My dear old Mum, bless her, was clearing out her attic the other day and found a number of suitcases that she claims belong to me. Among them was one bag of photographs that she brought along with her on a recent visit to my house. I usually can't stand looking at old photographs (it reminds me that I used to have hair, but no longer, boo-hoo). I opened the first packet of photos (we used to send our 'films' away to a 'laboratory' to have them 'printed' onto 'paper' and then put them into 'packets' - can you imagine that? How quaint and pre-digital.) The first photo I saw was one taken on my first visit to a cement plant, in March 1990, at the Pretoria Portland Cement Company's plant at Slurry, South Africa. The photo is seen at the right, with me standing under the rather impressive and relatively new-looking satellite coolers. It made me think that I've been in the cement industry for a lot longer than I had thought - 21 years now. Gosh, I must be old.
During the same visit of my mother, my father and I took a long-planned trip to the area that he grew up in, in Rainham and Gillingham, in north Kent, UK. While we were there, he told me that he was nearly killed when swimming near a cement plant tidal lagoon. He was sucked into a pipe, had his skin scraped off by the barnacles in the pipe and spat out at the other end (but only just - there was a sheet of corrugated iron at the end of the pipe that happened to be partly open at the time - otherwise he would have been drowned). He also told me that he and his sister would climb a 40m ladder inside a disused cement silo at the works, to sunbathe at the top and admire the views of the Medway estuary. He mentioned that it was quite a frightening thing to do, but worth it for the view at the top. If you are interested, you can see an entertaining video of the trip by Googling YouTube, McCaffrey and Rainham.
These things tell me a few things. Firstly, the attitude towards safety at cement plants (at least in the UK) has totally changed. When he was a child (and we are talking about nearly 70 years ago, just around WWII), he was allowed to climb over the disused cement plant with impunity. Nowadays, the whole place would be fenced off like a prison - to keep kids out - and the cement plants would be fearful of prosecution for failing to comply with health and safety laws. In the 1930s, they were free to play where they wanted, but they might have been killed.
Secondly, it tells me that my family is a bit more 'cementy' than I had thought. The happiest days of my father's childhood were spent practically swimming in cement, clambering around a disused cement plant and digging bullets out of the chalk face of a cement plant quarry after the local Home Guard unit had used it as a back-stop for their target practice.
In the UK we've recently had to fill out our Census, and along with the photo and the trip with my Dad, this got me to thinking about my roots and who I am. Here's an interesting exercise: Write down on a piece of paper the things that define you. I've done it for me just below (but don't stop at 5 - there may well be more things that define you!)
- I am male;
- I'm English;
- A father;
- A 'cementoid;'
- A runner.
A couple of these are unarguable and a couple more debatable. I am male, for sure: I looked. Even though I was conceived in Aden (part of Yemen) and I'm a quarter Irish, having been born and brought up in England, I feel as though I am English. I am a father - I can see myself in the features of my children.
My father breathed in cement dust as a youth - it's practically in his veins. I've edited Global Cement and its forerunners for 15 years and before that I was the editor of another 'cement' magazine. I've visited over 100 cement plants in numerous countries, and been to countless cement conferences and exhibitions. I run twice a week, have run nine marathons, I organise running races, I can run: I am a runner.
My point this month (finally) is to ask you how much of what you are you can strip away and still be you? What if I damaged my achilles tendon and could no longer run? What if - somehow - I no longer edited the magazine and didn't do 'cementy' things?
With many people in the industry losing their jobs due to the recession, the 'cementoid' part of their being may have been stripped out at the moment. But you can still take part in the industry - just keep up with the news on-line - talk to your buddies and keep in touch. Who knows when opportunity will come knocking again. And as they say in Spain - "When they bring you the donkey, be ready with the rope."