• Welcome to this forum . We are a worldwide group with a common interest in Birmingham and its history. While here, please follow a few simple rules. We ask that you respect other members, thank those who have helped you and please keep your contributions on-topic with the thread.

    We do hope you enjoy your visit. BHF Admin Team

Occupations That Have Faded Away

Status
Not open for further replies.
Banda fluid was alcohol based. Think it was coloured like meths used to be. We used banda machines when I started teaching. If you ran worksheets off very close to using them in a lesson the pupils would sniff them. Nightmare if you were first to use the machines in a morning as they took ages to prime.
 
Banda fluid was alcohol based. Think it was coloured like meths used to be. We used banda machines when I started teaching. If you ran worksheets off very close to using them in a lesson the pupils would sniff them. Nightmare if you were first to use the machines in a morning as they took ages to prime.
Yes. I had the the exact same experiences preparing worksheets with banda machines in the 70s and 80s. Both hand and electric versions. Science and geography teachers took great pride in their multi coloured banda worksheets.
 
Yes. I had the the exact same experiences preparing worksheets with banda machines in the 70s and 80s. Both hand and electric versions. Science and geography teachers took great pride in their multi coloured banda worksheets.
Rhe secreteries used pink correction fluid as I recall and the banda sheets were dark pink. I think the Gestetners were grey?
 
And the hand date stamps where you turned each section, or got it wrong. I broke many a biro nib doing that. Like they had in the public library. Some were round with an outer section that moved up and down. The franking machine worked the same. I got covered in red ink every day. I used to jam it accidentally on purpose so the nice girl in accounts would come and help me. And the typewriter ribbons. Mine used to jam. We 2 finger typed addresses for the proofs to go out every night for the next morning. You could hear us 3 lads drumming away on our Remington Rands and ratcheting them up. How many times did I type plumbong and have to correct it. We were not allowed to hand write them. Brown manilla. And the taste of the gum, one lad didn't mind licking, blurgh! We had what we called a licking machine. It was grey with a vertical space and you filled it with water, too much and it soaked the envelopes and they all stuck together and it had 2 black rubber rollers you passed the envelope through. Too thick and it wouldn't go through the franking machine. I called that nice girl over again when it did. I was supposed to use tape in it for big parcels. But that often ran out. Only the parcels we made up to send back were hand printed. Re used and reused. And some wrapped in brown paper. There was a dispatch driver, another occupation for the metal cases for London. Like a small suitcase with a security lock on each side that you spun round. I don't recall them having sandwich boards but they had rigid ones and boxes where the paper sellers shouted. See tye fye nail. Teel a greeeayaph.! Light seet eye!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Completely forgot about the meter guy. It's mazing what you can remember but also what is forgotten. That is the joy of this site to remind us of all that went on
 
  • Appreciate
Reactions: cba
Remember Park Keepers? And the Nit Nurse. The School Nurse. Do they still have Dinner Ladies as in ones walking round the playground? We had Parrot Face and Fish Face. The Bread Man who delivered the bread. Nan had a big wicker basket for it on her step. There were two men where I worked. One of the wise crackers called them the men with no jobs. To their faces. Off the Newsroom was the Creed Room. These 2 chaps took faxed news bulletins to the News Desk all day. Copy runners. Errand runners. Proof Readers. The Block Store where they files the metal blocks when it was hot metal. Then plastic plates came in,.. Then Pasted Up artwork. Compositors, the chap who pressed out the made up pages to be cast. Foundry men. Linotype operators, colour process operatives, machine minders, the men who put the plates on the presses, the men who monitored the papers trundling off and bundled them in those horrible plastic binders. I think they were string before that. The Readers had women workers and the paste up at the very end of it's run. They had a typing pool all women who typed on typewriters like a teleprinter except it went on the back page of the paper. At the last minute. And the likes of me. All gone.
Hi all does anyone remember The Park Keeper ginge in Aston Park you were worried if he caught you in there after 8.30 / 9.00 i think it was respect back in them days . Raz
 
The saying' it would freeze the balls off a brass Monkey' is nearly always misinterpreted. It actually refers to the method of storing cannonballs piled up in a pyramid on a brass casting. In freezing weather the balls would have to be dislodged with a heavy mallet so in actual fact the saying should be 'cold enough to freeze the balls ON a brass monkey'
My Grandad would say, "I have seen a brass monkey looking for a blow lamp today."
 
Hi all does anyone remember The Park Keeper ginge in Aston Park you were worried if he caught you in there after 8.30 / 9.00 i think it was respect back in them days . Raz
Ours was Gosford Green, Coventry. He had a fair sized corrugated tin hut to cook and make tea in. Hidden by some bushes. My friends called him the Parky. They led me astray. Tipping the benches over to annoy him.I told mum she stopped me going. We could do with him now though. The police stopped our elderly friend jogging in the Memorial park at daybreak as women joggers had been attacked so she jogged round her local green and pond and they stopped her again.
 
Paddling Pool Attendants. And First Aid stations manned by kindly old ladies with sticking plasters and compassion
.
 
Remember Park Keepers? And the Nit Nurse. The School Nurse. Do they still have Dinner Ladies as in ones walking round the playground? We had Parrot Face and Fish Face. The Bread Man who delivered the bread. Nan had a big wicker basket for it on her step. There were two men where I worked. One of the wise crackers called them the men with no jobs. To their faces. Off the Newsroom was the Creed Room. These 2 chaps took faxed news bulletins to the News Desk all day. Copy runners. Errand runners. Proof Readers. The Block Store where they files the metal blocks when it was hot metal. Then plastic plates came in,.. Then Pasted Up artwork. Compositors, the chap who pressed out the made up pages to be cast. Foundry men. Linotype operators, colour process operatives, machine minders, the men who put the plates on the presses, the men who monitored the papers trundling off and
as i have posted i was a park keeper. at weekends. when it was bham city parks dept and small holdings.
 
I was telling my Leicester mate about this. His uncle who was blind was a gate keeper. Unpaid. He opened a gate on to private land where a road/path ran through it. There was a bell on the locked gate. He would come down and oblige from his cottage. A good walk says my mate. He recognised people by their voice. Those who were short with him were denied entry.
 
My dad got expenses at Coventry City FC as a Steward. On the terraces. He wore a Sky blue nylon coat. He kept order. He quit when it got rough. early 70s. Thugs.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top