Building site sets stage for classic hits - Kevin Page

Kevin Page turned a building team into a temporary choir.

Kevin Page is a teller of tall tales with a firm belief that laughter helps avoid frown lines. Page has been a journalist for many years and has been writing a column since 2017.

OPINION

This past week I have found myself mixing it with some of the best tradies in the business. And the best singers.

At least that’s what they told me to write when I mentioned I would be taking notes for this very column while they worked.

It all started last weekend when I found myself in the car park of one of those giant trade outlets we seem to have throughout our green and pleasant land.

While George the three-legged dog and I waited in the car for Mrs P, a ute towing a trailer full of timber pulled in close by.

Obviously he had loaded up in the trade section and was heading home when something amiss had occurred.

Upon closer inspection in my side mirror it looked like one of the ratchet tie downs holding everything in place had reached its use by date and disappeared into space. This left the load a bit loose.

As pure chance would have it I had one with me so I went over and offered to help.

Anyway.

Long story short it turns out he’s a builder. He’s got a big job on and was dropping this load of timber up to site ready for his team’s morning start. If I wanted to call in he’d be happy to shout me a coffee and return the tie down.

I have to say I wasn’t too bothered about the latter but an early morning coffee and chance of a chat with Boss Man, a builder who had obviously been around, was too good an opportunity to pass up for this wannabee (still) tradie.

And so, bright an early next morning I pulled into the site and went looking for my new mate.

I soon found him. A bit, er, stressed, shall we say, judging by the colourful language emerging from his ute where one of his employees was on the phone explaining why he would be several hours late.

Apparently, that morning all hands were needed on board to assist with a “many hands make light work” job, if you know what I mean.

No problem, I said to Boss Man. I could help out till the latecomer arrived.

At that stage I hadn’t mentioned my dodgy hip, the arthritis that plagues my joints or the fact I had essentially worked in an office for 40-plus years and was not exactly conditioned for intense labouring but luckily I didn’t need to.

Boss Man took one look at me and immediately categorized me as SU – Semi Useful. But if I was up for a couple of hours work he could do the heavy lifting himself and I could move things out of the way, get “stuff” they needed and answer the phone.

Now working on a building site hasn’t exactly been a dream of mine but I thought it might look good on my CV so I didn’t need to be asked twice.

Boss Man filled the rest of the lads in and very soon, as they are lifting big bits of timber and metal around, we are throwing some good-natured banter around.

I have to say I’m pretty sure I gave as good as I got. Particularly when it came to singing on the job.

These are younger guys so they have their own tastes in music and very soon heads are bobbing to some boom, boom beat thing.

Boss Man stared in my direction and just grinned.

Oh well, I thought, two can play at that game.

As the boom, boom subsided in preparation for another track I launched into classic 70s style in the form of YMCA by the Village People. Boss Man, God bless him, joined in, much to the amusement of his workers.

Eventually we found a bit of common ground and were all singing along to 10 Guitars, happy as pigs in the proverbial, as the minutes ticked by.

Not long before my shift ended a bunch of concreters turned up.

“Now you’ll hear some voices,” said one of my new mates.

And he was right.

Within minutes of their arrival, the radio was going and the lads were singing along to . . . wait for it . . . some of the best country classics I’ve heard.

The music, and the mood, was infectious.

If the truth be told I was a little peeved when the latecomer finally arrived and my “shift” came to an end. I was very kindly invited to stay but you never want to outstay your welcome, do you?

But as I drove away I could hear the entire work site singing the lyric “. . . three jars of Jose Cuervo [a beer]” in a real western twang which put a smile on my face and a notion in my head suggesting I need to find out what that song in.

It also made me recall a situation involving singing tradies a hundred years ago when Mrs P and I had the enthusiasm and stamina to build our own house.

In those days you may recall you could do a lot of it yourself and we did. But for the important stuff like electrics, plumbing etc, you got someone in.

In our particular case we also got a tiler in who, unbeknown to us, had a reputation for being a miserable sod with a very short fuse.

I discovered this one day when a screaming match began upstairs.

When I got there I discovered the electrician, who had been singing away for a while with his radio on, engaged in a blazing row with the tiler who had turned up and apparently just yanked the plug out of the wall socket without saying a word.

Turns out the electrician hadn’t seen him do it and had already climbed back down the ladder twice from his work in the roof cavity to turn it back on.

I separated the protagonists – I was much bigger in those days – and had a quiet word with each.

It turned out the tiler didn’t like the music or singing. In fact, he didn’t like any sort of sound. He wanted a completely quiet zone to work in.

Apparently his job was so important it demanded complete concentration and distractions from loud rock music and equally loud wannabee rock singers were just unreasonable for this particular “artist”.

Shaking my head I went to get the electrician’s point of view. He was a little more forthright in summing up the situation.

“He’s just a *****,” he said.

From memory I got round it by asking the tiler to start at the other end of the house as far away as he could from the sparkie and I asked the sparkie to keep the noise down a bit.

And he did, except for the last 10 minutes of his time with us where he had the radio on full bore as he packed up his gear with a smile and loaded his truck.

I have to say I admired his subtle one-finger salute to his adversary.

I relayed the story to The Scottish Plumber over an ale or two some days later and another few weeks after that he rang me up to tell me the tiler and electrician had been at it again.

Apparently, this time the sparkie had responded by setting up some elaborate wiring in the ceiling space, complete with hidden speakers, and the angry tiler had been stalking the premises trying to work out where all the distracting music was coming from.

By all accounts when questioned the sparkie acted completely confused as to where the mystery noise was coming from.

I’d say it would be a safe bet to suggest the tiler’s moaning was, however, music to his ears.