Page 30 - Gi flipbook August 2018

CHARACTERS

I HAVE KNOWN

AND OTHER TALES

Barry Wilkinson, Gas Historian, takes us on a journey tried and succeeded in rotating the
through the past with this collection of short stories sequence and calmly walked away.
from his days in gas The works engineer wanted to
know what had happened. We were
fortunate not to have a fire on our
LEARNING THE ROPES was quite calm, whereas several others hands, but the breeze must have
During my many years of training, I who had witnessed the event looked dispersed the gas out of harm’s way.
met and worked alongside several gas a bit worried. I had found out what he The night shift engineer was
industry characters. One particular carried the short length of gas pipe brought in and temporarily suspended,
person comes to mind, let’s call him around with him for! Needless to say, I but he did not recover his confidence
Bill. He had over 40 years’ experience did not follow his example and got the for the job, left the region soon after
in the industry and had been the Orsat apparatus out to take a sample and became an operations engineer
author of several technical papers, of gas/air mixture when I was involved elsewhere with a contractor. I still
so was well liked and knew an awful in future purging jobs. cannot understand how he did not
lot about gas works practice. I was hear or spot that his gas make figures
assigned to him for a few weeks. One were seriously out of order and that
thing I found strange from the start NIGHT SHIFT MEMORIES he was venting gas into the nearby
was why he carried a short length Two of us were covering the night houses and buildings. We miraculously
of gas pipe under his arm. One end shift and morning shifts between us. avoided a serious incident, but it
of the pipe was plugged off and the I took over from my colleague at taught all of us a lesson.
other had a small gas tap fitted. In about 6am one day. It was usual to
those days, we used a cumbersome discuss the events of the shift before
Orsat apparatus to analyse the gas departing, but on this occasion he HATS
quality before restoring an item of dashed off muttering that he had a We had several bad winters 40 years
plant, which had been shut down for bus to catch. Strange – not like him, ago. The worst lasted for several
repairs and put back on line. On one I thought, and then turned to the weeks of sub-zero temperatures
occasion, I was assisting Bill to purge results for his shift. I soon noticed that and high gas demands. I think the
an electro-detarrer. I had opened the the gas make had suddenly dropped worst bad spell was from just after
valves to let gas into the vessel and at about 2am. The yard foreman put Christmas 1961 until about the end
vented the air out at the exit point. his head round the door: “There is a of February 1962, when the ground
Meanwhile, Bill had filled his short lot of noise by the purifiers and one and coal stocks were frozen solid,
length of gas pipe with a sample of the boxes is open to the elements. and railway deliveries of coal were
of gas from the purged vessel. He It sounds as though someone has intermittent. We had to place steam
opened the gas tap at one end and opened a valve and gas is now hoses into the coal heaps to enable
lit the gas/air mixture. If it was purged, blowing everywhere!” I now knew the stocks to be moved. I can report
then there would be a gentle flame at where the missing gas had gone. The that we never ran out of gas.
the small tap, but not this time. There box had been taken out of sequence Most of us who roamed the works
was loud bang and the length of pipe and lids removed the day before. My going about our daily routine wore
flew out of his hand, missing my head night shift partner had not been told, as much warm clothing as possible
by inches and going off down the yard. although a note had been placed in a except for one hardy individual, who
Bill muttered something and said, “It prominent position in the record book. I will call Geoff. He was heavily built,
needs to vent a bit longer, I think”. He What was peculiar was that he had wore open-toed sandals, sometimes
a black bowler hat (no safety hats in
those days) and an open-necked shirt,
It jumped free, toppled over and struck me yet the cold seemed to pass him by.
on the back of my head. It was the first When I asked him how he managed to
keep warm, he just grinned. When he
time I had seen stars in daylight. Soon after had to go and do his national service
for two years, the other engineers of
we were all issued with safety helmets the day clubbed together and sent on

30

History_CharactersIHaveKnown.indd 1 19/07/2018 12:58