Define: Pincher laddies

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: MartinRyan
Date: 04 Aug 08 - 04:58 PM

The 1811 "Dictionary of the Vulgar tongue" has no sign of "spike", which is consistent with Partridge's estimate of date.

Regards

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: hobo
Date: 04 Aug 08 - 05:08 PM

The Spike (never heard it referred to in the plural) in the first half of the 20th century was the successor of the 19th century Workhouse and was run, in the main, by the local authority. It was regarded by men on tramp as a place of last resort, usually frequented by tramps (in the professional sense, as opposed to 'Tramp Navvy').

The 'Kip House', on the other hand, seems to have been the Model Lodging House - as described by Patrick MacGill. This was a commercial venture providing for transient labouring men and was the precursor of the Rowton Houses which however were established by the Victorian philanthropist Lord Rowton.

I have a very graphic and almost frightening description of a night in The Spike which is part of a memoir given to me by a man, now in his seventies, who became infatuated with the way of life of the Pincher Kiddies whom he met in his youth labouring in England. This man claims that, while those in the Kip Houses were to some extent apart from society, those who habitually stayed in the Spikes were utterly and irredeemably alienated totally from it -as indeed were many of the true Pinchers or Long Distance Kiddies such as MacAuligh met in the early 'Fifties.

As a youth I once stayed in a German 'Ubernachtstellung' in Karlsruhe which was probably their equivaqlent of a Spike and was scared out of my wits by the wild men I met there. On another occasion I stayed in one somewhere near Whitechapel in London's East End. These were places where it was advisable,once you removed your shoes or boots for bed, to put one under each of the legs below the bed head so that anyone trying to steal them would have to risk waking you up in the process!

As bad as most of these facilities were, after their demise the habitual tramping fraternity were left in a bad way because their usually weak bladders and fondness for drink made them personae non grata with landladies renting 'rooms' - the only remaining alternative. A number of the old timers died of hypothermia sleeping out under the railway arches in the big freeze up of 1963.

Ultan

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: GUEST,Paddywack
Date: 04 Aug 08 - 05:43 PM

Hobos description of the spike is far nearer the mark from my own experience.

Having spent a number of years tramping around the British Isles,our way of life was very rough and ready. We worked when we needed money for drink and drank a very lethal dose of cider and surgical spirit which we called "Jacks" and have often been questioned as to why we needed surgical spirit.

The spike was used in our way of life as a means of getting cleaned up and an address to get the NAB and we were ready to go on the road again.

In those days we didnt have Irish Welfare Agiences to look after us and were treated as an embaressament who were best ignored.

Reading this ,before I post it, makes me sound very bitter and yes I am, the Irish Government has never done anything for the real Irish down and outs.

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: Rowan
Date: 04 Aug 08 - 08:34 PM

Sorry for the late entry and apparent thread drift but it's a fascinating read. The following snippets from 22 July triggered my response.

A neighbour and friend in London, the late Paddy Boyle, from Ardaragh in Donegal used to give wonderful accounts of his time as a navvy; it was he who gave me the explanation of the term 'hot-bed'.
He said that some of the landladies would rent out the bed rather than the room, and while one man was working his shift another would be sleeping in the bed - which never got cold.
Don't know if this is true or folklore.
Jim Carroll

Hadn't heard the term 'hot bed' before, and while many men on shift work took turns with the bed - and no doubt kept it warm, I doubt that the landladies had the brass neck to just rent the mattress - but you never know! Donal MacAuligh has a lovely story about being put into a bed with a Corkman when he was stuck one night, & the two of them saying the rosary together; innocent days...
Re. my new project, any similar titbits most welcome...
Ultan

Melbourne is a long way from the action in the thread but hotbedding has appeared twice in my life. During the 1940s Fitzroy (an inner northern suburb of Melbourne) was regarded as having the highest population density in Oz. While the terraced houses along the main streets were still fashionable the ones in the back streets were run down and regarded as slums. Many were boarding houses where the rooms had several beds in them and the beds were rented by the shift. It was an area where it was necessary to be streetwise, even into the 60s, when the area started to be gentrified.

That was my first exposure to the term hotbedding.

The second was much more recent. As a volunteer firefighter in the NSW Rural Fire Service I was part of the first team my brigade contributed to the task force in the (rather large) Pilliga fires in 1997. We were billeted in a motel and, after the first three days, we were joined by another team from our brigade. Accommodation for 350 firefighters in the area was in short supply so we were all billeted in the same beds; while one team was doing their 12 hours the other team was having a kip and the roles changed every 12 hours. This was known as hotbedding and, at the time, was not uncommon in such circumstances.

Not central to the experiences of Irish workers but you may be interested to know that the practice and the term has had such recent currency so far away.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: ard mhacha
Date: 05 Aug 08 - 04:45 PM

The term `long distant kiddies` was the term I often heard to describe the `Pinchers`.
I wouldn`t agree with Paddywack regarding the non-help from the Irish government, the position that some of the Irish labouring man found himself in was entirely of his own making. I was with labourers from all over Ireland and the majority of them were steady workers who didn`t depend on anyone for help, those that were constantly on `the scrounge`were too reliant on the drink,they were to be avoided.

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: Gurney
Date: 06 Aug 08 - 12:38 AM

From memory of a book read long ago, called, I think, The Navigators.

The term navvie is an abbreviation of navigator, from the labour force that dug the earlier form of mass transportation, the canals or 'navigations.'

Hard men, mighty workers, hearty eaters, and unpopular with the locals around where they were working, because of accusations of theft. The first navvies were English, although the term has now become almost exclusively linked with Irish.
When building the railways in India, English firms are supposed to have found it cheaper to import experienced navvies from Britain, the local labour being ineffective for such brutal work. The book said it was thought to be due to the local diet.

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: ard mhacha
Date: 06 Aug 08 - 04:20 AM

Gurney, A book by Terry Coleman, `The Railway Navvies` published in 1965, later a Penguin paperback, tells the story of the men who built the Railways in Britain. This excellent book would be well worth a request in your local library.

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: ard mhacha
Date: 06 Aug 08 - 04:29 AM

The Railway navvies can be bought for the pricely sum of 75p at ABEbooks also on e-bay.

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: ard mhacha
Date: 06 Aug 08 - 04:30 AM

Pricely?, Princely.

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 Aug 08 - 04:42 AM

I know there was an excellent Jim Allen (Manchester building worker - scriptwriter) film back in the 60s entitled 'The Lump' and also an extremely depressing film by Ken Loach about itinerant workers (name escapes me) - does anybody have any information about either of these or know if they are available at all.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: hobo
Date: 06 Aug 08 - 06:35 PM

Ironically the first navvies, technically speaking, were the 'Excavators' who worked on the Newry Canal (completed 1745), and so were in fact Irish.'Navvy' was the abbreviated form of navigator, the term applied to the excavators of the commercial canal network known as the Inland Navigation System, the Newry Canal being the first example.

I say ironically because, although the modern British public assume that all navvies were Irish, exhaustive research carried out in the early '80s by Dr. David Brooke of Bath proved that approximately 90% of the 19th century railway navvies employed in the United Kingdom were in fact British - predominantly from the North of England (in the US it was a different matter and Brooke does state that the only 'the ubiquitous Irish' were a truly international force in railway construction). His very scholarly book, based on a doctoral thesis, is The Railway Navvy: That Despicable Race of Men (London, 1983).

Other non-fiction works on the navvy:
Terry Coleman's The Railway Navvies (London, 1965). A very good read with a wealth of anecdote.

James Handley (Brother Clare) wrote The Navvy in Scotland (Cork University Press, 1947) also based on Ph.D. research, and it remains the definitive work on that specific aspect of the subject.

Navvyman (London, 1983), another history of the railway navvies, is in similar vein to Coleman's but its author, the surname notwithstanding, is not only English but the son of a navvy father and a mother born on site to a railway navvy. This excellent book is marred only by the author's marked prejudice against the Irish in the industry, echoing that of a great many railway navvies of Scottish origin.

To the best of my knowledge the subject of the Irish in British construction overall was not seriously addressed in print until the publication of my own book, The Men who built Britain: A History of the Irish Navvy, in 2001. My objective was to put the Irish navvy in the twin contexts of Irish emigration and British civil engineering history, while at the same time giving an authentic voice to the men concerned (and their women) as individuals. This was a difficult circle to square and the extent to which I was successful is a matter of opinion!

Donal MacAuligh, John B. Keane, Timothy O'Grady,the author of 'Kings of the Kilburn High Road (?), and Peter Woods have all written fictional treatments of the subject - in every case, I believe, based on some degree of fist-hand experience. Interest in the subject, it seems to me, is now largely confined to a small proportion of the Irish abroad and a shrinking number of returned emigrants and their families in Ireland.

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: hobo
Date: 07 Aug 08 - 08:32 AM

Sorry Folks - when I listed 'Navvyman' and referred to the author's Irish-sound surname, I didn't spot the fact that I hadn't in fact given the author's name - Dick Sullivan,in the first place... Alzheimer's can't be far off!

Apologies...

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Aug 08 - 12:13 PM

True , but also from afficianados of MacAlpine's Fusileers. I don't want to go into the "what is a folk song" argument here , but Fusileers does seem to me to be a genuine example of a song taken up by and sung by the people it was written about. According to my father , the men working on the tunnels "would sing bits and pieces of it while they worked". He was adamant btw that Dominic Behan didn't and couldn't have been the composer.
It mightn't come across in the song so much ,but the Irish actually had something of an ambiguous attitude towards MacAlpines . Along with natural class antipathies went a measure of respect , because at one time MacAlpine's was the only big contractor in England that would employ the Irish..They employed large numbers buildng the huge exhibition centre at Earl's Court in the thirties . I was wondering whether the Irish population in close-by Hammersmith would have originally come from that job or if their connection there went back further..
Ultan , I'm living in Dublin now , but otherwise I'd have been pleased to meet up with you in Hammersmith . As far as your book is concerned , I thought you circled the square very successfully indeed – the Gobban Saor himself couldn't have done any better.

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: GUEST,mayomick
Date: 07 Aug 08 - 12:14 PM

the last post was from me btw.

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: GUEST,Paddywack
Date: 07 Aug 08 - 07:14 PM

Maybe we were dependent on drink as Ard Maca points out, but dependency is a disease and in typical fashion "to be avoided" was the typical Irish Catholic attude.

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: ard mhacha
Date: 08 Aug 08 - 05:17 AM

Believe me Paddywack there were lots of Irish atheists who were of the same opinion.

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: hobo
Date: 10 Aug 08 - 10:00 AM

This is a very thorny subject - for the Irish in British construction (or perhaps anywhere?) was addiction to 'the dhrink' down to individual weakness, was it built into the hiring system, was it pre-emigration conditioning, or was/is it a flaw in the Irish national character? Or a composite of all these things...

Would it be straining this forum to offer a few quotes from a paper I gave at the Meriman Summer School a few years ago called 'Connaughtmen And Horned Cattle To The Far Platform: Irish Navvies & The Culture of Migration'?

Don't know who moderates this discussion but I'll understand if this is too much. Here goes ...

Navvy quotes re. drink

'In their youth, having escaped the petty tyrannies of priests, parents, and community back home in rural Ireland, they revelled in an unaccustomed freedom but failed to replace the supportive framework of family and community with something similar in Britain. At the same time, having been educated to regard the British as 'the old enemy', they evinced no sense of civic responsibility towards the host society. Often theirs was virtually an 'outlaw' mentality ('They taught us to hate England – and then they sent us over here!').

The seeming camaraderie of the building site was tenuous and temporary although peer pressures, for example to prove ones self a hard drinker or fighter, could become a new tyranny for anyone not naturally so inclined. Efforts to advance, for example by becoming a gangerman or subbie, carried connotations of assumed superiority which in turn provoked resentment and rejection

"When I looked at my husband, and looked at all the rest, and at my children's       friends, I thought it was me, then I thought it was England, and eventually it dawned on me that it was Ireland, had done all this to them…I realised that the harm was done before they ever left. England added to it, but it wasn't the cause of it…

When my children were younger, I had to explain why their father was like that; that he was from another country. If you're Irish, you've got to admit that that is Ireland, and that's the way it brings up its young…Yet they were expected to go out into the world and behave normally - but they can't; they don't trust anyone.

And the fellas were living a lie too; they weren't supposed to be men, out drinking and dancing and chatting up girls, or whatever…They just don't know how to face anything, because they were never told about anything, and they were never allowed to ask for anything; because if you asked, you were a failure.

The men won't face reality; if they can't get the material things, have it there on show, they live in dreams - all in the mind…And the more stable ones eventually crack up; its not that they crack up, they come to their senses, wake up to reality. They've been living under this stress for so long, and it suddenly dawns on them that they were tricked that it was all a lie…

And while they were told that England was a place where you could be yourself, they found out that, if you're Irish and need the support of your own kind to survive, as the "Westies" who work in construction always do, then you can't be yourself - they won't let you. You want to make a stand, and speak out against it, and they won't let you speak out; so you become an outsider…

`Whatever way they were brought up, there's a lot of bitterness, and spite, and jealousy in them…So much so that it can eat away at them, and it can destroy them, and any relationships they might have… They end up old, and bitter, and alone; they've worked so hard for something better, but they never get that thing that's better, because of their own selves…'
Where were these men coming from? The views of an anonymous Irish subbie, a very wealthy man, were recorded in Jackson's 1964 work, The Irish in Britain:
"And then coming to England with the lads and sticking together, being afraid to talk to the English girls, and all the time this brooding thing of history…well, it didn't help you know in so-called integrating'.   
`Mind you, we were all very sensitive and unsure then…we might have a meal, but never in a place that looked "proper", with table cloths and so on. We'd be scared to go into a place like that, even on Sundays with our best suits on, in case they'd throw us out for not knowing how to behave properly at table…Sometimes now I go for a stroll around Camden Town, after Mass on a Sunday, and the lads are still there…atin' away without a word between them, stuffin' mixed grills down their gollops…and I'm glad them days are behind me".

Joe McGarry, an ex-navvy and reformed alcoholic, had this take on it:
"An awful lot of Irishmen - some of the finest of men, 18, 25, 27 years of age, really handsome men, afraid to talk to a woman or an English person, riddled with fear…I've seen them go into a caff and, if there was a young woman of their own age behind the counter, they could not talk to her. They had to knock each other out to prove they weren't afraid. And it was Ireland that did that to them'

'The people who did have a sense of self, who were true individuals, became the millionaires, while I was standin' down a hole, to get money, to buy drink, so that I could fit in, belong, be 'normal', be 'one of us'. If you didn't maintain this togetherness you weren't part of 'our little group'; you were 'one of them', whoever 'they' were. If you didn't drink your money at night, you were seen as mean - there was somethin' wrong with you…Now I know I'm an island of self, between two places, and I have to identify my own self - what I am, what I can do'.

John Docherty, a Donegal-born director of Tarmac Construction, also had strong views concerning the Irish class system:
"When I first came over my mother was ashamed to let it be known that I was in London, because it might be thought that I had been in trouble with the law back home. In those days it was commonplace for a first offender, if male, to be given a choice by the courts of either going to gaol or going to England'

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: Gurney
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 02:11 AM

Ard mhacha, I think, but I'm not sure, that the book that I mentioned earlier, had no 'Railway' in the title. I seem to remember being surprised that it wasn't about sailors! I was expecting it to be about Magellan and Drake and Cook and such heroes.
A good and interesting read anyway.

Maybe I should do a search.

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: ard mhacha
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 07:33 AM

Gurney sorry I can`t help you there.
Hobo,I met people from all over Ireland while I worked in England and lots of them while enjoying a drink didn`t always end `washed up` through excessive drinking.
I never met anyone who had to leave because of some crime petty or otherwise, they left because o there was nothing in the line of employment during the mid-1950s and I am speaking of the six counties and such was the situation in the 26.

I worked with English men the majority of whom were the salt of the earth, I had no trouble integrating and attending sporting fixtures with,
lots of Irish men did likewise, I still correspond with two of my cockney friends and exchanged visits with them, because I abhor most British politicians dosen`t mean I include every individual English man, I spent some of the happiest years of my life in England and I would be betraying great friends and workmates if I said different.

Getting paid daily by sub-contractors and working without paying national insurance caught up with lots of Irish `lumpers` who when they could no longer to do hard work were had to apply for relief of the British government,they were the people asking for assistance of the Irish government,I know plenty had to rely on their workmates to help them.

In all walks of life you have to make your way and too bad if you hadn`t the common sense to provide for yourself.

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: GUEST,mayomick
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 10:51 AM

There's a photos in Ultan's book showing the mass being said on one of the sites . What I don't seem to recall was any photos of the wet canteen . It seems inconceivable today that such an institution could have existed up until the sixties given the dangerous work the men were engaged in. The macho drinking culture was always facilitated by the contractors ;when there was a wet canteen it was literally institutionalised.

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: hobo
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 03:50 PM

A lot of Irish subbies had friends & relatives in the pub trade with whom they colluded to releive lumpers of their cash in the process of 'obliging' them in cashing cheques... I was also told by an Irish Tarmac exec. that, when he was a junior engineer with Wimpey, men who didn't 'sub' weren't as welcome as those who did- for obvious reasons.

'Ard Mhaca': Like the existence of 'Dry Money', a criminal conviction wasn't likely to be publicised and the 'gaol or England' offer is very well documented in the archives of Irish provincial newspapers...

'ard mhaca': an awful lot of damaged people emigrated from this country, many from state institutions and abusive family situations, in the half-century following Irish independence,and the UK statistics on alcoholism, criminality, and psychiatric disorders amongst the Irish in Britain reflect this.   

I'm not indulging in special pleading for any sub-group here, just suggesting some of the roots of people's problems, as I have found them both researching The Men who Built Britain and living in Britain over almost twenty years beginning aged fifteen in 1961. Never had any problem with the English - a bit slow on the uptake, maybe, but fair and even-handed. Slow to make friends, unlike Paddy, but rock-solid thereafter - unlike Paddy...

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: ard mhacha
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 05:54 AM

Hobo, All I can say is that my home town had mass emigration and during the 1950s when I started out at as a 17 year old, I can vouch for the fact that the men and boys from my town were not old or young `lags` just honest people in search of work.
I think you are referring to a very small minority when you suggest that they had `problems, I would suggest too minute to consider as a factor in the problems they brought on themselves in their new homeland.

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: hobo
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 07:50 AM

ard mhaca,
         
         Undoubtedly the majority of Irish male (and female) migrant labourers were relatively well-adjusted people, dealing rationally and effectively with the economic circumstances in which they found themselves by emigrating to a more dynamic economy,and behaving responsibly in their new situation.

Like the presence of the Irish in the industry however (statistically small but disproportionately significant by virtue of their concentration in groundworks and their 'can-do' mentality) the very public profile of the 'navvy' meant that the public got a distorted impression of the extent of Irish anti-social behaviour in Britain.

Nevertheless, the industry has always been synonymous with over-dependence on alcohol, a macho mentality, and a level of brutality not usually associated with other labour-intensive industries. Some, for reasons which I've tried to suggest, were perhaps more susceptible than others.

Emigration, especially from a collective and communal pastoral environment to an urban, industrial, and anoynymous one (often characterised by varying degrees of anti-Irish sentiment), is a hard choice - some would argue, no choice at all. I think a charitable response would be to say, simply, 'There, but for the Grace of God...'

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: ard mhacha
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 02:24 PM

Hobo, the figures for crime in Ireland from the 1930s through to the 1960s would give no cause for concern, again I worked alongside Irishmen from rural backgrounds and they were no better or worse than the urbanites.
Concerning `the grace of God sentiment`I would be inclined to lean more to `wee bit of common sense` sadly lacking with many of the `lumper` fraternity.

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Aug 08 - 02:25 AM

Ultan,
I can't remember if you covered it in your book (on loan at the moment), but there was an 'Irish-speaking only' club in Greenland Street, at the North end of Camden High Street which was said to be frequented by mainly Connemara men who had a reputation as being 'hard men'. If they heard anybody speaking 'the tongue of the oppressor' would eject the offender, often forcibly, down the steep flight of stairs.
We got this from several people, mainly musicians, who were around at the time.
Also, can't remember if you used the term 'under-the-lamp', which is still in use in my native Liverpool (or was when I worked on the docks there) for clandestine payment to avoid the tax man. It referred to the practice of subbies paying the men under a street lamp at the end of a days work.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: hobo
Date: 14 Aug 08 - 09:49 AM

Ard Mhaca

         As I recall, I seemed to demonstrate very little in the way of common sense in my youth, and did an awful lot of stupid things - often, I suspect, because of the unaccutomed degree of freedom which I enjoyed in England. So I don't consider that I have the right to castigate anyone - lumpers or otherwise, for their follies.

Because there seems to have been a consistent pattern to them I do, however, feel obliged to look for possible explanations for them...

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: hobo
Date: 14 Aug 08 - 10:08 AM

Jim

   Didn't know about this particular take on the 'Connies' attitude to Irishmen speaking English in their company, but I have often been told of the reverse situation, where non-Irish speaking workers would react adversely (in a wagon, for example) to conversations conducted exclusively in Gaelic on the grounds that the offenders must have been speaking (critically) about them! Also heard of Connnies who didn't have English being exploited by subbies who withheld their papers. On a one to one basis, however, I'm told the Connies - the 'Heavy Diggers', were no pussycats!

Donegal men, especially tunnellers, by contrast had a reputation for canniness, diligence, and relative sobriety, probably because they worked in teams, and therefore couldn't afford to indulge loose cannons...

Never heard the expression 'under the lamp' either but I imagine all industries employing casual labour indulged in tax-dodging to some degree; inevitably, of course, to the ultimate detriment of the labourers.

The industry has always been characterised by sharp practice. One labour historian - I think David Brooke, citing a minor British civil engineering firm which was paid a subsistence allowance for the construction of a spur line in the final decade of the 19th century, gave their labour force only a small percentage of it, and used the remainder - a considerable sum, to finance its expansion a contract which elevated it into the 'premier league' of contractors shortly thereafter...

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: ard mhacha
Date: 14 Aug 08 - 02:59 PM

Hobo, Woe betide the person with the northern accent who had the misfortune to be in earshot of the `connies`, and I include Donegal gaels, they were the most clannish of any Irish men I encountered.

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 Aug 08 - 03:00 PM

Ultan,
Wasn't singling the navvies out as being tax dodgers - we've all.... s**t, there might be a tax man in the vicinity.
My first job when moved to London was on the site of the London Business College at the end of Baker Street near Regents Park.
Every Thursday half the site would empty out; the men would climb down the ladder, go into the hut and shortly afterwards emerge dressed in collar and ties and make their way to the dole ofice over the road.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: hobo
Date: 14 Aug 08 - 06:34 PM

Jim

   Lots of Dubs used to cross to Liverpool every week & draw there as well as at home! Not to mention the old scam of declaring tribes of children in Ireland to the British taxman...

Swapping insurance cards was also commonplace; I' ve often wondered why it was that, when Joseph Murphy of JMSE died a couple of years ago, the (British) death certificate gave his name as 'John' (cf. the Irish Times of the day)!!!

Ah, the good old days before computers...

Spent part of a summer in the early 'Seventies painting the student study bedrooms in the London Business School, by the way. Never want to see soft sheen magnolia, or white emulsion, ever again!

Ultan

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: ard mhacha
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 04:36 AM

Jim Carroll is right about the insurance cards, I worked with a man from Sligo who told me to call him Tommy, I couldn`t understand why his friend kept referring to him as Sean, later I found he had three national Insurance cars.

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 08:08 AM

London Business School was my first experience of site-work and of sunstroke.
Worked on the slab without my shirt on the first day and passed out going down the ladder - carried down on the shoulder of a Mayo man.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: GUEST,MacDonnchaidh Co Doire
Date: 21 Aug 08 - 06:11 PM

I went to England in my teens and worked as a navvy in the sixties with the Murphy brothers etc, 'The green and the grey and RSK' as the saying went at that time,i done a spell with them all and the saying of the long distance men was always 'pincher kiddies' only very seldom was it laddies.   A pincher was also a temporary frame consisting of two upright planks with two struts between them used to shore up a trench until it was properly timbered. A lot of the old timers back then used to have songs and poems about the Irish naavy life, and 'the crack was good in cricklewood' was one of them, i would say it was out long before Dominic Behan wrote McAlpines fusiliers. we had a lingo of our own looking back, where men were skins, the ganger man had the 'shout',an expression which came from pulling in cable by hand, and we pulled each time the ganger man shouted. Cookin was 'shacklin up'.and going to the pub at night where they spent the sub was doing the 'session' There was 'rakes of beer','deadmen',the 'skipper''gresheens' and 'dampers' tarmackers and narrowbacks. Damping, wetting the bed, was very often blamed on kidneys weakened by sleeping out but the truth was it was more often caused by drinking 20 pints of beer on the way home from work and falling into bed drunk. When the oul landlady discovered the damage in the morning you would be sleeping out under the ditch. There is probably no Dictionary meaning to a lot of the slang used by the navvy's. As for nicknames, Bere V Bear,i worked with rakes of men nicknamed Horse,also the Pony,the Donkey, Racehorse,Elephant, and even the Pig. I remember when we moved to a new town on a job we would be told not to say we were Murphy's men when looking for digs or drinking in a new pub, as a lot of them had a bar on the cable men,especially Murphy's men because of the fighting and drinking. A lot of people resented the Connemara men because they spoke the gaelic but i always got on well with all but a tiny minority of them,and respected them for using the language, and this held true for every county, as they all had their blaggards my own county included. I remember working with three Connies who spoke practically no English, and i did'nt see anyone worried about the fact that all around them were talking in English,though if it had been the other way around a bit of paranoa would doubtless have set in. Ultan Crowleys book gives a good picture of what the times were like then,and while i loved the life back then, and had good friends from every county in Ireland, those times are probably better gone. By the way i still have the foot iron given to me when i was 18 by Mick Gallagher from Mayo, the grey Murphy's gangerman. McAlpines rubber boots worn by the tunnel tigers had the footiron built into it.

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: ard mhacha
Date: 22 Aug 08 - 04:23 AM

Great stuff from MacDonnchaidh, do you remember, `the gimp`, this was the characteristic walk, there was no marks for defining the nationality of anyone with `the gimp`, he was sure to be a `paddy`, the exaggerated
sway of the shoulders and the splayed feet, stand aside or `Faugh a Ballach` here comes `the paddies`.

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: GUEST,Martin Farrell
Date: 22 Aug 08 - 05:35 PM

Ultan, when can we expect to see your new book published? I'm really looking forward to it.

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: GUEST,macDonnchaidh, Co doire.
Date: 23 Aug 08 - 10:04 AM

I remember the gimp all right, and they used to say of a bluffer,who would look and dress the part, but could'nt stick the work, maybe through no fault of his own; 'he's got the gimp, but he has'nt got the go'. Sometimes some comedian would add 'well he'll go on friday night alright', and they generally did if they even lasted that long.I saw fellas sacked before breakfast time, miles from home and not a penny in their pockets.

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: GUEST,lyn Butterworth
Date: 28 Aug 08 - 04:51 AM

Hi can anyone tell me the difference between a ganger and a navvie. I researching a place in blackpool where the roadbuilders and railway workers mainly settled once everything had been built. The old ladies I interviewing call their dads 'gangers'. However some of their mothers 'put up' navvies for the week or night.
What is the difference between the two?
Thanks
Lyn

Subject: navvies v gangers
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Aug 08 - 04:57 AM

Hi Can anyone tell me the difference between a ganger and a navvie please. I am researching a place in Blackpool where many gangers lived. But the navvies also stayed in some of the lodging houses. The old ladies I am interviewing seem to think the difference is purely Irish vs English.

My email is [e-mail]
Thanks
lyn

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Aug 08 - 05:12 AM

Navvy is a general term for a labourer - a ganger is an overseer or foreman; best illustrated by a story I was told about the making of a film in the 60s about Irish labourers in Britain.
For the recording of the music for the film a studio was booked at the BBC in London (apparently at great expense).
Before the session started those involved gathered in the hospitality suite for a drink and to relax.
Two of the musicians, a fiddler and a flute-player, both from Galway, had previously been great friends, but had not seen each other for some time and greeted each other warmly. The conversation went something like this.....
Flute - "What are you doing these days ******?"
Fiddle - "I'm a ganger on a site in Edgeware."
Long cold silence... then
Flute - "I'm not playing with any ******* fascist."
Flute player made to leave, but was, with a great deal of difficulty, persuaded to stay.
The session proceeded, but was subtlely sabotaged by the flute player, who, very skilfully played wrong notes, or went out of time, blaming his former friend with an accusing glare.
The session had to be re-scheduled.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: ard mhacha
Date: 28 Aug 08 - 05:28 AM

Almost all gangers were viewed in the same light as Kapos in concentration camps, the majority were ruthless, just the type of man the employers wanted.

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: Newport Boy
Date: 28 Aug 08 - 05:11 PM

I don't think those descriptions are quite right. My background is on major construction sites from the 60s through the 90s, mostly working opposite McAlpine, Wimpey, etc.

The basic contractor's hierarchy was Agent, Sub Agent, Foreman, Ganger, Craftsman or Labourer. The first two were the technically qualified or long-experienced staff. The foreman was the management supervisor of the labour and plant, and normally did no physical work. (I have a photograph from my first site in 1960, captioned "foreman carpenter on the tools!".)

The ganger worked as part of the gang, and controlled operations. It was common on timesheets to have him recorded as "working ganger". When work was paid for by the hour, the ganger could be included, but not the foreman, whose costs were covered in the supervision overhead.

From the point of view of the labourer, the ganger was often a hard taskmaster, but any foreman would take a dim view of a ganger who didn't do a share of the work. Foremen were usually less popular among the men than gangers.

The term 'navvy' was really applied only to the labourers who shovelled or barrowed earth or concrete. Labourers assisting carpenters, etc wouldn't expect to be called a navvy. The term dates from the construction of the canals in the late 1700s/early 1800s, and is short for navigator - the early canals being commonly known as 'navigations'.

Phil

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: ard mhacha
Date: 29 Aug 08 - 04:25 AM

No doubting that the Foreman can be included in the same light as the Ganger, this was the case in all of the firms I worked for.

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: Den
Date: 29 Aug 08 - 03:21 PM

Fascinating thread. Thanks to everyone who contributed. Its a subject in which I am very interested too as my own father worked for many years in England in the sixties for Wimpey and John Laing. I remember spending a summer in Cumberland in a little place called Tebay in a house with no running water or electricity that my Dad had rented. He was working on a motorway. I'm not sure now which motorway I was very young at the time.

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: Newport Boy
Date: 29 Aug 08 - 05:13 PM

Den

The motorway would be the M6 through Westmorland (not Cumberland). Construction was between 1967 and 1970, and the story and some pictures are here .

Westmorland services at Tebay are still the only decent services on UK motorways.

Phil

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: mayomick
Date: 30 Aug 08 - 07:25 AM

"I have cut the rock against the grain from Derry to Strabane
Forty years a ganger and never sacked a man"

Somebody wrote to Mudcat a few years ago looking to see if anyone knew the rest of the words - without any success. I remembered my father quoting the same lines saying it was from a song the men used to sing in the tunnels .It gives a different angle on the popularly held view of the barbarian ganger .I wonder if Guest macDonnchaidh from Co Doire knows the song or what job it referred to.

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: ard mhacha
Date: 30 Aug 08 - 10:52 AM

Mayomick, I have heard the last line of that stanza repeated on many a job, but never expanded on, it was always used by the men as a sarcastic dig at the ganger, always out of his earshot of course.

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: GUEST,mayomick
Date: 01 Sep 08 - 07:22 AM

Ard mhacha , In the tunnels they used to also have it as 'twenty years a leading miner and never sacked a man ' . Am I right in thinking that a leading miner would be the equivalent to a ganger ? I've had little first hand acquaintance with the shovel myself , and am happy to be corrected by anyone with direct hands-on experience of it .I'm just recalling some of the things recounted to me by my father who was a leading miner ,but by no means a thug or a fascist.

Not all gangers or leading miners were mindless gorillas . To work as a leading miner for instance you had to know the job - how to follow a line underground and make cuttings in the timber . That required a certain degree of training . The majority of the workers in a gang would be unskilled ; the leading miner an ex coal miner or perhaps somebody who had experience in digging wells in Ireland. It was no good just being a hard man with your fists ,although you couldn't afford to be a wimp of course.

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: ard mhacha
Date: 01 Sep 08 - 04:18 PM

Mayomick I always made sure any work I done was above ground, I was never that fond of money.

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Nov 08 - 11:20 AM

Can anyone shed any light on the melody to McAlpne's Fusilires? A lovely tune where can I get it??

TVM
BJK

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: Leadfingers
Date: 08 Nov 08 - 01:09 PM

The D T has a 'Click to play' but it doent go anywhere !!