The path to everywhere.

THE PATH TO EVERYWHERE

“There’s a fu**ing call for you Harris in the office and don’t think your getting a fu**ing lift from me. It’s your faither and says you’ve to phone him urgently”. Watty's voice boomed out of the window of his transit van. He punctuated all his mutterings with expletives but as the gaffer he got away with.

It was 1984, I had ended my PhD studies at  and returned home. I needed to find a job until I decided where my life would go next and finding a job Scotland at the time was not easy. I had applied for a job in the Civil Service but had heard nothing so, out of desperation, I took a job with the Manpower Services Commission (MSC) to do labouring on a path in Bonnybridge being built to  accommodate a new bonded warehouse .

My immediate gaffer was Mick. A small pleasant quiet man who walked with a limp. His boss was the “Cursing Watty” as he was known.

My colleagues were a motley crew of about 15 individuals. Including paroled thieves,  unemployed miners, redundant foundry workers and a few unemployed former students like me.

The work involved a daily slog of digging ditches, building fences and laying tons of stone,  carried along in our wheelbarrows. We were often caked in mud as much of the path crossed a very wet piece of bog land.

 Breaks were taken in the “howf” which was a wooden hut with no windows or heating. In  there, the smell of 15 sweaty male bodies emitting vast amounts of bodily methane, was  insufferable. All in all the working conditions were intolerable. These were the happiest days of my working life.

The humour and banter was fantastic. When work was rained off there would be dumper truck Grand Prix in a nearby field. Wheelbarrow racing was another rainy-day pursuit. Banter was funny but never cruel. Bets would be made on 2 flies crawling up a wall.

 Having been used to sitting about in University libraries, working outdoors in the sun and breeze was idyllic.

 Lunchtime was a “piece” with cheese and tomato which I usually ate with my pal John,sitting in the sun outside the howf.

Mimicking Watty and Mick and various celebrities such as Margaret Thatcher, Pope John Paul 2 and Ian Paisley was hilarious. It was like working in a comedy club.

I should not give the impression that building the path was not taken seriously. It was here that I learned about team building. Mick was a master at this. Experienced men were put with newbies, lazy guys with more energetic sorts and hotheads with more sober characters. Within the team competition was encouraged e.g. who could erect the most fence posts in a week. Competition against another nearby MSC team added to the “esprit de corps”. I learnt so much about men, the good, the bad and the bolshie and which served me well throughout my working and managerial life and life generally.

And so it was as I ran to the office to take the call from my father. I feared news of an unexpected death.

“What is it?” I said on the phone then held my breath.

“ The Civil Service phoned. You’ve got the job but you need to start this Friday. They need to know by 11 tomorrow morning if you still want the job”.

I was stunned almost as if in fact there has been a death. Instead of being elated at finding a job that would give me a career  commensurate with my long and expensive education, I was almost in tears. I loved my new world; a heady mix of Swallows and Amazons, Alice in Wonderland and Auf Weidersehn Pet . Now I would  have to forsake it and return to the regimented tyranny of the office and the group-speak of the humourless.

“I wouldn’t go” I convinced myself as I walked home. I spoke to my father who felt that it was my life and only I could decide.

 I left home at 6am next day. My father had agreed to phone the Civil Service and tell them I wasn’t interested.

I went to the end of the road and waited for  Watty to pick me up. I sat quietly in the van, my carefree self still having a huge row with my more sensible self.

“Watty” I said eventually. “I need to nip back to my house – I’ve forgotten my piece”.

After a few prime expletives he turned the van around. Once home, I went in and said my father:

“Just tell the Civil Service I'll be there on Friday”, before running out and jumping in the van for the last time.

And so that was that, my career as a  labourer ended and never returned.

After many years as in the Civil Service  my job required me to regularly visit  bonded warehouses including Bonnybridge. I always remembered those happy days of 1984  as I sat outside the bond eating my piece. The path was still there and I always took a walk along it.  The surface was pitted and some of the fence posts had collapsed. Once, I almost bumped in to a man who was trying to straighten up one of the fence posts. We stared at each other then I suddenly realised it was Mick. He had greyed and gone a bit thinner on top but otherwise looked remarkably much the same as the last time I saw him.

We spoke for ages about our lives over the last 30 years. He told me about my workmates. Several had ended up in jail as expected.  John had become a mobile library van driver. Others worked on  building sites. One student had become a dentist, another a vet.

As we parted Mick said :

“Aye this surely was the path to nowhere”

I replied “Mick, this was the path to everywhere”.

Brian D. Harris

February2025