Mark Arbuckle: Glasgow, Easter 2024

I’m sure everybody remembers the first time they earned their own money and didn’t need to depend on their parents’ generosity i.e. pocket money….

In the early 70s, earning a few bob made saving up for the latest single (at 7/6d), new pair of Dr. Martens (at £4 10/-) or Arthur Black bespoke shirt (anywhere between £5-£8 depending on how many pleats, plackets, pockets, buttons and embroidered letters you required) a little bit easier.

I got my first paying job aged 13¾ in the Summer of 1971.

My first official Saturday Job would come two and bit years later at Burtons Menswear (see – Customers, Incontinence and Conga Lines), however, my earliest taste of the workplace came courtesy of my great friend Peter Milligan, who’s Dad, also named Peter, owned a very successful Joinery and Glazing business in Duntocher, a village close to Clydebank.

The business had very lucrative council contracts: Renovating houses, erecting boundary fences and replacing broken windows in schools and Peter and I were employed every Saturday from 8am-4pm.

We’d rip up floorboards, remove doors, put up hundreds of yards of fencing and then creosote them…..all for the princely sum of thirty bob a day!

That’s one pound, ten shillings or £1.50 in today’s currency!

It was hard physical work and we were always tired, grimy and sweaty by the time Peter Snr picked us up from whenever we’d been working. He’d arrive in his top of the range Jaguar with a big grin on his face, no doubt reflecting on the hundreds of £££’s he’d made that day! 

‘Child Slavery!’ I hear you cry….well maybe not.

We didn’t care, Peter and I were young, full of energy and full of fun plus we had our Tranny… which meant something completely different in 1971!

On my first day Peter Snr took us to his workshop at the end of Old Street, Duntocher to show us how he cut glass to replace the many school windows that had been broken the night before.

Mindless vandalism…. Or was it?

My lips are sealed.

He drove us to the schools where we’d scrap away the old putty from the broken windows and collect the broken pieces of glass in a metal bucket. He would then replace the glass panes and show us how to apply putty to keep them in place. 

Not a lot of Health & Safety going on, but he did make us wear heavy gloves!

No two weeks were the same in this job, the following week we were ripping up floorboards in the front room of a flat.
Some lifted easily whilst others with decades of varnish cemented in the spaces between the boards, were more difficult to shift, let’s just say I’m glad we had crowbars!

On the third week we were dropped off at Gilmour Ave, Hardgate, where the houses had long sloping back gardens to erect a fence between two properties. 

We had a dozen 6-foot pointed fence posts, a huge roll of wire fencing, a staple gun and a 60m measuring tape.
Oh, and an enormous wooden mallet with a 12″ diameter head, but more on that later…..

Apparently the process was very simple:

We just had to hammer the pointy end of the fence post about 10 inches into the grass with the mallet, staple the wire fencing to the post, roll it out eight feet and then insert another post…. easy! 

In the first two hours we’d successfully installed six posts, taking turns to hold and hammer each post before stapling the fencing.

It was thirsty work as it was a particularly warm day so Peter decided to chap the back door of the closest house to ask for some water.
A small woman in her seventies answered and said ‘Yes of course dear, come in, come in, yous must be roasted‘

Peter entered the small kitchen to get the water but I stayed at the back door. 

The next second a wee man came bustling in from the hallway pulling his braces up over his string vest. 

He was about 5 foot tall and weighed 7 stone soaking wet, with biceps like knots in a washing line!

‘What’s going on here?’ he demanded.
‘Am gettin’ tha boays a drink o’wattar’ his wife said…..

‘Oh aye, oh aye, and whit else is he efter?’ the wee man said pointing at Peter who started laughing, further infuriating the wee man who bunched his fists and moved towards him.

‘Ah wizza boxer ye kna, a cud still takye son’ 

By this time the tears were running down Peter’s face so he thanked the woman for the water and brought the glasses to the door before we made our exit.

As we left, we could hear the embarrassed wife shushing Hardgate’s answer to Benny Lynch, telling him to sit down and be quiet.

No rest for the wicked, we drank our water and got back to the job in hand.
As we worked our way along, the task got more challenging with the ground becoming increasingly steeper, but we managed another three posts. 

The tenth post however was proving more of a test as the gradient was preventing us from getting a good swing with the mallet. 

Struggling, Peter spotted the lady who’d given us the water watching us from her kitchen window and, against my advice, went back to ask her for a stepladder or something to stand on. He came back with a rickety old chair that looked older than its owner, it had at least one wonky leg and there were slats missing…..but we thought we’d give it a try.

It was my turn to use the mallet now so Peter crouched down holding the post in place. I gingerly stood on the chair as it creaked and shuddered so I told Peter to turn his back toward me and to tuck his head into his chest as I was a bit unsteady.

‘Ok let’s do this’.… I swung with all my strength.

With this momentum shift the dodgy chair gave way and everything lurched forward including the mallet, at the last second, and by some miracle, I was able to slightly alter my downward swing and Peter sensing the danger moved his head out of way….but I still smacked him full in the chest with the huge mallet!! 

He flew back on to the grass and lay motionless, the fence post fell next to him whilst the mallet, the broken chair and I landed about six feet away!

The wee woman, who’d still been watching from her window, came running down from her back steps shouting 

‘Ye’ve kilt him! Ye’ve kilt him!’

Peter still hadn’t moved or made a sound.

I was really worried until I saw a slight rise in his chest and I realised that he was bloody laughing, when the wee woman reached us we were both laughing hysterically!

Unamused, she grabbed the remains of her chair and stormed off muttering.

‘Stoopit weans!’ 

With our sides sore from laughing I helped Peter to his feet and he showed me the imprint of the mallet on his chest, he reckoned there was nothing broken so back to work we went.

This time I held the post in place and Peter stood on my back to hammer it in. I finished it off and we moved on to insert the last two posts without incident.
Job done!

Over the following week the bruise on Peter’s chest turned different colours: black, green and then yellow but thankfully he was okay and there was no lasting damage.

A few weeks later in the blazing heat of a Scottish summer (about 25°C) we were despatched to Hardgate Golf Club where Peter and his dad were both members, to erect a small fence.

There was none of the drama from the previous job but this time we had the additional task of creosoting the fence too.

We set about the task enthusiastically, slapping on the thick, viscous liquid in the heat, thinking we’d been smart by wearing shorts and t-shirts, but forgetting to bring gloves or masks!

Sweating profusely, I wiped the moisture from my brow with the back of my hand unaware that I was smearing creosote all over my forehead and onto my hair.

The bloody stuff got everywhere…. on my arms, on my legs, on my neck, and the sun was doing a grand job of drying it in.

By the time we were finished we both looked like we were auditioning for The Black & White Minstrel Show!

Peter snr came out of the clubhouse with two ice cold lemonades and burst out laughing when he saw us! 

‘Your mothers’ are going to kill me!’ he said through his laughter!

He took us into the washroom where we tried in vain to remove the dried in coal tar but the more we scrubbed the redder our skin became!

So, now we looked like two bedraggled Indian braves complete with streaky dark warpaint as depicted in those terrible 1950’s Hollywood Westerns.

We were never allowed near creosote again… probably for the best!

We continued to work Saturdays and Holidays for at least another year with lots more laughs and mishaps along the way.

It was a very memorable first job!