When you’re fifteen, you stay fifteen for what seems like forever. And most toolmakers stay in that profession for all their lives because it is all they know, and, like most professions, commitments make it difficult to leave.
It was my second month at the factory, and Bobby Moor, an apprentice two years older than me, but a lifetime ahead of me in his confidence and outlook on life, explained how to survive in this strange new world. ‘Don’t go anywhere near the women in the press shop above, go all the way round, and if they approach you, run. ‘
‘Why,’ I asked as a feeling of dread took hold of me.
He looked at me and grinned, ‘because if they can grab a new apprentice, they take his trousers down and put axle grease all over the part the trousers covered. And once they get you down, they don’t let go.’
My throat went dry. ‘Has it happened to you?’ I asked croakily.
‘Course not. I am too fast, but they have tried, and have you seen the muscles on their arms? It’s because they have to lift those heavy metal pressings.’ More like men, some of them. And I don’t think you would survive if it happened to you. Your much to skiny.
Boby Moor was one of the most intelligent people I have ever met, and very intense in the way he looked at life with eyes that almost glowed. I found out later that he was prone to having fits and, without warning, would drop to the floor and convulse. I soon learned to place a six-inch ruler between his teeth to stop him from biting his tongue. Looking back, that seems quite bizarre, and I am not sure that’s what you should do.
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