Over the years my father normally had two apprentices working alongside him. When I started in the shipyard I would walk over to the Spar shed to join him for lunch. Noticing that one apprentice was missing I asked where he was. What followed was another sorry tale of this inept lad. At this time there were no hard hats & the majority of the workforce wore as standard a cloth bunnet, a flat cap. He had turned up for work that morning with a brand new cap, of which he was really proud. Off he went to work onboard one of the ships being built. At the morning tea break he returned cursing that a painter working above him had splattered his new cap with paint. He got some naptha & started to rub it into the paint to try & remove it. Now naptha is a very flammable liquid & as his cap was very wet & the tea break was almost over he decided to hold it against the two bar electric fire to dry it off. It burst into flames & in a panic he dropped it into a bucket of cold water. No sinks in the Spar shed, just a bucket of water to wash your hands in. The cap floated on top of the water, burning merrily. He then thrust his foot into the bucket to try & push the cap further into the water. His foot became stuck & the flames shot up his trouser leg, burning his leg very badly. So off he went to Hospital for treatment. The cap was beyond help.
Another of his mishaps resulted in a broken leg. Whilst working onboard a ship alongside my father a foreman approached them & noticing several large holes had been cut into the decking told him to make some wooden covers to place over the holes as a safety measure. This he did & made a very good job of them. At the end of the night the foreman returned to check that the job had been done. He was very impressed. On asking if they would take the weight of someone standing on them, the apprentice duly jumped on one to let him see that they were. He crashed right through it & landed in a heap several feet below. Result, one broken leg ! Do you think my father may have been a jinx ?
