“You are a cowboy and you will never make a plasterer as long as you live“
These are the words no one wants to hear especially a cock sure young twenty-one-year-old lad, but they are the exact words I heard as I was sacked from my first job as a plasterer LOL
But let me take you back six years At school I was never the brightest kid, in fact I was in with a bad group of lads and at the age of fifteen I was brought home from school by the police whilst I was in the middle of my CSE exams which were the recognised qualifications of the day that a pupil of my academic level could achieve
To my parents that was a shock as they thought I was doing good and would progress into a good career, becoming a white-collar worker, but sadly no, I was asked to leave the school without any qualifications, which back in the early 1970’s was a very big ordeal.
I managed to get a job at the local co-op filling shelves, after a couple of years filling the shelves and not really making much progress I decided to leave.
“Well you will have to go and work with your dad” were the words my mother said to me as I told her I had handed in my notice at the co-op, my dad who like his dad before him was a plasterer, and with not many firms beating a path to my door asking me to work for them, leaving me with very little options I decided to become an apprentice plasterer, the following Monday after leaving the co-op I started working in the building trade.
My dad bought me a plastering trowel, a Tyzac centurion which was a good quality trowel, a gauging trowel and a hand board or a some call it (hawk). My first weeks wage was £6 which for the day was pretty poor as most of my mates were earning £10 a week , my dad sub contracted to an old established plastering firm in Blackburn and they agreed to take me on as an apprentice so I started working for them as an apprentice plasterer,
They would not send me to college to gain any qualifications which at the time did not bother me, as my mates who were serving an apprenticeship for different trades at different firms had to attend college and night school and they hated going to college.
The building trade back then was a totally different ball game than today, there was no health and safety, the plaster came in one hundred weight bags which is approx. 50 kg bags which we had to unload and carry into the new builds which we were working on , often on a plank which spanned a ditch filled with water and the plank would be slippery, as a young lad the bags were bigger than me and I did not have the strength to carry them, but I was expected to help.
I worked for the plastering firm for three years, during which time I learnt how to float , skim, fix plaster boards and plain faced rendering, so at the age of twenty one I left the plastering firm to set out as a cock sure journey man ready to take my place in the plastering trade as a time served plasterer, even though I had not gained my city and guilds in plastering I managed to get a job as a plasterer at another old established plastering firm in Blackburn William Reader, by then my dad was working for them and my grandad had also worked for them, so my family’s name got me my first job. During the second week of working for William Readers the boss pulled me into the office told me that he has had a complaint about my work after viewing the job he had made his mind up to sack me it was during this bollocking that he called me a cowboy and I would never make a plasterer as long as I live .
Lath and Plaster 