Dad

My Dad passed away last week, leaving me and my whoe family devasted. He was a great man…my hero and my inspiration.

A few years ago I wrote an article about his working life for a magazine popular in the construction industry. For one reason or another it did not get published.

So as a tribute to my Dad I thought I would publish it here.

The story of Danny is one that typifies a whole generation of Irish migrant workers that from the 1940’s through the 50’s into the 60’s and even today have provided the backbone of the heavy construction industry in the UK.
Danny arrived in UK a fresh faced 17 year old in 1946, with contents of small battered suitcase representing his worldly wealth. He was the 14th child of a strict catholic family from Greencastle, Tyrone in Northern Ireland. It was here in Tyrone that Danny had amassed a little money for his family driving Fordson tractors for local farmers and this was the sum total of his experience when he arrived in the UK to look for work.

Initially he found work as a banksman on a site near Stapleford, Nottinghamshire. Before too long he progressed to driving a variety of mainly Caterpillar bulldozers such as the D4, D7 and D8, before moving on to scrapers at a variety of sites the length and breath of the country. By the mid 1950’s his face had become a familiar sight around the construction sites of the UK and it was around this time he started to drive the machines that were to define the rest of his career, the crawler crane. Initially he operated the legendary 10 RB drag lining, and then progressed onto the largely similar but higher capacity 22 RB. For many years Danny worked for Richards and Wallington, the same Richards incidentally who today runs the internationally renowned National Motorcycle Museum on the outskirts of Birmingham. Richards and Wallington expanded rapidly in through the 1970’s to become British Crane Hire Corporation (BCHC), at the time one of the largest plant hire companies in the world. Danny was involved in many famous projects that have gone on to become landmarks in their own right. I remember vividly when, as an impressionable 7 year old, he took up to see the 22 RB his was driving on the construction of the Gravelly Hill Interchange, better known today as ‘Spaghetti Junction’. His crane was operating right at the end of incomplete section of the interchange and over 100 ft up ~ it seemed as if the crane was actually in the sky itself to me. From here Danny enjoyed panoramic views of the heart of the midlands as he performed general lifting work for the crews working all over this huge site. In the summer holidays it was a regular treat for me to accompany him on site and watch him operate the machines with an almost balletic precision. I loved every moment, right down to sharing his cold sausage sandwiches and steamy sweet tea from a battered tartan thermos flask, while sitting on the crane’s walkway alongside my Dad.

Later he worked on the restoration on many of the canals that criss-cross the midlands, mainly using NCK machinery. He even found himself mentioned by name in a folk record that was cut to commemorate some of the work.
In 1978, during a lean period in the UK construction industry Danny found himself in another new country, Norway where he took the controls of a 61 RB while working on Hydro electric power generation projects in the south of the country. On few occasions he even had to ski to work. Here the cab heater was the most important piece of kit as the temperatures often plunged well below zero. This was a whole new world for Danny and he often talks about the time he spent over there.
However 1979 saw a return to the UK and Danny was at the Longbridge car factory in Birmingham operating a NCK Pennine lifting steel work during the construction of the new assembly hall commissioned to build the Austin Metro. Happier times as we consider the situation there now. Sad that such a huge facility now stands idle and decaying.
Around this time another huge capital project was being planned and this is now firmly a national icon, The London flood defence barriers that span the Thames estuary. Danny spent over a year working on the barrier, lifting buckets of concrete, shifting steel and general lifting work while at the controls of either a NCK 34B or NCK1405. For several weeks the big NCK was actually out in the middle of the Thames in a sort of dry haven that Danny got to by boat each morning. Quite a surreal way to get to work I think you will agree. Now the glistening barrier is as much a part of London as Big Ben, Tower Bridge or a Routemaster bus, and with the onset of global warming it will play a key part in keeping the city free from flood for many decades to come.

The characters and the camaraderie of those days are a fading now, and he endured many long hard hours in a noisy, cold and drafty cab. He spent weeks away from his family, staying on or near site in a variety of small caravans he towed behind his trusty Ford cars. Often there would be a group of them all in the same boat, working hard many miles from home. But when he drives around the UK he always takes great pride and pleasure in pointing out buildings and roads that he helped to create. It must be wonderful to see what you have done with your life so tangibly, to know you have made a difference.

Today Danny enjoys a quiet retirement; a picture of an early steam crane adorns his wall, with his driving permit stuck in one side serving as a reminder of a proud working life. So the next time you pound down a motorway, visit a huge shopping mall, or industrial complex spare a thought for the thousands him who helped the shape the world in which we live.

Rest in Peace Dad, you have earned a break…