A SUMMER JOB AT THE ANSELLS BREWERY, ASTON, BIRMINGHAM, 1968 & 1969...

 A Summer Job At The Ansells Brewery, Aston, Birmingham, 1968 & 1969…

Ansells Brewery at Aston Cross became a non-taxable vacation job for me during two summers, 1968 and 1969. One of my father’s policy-holders from the Britannic Assurance Company was the Personnel Officer there and I was duly called up for an introductory interview, after a 6th form school year at KEGS Aston. I was under no illusion about my fate after the first real question: “Would you like to join the Union?” This of course meant I must join the Union, which I did of course, for there seemed no point in not doing so…

My only previous work experience had been a fortnight at my Auntie Ivy’s workplace when I was about 15. Larkin’s was a warehouse in Livery Street, Birmingham and I was a general worker, learning to wrap parcels ready for sending out by post. I answered telephones too, which was a novelty, as my parents didn’t have one at home. However, the brewery was a totally different kettle of fish… 

There are some amazing images of the inside of the Ansells brewery online but they are copyrighted and I was unable to obtain permission to use a few of them to illustrate the types of work I have described below…  

Maybe keep in mind the three words ‘health and safety’ as the article below unfolds…

I took the buses to work that I had used to get to school, for Ansells was at Aston Cross but of course I made my way home alone too, even though my father owned a car by that time.

SALTLEY, WHERE I CAUGHT THE NUMBER 8 BUS TO ASTON CROSS, AFTER GETTING OFF THE 55 FROM SHARD END...

Each employee was given ten beer tickets per week, each one exchangeable for a pint of beer in the canteen. However, by wheeling and dealing some guys drank much more than their individual allotted quota. I gave my tokens away but I was reminded of films which show prisoners trading cigarettes… Big Jerry, a rather huge Irish guy was thus reckoned to consume some twenty pints of beer a day at work and I didn’t doubt this for one moment. 

While I was on the payroll he was caught going up on a lift with a crate full of Gold Label bottles and he was doubtless taking them off to be squirrelled away somewhere for his own consumption. He had been down to the stores and simply removed the booty. Already under threat of dismissal, Big Jerry’s future was amazingly secured by a solid defence from his Union. It was along the lines of the fact that he was simply ‘moving the crate’, although no reason was given for  his action in a rather weak but accepted defensive strategy… Strangely, he used to drink M&B beer in his local pub at night… He told me that he used to consume ten or eleven more pints of ale each evening.

Those were the days when small metal caskettes were filled with Ansells beer and each one was plugged at the top by a rubber bung. 

I was once put on a rotation system where we regularly moved round to a new position, rather like volleyball players do, but after forty or so mundane minutes in one area of the caskette filling section, I recall watching each of three bungers whipping a caskette off the rotating filling machine and slipping the flat-peaked, cap-shaped bung into its expectant hole. I was sure I would never learn this skill and I was right, at first… 

In fact even the logistics were against left-handed me, for I would have to do this right-handed because of the positioning of the machine and the track. Heck… For fifteen minutes it was like I was bungling an activity in TV’s the ‘Generation Game’ but after half an hour or so, I began to bung in a more relaxed fashion. It became so smooth, so sweet and suddenly I felt like I was part of a real team.  

I really enjoyed the job of stacking the caskettes in fours too, with one cardboard lid covering the tops of the cans and another being placed beneath the bottoms. They were then fastened by a black plastic binding, dispensed from a mechanical wrapping machine, operated by a team member.  

I was actually forced to repair this machine so often during the days when I worked in that section, that I was regularly called away from another post to “Fuckin’ mend the bleedin’ thing…” 

Er, me? Repair something? Really? I’d never even changed an electric plug in my life or even changed a light bulb at that point in my life but the malfunctioning machine seemed to like my attitude, somehow allowing me to adjust it with a view to ‘making do and mend’ and so I became au fait with mechanics for the first time in my life…

Rejected caskettes were treated brilliantly. They were given a good shake some distance from a bare wall, which was to act as a target. The bung would then be pulled and just like from a water cannon, the escaping beer flew like a jet from a firefighter’s hose. It shot with tremendous power against the wall and I just couldn’t believe my eyes… It was brilliant to fire this unique and powerful weapon…

I was once given a small glass of freshly made light ale from that caskette filler and I must admit that I have still never tasted beer so good . . .

I recall three nightmarish jobs within the old brewery too and the first was a day I endured of not rolling out the barrels but rolling over the barrels. This activity was no barrel of fun for the novice. The older, more obese wooden barrels and the newer metal kegs, all quite empty, needed moving along a difficult corridor with several corners, ready to be piled up. It seemed like it was never-ending, as one after the other was collected, rolled, swung upright and stacked.

Secondly, I recall a West Indies v England cricket game commentary blaring across the yard from a portable transistor radio. I was on a reception deck  at the time with five or six others and we were treated like tenpin skittles by three or four West Indian guys who were unloading their trucks of empty casks and barrels onto the deck.

They loved the fact their famous West Indies bowlers Wes Hall and Charlie Griffith were playing havoc with England’s batters at the time and so they were in fine humour as they unloaded and goaded! 

They would simply whip the empty barrels at us and took delight in deliberately aiming them at the legs of the waiting deck-men. Those vessels were still heavy and would have broken the legs of an unaware defender. It was a terrifying challenge to flick up the end of an approaching rolling, spinning barrel and bring it under control with gloved hands. Once only I took my eyes off a barrel and was forced to spring upwards and leap over the missile like in a mobile high jump event. I was lucky…

Thirdly, I was given an hour or so on an eye-killer. This was a chair, a metre or so from a conveyor belt carrying newly filled bottles of beer, all clinking and jittering shoulder to shoulder on their journey to be crated and then loaded onto lorries for distribution.  The job was to train one’s eyes on a mark which showed the minimum level of beer allowed in each bottle. One was expected to pull out any short measures. Protective spectacles were provided but the strain on one’s eyes and the nauseous feeling inside were unbearable.  Perhaps my eventual abhorrence at wearing protective glasses in Birmingham Museum’s dust had its roots at the brewery. Often, bottles exploded and glass splintered like shrapnel… 

I stacked crates a lot though, which was great because after awkwardly handling the first few, one was able to pick up a rhythm and the job became quite a pleasant way of keeping fit. I hosed and then swept floors too but I guess I was being paid well and thus didn’t mind putting my back into the jobs given me. 

Some of the dreadful women who worked on the factory floor would remain for much of the day on this task and all of them wore glasses either permanently or just for reading. In Holland apparently, people were only allowed to do this job for three hours in total per day, including several breaks.

Those women at Ansells were tough and often harsh, wearing their rather unpleasant blue nylon belted ‘housecoats’. One of them was nicknamed ‘Dirty Mary’, whilst another was reputed to have had sex on the factory floor with a guy beneath her. Apparently, she became so madly excited that she deposited excretion upon the disgusted chap and in front of several cheering spectators too. Nice…

I met an Asian guy whose permanent job was on the top floor of the brewery, working with the empty crates, which came up by conveyor-belts from the yard, after being unloaded by trucks. All he did was to remove them, stack them and deposit some of them onto another line, leading to the bottle-washing machine on the floor below. This was a machine I was to learn about soon afterwards.  

I worked with the old chap eagerly, for he really was lovely but his English, at worst unintelligible, was at best disgusting. A sample sentence might contain four or five swear words, for those were the words he heard most often from the other chaps in the brewery. To communicate with him, I was forced to swear too, so he could get my meaning… This was a decent job though, just the two of us on the line.

Eventually, four smallish caskettes started to be packed into complete cardboard boxes, probably after  those awkward rubber bungs had became redundant. During my second summer at the Brewery, I was on a line where the boxes were conveyed into a glueing section, almost like a tunnel on a railway-track. Typically, every now and again, the glue machine stuck (no pun intended) and boxes became jammed. The only way to correct the problem was to reach into the glueing section and force a box onward. Obviously, the conveyor line was turned off by push-button whilst obstructions were removed. Everyone present could observe all of this operation because the glueing section was clearly visible. 

One day, two other students were working with me on the line and as usual, a box became twisted just inside the glueing tunnel. I hit the stop button and the belt, moving right to left, came to a juddering halt. I reached with my left arm into the opening of the section, pushing at the top of the box as I forced my hand between it and the framework of the machine. Unfortunately, one of the two students thoughtlessly reactivated the line, forced the free box on and my left arm went with it. My wrist was held like a vice and I was watching it disappear… 

I yelled for the stop button to be pushed but the other student panicked and lost all sense of remedy, forcing an alerted guy to run from another line to rescue me. My forearm was shaped like a meandering river and I was rushed to a matron, where my injury was supported but luckily it was not broken and I was sent home. 

I played goalie with my dad at the local recreation ground that evening and a small white scar still remains on the inside of my left wrist to this day.

One of my vivid memories of Ansells was the bottle-washing machine. I enjoyed those particular days I spent at one end of the factory floor with just two of us patrolling the line. A conveyor-belt brought crates of twenty-four empty bottles towards a wall where it cornered right and the crates began to queue, vibrating. Three or four of the crates were pulled into position for a mechanical set of tough, sharp plastic ‘hands’ to drop onto, thus removing the dirty bottles from the crates. 

The ‘hands’ opened like two sharp plastic teeth, which jerked down onto the necks of the glass bottles, lifted them out and took them inwards, placing them onto a wide conveyor leading to a revolving drum, which then picked up the bottles it was being fed, like a seething creature waiting for mesmerised food to come its way, belching out steam.

Unfortunately, odd bottles jammed, broke or rolled about on the machine and it was always me who volunteered to leap onto the wide conveyor and clear up any mess. The first thing I asked about when I was introduced to this machine was the location of a stop and start button, which I’m glad I did… 

I was working with a guy who was a very conscientious young man and was I think highly regarded by managers and colleagues alike. However, one particular crate created some difficulty and for some reason the two dozen ‘hands’ jammed some 15cm from the necks of the targeted bottles. As my working partner set about checking the problem, I suggested turning the machine off but he declined and he didn’t press the button, which was situated just a metre to his right.

In seconds, panic reigned. Suddenly and quite inexplicably, the framework holding those lethal-looking hands un-jammed themselves and jerked down onto my colleague’s hand, which was resting on the waiting crate. The sharp plastic edges cut into his knuckles and the back of his hand, close to the wrist. I reacted fast, dashing past him and quickly pressed the machine’s off, then tried to manipulate a lifting of the plastic grips, just to ease the pain. I had screamed for help too and with the aid of others, the offensive weapons were finally lifted away from the guy’s hand. His injury was nasty and I didn’t see him again that summer, leaving me to complete my week in this area as section leader! Unbelievable…

I can still smell the stale, unpleasant odour of those unwashed empty beer bottles. 

I tend to consume little of the stuff these days…

Night working at the Holt Street brewery…

During my last summer at the brewery, I was asked to work a week of nights at the depot in Holt Street, near Woodcock Street swimming baths, now a part of  the Aston University campus.

I travelled by bus to the facility at around 10.15pm, then of course made my way home at around 6am the following morning. No lifts for me, unsurprisingly. It was strange being at work in the darkness of Gosta Green, for whilst there it seemed that nobody else was awake at all…

I can’t recall more than a couple of others being on duty there during my week of work and I have vivid memories of a maze of pipes crossing the ceilings in different directions and the Caribbean guy in charge knew exactly which ones carried beer and which ones carried air, also which ones were used for suction and which ones were used for heating. Beer was stored in large swimming-pool type vessels on one of the upper floors and then after it had settled it would filter down to the floor below and then down again to another floor, until it was used to fill tankers waiting in the yard with their really well paid drivers.

I was involved in froth removing and container cleaning whilst working there, which was a remarkable experience. Using a wide rake/shovel on runners stretched across the deep vessel, froth was laboriously pushed to one end by two workers. A wide pipe was then inserted into the stacked up froth and it was sucked out, as if by a vacuum cleaner. This action was repeated as more froth appeared. It was strange to actually see several metres of froth piled up on beer and then to see it gradually disappear. I was able to take part in that activity, which was quite satisfying.…

When a vessel was empty, no-one was allowed to clean the inside of it until its killer fumes had dispersed. Brooms and water were eventually manhandled into the vessel and the walls were brushed from top to bottom. Then an acid spray was hosed around the walls and that meant suiting up in protective clothing. Clearly the acid was to kill any bacteria and germs left behind but then finally, a type of whitewash was brushed onto the walls, to make sure that every nook and cranny was immaculately clean. 

It was hard work but not as messy or menacing as cleaning out the hop-vats. I did that just once and apart from shovelling out a smelly, squelching mass of residue in a sweaty metal vat, I had to hose it all down  too and then wipe it clean. It was like mucking out a space capsule after a monkey’s hair-raising, shit-dumping mission.

I was told to take a shower immediately afterwards, then physically rest for one hour and read a newspaper… It was quite a strange set-up but I enjoyed my week there, for it was fairly relaxed for the most part with odd, sporadic rushes of activity and heavy work…

KING EDWARD'S GRAMMAR SCHOOL ASTON: THE UPPER SCHOOL YEARS...

 K.E.G.S. Aston: the later years…

As a fifth former, I know my best work was in the sports arenas. I know also that I was befriended by the wrong lads though. They were Peter Allcock and Bernard Alsop, both very intelligent lads, studying Russian but highly cynical and with my background, I found them unusual I guess. They, in turn, seemed pleased to befriend a sports person… 

BEING MADE TO POSE IN THE BACK GARDEN...

I didn’t work with any effort at all for my ‘O’ levels but passed Maths, French, German and English, collecting English Literature surprisingly easily on a retake. I failed the General Paper but I had taken an ‘A’ level history course early and thus I didn’t have to take that subject at ‘O’ level, but I amassed enough marks in the ‘A’ level exam to merit an ‘O’ level pass. Rather poor overall…

My shocking results were due to me being so immature at that time, in fact awfully lacking in life skills really and my examination preparation and learning techniques were simply not good enough. 

YOU HAVE TO IMAGINE THE GLOVES, THE PADS & REALITY...

Having decided to take up ‘A’ level studies, heavy restrictions on subject choices at Aston left me with history, French literature and English literature, as well as General Studies as a package. I didn’t even want to do the two literature courses but I was unable to take maths and biology with history, due to timetable clashes, something typical of the school at that time. I am still confident to this day that I would have passed an ‘A’ level maths examination…

I gave up on French literature, never actually attempting to read the prescribed books, which left me cold, disinterested and feeling like a total failure. I rarely worked with any interest on English literature either but of course neither of those subjects had been chosen by me, but thrust upon me because there was nothing else available. Although I was really interested in Tudor history, I couldn’t raise any enthusiasm about European history and I was clearly destined to fail that ‘A’ level. 

Names of historical characters, places and dates could be learned like French or German vocabulary but no advice was ever offered me as to how to answer examination questions in essay form, or using sources, leaving my answers superficial. 

I even took Latin for two or three sessions but soon finished with that, for I had no confidence in myself at all, whilst the other lads taking the extra subject were academics anyway and I felt like the poor relation again.  

Strangely, I passed General Studies at ‘A’ level, despite my lack of interest in current affairs, for I rarely read any further forward than the sports pages in my father’s Daily Express (I’m pleased to admit..) and the fact that my general knowledge was poor. This all sounds dreadful but after applying to Bulmershe Teacher Training College in Reading (because of an unusual bright purple prospectus and the fact that Reading had a third division soccer team) my life totally changed at my interview there, before the ‘A’ level examinations even took place. 

I wanted to learn more about PE, which had been suggested to me by my sports teacher Harry Jessop. It was quite a late decision in truth but I could see no other option really and I don’t think I had ever even thought about career possibilities. I had received no advice from school and no support from home, just my father’s five letters spoken slowly right into my face: “T.H.I.N.K.” 

Thanks, dad…

My interview was partly a gymnastics test of rolls, springs and box-work, so I showed my party-piece: a very high thief-vault, thus I was accepted on the strength of my five ‘O’ levels and my PE agility and abilities. So, for my ‘A’ levels I didn’t revise with any conviction at all and suffered ugly results because of it. 

After all of my earlier successes at school, my immaturity, the doubtful characters who became my friends and my introverted antagonism towards an old-fashioned army loving father, I felt badly isolated again and worryingly alone.  

Sport was my saviour. My scarlet football socks which I used for tucking in my cricket trousers whilst wicket-keeping, my overall decent rugby play and Dai Cole, a history teacher who liked me, kept me afloat. He used to demonstrate imaginary cricket strokes to me in class as he explained facets of Queen Elizabeth I’s reign. Odd, but true… 

6-SIDE TEAM, ME SECOND FROM LEFT...

SO SMALL, I HAD TO SIT ON A WALL...

“Left-foot down and follow through, Ray…” Some Welsh accent, was that. 

MY DREAM: BEING AN ADULT WICKETKEEPER...

So what of upper school teachers at KEGS Aston?  Well, there was ‘Puffer’ Hayden, Owen Tudor and the most marvellous of all, Dave Buttress, ‘in fact…’ 

DAVE BUTTRESS...

This was an epic and legendary man. He ‘in fact’ taught me history and ‘in fact’ English too. He was red-faced and ‘in fact’ a little shy, perhaps. He used long words, not unusual for graduate-teachers of that type but he accentuated the words and seemed to flash an embarrassed smile at the class when he bellowed them out in his inimitable style.

Once, he umpired a cricket match, at KEGS Five Ways ‘in fact’ and I swear to this day that he was responsible for my early dismissal, due to my helplessness and mental collapse after I took guard to receive the bowling. 

I walked out to bat, checked the batting crease, placed my upright bat in a central position and asked Mr Buttress for ‘centre’, as many batters did. He was supposed to line up the vertical edge of my bat, so that it was directly in front of the middle stump. I would then mark the pitch by prodding my bat and use it to take guard as a bowler ran up to bowl… 

Mr B’s reply?  

“Centre, Ray? Yes, certainly. Ummmmn, ‘in fact’ a touch to the off. No, a little to the left ‘in fact’. No! Too far, ‘in fact’… More ‘in fact’ to the leg. Ah! That appears ‘in fact’ to be centre. Yes, that’s it, ‘in fact’, Ray!”  

I almost broke up completely. I was ‘out’ a couple of balls later…

‘In fact’ was his catch-phrase and my history class made the Birmingham Post newspaper, when it was discovered by a journalist parent that we were betting on the number of times Mr B would say those two little words in any one lesson… Well, £3 was worth winning and we were all quite superb at tallying, ‘in fact’.

I met him years later at a West Bromwich Albion game and also when I taught Local History to King Edward’s High School  in Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery and there he was, in fact… He brought a group of fifteen or sixteen boys each Friday for about six consecutive weeks for me to teach. What a complete ‘character’ this guy was for me, the stuff school memories are made from. 

Puffer Hayden…

‘Puffer’ Hayden was an eccentric cyclist and English teacher, who looked like a wild scientist. His cheeks puffing out as he cycled to and from school earned him his nickname. The typical, well-scripted, badly dressed schoolmaster was modelled upon this man of no dress sense, colour co-ordination or neatness. He was oblivious to all about him and merely waxed lyrical as he managed the cross-country team. No coaching was actually needed however… Good job if you can get it, Puffer!  

What a difference Puffer was to Harry Tyson. I met him at a Villa game when I was teaching at the Museum and although he had mellowed, that investigative frown and pervading fear was still evident…

Yes, life with teachers at K.E.G.S. Aston was perhaps not quite as normal as at many other state schools.

ME, SEATED, FAR LEFT, NEXT TO S.P. SMITH WHO HAD FORGOTTEN HIS KIT...

THAT YEAR 9 IMAGE WHICH SMITH & I WERE TOLD OFF ABOUT.
YOU CAN SEE THE GRASS MARKS ON MY TROUSERS, BACK ROW, FAR LEFT, A RESULT OF PLAYING ON THE PREVIOUS SATURDAY & BOARDING AT LONGDON HALL AT THE TIME, SO THE 'WHITES' HADN'T BEEN WASHED...
SMITH IS TWO AWAY FROM ME & HIS TROUSERS MUST HAVE BEEN LEFT AT HIS MUM'S...

ME ON THE EDGE OF THINGS AGAIN...

ON THE EDGE BUT SEATED FAR RIGHT...

ONCE AGAIN, BACK ROW, FAR LEFT & WEARING MY COUSIN STEVE'S OLD CRICKET TROUSERS...

Quirks in upper school…

At the Aston Park end of Albert/Frederick Roads there was once a small local shop where we discovered one day that freshly baked loaves were delivered to. I recall Pete Alcock and I buying one and gobbling it in class when really we ought to have been listening/working. It shows how teaching was in those days though, for the master had no inkling about this rather sneaky snack.

Tall, pleasant rugby player Gordon Brown had become head boy of the school and one of the jobs he had to do was to read out notices, sports scores and the like during assemblies. However, in sketches rather like in Monty Python’s ‘Life Of Brian’, due to Brown’s slight speech impediment, the 6th formers who gave Gordon a list of their featured artists for Music Club each week, would make sure there were plenty of letter Rs in the names of the groups, making life rather awkward for Brown. However, he battled through Tyrannosaurus Rex, Rolling Stones, etc, although certain chaps at the back of the school hall could clearly be heard sniggering…

SEATED ON THE GROUND...

I was a Prefect for a time but as the months wore on, my only real interests were rugby and cricket… Despite the harsh but true comments by teachers about my immature writing, I had begun to write reports of professional football matches I had attended. Those were certainly written with thought and some insight, suggesting that my writing wasn’t quite so awful after all. It was the boring subject matter I was forced to write about  which caused my downfall, although in truth, I was badly let down by the style of teaching at that time…

I have written poetry and articles with some success since I was 18 years old…

No lunchtime snow fights or sledging down the Aston Park slopes towards Villa Park had been allowed for some years because one boy had broken an arm tobogganing one day when I was in Year 7 or Year 8. Once again, some laddish fun had been banned for everyone because of just one accident… 

Having heard somewhere that a small tipple of some types of alcohol might offer sportspersons some added impetus, on cold Saturday mornings after Christmas I would take a small glass of port or sherry from mum’s pantry, before leaving to catch buses to rugby matches. My father bought one bottle of each, annually, ready for our Boxing Day party for the extended family…

The Vine…

This pub was situated on the main Lichfield Road, just a short walk from the school and as 6th formers, two or three of us popped in for a quick drink a few times during lunchtimes.

LUNCH-TIME ABODE...

The staff there were not bothered at all and only one or two locals sat in the lounge anyway. What I recall most of all was the juke box there which contained ‘I Gotta Be Me’ by Sammy Davis Junior, which I came to really like and I shoved my cash into the machine each time we visited to play the song.

THE VINE'S LAST DAYS...

I reckon the title was a hint for me… 

Final words…

I am far from proud of my experiences in Aston’s  upper school, except that my sporting achievements were perhaps fairly memorable.

I hated that I was unable to play football though, for I am certain that I could have played at non-league level, being two-footed, quick, a fairly accurate passer of a ball and my tackling was generally well timed. The school was rugby biased however, with no soccer available and there was never even an opening for me to play football on Sundays, for I was isolated in Shard End and my father, rather surprisingly, made no effort to link me up with a team.

I was told years later by my father though that the school would have liked me to have attended Warwickshire Cricket Club for coaching as a wicket-keeper but that he had replied that my batting would not have been good enough. Thanks for that… The relevant word here was ‘coaching’… I guess that he was not keen on getting me to and from Edgbaston to attend the course…

I was unaware of the above at the time…

MY 'COLOURS'...

THE ABOVE SNIPPETS ARE FROM SCHOOL MAGAZINES...

My favourite thing? A cricketing catching cradle… Made like the frame of a small boat, it was crafted for catching practice. One stood some way back from it and threw a cricket ball to bounce off it and because of the elongated concave shape, formed of lengths of curved wood, the ball flew off at curious angles, meaning that when I had to catch the ball from the person I was using the cradle with, I ended up diving about, one of my favourite occupations.

A TYPICAL CATCHING CRADLE...

In a games lesson once, I was keeping wicket and a batsman edged and sliced the ball upwards and over my head but instinctively I threw myself at the ball with left hand uppermost and finished off having turned my body completely over and I  hit the ground with some confused difficulty upon my feet, in a rather untidy landing. A back somersault then. And I caught the ball… 

I was never forward, I never pushed myself and of course, that has been one of the main downfalls throughout my life. 

In my case, things never did come to he who waited…

Fact to recount? The science teacher in Year 7 was rabbiting on with little skill in the communication stakes but suddenly spouted: “And yes, Persil really does wash whiter…”

We stared blankly at him. I recall nothing else he mumbled at us for a whole year, except being told to memorise the periodic tables for tests. Most enlightening…

My mum was singularly unimpressed when I told her…

So, it was to Reading that I headed for a teacher training course…