What did you do today?

[paulplom]

I walked past a wanker balancing on the top of a 3 section ladder yesterday painting the gutters and facias of his 3 storey house. His young daughter was footing it. I'm up a ladder regular but that looked dangerous as fuck.

[brandersnatch]

I’m not worried by heights at all but I’m shaking like a shitting dog if I’ve got to climb a ladder. Bloody hateful things.

[LynehamHerc]

I'm similar.
I've flown gliders with open cockpits many years ago but ladders are a complete no no unless I absolutely have to. It's not helped by my sons feeling the same about ladders so I can't bribe them to go up them.

[mercrocker]

I gave up the prospect of a great job once because of ladders.....Not the proppy-up type although they're bad enough. Ship's agent - working at the jetties at the oil refinery. I was already working for the company elsewhere but this gig came up and I fancied it so did some training on off days. All went well until we boarded out at the Pilot station - fecking rope ladder up the side of a bulk crude tanker whilst the launch countered the swell.

I was a gibbering twat by the time I shivered myself over the side of the ship - it was dark too. Thankfully I was able to stay on board and get off the proper way at the jetty but apparently it was quite common to have to get back down to the launch and go back on that....Once the tanker was alongside I saw how pathetically small it was compared to the other two and decided I would give the job a swerve.

[LynehamHerc]

A very wise move by the sound of it.
I guess that it'd be relatively easy to end up as the meat paste in a ship/launch sandwich.

[brandersnatch]

Glad it’s not just me then.

[captain_70s]

You see, that's where it all starts to go wrong, because sense is far from common.

Indeed.

When the social distancing stuff first came in the advice was "don't be fucking stupid" and so many people were fucking stupid the very next weekend they had to being in threats of fines and police action.

Every European I've spoken to in the last few years has football hooligans, yobbo tourists and Big Brother contestants as their image of the UK populace. Great British public my arse.

[Nibblet]

I gave up the prospect of a great job once because of ladders.....Not the proppy-up type although they're bad enough. Ship's agent - working at the jetties at the oil refinery. I was already working for the company elsewhere but this gig came up and I fancied it so did some training on off days. All went well until we boarded out at the Pilot station - fecking rope ladder up the side of a bulk crude tanker whilst the launch countered the swell.

I was a gibbering twat by the time I shivered myself over the side of the ship - it was dark too. Thankfully I was able to stay on board and get off the proper way at the jetty but apparently it was quite common to have to get back down to the launch and go back on that....Once the tanker was alongside I saw how pathetically small it was compared to the other two and decided I would give the job a swerve.

Not a million miles away from what my grandfather did, except in a gale or on a ship that had munitions on it or an unexploded bomb. Going back further, his grandfather fell betwixt dock and ship and died a few hours later, age mid 30s I believe.
My father had no fear of heights, used to think it funny to hang us over the edge of Brighton pier (no his name was not Jackson). About 35 yrs ago he and I went up this church steeple; up to the bell tower it was all as expected but to go to the top of the steeple there were wooden, open tread staircases zig zagging up, which had come adrift from the steeple to varying degrees...

[mercrocker]

You see, that steeple story literally has the soles of my feet tingling.....I never even took the height test at work. Pointless, I have made a pact with my feet a long time ago to keep them on terrafirma. Flying is something I rarely do, maybe once every 5 years and I just prefer not to think about it for the few hours aloft. I loved the glider lessons I took, though....Odd.

[Drum]

Fred Dibnah's wooden ladders tied together with rope, going up those stacks is terrifying


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