Define: Pincher laddies

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: GEST
Date: 08 Nov 08 - 06:49 PM

The YouTube video in the first post can't help you with the melody, GUEST BJK???

GEST

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Nov 08 - 06:54 PM

great thread. I've passed it on to a friend who works in the construction industry on the health and safety side - to see what he makes of it.

I've really enjoyed it. thanks to all the contributors.

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: Volksman
Date: 14 Nov 08 - 09:38 AM

I was born in Ireland and have spent most of my working life in Construction (mainly piling) and have never heard of "Pincher Laddies"

The working conditions of the original navvies were disgraceful. However I have been on building sites in the past 12 months were the provisions were not much better. Ther are still some contractors who think that a "thunderbox" in the corner is all the welfare a working man needs.

[Thunderbox - a one man chemical toilet, aka "Glasgow phonebox" (sorry I just made that up)]

Volksman

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: Snuffy
Date: 14 Nov 08 - 02:51 PM

Do you mean a "Turdis"?

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: GUEST,Colin Bargery
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 07:27 AM

David Brooke says in 'The Railway Navvy; that despicable race of men' that Pincher was a term for an experineced navvy. The Oxford english dictionary says that a rare usage of pincher is for one who uses a crowbar to move rock and cites a usage from 1855. Tregelles says in 'the ways of the line', 1858 that 'the navvy proper deals only with the shovel, the pick, the crowbar, and the wheelbarrow'

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: GUEST,axel
Date: 09 Dec 08 - 08:43 AM

Is a 'Bear' not someone who is hairy?

Or is that just jocktalk?

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: GUEST,Denmark
Date: 21 Feb 09 - 04:36 AM

Great stuff - thoroughly enjoyed reading it! Would love to read the book - has it been published?

My late father was a Boyle from Donegal, and left home at the age of 14 to work in Scotland and England, sending money back to his parents. After working as a farm labourer , he then spent a large part of his working life with the big contractors including spells with McAlpines - as did many of his friends and relations from 'home'. They did have a reputation as hard working hard drinking men and many of their wives would time a visit to the pub on pay day to prevent all of the the pay packet reaching the hands of the landlord before the end of another drunken night. There were of course many exceptions to this hard drinking image - my father was a long term 'pioneer' - but this quieter side of the Irish personality understandably went unnoticed. As far as drinking is concerned, It seems to me that there was no middle ground - I don't remember who first said this but it was often a case of "one Guinness is too many, and twenty is not enough". Perhaps the alcohol was the help some of these men needed to throw off the inhibitions they brought with them from strict their Catholic upbringing when they left home. As my brother and I left school and were heading for further education, my father gave us both a taste of his working life for a couple of weeks each - about as much as we could take - and enough to convince us of the merits of a good education. That education lead me to work in the head office of the London pub company who owned the Crown in Cricklewood, so the song had an additional relevance to me as well as the one it had when I first heard it played back home in Edinburgh. In my view,like a previous poster has said I think, the men who worked for McAlpine and the other big firms were proud of what they did, despite the conditions and body-breaking nature of the work. They were also fiercely proud of their country, and the song gave their feelings a voice.

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Feb 09 - 07:00 AM

MacDonnchaidh, Co Doire
The two lines from mayomick are the only two i remember hearing myself, but i think there were a lot of these type of songs and the words were often forgotten, though a couple of lines would be remembered through common usage, probably as ard mhaca says,they would be used sarcastically against some particular gangerman

One i remember hearing on the cable work went as follows ;    ''I watched the frame as it took the strain, and i standing on the top, the timbers were all cracking, and the trench was caving in, so McAlpine sent to Leicester for the famous Darkie flynn.'' The Darkie Flynn [or Finn,depending on who was saying it ]   of the song being a legendary ''timberman'',this being the term used for the men who shuttered the trenches after they were dug out

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: GUEST,ultan
Date: 28 Jun 10 - 12:16 PM

Hello Martin

            I haven't been looking at this forum for ages and don't know if you're still in the loop but, if so, I'm delighted to be able to finally answer your query to the effect that my latest book on the navvies, 'McAlpine's Men: Irish Stories from the Sites', is finally to hand.

Its a collection of first-hand accounts, across the whole spectrum of experience, collected over the past decade. The time frame is 1940's - 1980's.

A percentage of the profits will go to the Irreland fund of Greast Britain's 'Forgotten Irish' Campaign which helps, amongst others, many former construction workers down on their luck.

I won't get into price etc. here so as not to abuse the forum but full details can be had from me at [e-mail]

Do spread the word!

Best

Ultan

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: GUEST,ultan cowley
Date: 29 Jun 10 - 04:16 PM

Email me at [e-mail] for news re. new book, McAlpine's Men: Irish Stories from the Sites

Ultan

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: GUEST,achillbeg fooreen
Date: 15 Sep 10 - 02:46 PM

i lived in the spike for years,god it was rough,all irish,how we did it ,tough times,pray god that they never come back again..

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: GUEST,ssaghiaeirina
Date: 15 Sep 10 - 02:53 PM

worked in england as a navvy,lived in the spike,tough times.

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: GUEST,LongOlWoody
Date: 08 Mar 11 - 06:23 AM

Further to the queries above about gangers; in John Laing construction on civil engineering jobs in the early 60's you had foremen who normally had a number of gangers working under them. Each ganger ran a team of between half a dozen to a dozen men.

Gangers, in turn, were normally supervisors who worked alongside the men in their gang. There were also "walking gangers", who did not work beside the men, but who filled the position of a sort of junior foreman. A walking ganger might therefore supervise several groups of men, each group being supervised by a ganger who worked with them.

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: GEST
Date: 26 May 11 - 07:07 AM

Here is the intro to Ultan Cowley's book, THE MEN WHO BUILT BRITAIN, on this topic. (No SPAM intended.) :-)

WHAT HAVE THE IRISH EVER DONE FOR US?

Anyone asking this question, in the aftermath of the Queen's historic visit to Ireland, will find many fascinating answers in Ultan Cowley's definitive history of Irish Labour in British Construction, The Men Who Built Britain, just published in a special Veteran's Edition…

By 1960 over 200,000 Irishmen worked in British construction. The ubiquitous Irish Navvy was at the cutting edge of landmark UK civil engineering triumphs such as the first Wembley Stadium, built in 1924 by 'Concrete Bob' McAlpine (whose deathbed exhortation was, allegedly, 'Keep the Big Mixer goin', and keep Paddy behind it!'), the Victoria Line ('If it wasn't for the Irish there wouldn't be a single bloody tunnel built in England', Cockney engineer Tubby Buesden, London Evening Standard), the ubiquitous Motorways including Birmingham's iconic Spaghetti Junction, the Thames Barrier ('one of the largest moveable flood barriers in the world'), Scotland's massive hydro dams, oil terminals, power stations, and the Channel Tunnel.

Cowley's book breathes soul into the statistics with riveting and often entertaining first-hand quotes which illustrate why 'The Craic was good in Cricklewood' and how barriers bearing such names as Murphy, Clancy, and McNicholas have become commonplace on London's streets ('You'd mark off every 35 yards with a piece of chalk and tell a new man, "If you can't dig that out before this evenin', don't come in tomorrow").

For Irishmen such as Murphy and many of his generation who, after World War Two, left Ireland to help rebuild Britain with little formal education, few skills, and even fewer financial resources, there really was gold in the streets, as the old song had it. When he died in 2009 John Murphy's personal fortune was estimated at close to £100M. Many others made more modest livings in Britain whilst maintaining families at home in Ireland.

'If I were asked about the legacy of Irish labour', said Cowley, 'I'd have to quote Wren's epitaph: "If you seek a monument, look around!"

Contact: Tel. [phone]. Email: [e-mail]

Website: www.ultancowley.com

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: GUEST,GPM
Date: 25 Feb 19 - 05:19 PM

"Hot racking" was also a term used in the US Navy for sailors on different shifts who shared a "rack", or bed.

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: mayomick
Date: 26 Feb 19 - 02:36 PM

For Guest from 2008 who asked about the melody. It’s the old Jacobite song The Jackets Green :

When I was a maiden fair and young
On the pleasant banks of the Lee
No bird that in the greenwood sung
Was half so blithe and free
My heart near leapt with flying feet
No love sang me her Queen
Till down the glen rode Sarsfield's men
And they wore the Jackets Green
https://www.kinglaoghaire.com/lyrics/665-the-jackets-green#s5_video

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: GUEST,Dan
Date: 24 Jun 21 - 01:36 PM

My Dad came to the UK in 1941 god rest his soul he knew darkie Finn when working on the isle of grain power station he also worked on kings ferry bridge sheppey and London. Shrewsbury etc

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: GUEST,Mick proctor
Date: 24 Aug 23 - 04:46 PM

Pincher was an Irish man who lived in Wolverhampton known better as pincher Harrington he and my grandfather pat creaby a mayo man worked for mc alpines and were both known as mc alpines fuseliers

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Sep 23 - 03:41 PM

I’m unsure of the origin of Pincher but I can add to ssomething Pinchers wore and they were YARKS or YERKS. They were pieces of string or twine tied below the knee to keep their
trousers out of the muck,in earlier times Sugans. were used.
PELTER or Walking PELTER was a Ganger who walked up and down roadways under
construction.Later some used bicycles but the advent of the Jeep made the job
obsolete .
AchillPat

Subject: RE: Define: Pincher laddies
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Sep 23 - 03:41 PM

I’m unsure of the origin of Pincher but I can add to ssomething Pinchers wore and they were YARKS or YERKS. They were pieces of string or twine tied below the knee to keep their
trousers out of the muck,in earlier times Sugans. were used.
PELTER or Walking PELTER was a Ganger who walked up and down roadways under
construction.Later some used bicycles but the advent of the Jeep made the job
obsolete .
AchillPat