My previous post is nothing to do with your question which I hadn't seen when I posted. It was a follow on to Macs about working for the gas board.

Quote from: Mups on June 03, 2026, 10:08:39 PMKlondike,  what are those two peculiar nudes on top of those bent posts for?   

No idea really. I imagine some council bloke wangled them as works of art and trousered a few bob when they were paid for.  There's a number of rather odd artworks around the town that make no sense to me but I'm just a philistine.

Yes, all that is understandable,  but why nudes on 2 sticks?   Is that supposed to represent something?

Soon be another week done
Anything exciting have you done?
Has anybody braved the rain?
I didn't want a soaking again

The old buildings that the local gas works used as offices and maybe works still stand empty on the outskirts of the town centre. Across the road from those was a gasometer which I think was still used after the conversation to natural gas but was demolished at least a decade ago.

That site along with some houses that were compulsory purchased and demolished is still unused behind hoardings which have had a number of different development schemes advertised on them. None of the projects progressed beyond the planning stages. At one time they were covered in graffiti and I posted pictures here of that. Each new project leads to the hoardings being repainted and optimistic pictures of what is planned shown. Right now the graffiti is again accumulating.

Soon be another week done
Anything exciting have you done?

Klondike,  what are those two peculiar nudes on top of those bent posts for?   

Quote from: GrannyMac on June 03, 2026, 08:27:30 PM£749 is the Average wage, not the minimum. 

I started work as a clerk in the Corporation offices after a year at Commercial college when I was 16 in 1962.  My pay was £16 a month.  After I was married in 1967, I became a wages clerk, in a Remploy factory.  We paid the employees weekly, in cash.  I worked out the overtime payments, deducted tax and NI, then calculated notes and coinage needed, and went to the bank, on my own, to collect it. It was put in envelopes and I would pay out on the factory floor.  I really liked that job, I only left to have my first child. No maternity leave back then.

Ah yes,  you are quite right,  sorry.  

Quote from: GrannyMac on June 03, 2026, 07:56:07 PMEven with both parents working they should parent. I worked from my kids being quite young, fortunate when OH had a heart attack and I had to support us both! Our kids grew up with a work ethic.  Daughter and daughter in law both had careers, the older grandchildren both have part time jobs, never been in any trouble.  I don't think the offspring of hard working parents will be the prime culprits,  I think there have always been feckless parents, you're right, phones haven't helped.

Children are starting school in nappies, they don't know what cutlery 🍴 is for, they've never looked at a book.  📖 

Yes,  I have read that too, Granny.    Hard to imagine isn't it.   

Quote from: Mups on June 02, 2026, 09:48:46 AMYes, I thought that wage seemed high too. 

I Just looked it up, and the minimum wage for 2026 for over 21's  is now  £12.71 apparently,  so that would work out  around £508 for a 40hr week.    So don't know where they get the £749 from.

£749 is the Average wage, not the minimum. 

I started work as a clerk in the Corporation offices after a year at Commercial college when I was 16 in 1962.  My pay was £16 a month.  After I was married in 1967, I became a wages clerk, in a Remploy factory.  We paid the employees weekly, in cash.  I worked out the overtime payments, deducted tax and NI, then calculated notes and coinage needed, and went to the bank, on my own, to collect it. It was put in envelopes and I would pay out on the factory floor.  I really liked that job, I only left to have my first child. No maternity leave back then.

The old gas offices where I worked are now an Amazon depot.  One of my colleagues got a transfer from the Northampton branch when her husband got a job up here.  British Gas East Midlands as it was before privatisation nearly forty years ago!