About Me

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I never wanted to be a fitter and I didn’t even know what a fitter was or did, until it was too late. The story of how I came to be one can be seen on my website: www.calvertonfitter.com After 45 years in industry working on such diverse things as aeroplanes and textile machinery I thought it would be a good idea to start a blog and to share some of the things that I've seen and done. Some of the posts are funny and some are sad. Some are political and some are about racism. Hopefully you will find them all interesting, and even entertaining!

My Favourite Posts

Some of MY favourite posts include: The Congo, Deltic (3 posts), On the Buses, The Bus Drivers Story, Classical Music and Sherry, Working in Karachi 1988, Going to Karachi 1988 (hilarious), Broken Mug, Tilbury (4 posts).





Wednesday 13 August 2008

First Blog

Its Wednesday and this is my first post. A momentus day for me but normal humdrum for everyone else. The idea is to create a blog that industrial workers will find useful and amusing. As a mechanical fitter who has worked in many industries and places I seem to have a wealth of stories to tell and have always regretted not keeping in touch with some of the guy's I've worked with. Hopefully this blog will become a place where contacts can be made, advice sought and given and maybe even develop into a fully fledged website. I won't hold my breath.........

On Friday I go into hospital for a new knee (ouch). I've got a touch of OGS (Old Git Syndrome), arthritis has ground its way through my cartilage so I'm limping around and finally taking a holiday to rest up pre. op. I've already used up my sick leave. We have a big project on at work so the company decided to try and replace me on a temp basis with a fitter who can do electric arc and tig. The 1st 2 interviewees cancelled because they got jobs. The next cancelled because he'd had his car nicked, the next 2 said they could weld but couldn't, I had to give them a simple test. The company then told the agencies that they wanted a welding certificate as proof of competence. The next guy was the one who'd had his car nicked but the agency brought him. He looked at the 2 small pieces of 1.5mm stainless steel I wanted him to tig up and shook his head and said he couldn't do it. He explained that his last company had sent him on a basic tig course for a day then decided not to buy a welding set so he had no experience. "But look" he said "I've brought you the certificate you wanted". Where do they come from.........

Still looking.

I had a little chat with him before he was shown out and he claimed to be registered with 40 agencies and had as many as 20 contacts a day.

This is Manchester we are talking about and I can't find that many relevant agencies and I can't find ones that I've worked with in the past. I've always known this was a bit of a problem and I'm thinking it would be a good idea to make a list of all agencies dealing with industrial workers nationwide so if you send in your lists, or favourites, and with any comments you feel relevant, good or bad experiences, I'll do my best to list them on this site.

Fireplace fitters have just arrived, we're having a new one fitted in the lounge.

End of 1st post. Painless so far.

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