Autobiography

wasn’t properly trained. I was seen as a handy
gofer to run all the errands, make the tea,
fetch the newspapers and do anything else too
menial for the men. I was eventually awarded
my diploma but in reality I was nothing more
than a glorified labourer.
To this day I remember the company – how
could I forget them? They were horrible people
to work for and called Jerrams of East Ham. If
someone had built a wall six inches too high it
was me who was sent to chisel it down to the
right level. Rather than creating and building, I
was always clearing up in the wake of others or
running errands. I loathed the experience and
couldn’t see any way of escaping it because I
was locked into the apprenticeship.
It was almost reminiscent of my childhood;
here I was in my late teens and I was still cold,
scraping together a living in all kinds of
weather for next to nothing. But I tried. How I
tried. I never once sat on my backside feeling
sorry for myself, even though I was earning a
pittance compared with those around me.
As an eighteen year old apprentice bricklayer, I
was on £4 a week working next to a man
earning three or four times that amount, and
in a day I was laying as many bricks as him as
well as making the tea and fetching his Daily
Mirror. From the moment I became an
apprentice bricklayer, as menial as it was, I
was earning twice as much as I’d earned from
all the other jobs I did whilst waiting to be
accepted, like sweeping up and carrying boxes
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