Forty years, three days

On Friday this week, I retire.

Jools will finish the week after.

I began work, properly, after a series of Government schemes and the such, on Monday 18th March 1985.

For the previous two weeks. Well, six days, I had tried my hand at replacement window selling.

Door to door.

The training made it sould so simple.

And yet the reality of walking door to door, ringing the bell and beingtold to piss off, was soul destroying.

So after literally an hour's such work, I called the chicken factory to take them up on their offer of a job.

The fact was, and still is in Flixton, a small village beyond Bungay in the Waveney valley.

I think I drove to the factory at first, parking in their muddy car park, then walking past the trailers loaded with shit-streaked chickens all enprisoned in tiny metal cages.

I was given a blue boiler suit, some rubber boots and a hard hat and sent to waht was known as the whole bird room.

Chickens would be hung from their ankles once taken out of their cages, which then took them to a "stun tank" to kill them, two rotary blades then removed their heads, and talks collected the blood. Their bodies then went to the scald tank, and brishes like a mini car wash would remove their feathers.

Their insides were removed in aquite horrific way,sorted and the carcases then chilled for 90 minutes before they appeared in the chiller, to be graded and put onto another line hung from their ankles.

They would then go round into the whole bird room, people would turn their wings under, and then the birds would fall onto a belt and people would truss and pack the birds onto a platci tray before wrapping and weighing.

For two weeks my job was to turn the wings.

Mindnumbing, and only made slightly more bearable by the primitive tannoy system blaring out Radio 1 on medium wave for eight hours. Mike Read, Simon Bates, Gary Davies, one after the other,all upbeat as we went about our repetitive tasks.

My arms and hands ached at the end of eight and a half days, like you wouldn't believe, but all made worthwhile when you got your money, in cash, on Friday.

Soon, I was put in the chiiler to pack to finished product and take to dispatch. THis was easy, if cold, but I received nearly a fiver extra week, which was two twelve inch singles in my mind.

Months rolled by. I made friends. And in time I applied and got a job in Quality Assurance, doing quality control.

Even easier money.

I got to wear a white coat rather than a boiler suit, and had pens and a notebook. I made reports, tested the weighing machines accuracy. Filed more reports.

I was then on the same level as my team leaders in the both the whle bird room and chiller. Was a difficult change for them and I to get used to.

After two years I went back onto the line,then got a job as a team leader, and there was rumoured to be a salaried position about to be offered. But little did they know, I had started the process to join the Air Force, thanks to a friend, James, who I talked to on the bus to work each morning, and made it sound great.

The day the offer came from the factory was the day I also got a joining date from the RAF.

A decision to make.

But no real choice at all. I would join the Royal Air Force, and become an Armourer.

The factory did not take it well.

Even worse when I broke my thumb coming back from a Prince concert on 19th June 1990, and had to have the whole summer off. And to make it worse, there was the Wold Cup to watch, whilst on full sick pay, so I would walk to a pub and drink fizzy Eurolager instead of working.

Once my thumb healed, I passed a medical, and joined the Air Force on 17th September 1990, not before giving my notice into the factory and taking my last working week as holiday.

Yay.

Like all jobs, it was the people I worked with that made the job in the factory bearable. So thanks to Flod, Dick, Scarecrow, George, Rambo, JB, Robbo, Rod, and all the others who helped me make it through the days, weeks and months. I stayed five and a half years