Diss Family History Group

When I was 15 I started work as an apprentice in the painting and decorating trade with a Diss firm called A. A. Hales. To start with I still did my paper round in the morning, though my wages were £2 a week for 56 hours work. We started at 8 o’clock in the morning wherever we were working – in Diss or in the countryside -nine hours a day and five hours on Saturday morning, rain or sunshine. Our workshops were down the side of Larter & Fords in Easto’s Yard, behind the fish shop. We had a paint shop, wood workshop and glass store. They taught me painting, wallpaper hanging, wood staining and gilding with gold leaf. I learned my work quickly and by the time I was 18 I could do most of the jobs and I was asked if I wished to learn woodwork which I did with L. Stolberge. He was very good. He could do jobs in painting, paperhanging and woodwork. We also did work with plumbing and learned to use copper pipe. What we did was all the best work for the firm specially in large country houses where sometimes a room would take a month.

In the workshop on Victoria Road, where 121 Computers is now, we made and repaired windows, doors, made cabinets, and also fitted out shops before they opened for business. We made them in the workshop then they were taken by van to the shop where we fitted them in place.. Mr Stolberge and I did all the best top quality decorating work for the firm and did decorating in some big houses in the area with special wallpaper.

In those days we went everywhere on bikes, morning and night. Sometimes when I was an apprentice, a plumber used to put in central heating in a house for the firm of Hales and I would go and help taking up floorboards to put pipes under. I learnt a lot from him about plumbing, sometimes not getting home until one in the morning, then had to go to work again at 8 a.m. next morning, but I got paid for it. He used to tell my boss how many hours I did “extra pay”.

The council opened the swimming pool when I was a teenager, so I went along and learned to swim. When I had finished work some evenings in summer I used to swim for about an hour then go for a ten-mile cycle ride to keep me fit. Before I left school I joined the Youth Club in the Church Hall at the bottom of Mere Street, where I played cards, learnt to play chess and ballroom dancing with proper instruction. Later on a gang of us, boys and girls, cycled to dances in local village halls, Diss Corn Hall and the King’s Head dance hall. We had great fun together but kept out of trouble.

I did 7 years as an apprentice and left the firm in 1960 to work for a firm which built houses and bungalows from ground upwards to learn how to build a property and learn more about woodwork (to put roofs on). This firm built houses and bungalows complete. One partner in the company, who was a bricklayer by trade, taught me how to set out ground for the footings to start a building, the other partner was a carpenter and taught me how to build the roof work and all other woodwork jobs in completing the property. I learnt a great deal about the trade with this firm.

After about two years the partnership broke up but I stayed working with the carpenter for 10 years. I worked with him building roofs on properties and other woodwork jobs, e.g. new kitchens for people. Sometimes I went with a bricklayer Albert to put a bathroom and sewage system into a cottage in the countryside. We did all the work between us, and it took about a week’s work. Sometimes this included a back boiler fire to heat the water. This made life better for those living there. Later I was given the responsibility of looking after modernising council houses for Suffolk Council. There would be a team of about 5 or 6 people of different trades . I was given the job of looking after the job from start to finish and a profit on the price of work when completed.

Things changed in the building trade and some of the work was given out to self-employed people but this sometimes did not work out well. Also my boss took on another partner which I could see was going wrong. So I packed the building trade up and went to work for Omar Homes, a new business in Diss.

I stayed in the building trade until 1970. I got fed up with the contract labour working in the building trade and left the business to work in mobile home firm Omar Mobile Homes, where I worked for nearly 29 ½ years. I had a very good job, nearly all the time as manager or supervisor and left in 1970 with redundancy payment. Omar Homes closed and a supermarket was built on the site. I went on government courses on how to start my own business. For this I was given a payment of £34 per week. After five months rest I started my own business until I retired when I was 76 years old. In the building trade I did painting and decorating, woodwork and some plumbing, fitting kitchen and bedroom units, plus electrics. My first job was to make a large patio and build a six foott wall in someone’s back garden. It was a good start. I worked mostly by myself but sometimes with other tradesmen.

When I was an apprentice, every job was done by hand, cleaning down to decorate, sanding to smooth for repaint, all high work was using ladders and boards on trestles. As I was not scared of heights I was always sent up high on ladders to work on gutters and facia boards on properties. I was also taught how to cut glass by the boss, who gave me a special cutter and told me to take care of it and let nobody else use it. We used to cut up a lot of glass sheets which were 6ft x 4 ft and size 1/8th to ¼” thick. The glass loft was upstairs in the workshop so all deliveries had to be passed up through some double doors by hand (not easy). I never recall breaking one, we had to wear gloves so the edge did not cut our hands.

During the 1960s electric tools started to appear, drills to use by hand, mortice cutters, planers and routers for mouldings, woodwork became a bit easier and also fixing items using screws and drilling. Today we have electric tools for all sorts of jobs.

When working to learn woodwork we made new doors, new windows, cupboards and I once made a new sash window. One of the jobs made in the workshop was a new rood screen for Gissing church in English oak. Mr Stromberg made all mouldings and we cut all joints by hand. It is still there today. I do not know how much it cost. One other job we did was go and work for Mr Boggis who made and rebuilt organs in churches in his workshop. Our work was to stain and varnish the wood panels to make them look like oak. It was nice work.

My own business went very well. It started in March 1999 and I was 75 years old when it was closed on the advice of the accountant. I had plenty of work and at times as much as 18 months work waiting to be carried out. There were two bakeries which I did work for, cleaning and keeping up to standard. I also did work for S.N.D.C. in house maintenance and decorating and for a hotel in Diss as well as many private properties. I never had to look for work or advertise; it was the principles on which I did my work that gave me this.

Because I had a good business I had an accountancy firm do my books once a year to pay my taxes. I did not finish the business until I was about 75 years old but after 65 years old gradually ran it down, then retired properly. I have had a good life in the building trade also the benefits of good health. In my work I always tried to do a good job and working for myself charging a reasonable price for my work. This reputation followed me all my life.