so what's the most hilarious thing that ever happened to a scaffolder?

I remember another case when I was an 'improver' at a firm based in East Manchester. Our charge-hand wanted to get in the boozer for a pint, so he decided to bomb all the tube down to the grass instead of 'passing and stacking'.
Trouble was, the job was 80 feet up around a lift shaft. The first 21' topper dropped went right through the main cable on the estate and put out the electric for hours.
The gaffer went ballistic.
He still made the ale-house though.
 
How about working in the roof of a steel mill and we used to take snapping and flasks up with us and have our butties up in the roof out of the way,but it was always dark and took a while for your eyes to adjust,anyway for a laugh we got one of the lads chicken butties out and slung his leftover sunday dinner and replaced the chicken in one of his butties with a live baby pidgeon,a little bald thing that only moved a bit(a bit like the guy in question)and put it back in his snapping on the top of his buttie pile,he took the buttie out and only realised as he bit into it that in the dim light there was a moving object half in his mouth and half in his hand,feck me he nearly jumped through the asbestos sheeted roof and we nearly died laughing,hehe:nuts:
 
Had a old dodge s56 model lorry runaway down a hill with no driver,my mate I was with loaded the last tube on the lorry when I heard him shouting I thought he was having a fight but when I ran from the back of the job he was trying to hang on the back of the lorry in witch he had to let go I tried to catch it up but couldn't .it was parked with the wheels facing the middle of the road in which it rolled to then the wheels straightened up and went down the hill ,there was a bloke in a Bedford rascal van doing a three point turn which it smashed up lucky he was ok then it hit the blokes sons BMW then hit a lamp post witch landed on a Garden wall then smashed a front room window sill then the lorry hit a big old Volvo which stopped it .the lorry was loaded with al the long tubes over the bolster which shot over the top thankfully no one was hurt. The lorry was running to green lanes harringay aim so glad it didn't make it .cable hand brake failed .allways leave the wheels facing the kerb on a hill.
 
john the manc said:
I remember another case when I was an 'improver' at a firm based in East Manchester. Our charge-hand wanted to get in the boozer for a pint, so he decided to bomb all the tube down to the grass instead of 'passing and stacking'.
Trouble was, the job was 80 feet up around a lift shaft. The first 21' topper dropped went right through the main cable on the estate and put out the electric for hours.
The gaffer went ballistic.
He still made the ale-house though.
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I like it, John. Wast the cable up in the air then? (ie connected to a pylon?) just need to get it right so I can describe as if I was there...

cheers, la. Some good contributions coming in now and it's much appreciated!
 
njw3000 said:
I like it, John. Wast the cable up in the air then? (ie connected to a pylon?) just need to get it right so I can describe as if I was there...

cheers, la. Some good contributions coming in now and it's much appreciated!
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No mate it was a buried underground cable and the bombed 21 speared it! A big blue flash and half of the Lower Kersal housing estate had a black-out!:laugh: The end of the tube was like a peeled banana!
 
gary wheaton said:
Had a old dodge s56 model lorry runaway down a hill with no driver,my mate I was with loaded the last tube on the lorry when I heard him shouting I thought he was having a fight but when I ran from the back of the job he was trying to hang on the back of the lorry in witch he had to let go I tried to catch it up but couldn't .it was parked with the wheels facing the middle of the road in which it rolled to then the wheels straightened up and went down the hill ,there was a bloke in a Bedford rascal van doing a three point turn which it smashed up lucky he was ok then it hit the blokes sons BMW then hit a lamp post witch landed on a Garden wall then smashed a front room window sill then the lorry hit a big old Volvo which stopped it .the lorry was loaded with al the long tubes over the bolster which shot over the top thankfully no one was hurt. The lorry was running to green lanes harringay aim so glad it didn't make it .cable hand brake failed .allways leave the wheels facing the kerb on a hill.
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What's "green lanes harringay" mate?

thanks for the yarn, it's another good un.
 
Hmmm, I've heard of a guy who was chaining gear over a pitched roof in a gang, and they decided to go have their break while the guy sat on the roof was holding a 21 with no where for it to go. They also decided to take an hours tea break that morning, leaving him up there cradling a 21 for an hour on a roof. Must've been popular.
 
Brother got a lad with pileon volts lol stood a 20 up when he was a lab dropped it to scaff it hit eletric cable then landed against scaffold while still touching cable sent lado across the boards and blew out a full village






flinty said:
hmmm, i've heard of a guy who was chaining gear over a pitched roof in a gang, and they decided to go have their break while the guy sat on the roof was holding a 21 with no where for it to go. They also decided to take an hours tea break that morning, leaving him up there cradling a 21 for an hour on a roof. Must've been popular.
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Another time i remember having a great laugh was when we were scaffolding a large building on the corner of princess st in manchester which is the next st down from canal st as i recall,and all the gays used to pass by as we were erecting this large job and we used to pass the short gear out the window to a guy on the lift,so us being young would shout out hello sweety or other such greetings and then quickly duck out of the way killing ourselves laughing as whoever was stood outside on the lift was left red faced and the gay guy would be fluttering his eyelashes and the mince would be cranked up to ten as they minced away,hehe,we had a few unsuspecting scaff's on that one:laugh::laugh:
 
bigfish said:
another time i remember having a great laugh was when we were scaffolding a large building on the corner of princess st in manchester which is the next st down from canal st as i recall,and all the gays used to pass by as we were erecting this large job and we used to pass the short gear out the window to a guy on the lift,so us being young would shout out hello sweety or other such greetings and then quickly duck out of the way killing ourselves laughing as whoever was stood outside on the lift was left red faced and the gay guy would be fluttering his eyelashes and the mince would be cranked up to ten as they minced away,hehe,we had a few unsuspecting scaff's on that one:laugh::laugh:
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ahaha had something similar on a site wich a solid fence round it when trainee was on top lift scaffs seen this bird walking past dropped down and whistled and gave it all get ya tits out by this time the trainee had turned and looked at her as she whent off on him calling him a perv and she was reporting him and the scaff on lift under neith is still going on at her ahahahhaah
 
I Was Working At A Large Country Castle In Angus (Owned By The Queens Cousin) There Was A Load Of Us There Because The Job Was Running Behind, Just About Half Past Eleven The Supervisor Turns Up And Says To The Youngest Part One , Here Kid Jump Behind The Shed And Move Them Boxes, Ok Says The Kid (Always Willing To Be Helpful) No Problem At All. Just Then I Wondered Why The Supervisor Ran (Cause He Never Walked Fast Never Mind Ran) Back To His Car Pissing Himself Laughing, It Was When The Kid Shifted The Boxes I Found Out They Were Bee Hives Iv Never Seen So May Hairy Arsed Scaffolders Running So Fast In My Life.
 
I was striking a job i Baker St and we where chaining down all the long when along comes a women African traffic warden , as she walk past me i took a 21 of the lads stood it on the ground ad said to her " here love grab a hold of this for a second please " to which she only grabbed the 21 with both hands d i walk away leaving her holding a stood up 21 in the middle of baker St :laugh::laugh::laugh:, i left her good 5 minutes before taking it back of her , what she was shouting at me i African as she shuffled away i never did find out
 
philliosmaximus said:
I was striking a job i Baker St and we where chaining down all the long when along comes a women African traffic warden , as she walk past me i took a 21 of the lads stood it on the ground ad said to her " here love grab a hold of this for a second please " to which she only grabbed the 21 with both hands d i walk away leaving her holding a stood up 21 in the middle of baker St :laugh::laugh::laugh:, i left her good 5 minutes before taking it back of her , what she was shouting at me i African as she shuffled away i never did find out
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er, was it funnier cos she was African? Or cos she was a traffic warden?
 
Years ago we used to go on the over night North Sea ferry to Holland to work ,on one crossing one scaff who was about 60 years old then wanted a pee in the night so he went out of his room to find the toilet which was down the corridor (no ensuite in those days) he had his pee and then came out, but turned the wrong way in the corridor.
So he wandered around trying to find his room ,he ended up in the casino which was in full flow ,and this geezer with nothing on but a pair of white Y fronts and with a full head of white hair looking like the old wrestler Jackie Pallo was strolling about.
Needless to say security were soon on to him ,they found which room he was in and frogmarched him back to his room and they pushed him inside and said "Fuc#king stay there"
 
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I'd just like to say thanks to everyone who has taken the time to type up their stories, and especially those who have PM'd me with a yarn. The most unpleasant one was the baby pigeon in the sandwich, but it was also the most memorable. I'll be using many of these, so look out for my novel, which will be called "A History of Scaffolding" (and it's not *just* about scaffolding, btw!)

Thanks a lot guys. Cheers, Nigel.

PS: if there's anyone in the Manchester area who would be willing to have a chat with me or even to let me do a day's labouring at your depot, then please get in touch. I'd also like to have a look at some scaffolding depots as I have a dim and distant memory of the yard/s my dad used to work at in the 1970s.
 
AMAZING IDEA. would like to say that i love listning to the tales of the (old guys lol) it's like a history lesen or going bk in time to the old days. never have i heard of a book of scaff tales (like foke lawr lol) but i would defo buy this book whatever the price coz them tales would b priceless. the story's from the old glasgow scaff's will go down in in history tho will b forgoten unless someone like you puts pen to paper. LET THE OLD STORIES LIVE ON. NICE ONE MATE
 
Did a job in our local high street a few years back, seven lifts high complete with monoflex including a canopy over the top with the monoflex.
It had been raining all night and the canopy roof was filled with big puddles of water. So we decided to empty the puddles by pushing them up from the inside.
Now picture this as the rain had stopped it was quite a nice day so up it goes a few gallons of water straight down onto a chap walking pass the scaffold.
He was drenched and the force of the water knocked his glasses off and they fell to pieces on the pavement, he's now jumping up and down bawling his head off and shaking his fist.
Problem was he was our local councillor at the time and the firm had to pay for his glasses.

A few days later on the same job one of the lads decided to let off a firework from the scaffold only problem was it was a rocket and it went the wrong way,
it went up the high street like a scud missile about 20 foot above every ones head, man people where ducking and diving running into shops with all hell let loose. He got the sack.
 
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