Tom

On a day in June in a decade of strife
Was born a boy with a tough start to life
He grew up quickly as 2 brothers now here
Then a world war, exploding bombs, spreading fear

Ration books and austerity came into play
A life of daily struggle to keep the wolves at bay
Along came a woman from the Emerald Isle
With a sparkle in his eye, they courted for a while

A red haired Romeo and a Wexford Juliet
They danced and romanced, their love was set
A wedding in church on a late Autumn day
The union sealed the Roman Catholic way

A wife and 8 children with no time to stand still
Working long hours when spare time was nil
A man of moral fibre, his duty to provide
His unfailing family support could never be denied

The kids flew the nest and Grandkids came
Hard labour took it's toll, then he was lame
Time to retire and take a long rest
This was all he asked for, he deserved the best

He was robbed of his wish in the cruellest of ways
No justice for Tom in his final days
His legacy lives on in the generations to come
His memory precious to all, not just some

We miss him so much and loved him so dear
His soul lives on, his spirit always near.


Thomas Neilson 
1932-2010

So You Think You've Had A Bad Day?

After leaving the catering firm I wanted to try another driving job closer to home so I nipped into a local frozen foods store in east Manchester to ask if they needed any drivers for their home deliveries. They didn't, but advised me that one of their stores in Tameside was looking for a driver. I had a successful interview at that store so started multi-drop deliveries from the store almost immediately.

The hours were mostly anti-social as they included some evenings, including Saturdays, but it was a new experience for me and after working indoors for most of my life so far it was literally like a breath of fresh air.  I was tasked with working alongside 2 well established unhelpful drivers. I was made to feel like a kid who "doesn't know nothing" as they used to say. I decided to get on with it and became essentially self-employed as I had to work virtually everything out for myself.

One day in late May the store manager in Tameside called me into his office as he had a proposition for me.  He told me one of their stores in Cheshire only employed one driver and he was off sick so he asked if I would cover for him for a few days. I explained that I had little knowledge of that area (this was still pre- SatNav) but was willing to give it a go.   

The following day I drove down to the store in Cheshire. After a lot of waiting around the store manager took me to the back of the store to load up the van for the first batch of deliveries. As he opened the shutters I couldn't believe what stood before me. The van was like something the Beverly Hillbillies would have scoffed at. He left me to it so I opened one of the back doors to the van and started to load up. As the van was filling up I decided to open the second back door. As I did this it fell off and crashed to the ground narrowly missing my foot. Suddenly, the manager rushed out to see what the noise was to be confronted by his van in bits with me looking rather sheepish beside it. He asked me what had happened so I told him the truth which was that the door simply fell off it's hinges when I opened it. He wasn't happy.

He told me to unload it again and he would have to ask to borrow another van from a store in south Manchester. This ending up taking about 2 hours so in the meantime I was told to stack shelves in the store.  I felt like an unruly schoolboy in detention. When it arrived, the second van wasn't much better than the first as the clutch was knackered. Also, the deliveries they gave me were much further out than the 10 mile store radius that Tameside employed.

I ended up getting hopelessly lost on several occasions and at one point out in deepest Cheshire I was so disorientated  I even ended up ringing a mate, who I knew lived down that way, to see if he could guide me back to civilisation.  By early evening I was losing the will to live and just had one last drop somewhere between Disley and Whaley Bridge. This one had the item that every food delivery drivers feared on it...the dreaded eggs!  As I finally pulled up to the address I checked inside the egg boxes for damage. Previously, at the Tameside store, I had a 100% record in delivering undamaged eggs. I opened the boxes and ,much to my chagrin, half of them were smashed.

I explained to the customer what had happened. I was already an hour late with the delivery and now her order was in pieces, as were my nerves. My hopes that she would be sympathetic to my plight were dashed when, not only did she refuse the delivery, but she insisted I return before the end of the day with her precious eggs undamaged. It had taken me nearly an hour to find her rural cottage and we were about 15 miles from the store. About halfway back to the store I got stuck in traffic so I switched on my personal mobile. A message had been left from my manager at the Tameside store asking me to leave the van at the Cheshire store and  return back to his store the following day.  I guess the people of Cheshire weren't impressed with my delivering skills then!   

Footnote:  I still don't know if the woman in the cottage got her eggs the same day.  It seems as though she really had made the fatal error of "putting all her eggs in one basket" (or clumsy driver's van, as the case may be).

Bat Caves And Nicotine Fingers

.....I almost joined this telecoms company in May 1986 before I joined the other one where Connie and I met but it was conditional to work every Sunday so I turned them down at that time. The salary I was being offered now was improved from that time and, as I was now saving up for a deposit on a house, I needed a steady wage. I was also tiring of moving from job to job. However, the Sunday working still stood and to rub salt in the wound they made my start date a Sunday.

My time working on the trade counter was unhappy. I had no affinity with selling goods but steeled myself and got on with it. It was during this time in April 1990 that the notorious riot at Strangeways prison started. The building I was working in was less than half a mile from the prison and I was working on the counter on the Sunday morning when the riot started. On that morning I was making feeble attempts to sell novelty Mickey Mouse telephones etc against a backdrop of helicopters in the sky above and a huge media contingent on the doorstep. It was only much later I realised how serious it all was. For the next 3 weeks I carried out my arduous tasks whilst listening to the rioters shouting their demands from the prison roof in the middle distance.

By May 1990 the weather had warmed up and my blood pressure was rising on the trade counter. One day, the sales director called me into his office. I sat down and he proceeded to tell me I wasn't dressed smartly enough (It was hot on the counter so I used to roll up my sleeves and loosen my tie), that I wasn't pro-active enough selling goods and then gradually assassinated my character. I had made him aware at the interview that I had no sales experience but it didn't stop him taking me on in this role so I now assumed he had regretted his decision and that he was now going to show me the door. Surprisingly, he then said he felt I did have some skills they could use and would I be interested in moving into their customer service section dealing with returned faulty goods etc. This was perfect as this was very similar to the role I had with their rivals around the corner so I sold my soul and accepted his proposition.

There was a lad already working in the customer service role. I had got on really well with him so I assumed I would now be working with him. They wanted me to finish off the week on the counter. It was during this time the existing customer service lad stopped as he was passing me one morning and shook my hand. He wished me all the best and told me he had just been sacked. I was stunned and felt terrible. They had sounded me out first then shafted him. For a day or 2 after this I was so upset I considered leaving the company. I spoke to one of the other managers about my concerns and he just shrugged and said "that's business, you'll be better at the job than him".

The building we were working in was a Victorian death trap that must have had multiple health and safety failings and plans were already in place for the company to move to a brand new leased building in Salford Quays. This move took place in August 1990. Much to my displeasure we had to move everything ourselves in hired vans. The new building had been designed very much with a hierarchy. The sales office was modern, spacious and airy with large windows. I was placed in what can only be described as a bat cave. No natural daylight and prison like walls. I wasn't complaining though (for a change!) and I was mostly just left to get on with my own work. 

Over the next few years I became really settled in this job. I did, however, start to take on the complexion of Dracula. One particularly good workmate at this time was Phil Baxter. We had a shared love of the same genres of music and used to frequently chat about our favourite bands of the day (Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, The Pixies and so on). Phil and I used to see many live bands together at venues such as The Witchwood in Ashton under Lyne. On one occasion he persuaded me to see one of his favourite new local bands called Family Bam Bam. On that night the audience was virtually outnumbered by the band and they actually started asking us what we wanted them to play!

Gradually, the Sunday working was reduced to fortnightly, then monthly and by 1995 it was scrapped altogether.The company was growing rapidly and now had a far bigger turnover than my previous employer in Cheetham Hill.  New staff were recruited in all departments and part of the reason for scrapping Sunday working was that many potential new employees were turning down roles due to the conditional Sunday working (as I had done in 1986). Of course, I was happy with the new working arrangements as I had been working up to 50 hours a week but still felt some bitterness that the "new order" had brought this about and the existing staff prior to the new influx were never fully rewarded for their loyalty and hard work in growing the company to where it was then.

In 1997 my department moved out of the bat cave into an adjacent leased building, connected by a newly constructed walkway. The department now employed 8 people and my manager asked me to take on more of a supervisory role. This did not work out for various reasons which I do not wish to divulge at this time(when I'm rich and famous, I may spill the beans) but I stayed fully committed to my work here until 2003 when I departed. This period in this workplace from 1997 to 2003 is worthy of a book all of it's own but will have to be shelved for now. After my resignation, and after 13 years of blood, sweat and tears at this company, I received a 2 paragraph letter thanking me for my services. I wasn't expecting a gold watch but did feel used and very bitter for some time afterwards.

After a couple more stop start jobs I decided I would like to try driving for a living so in  I found a job delivering bread and cakes for a catering firm in east Manchester. When I attended the interview I was astounded to find they were working out of exactly the same unit where I worked in my first job in the telecoms warehouse back in 1985. My mind was all over the place and at one point I even became quite emotional as I could still picture my late friend and mentor Mick Gaskell stood in this very same place 18 years previously. The day after the interview I was up at 3am as the first deliveries had to be in Hull for 6am. I was paired with another driver who would be "showing me the ropes". He drove us to Hull in a clapped out old van with no shelving for the goods we were transporting. We also had deliveries in Grimsby and Scunthorpe. This driver was a rough and ready bloke with tattooed, nicotine stained fingers. As we were racing around the north of England, the manager continually rang him on a mobile phone asking us to pick goods up from places such as Sheffield which were nowhere near where we were at the time.The driver explained this was normal and something I would have to get used to. On one delivery that first day, we were delivering cream cakes to a well known hotel chain when the driver noticed some of the cakes had come loose in the back of the van. I said "I presume we'll have to take these back". He said "No, watch and learn". He then plunged his filthy, nicotine fingers into the cream cakes to straighten them up and try and make them look like they hadn't been rolling around the van for the last few hours. I was mortified.

That first day we didn't get back until 5pm so we had been on the go for 13 hours. This wasn't how it had been described in the interview! The next day I was sent out on my own and was in Hull for 5.45am. My first delivery was to a police station which we had delivered to the day before. "Nicotine Fingers" from the previous day had told me if there was no one to take the delivery then I was to leave the boxes by the back door.There was no answer at the back door so I did just that. I struggled on then later I got a call from the manager on the mobile phone they had given me asking what I was playing at. He said the boxes I had left at the police station had caused a security alert and they had to seal off part of the building. I told him the driver from the day before had told me to leave them there but he was raging and yelled "NEVER DO THAT AGAIN !" down the phone at me. When I got back around 5pm I was exhausted so parked up and went straight home. I managed to complete the next day relatively uneventfully but did manage to get lost several times (pre-SatNav of course).

It was now weekend which gave me a bit of time to think whether I wanted to put myself through this. I arrived  in the depot in the early hours of Monday morning to be told I would be showing another driver the round that day. The blind leading the blind ! The newcomer sat in the passenger seat whilst I drove us to Hull.  He was an arrogant know-it-all, criticising my driving and putting the world to rights with his nonsensical views. By lunchtime I'd had enough of him so suggested he drove. After another 13 hour day I realised this job was ridiculous so went to see the manager to tell him this wasn't for me and I wouldn't be staying. I also decided to leave with a parting shot. I felt I wasn't to blame for the security alert at the police station and that it was "Nicotine Fingers' fault so I told him about the "filthy fingers in the cream cakes" incident. The manager was disinterested in this and simply sent me on my way.

She-Wolves

The remainder of 1988 and into 1989 saw my work becoming less pleasurable. I felt I had become marginalized as there had been an influx of new employees which changed the dynamics. This resulted in Julie and I no longer working together and our once tight knit social circle had now evaporated.

During 1989 my relationship with Connie (I didn't refer to her as Lisa at this time as this is her middle name. Connie is her first name which I preferred) had become more serious and did start to negatively impact on us working in the same building. Indeed, we had one blazing row in front of several startled colleagues one fateful Friday afternoon. In July 1989 Connie left the company and I followed in October of the same year. I had found another job with yet another telecommunications company and gave just 2 days notice. I had never been given any kind of contract during my 3 years there and had only 1 pay increase since I started in 1986. I ended up leaving under something of a cloud as I felt badly treated after I had played a significant role in the development of the company. The first 2 years of my time there, however, were among the happiest of my working life and meeting my future wife there, of course, changed the direction of my life.

In October 1989 I started at a new place of employment in Hyde. Prior to leaving my previous company I was invited to an interview at this company. The interview was conducted by a panel of 3 women. They seemed very keen to call on my previous experience and wanted to place the successful candidate in a newly formed department consisting of almost entirely women. I was unconcerned by this and the interview proved successful so I was offered the job. I was very happy as the salary was significantly better than my previous employment and the company's financial turnover was larger.

After only a couple of days in this job, however, I was already feeling very uncomfortable. It was apparent they hadn't formulated a plan of exactly what they wanted me to do and the existing female employees in the department appeared very hostile to my presence. I did the best I could in the first few months in an atmosphere of back biting, malicious gossip and whispering. This was, of course, pre-mobile phone days and on one occasion Connie phoned the office and asked to be put through to me. It was an important call that couldn't wait. My colleague told her under no circumstances could I take any calls whilst at work so she wasn't put through. I wasn't even aware of this until I got home as she wasn't even allowed to leave a message. I was furious.

In December 1989 the manager, who had appointed me, was made redundant amid rumours that the company were in financial trouble. I was now left up the proverbial creek without a paddle with no one in authority prepared to make use of me and at the mercy of the "she-wolves" I now worked with. These colleagues had developed even more of a siege mentality since the boss was sacked and it was clear they didn't want me there as they gripped on to their own jobs. I stuck it out until February 1990 then decided to call a meeting with a manager from another department to explain my position and find out exactly where I stood. I was told they were indeed in deep financial strife so I felt I had no future there and decided to put myself out of 4 months of misery. This manager accepted my resignation without really making any effort to persuade me to stay but, of course, he hadn't hired me so owed me no loyalty. Sadly I have no happy memories at all of my time here and my experience of working in a predominantly female office in 1989 had been a truly miserable one. I later learned that within 12 months of my leaving this company they went into liquidation with the loss of most jobs there.

Within 10 days of departing Hyde I was back working in Cheetham Hill again. This time I had approached the main competitor of the company where I had met Connie and, after a successful interview, was offered a role working on the trade counter. This was a controversial move and left many of my erstwhile colleagues at my previous employer in Cheetham Hill thoroughly bemused. The maverick in me loved this and I looked forward to turning the tables on my previous employer. This would prove to be my longest consecutive period of employment with the same employer, which spanned over a decade, and would see me turn from a boy into a man.

Cul-de-sac

Desperate dogs are barkin'
Children are larkin'
Electricians are sparkin'
I enjoy a slice of parkin

The rain is pourin'
Pigs are snorin'
Brothels are whorin'
Drink after work not durin'

Birds they keep on singin'
Phones they keep on ringin'
Bells they keep on dingin'
Tills keep on ker-chingin'

Judges can't stop jailin'
Bob Marley can't stop wailin'
Stalkers can't stop tailin'
Rod Stewart's always sailin'

Drivers they are speedin'
Gardeners they are weedin'
Bookworms they are readin'
Don't know where this is leadin'.....

Never Go Back

Many a road travelled
many an avenue explored
wound down many a lane
but now a ship that's moored

Many a chance been given
many a nettle been grasped
opportunities passed by
windows of time lapsed

Many a comforting word received
many a hand that's fed
bitten too many poisoned apples
well meaning hearts been bled

Many a day been frittered away
many a night stayed black
left a job, left for good
wisdom says, never go back

The Job That Changed My Life

In 1986, my experience of the working world was that, providing one had a positive, flexible approach, then one could walk straight out of one job and into another, and so it proved when I waved goodbye to my dictatorial, dinosaur boss and moved on to pastures new.

Within 10 days of leaving the crusty old tyrant I secured a role as Warehouse Assistant for a telecommunications company in Cheetham Hill. This period of employment was to prove life changing for me.  This company were a slightly bigger version of CBE Ltd (my first employer) so my previous experience with them helped me settle into this role fairly quickly. I got on exceptionally well with most of my new colleagues and became good friends with some of them.

For the first year or so my job was mainly to pick and pack orders for despatch, book all goods in and generally maintain the smooth running of the warehouse.  By 1988 the number of employees had doubled and as a result my role became more diverse.  Eventually I was upgraded from warehouse work and together with an easy going, good-humoured girl called Julie, now dealt with all after sales work.  This involved dealing with returned goods, testing, replacing and,  if possible, repairing them, dealing with customer complaints and so on.

At this time most work was hand written, however, we did have one computer to share in the warehouse/service section which, in hindsight, now seems comical. Only Julie really knew how to use it. In those days it was considered really uncool to know anything about computers and, for a mullet-headed rocker like me, even professing an interest was a good way to lose all credibility.  Julie and I worked really well together and became good friends. There was a lot of socialising outside work with many of my colleagues at this time as most of us were in our 20s and liked a drink and a good time. his social scene also included Brendan Casey, Steve Speed., Lee Fortune, Jayne Essex, Jimmy Drummond, Annette (Netty) Sandiford and many others. Happy days.

Around February 1988 an office junior was taken on called Lisa. She was 16. I didn't have much contact with her as she worked in a different part of the building but I did used to see her when she was brewing up in an adjacent kitchen to the service section. I normally heard her before seeing her as she was very vocal and could be very cheeky.  I was a bit lippy myself so when she was mouthing off about something or other I used to make fun of her which she didn't appreciate.  On one occasion this resulted in her slapping me full across the face. This wasn't witnessed by anyone else so I let it go and put it down to a "personality clash" and decided to keep out of her way.  I was 20 years old now and wasn't prepared to be "dissed" by a 16 year old !

A few months after the slapping incident Julie said to me one day "I've think you've got an admirer". At first she wouldn't tell me who it was or how she knew. This carried on for a few days and was making me feel very uncomfortable.  I started to believe half the female workforce fancied me!  Eventually, Julie confessed that Lisa had approached her to ask questions about me including asking if I was single (which I was) and she said it was obvious Lisa had her eye on me. I laughed at this outrageous turn of events as I thought Lisa hated me !

My approach to Lisa now softened and we started talking again. Nothing else of note occurred until Monday 20th June 1988 when I played in a works 5-a-side football match against one of our main telecommunications competitors. Many of our colleagues came to support us including Lisa.  I had a decent game and was top scorer helping us to win the match. Afterwards, Lisa pestered me for a lift home and the rest is history. We went straight from not even being friendly to each other to girlfriend and boyfriend.  I was wary about this though as I had always said I wouldn't date someone from work and I could foresee problems.

1985, Long Hair and First 2 Jobs

My first job after leaving school, and a short-lived disastrous ill-advised spell at college, was at a telecommunications company in Gorton. I was interviewed by Paul Emson in February 1985. I'd had various interviews before this but, having no work experience behind me, all were unsuccessful

I will always be grateful to Paul for giving me a chance and I believe I didn't let him down. I started as a warehouse assistant so my duties included taking in deliveries, stacking shelves and monitoring stock etc. I didn't have a driving licence then so I walked to work there and back everyday from the family home in Clayton which was around a 6 mile a day round trip "on the hoof" in all weathers. The only part of this that bothered me was getting my mullet hairdo wet.

 I was the youngest employee in the warehouse/office so was given a tough time by some of the engineers, including once being bound in masking tape like a "mummy", then thrown in an industrial bin, spun around several times then left out on the road. My cries for help were only answered around half an hour later by a passing engineer, but it took him ages to find where my shouts were coming from and then to unwrap me. My complaints afterwards to the engineers were answered with remarks like "you need toughening up you little wimp".

There was a driver called Mick Gaskell who always tried to stick up for me and mentor me with his wisdom. I very much appreciated this at the time but Mick also liked his little wisecracks including regularly saying "Right, pay attention young 'un I've got a list of things for you to do here that's longer than your hair". For my hair at this time think of Bono at Live Aid.

In January 1986 the warehouse in Gorton was closed and I was moved to to an office in Stockport amid rumours the company was in financial trouble. This was denied by the management but the following month I was called in to see the Managing Director who broke the news that I was to be made redundant with immediate effect. The company was indeed in trouble and a young female colleague and I were the first to be chopped. I was devastated. On the bus on the way home I shed a tear as the realisation I was now back on the dole hit me.

Within a month I had bagged another job, this time in a stores area for an electronics firm in Moss Side.  They worked out of a grim Victorian building and the basement where I was based was akin to a dungeon complete with dark cobwebbed corners and narrow passageways. This job, basically, involved weighing, counting and packing electronic parts for delivery. The monotony was only broken by access to a radio tuned to Radio 1 and also listening to the ludicrous outlook on life of my fellow workers. Some had been doing this job for years, some used to find a dark corner and have an afternoon nap. It was very easy paced and, although unfulfilled, I was reasonably happy for a while..until it all went pear shaped(this would become a recurring theme for the next 25 years). This was 1986 and the management style of the owner was carried out in a way which simply wouldn't be tolerated now. He was a dictatorial tyrant who ruled with aggression and fear. Unfortunately, one day he sent for me out of the dungeon to help him. After witnessing him humiliating an employee for the 5th or 6th time I couldn't take anymore.

Pacifism in the Modern World

When you switch on the news in 2013, what do you expect to hear? Bad news? If you listen, I mean really listen, to the subject matter of an average day's news reports then it will be mostly news you would rather not hear. Every kind of criminal act delivered upon unsuspecting victims on a daily basis. Depressing isn't it? When newsreaders tag on a "heart warming" story at the end (usually involving an animal or a child or both) we're supposed to forget all the other misery and clap our hands in glee that a missing cat  has been found stuck up an oak tree by little Freddie at the bottom of Mrs Smith's garden.
Oh that's all right then, I feel so much better about the latest pointless, loss of life now.

By nature I am a pacifist but do understand that, historically, an armed response to resolve conflict has on occasion been the only option. These have been few and far between, however. the Second World War and the fight against the Nazis is, obviously, one such war that had to be fought militarily. What about the ongoing carnage in Afghanistan and the recent war against non-existent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Do you buy into this "keeping our national security safe" mantra from the last 2 governments? How does this work exactly? Let us not forget that the last major terrorist attack on this country came from the "enemy within" i.e. British born terrorists who had been partly influenced by the misguided foreign policy of this country. When the combined armed forces leave Helmand province and beyond after thousands have been slaughtered on all sides, will this region really be free of extremism ? You really think so?    
Regardless of whether British soldiers are in Afghanistan or not, the chances of falling victim to a terrorist attack in this country are miniscule. The chances of suffering serious harm at the hands of our own criminals are statistically much higher. The next time you hear a politician trying to justify soldiers being sent to their deaths outside their national borders, take time to have a think about it. It's not pretty.

Searching For Inspiration

What do you want from life?
money, fame, no trouble or strife?
a husband or wife, holidays and fun?
a well paid job and a car to run?
is it enough to exist and not live?
to bury your soul with nothing to give?
a life that's over in the blink of an eye
ambitions never set, too low or too high
painful emptiness is a feeling so dire
pours troubled waters on heart filled desire
a new path to tread is an obvious must
before dreams become ashes and hope turns to dust
creative wells can run so dry
unwatered flowers can wither and die
the best of the best can hit the wall
waiting for answers or inspiration to call