In defence of old engineers

[Ray Stafford]

I know its a laugh-a-minute teasing the engineers, but I have to pause every now and then, and think of my old man.

He's an old fashioned engineer, apprenticed as a tool-maker, time in the Army with REME, and then a whole range of engineering jobs, ending up as production manager at Hoover.

He came from a generation that did all their own home maintenance and car maintenance, because that was how it worked. If something broke, dad disappeared into the garage, and fabricated a spare part from scraps of metal he had lying around - and usually the broken item ended up better than new.

Earlier this year, he was messing around with his kitchen, and I risked mentioning that he shouldn't have touched the gas connection to the cooker. He looked at me a bit sideways, and said "the last gas connection I made son, was installing a 14" main into a blast furnace. I'm sure I can manage."

How do you argue with that?

On the upside, he doesn't even have a computer, and so will never come on the forum!

 

[lame plumber]

bit of respect due to all of them, my grandad was just like that.

 

[PlumbBobBob]

my granddad was an electrical engineer on the liners

 

[Best]

Dying breed. Typically the old engineer types wore overalls nearly all the time and spent much of their time in their workshop.
Maybe, compared with the old engineers we have less ability nowadays but more sense?

 

[lame plumber]

its their ability that allowed them to get on with what we see as dangerous

 

[Rickster123]

My grandad had a car battery shop in Norbury. He used to make them out the back of the shop. Boiling pots of god knows what everywhere. Imagine health and safety inspecting that today!

 

[thompsonbrown]

Love old story's like yours Ray. My next door neighbor was the chief shipwright on HMS Victory and oversaw all new woodwork needed to keep the ship as original as the day it was commissioned. The amount of times he used to cringe seen me cutting wood or joining it with screws rather than Mortice and tenon I lost count/ Your dad seems like hes probable part the last generation of true engineers. Its more a quick fix or throw away society we now live in than he knew.
Also how many times did you here about how great Hoovers marketing department were to replace the word Vacuum cleaner with the word Hoover?

 

[Ray Stafford]

Also how many times did you here about how great Hoovers marketing department were to replace the word Vacuum cleaner with the word Hoover?

Never. Dad detested and despised the sales and marketing side of the business, because he claimed they made unrealistic promises to customers that the production team were then expected to honour.

 

[Ray Stafford]

My next door neighbor was the chief shipwright on HMS Victory and oversaw all new woodwork needed to keep the ship as original as the day it was commissioned.

What a brilliant job. If I had to have my time over again, and was offered that as a choice, I would have bitten someones hand off.

 

[thompsonbrown]

Never. Dad detested and despised the sales and marketing side of the business, because he claimed they made unrealistic promises to customers that the production team were then expected to honour.

I only mentioned that as I used to live in Gosport (your neck of the woods) and the missus used to work for DD Lamson the inventor of the vacuum cleaner. The amount of people who used to ring up asking for spare parts for there "Hoover" drove her mad.

 

[thompsonbrown]

What a brilliant job. If I had to have my time over again, and was offered that as a choice, I would have bitten someones hand off.

Great reply Ray, was half expecting some posts about that ship not seen active service since 1805

 

[thompsonbrown]

Never. Dad detested and despised the sales and marketing side of the business, because he claimed they made unrealistic promises to customers that the production team were then expected to honour.

Not only a great engineer but a principled man as well, You should be proud.

 

[stevetheplumber]

bit like me then up until about five years ago i did all my own work both home and car but the advent of computer interfaces in virtually everything and getting to old to lay under cars ive had to start paying others to do work
our first house i virtually rebuilt my self ive run race cars built trailers but times have changed

 

[Ray Stafford]

You should be proud.

I am, although he's a cantankerous old git at times.

And, whisper it quietly, if someone has to work on the gas service in my house, where my wife and (only occasionally now) daughter sleep, and I had a choice between a just-qualified GSR and my old man, I know which I would choose.

 

[stevetheplumber]

it was part of being a man in those days manual skills were valued i can remember my dad rooting around in the back of the telly looking for the valve that had failed his generation built their own radio sets
most things were built from a pool of generic parts the ie same carb would fit several cars boilers were similar you bought the boiler and shopped round for the flue
if you needed a petrol pipe for any car you just bought a length, now each pipe is made to fit each specific model

 

[Ray Stafford]

his generation built their own radio sets

Funny you should mention that. I recall hassling my old man for a "tranny" (transistor radio to you youngsters!) back in the 70s, and he gave me a broken old valve set. Looking back, I think that "broken" might mean "Dad set me a couple of tests".

Anyway, I managed to get medium wave working (who remembers 247m?) and next birthday, guess who got a brand new Grundig radio?

 

[thompsonbrown]

I am, although he's a cantankerous old git at times.

And, whisper it quietly, if someone has to work on the gas service in my house, where my wife and (only occasionally now) daughter sleep, and I had a choice between a just-qualified GSR and my old man, I know which I would choose.

Your old man right, lol I only say this because some of the idiots i came across when re-qualifying for corgi back in 2001.
gas fitters telling me on using john guest blanks for gas to save having to relight pilots on fires and boilers, this was topped by the instructor giving the course to say john guest fittings are fine in an emergency. I kid you not. instructor at Chichester collage told me that in 2001. He also started the week by saying you will all pass the course and to look at it as a week off work, which ****ed me off as I was paying £1250.00 at the time and had to take a week off unpaid So newly qualified gas fitter or your dad, maybe I should have missed out lol at the start of this post. Think your dad sounds great Ray so I might have come across as bias.

 

[CXR100]

my dad is a farmer, and will do everything himself if he can , even gas-plumbing-boiler-elecrtical work , not safe at all tho ! haha ,i remember in one of the sheds at home the switch face had shattered on the surface mounted patracce , so he did a loop in the neutral cable, and bent the live into a hook , so to switch the light on he use to hook the live on to the neutral (switched live to be technical) one night I walked in and couldnt see a thing, I felt my way to the light switch on the wall and put my hand on it to switch it on as you would in the dark! I was only like 12-13yrs old, thought I was going to die I had such a shock!

 

[on31ll]

Ray back then people fixed things. Now if your wipers dont work you take it in they fit a new motor. Bring back the days they would take it apart and replace a work washer or broken spring !!!

 

[newcastle phill]

And these very same people - if they posted on here with the....

"Ohh im a proper engineer" malarkey...

Wed rip them to bits and say - ohh no your not - wheres your yellow badge - LOL
We do it all the time !!!

 

[Dotty]

You can tell an old school engineer though Phil. They wouldn't tell us. They'd come on here for a spot of advice, get told no and why, and that would be the last we'd hear of them. They'd go off and quietly work it out for themselves. I genuinely believe that a few of us fall into that category.

I'm not going into the proving competency argument. That's another thread for another day.

 

[hammers4spanner]

Not being funny but if this was just a general poster saying I'm an engineer or i am good at this that other and going to pipe my cooker this thread would be closed.

Saying that about the oldies did you see the apprentice the other night where one of the goons was trying to screw a nail in , they were also clueless on how to use a tap measure and pricing manual work .

Not the biggest fan of the programme but it was hilarious to anyone from a trade background.