Back in 1970 when I was 15, my school's Careers Teacher arranged a week's 'work experience' at local establishments for boys in my year. I'd always had artistic talent and so it was deemed a week spent in the draughtsman's office at the huge Vickers plant in Newcastle, where they built tanks and other military hardware, would be my lot. At school back in those days, fashion dictated you were lumped into one of two categories - either 'skinhead' or 'hairy' - and I was most definitely the latter. In fact it was not until a few years later, two months after my 19th birthday - when my taste in music and nightclubs veered from heavy rock to funky disco - that I eventually consented to having my hair tidily sheared at the barbers. (Met Jen two weeks after that haircut and I can say for sure she wouldn't have looked twice at me with foot-long locks!). Anyhow, I digress...back to the Vickers episode.
Full of enthusiasm, I turned up to the drawing office at Vickers bright and early and was greeted by the HR manager who took one look at me and immediately said I would need to have my long hair cut short before I could even think about frequenting the premises, never mind starting work. Yeah, well, 15 or not, I told him that was NEVER going to happen. And I stood my ground, arguing what difference long hair made to anyone's ability in a drawing office?! He explained that part of my experience would be a tour of the machine shop floor - where the hazards were many and lethal. And to help illustrate just how lethal, he whipped out a photo album and proceeded to show me photos of severely injured victims whose long hair had become entangled in machinery with predictably gruesome outcomes - some fatal. I've never forgotten every one of those ultra-graphic photos he insisted I take a good look at - especially the one showing a guy's face ripped clean off - but the fact is, even such a shocking thing to inflict on a schoolboy was still never going to result in me getting my hair cut just for the sake of a week's work experience. Back in those days, a high percentage of grown adult men grew long hair, so I volunteered to wear a hair net - just like many of the machine shop crew who I'd seen in their hundreds manning Vickers machinery - but Mr HR insisted nothing short of a haircut would suffice. Sooo.... we parted ways and I ended up spending a week playing football in a local park with some pals who'd left school and every day at tea time when I returned home I told my parents a pack of lies about what I did that day at Vickers. I even believed I'd go to my grave with long hair - but fashions change with the times. Now I look back at photos of those days and wonder what the **** I was thinking, lol.
Full of enthusiasm, I turned up to the drawing office at Vickers bright and early and was greeted by the HR manager who took one look at me and immediately said I would need to have my long hair cut short before I could even think about frequenting the premises, never mind starting work. Yeah, well, 15 or not, I told him that was NEVER going to happen. And I stood my ground, arguing what difference long hair made to anyone's ability in a drawing office?! He explained that part of my experience would be a tour of the machine shop floor - where the hazards were many and lethal. And to help illustrate just how lethal, he whipped out a photo album and proceeded to show me photos of severely injured victims whose long hair had become entangled in machinery with predictably gruesome outcomes - some fatal. I've never forgotten every one of those ultra-graphic photos he insisted I take a good look at - especially the one showing a guy's face ripped clean off - but the fact is, even such a shocking thing to inflict on a schoolboy was still never going to result in me getting my hair cut just for the sake of a week's work experience. Back in those days, a high percentage of grown adult men grew long hair, so I volunteered to wear a hair net - just like many of the machine shop crew who I'd seen in their hundreds manning Vickers machinery - but Mr HR insisted nothing short of a haircut would suffice. Sooo.... we parted ways and I ended up spending a week playing football in a local park with some pals who'd left school and every day at tea time when I returned home I told my parents a pack of lies about what I did that day at Vickers. I even believed I'd go to my grave with long hair - but fashions change with the times. Now I look back at photos of those days and wonder what the **** I was thinking, lol.
