jack Truss so we called him Jockstrap," one with a big nose he was Simon De Bergerac and another one who was fat we called 'the slug."
There was also a cafe' just down the road from the pit at Lindford where Harry and me used to go and I had a crush on the owners daughter and one Christmas She invited me over to spend the festive season with her and her mother, I did not get my leg over but I had a very enjoyable time, she had a tape recorder and we sang love songs to each other and recorded them, I could not sing then and I still cannot sing but I can tell you this when someone sings love songs to you whilst draped all over you like an octopus it is a wonderful experience.