My dad was a plumber, my great uncle George Henry was a plumber, so was my grandfather so it was in the family but still I was not expected to be plumber. But this was after the Great War, men in my family and many others were killed in the war, My Uncle Len was killed, my dad came back with shell shock and could not work for twelve years. It was the family business, at first I did a little bit with my dad helping me. He said “Come on Hilda you can do it.” My dad could not hold a wrench what with the shaking hands but he could tell me what to do. Sir, I found I had a natural facility for it, I did not mind the muck and all the dirt, I cleared things up and got the water running, I felt good! Then my Dad’s friend Mr. Percival Quinton at the Constitutional Club needed a plumber to fix a clogged drain at his business, nobody could come except me.
With a blocked drain you need to use a mechanical snake to go down the pipe until it was at the place where it was blocked. It is hard work but I persevered. I was determined to clear that pipe. I was in dirty cold water up to my ankles wrestling with that snake as it writhed in the water threshing it as I tried to control it and direct it down. Mr Percival said, “Who cleared that?” I said, “I did.”
He said, “Who helped you?” I said, “I did it alone.”
He was gobsmacked.
What do you think on that Sir?
I believe I was the only woman employed as a plumber south of the river. I am on my own now as a plumber. I finally got my license.
I was reading in the paper the other day that when they did the census the year before last there were only 28 woman plumbers in the whole of England. Lady plumbers the paper said.
I was called out to a three storey tenement in Bethnal Green by the wife. This was before all the redevelopment – slum clearance they called it in the Sixties. The wife ,Mrs Weitzman, I think she was a Jewish lady, said the lavatory was not flushing. It was one of the old style cisterns – cast-iron mounted high up a foot or so from the ceiling. To flush you pulled the chain moving the lever which raised the piston and evacuated the cistern of all the water. It pours down into the bowl in a sudden flush.
With difficulty I lifted the heavy cast iron lid of the cistern and peered in. There was a thick manilla packet wedged against the piston. I looked inside it was stuffed with folded five and ten pound notes. I counted them. There was over six hundred pounds. I thought as I gazed at the notes in my hand of the things I could get for myself and daughter Abruptly I took the envelope into the living room and showed it to Missus Weitzman.
She did not appear surprised. “Ah this must be Mister Weitzman’s. He likes to gamble but I don’t allow it. “ And she pulled the wad of notes from the manila envelope and fanned them out on the cotton tablecloth. She touched the notes tentatively at first, then with more confidence she picked up a note and looked at it, a brown ten pound note engraved with a profile of the King etched on the crisp paper. She selected another note, this one limp and creased. She pulled three notes out, two tenners and a fiver, she carefully selected them as if she was picking playing cards offered by a magician at the music hall. With a flourish she handed me the notes. “This is for you, a bit extra.”
But it wasn’t. It did not even cover my time or materials. “Don’t tell Abe.” She said. He played Clobyosh.
Last year a young man asked me, "Aren't you afraid of getting typhoid or hepatitis from putting your hands in there?" Pointing to a toilet with murky dirty water. I thought We’ve got a right one here. I like to wind them up especially the young men, I took a lot of stick from them in my early days as an apprentice. So I said, " What you’ve got to watch for is rat’s piss. A drop of that and you can get lepto something spirosis and you’re a goner." He grimaced and I saw the fear in the whites of his round eyes.
Now I am going to speak in a frank way, I’m not trying to be rude but just explain how it is. I like plumbing because you relate to people in a straightforward way you see their shit, and smell it whether they are rich and educated and work in the city or work in the docks. Everyone has to go to the toilet it’s all the same stuff that comes out.
© Keith David Cooley 2008
