Dark Matter...
A Drain On Society?
Life as a Security Officer at “The Cenner” was, to say the least, colourful.
As you may imagine, shop theft and brawls were frequent and attempted break-ins on external retail units littered themselves across the nightshifts.
Coming off day shifts generally meant dropping into the Shopping Centres built in pub “The Fordyke” where we would often see known thieves plying their wares to customers. The traded items, back then, were swathes of bacon and slabs of butter, deftly transacted from within a coat lining to the cash buyer. These items, once sold, gave the criminals their “housekeeping money”…well mostly either alcohol or drug money.
The money was better than the news trade but even with a structured shift pattern, it starts to wear on you.
As it happened I became well-liked by the Centre Manager. I think part of this came from my positive interaction with the team, the retailers and the security dogs. The Centre Manager loved the dogs and had one of them as a family pet, Shane…Shane had retired from security work and resided in the Centre Manager’s living quarters.
Shane was an awesome animal, well-trained, apparently an ex-police dog, and seemed to understand humans really well. There were times when I was asked to take him for the odd night on patrol, to give him some extra exercise. Patrols with Shane were quite different from the other dogs we had. Shane could more or less do the patrol unguided, he was fully aware and did not need a leash on (I know you wouldn’t be able to do that today of course).
The relationship between myself, the Centre Manager and Shane grew pretty tight over a 2 year time span and it just so happened that a vacancy for the position as Northpoint Shopping Centre Caretaker came up…
OK, so not a glamourous job but the money was a little more than being a Security Officer and the work was primarily days.
I had mentioned to one or two people that I was interested in the position and quite soon after unleashing “rumour control” (gossip), Ron, the Centre Manager called me to the office. After a very short chat about the caretaker job, Ron told me I was successful and that I would be meeting my team within the week.
Meeting “The Team” was interesting, most of whom I knew from working in the malls anyway, but the sudden realisation was that the people working for me were nearly all, apart from the assistant caretaker and pensioners. Being in my very early twenties this seemed like it may be a challenge for them and very possibly me also.
However, the team were great, they knew their jobs and needed very little direction or coersion when extra hours were available. My Assistant Caretaker, Bill, ex-military, much like most of the team, was rock solid and we worked well together.
Keeping in mind he had actually applied for the job I got and had been turned down, I had “that conversation” with him, about how he felt that someone with virtually no experience and several decades less life experience was now in charge. He told me that he had a lot of experience, whilst in the Forces, of young upstarts (lol) leap-frogging promotional status and actually he only wanted a quiet life and was just 2 years from full retirement.
The job was, well, a “dirty job but someone has got to do it”: sweeping the malls constantly, cleaning the pub toilets and assisting retailers with deliveries, the latter being more preferential but some of the team had mobility issues…so hey, I did most of the delivery help lol.
Now, talking of “dirty jobs”, one incident comes to mind and always makes me smile, even this many decades on.
The shopping centre had its own drainage system and with lots of different traders using the services, we had to address plumbing situations quite often.
One of the main sewage outlets was accessible from behind the “Telstar Club” (yes disco and bingo heaven on tap!), and had a tendency to get blocked.
So, we got a call from one of the retailers, a shoe shop that had one of the upper-level storage and staff areas, that overlooked the back of “Telstar” and their drains were one of the many that converged into this manhole cover area.
Bill and I went to investigate and found the drain absolutely brimming with…well…yes. Talking to the staff of the shoe shop, we noted that the toilets had backed up and were no longer usable.
Swift action was required…but quick resolves on drainage aren’t always something you get.
Arming ourselves with masses of drain rods and the high-pressure hose, we set about the task.
For more than an hour, we poked and prodded the “plug”, and jetted gallons of water into it to try and get at least some movement…it wasn’t giving up. And then, Ron, the Centre Manager turned up to see how we were getting on.
Ron was a wiry bespectacled guy in his late 60s, always suited and booted and with a cigarette almost permanently stuck to his bottom lip.
Standing over us whilst we toiled to no avail for a further 20 minutes was getting him frustrated. With 2 more cigarettes ingested, he decided he could do better…
“Give me the rod, I am going in!”
We looked him up and down and knew this was a bad idea.
“Ron, perhaps just leave it with us, you ain’t really dressed for the occasion”
“Nonsense, I can stand across the gully and rod it…it’ll be fine”.
Lighting yet another cigarette (oh I meant to mention, in those days smoking just about anywhere was commonplace), he dropped down the manhole, positioning his feet, encased in highly polished shoes, on either side of the gully, the plug of sewage facing him.
“Rod’s!” he shouted, we duly passed them down.
“Get ready to get out quick, Ron, we have been working on it for quite a while” we advised.
“It’ll be fine…I’ll just give it a nudge…” and nudge it he did!
In a split second, from him pushing the rods into the mass of sewage, we heard a deep rumbling gurgle…
“Ron! Get out quickly!…”
Too late, the sewage had released and the downhill force made an upsurge in the gully immediately covering his super shiny shoes and as he tried to grapple his way out a tsunami of sewage sploshed over him…oops!
Once out, he stood there, dripping and stinking, his cigarette now a soggy patch on his jacket lapel.
“There, that seems to have done it!” at this point, he strode off towards his accommodation without another word being said, us biting our lips and trying not to laugh.
Turned out the blockage emanated from a misuse of the toilets…sanitary towels discarded by the staff…the evidence was all over Ron’s back…urgh!
Besides episodes like this, life was good, and there were plenty of opportunities to add some extra money to the coffers by booking in a Sunday morning when the centre was closed, “deep clean” of the malls and the doorway mats. Also, we had a guy, Tom, who did the teratso floor polishing once or twice a month which meant a couple of added evening hours here and there.
So, whilst all was good, I still felt I had another “calling”…
What next?
“The Half-Corona Cigar Period” perhaps…
Until Next Time
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