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Bob Davis

Bob Davis
In a post, I think about one of the main streets in the City Centre, there is a picture of a guy up a very long pole ladder. I have a need where I could utilise it any a training course I run. Can anyone point me to it. I think I made sarcastic health and safety remarks about it.

BOB
 
Bob

Was it the one of the central post office at the top of New Street with the top of the ladder disappearing out of the photo?
 
In a post, I think about one of the main streets in the City Centre, there is a picture of a guy up a very long pole ladder. I have a need where I could utilise it any a training course I run. Can anyone point me to it. I think I made sarcastic health and safety remarks about it.

BOB

I remember the one as I thought you were serious about health and safety! I think OldM uploaded it.
 
I remember the one as I thought you were serious about health and safety! I think OldM uploaded it.
Actually I am serious about Health and Safety and I want this for a H & S Safety Training Course I am running, it is just that I am also an old cynic, who started out in the days before H & S and I think we now push it to far and when I see these old pictures, I think we are still here and H & S did not bother us. As I keep saying the trams of yore could not run today, I won't list the H & S reasons, but they are legion and there would be prohibition orders on the company running them. Another good instance of H & S being ignored is canals, with the steep unguarded drops by the lock gates and the method of crossing the locks.
Bob
 
The photo referred to might be the one here.
https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/for...our-old-street-pics.41947/page-92#post-568716
and the one below has some impressively long ladders
View attachment 125729
Many thanks they will both do, but it is the one on the caught in old street pics that proves the point I have to make. Y thanks Pedro,ou see between all of you, you come up trumps again. The point is that on ladder safety now, you have to have three points of contact at all times, of course now we don't have hod carriers so there is no problems there and we have two and three piece 14 step each piece ladders which will reach the heights up to about twenty feet. Higher than that and its a tower or a cherry picker or even scaffolding. Now the next question, how did they move these ladders around, an old Devonian on a course said his Grandad told him that two men would walk the ladder between them, from job to job as they did not have carts big enough. He said sometimes the walk could be anything up to 10 miles.
Bob
 
Bob. You must let me know when and where your running a Heath and Safety Couse, I can’t wait not to go on it.

I am absolutely amazed that you think that 1 death every seven hours in the mining industry or 1 death every day in the construction industry is or was acceptable. Not withstanding the fact that numerous innocent bystanders were often killed or seriously injured due to the shortcomings of organisation and individuals who cut corners to save pennies.
 
Hi Bob

I carried a plasterers hod in my younger days and I never held the hod handle, if you got the balance right there was no need going up or down a ladder so the required three points of contact were always made , and pole ladders were much preferable to those lightweight aluminum things.
 
Hi

My last job about 2005 was working in the office of a scaffolding company, and we certainly sold pole ladders.
I asked the question as to why use them rather than the multi section aluminium ladders, and I was told that
they were much safer and easier to use in a building site environment.
Me? You wouldn't catch me up any ladder, - I've got no head for heights!

Kind regards
Dave
 
A bloke cleaning windows in Wheeler St, Lozells was caught in an old street pic ...
who needs ladders ? ...:D
index.php

only visible if logged in https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/for...our-old-street-pics.41947/page-69#post-535124
 
Last edited:
It sometimes saddens me that we fall into the trap of thinking that concerns about the health and safety at work are relatively modern.

For over 100 years before the 1974 Act many workers and organisations had fought, against the odds, to improve conditions at the workplace.
 
I was talking to a neighbour the other day and he said when he was young he lived near the Cadbury factory in Bournville.

Many of his friends parents worked in the Cadbury factory so when it was a child's birthday they and a few friends were allowed to have a tour round the factory.

He went on a few of these tours and he told me they used to walk round the factory where the chocolate bars were going along on a conveyor belt.

They were told they COULD pick up a bar of chocolate off the conveyor belt, but if they picked it up they had to eat it, they could not put it back.

Can you imagine kids today being allowed to pick up a chocolate bar directly off a moving conveyor belt !

And the risk that if they did not like it they just put back a half eaten bar of chocolate on to the conveyor belt !

If they tried it today the Health and Safety people would have a heart attack.
 
This looks unsafe even in the old days before H & S !
View attachment 125731
Beautiful, even better. I like the guy smoking at the bottom, not providing stabilisation, but watching. Pedro, you are quite right, the unions and the labour party did try their hardest to bring in improved H & S, but regrettably even in those days the people who made the money wanted more output for less pay and although I am cynical because I am old and remember the days before hard hats and certificates for everything, I fully support it because it is my income. Do you realise that to get on a building site now as a labourer, you have to have a Level 1 NVQ Certificate to obtain the relevant CSCS (Construction Site Craft Scheme) Card or you have to have a qualification obtained through an NVQ. You can get a regular visitor card without any other qualification than a Health Safety and environment test, but you will not be allowed beyond the Reception/Office area.
Bob
 
I was talking to a neighbour the other day and he said when he was young he lived near the Cadbury factory in Bournville.

Many of his friends parents worked in the Cadbury factory so when it was a child's birthday they and a few friends were allowed to have a tour round the factory.

He went on a few of these tours and he told me they used to walk round the factory where the chocolate bars were going along on a conveyor belt.

They were told they COULD pick up a bar of chocolate off the conveyor belt, but if they picked it up they had to eat it, they could not put it back.

Can you imagine kids today being allowed to pick up a chocolate bar directly off a moving conveyor belt !

And the risk that if they did not like it they just put back a half eaten bar of chocolate on to the conveyor belt !

If they tried it today the Health and Safety people would have a heart attack.

I doubt that the H and S Executive would be much interested in such an incident....

“The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is the national independent watchdog for work-related health, safety and illness. It acts in the public interest to reduce work-related death and serious injury across Great Britain’s workplaces.”

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/health-and-safety-executive
 
I doubt that the H and S Executive would be much interested in such an incident....

Who said anything about the Heath and Safety Executive.

I meant Cadbury's own Health and Safety people.

I am sure Cadburys, and every other large company, will have their own Health and Safety department nowadays.
 
HSE would become involved if an accident was reported under RIDDOR, or they received information (whistleblower or a visitor who spoke out of turn and was overheard) or if they made one of their random checks which are a lot less frequent these days due to the pressure of business through the accidents that are reported and also their constant attendance at Building Sites looking for misdemeanours. Unfortunately there is so much statute legislation now that most firms do maintain there own H & S departments and if you have the relevant qualifications NEBOSH/ IOSHH et al and have the additional knowledge of the businesses you can help. there is a great deal of money to be made, setting up your own H & S firm and take the business on as a sub contractor. So all the major construction companies maintain their own H & S Departments, but smaller firms find it more efficient to off load it to one of these H & S companies who also often run all the training records. Pedro is spot on everything stems from HASAW 1974 and all subsequent amendments and yes Guilbert Cadburys would have their own H & S Dept, but possibly did not consider picking something off the conveyor belt dangerous, because remember all of us who were children years ago were much more sensible than the snowflakes of today...and we had stricter parents who did not worry about the nanny state punishing you for slapping your badly behaved child...earhole and clip were the usual remedy. The great thing about today is that it is a maze of initials...NEBOSH, IOSHH, RIDDOR, HASAW. LOLER. PUWER, BS7121 Parts 1 to 4, ALLMI, IPAF, NPORS, CPCS, CSCS, RTITB, ITTSAR, Lantra, PASMA and the list goes on.
 
Thank heavens I spent most of my life working when things were so much simpler - even though much of it was in uniformed positions. ;)
 
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