I’m guessing real, but no one will ever know, there are loads of old photos around where people are machining etc with no PPE, in reality hopefully they wore goggles at least?

Tony

We have had the HSE since 1975 because before then employers expected workers to do jobs like that.

I’ve sometimes wondered if the “clowns” actually make places potentially more dangerous by bringing safety into disrepute on the tar-brush principle.

The Cannings illustration was probably only for advertising, and the machinery is not moving – you can see the brush bristles. We don’t know though, what if any safety clothing the operators would have worn at the time.

Cannings was a major manufacturer of metal-finishing equipment.

My first encounter with the name was when working for a small, still-young decorative-plating company that no longer exists. Its two proprietors also ran a longer-established anodising firm in separate premises, and on my first visit I assumed the flint gravel on the floor under duckboards aiding access to the tanks, was to aid drainage. Naturally, as the staff clad in rubber aprons, gloves and wellies picked up each frame-full of work-pieces manually from each tank and sploshed it into the next, with fluid going everywhere.

The firm’s copy of what I was told was the “Platers’ Bible” soon taught me otherwise. Written and published by Cannings – the name picked out on every photograph of equipment – it explained anodising uses dilute sulphuric acid.

The shingle, all silica so insoluble, had been the aggregate in the factory’s concrete floor.

On 29 November 2023 at 15:44 Chris Crew Said:

I am now retired and pleased to be out of it all and away from these ‘clowns’ who seem to see the world as full of mentally retarded chimpanzees with a death wish instead of rational, intelligent human beings who make risk assessments every single second of their waking lives and would not knowingly expose themselves or others to un-necessary risk or danger. Accidents do happen and all the legislation or ridiculous petty restrictions are never going to prevent them from happening because that’s life whether we like it or not.

Problem is of course that everybody is a clown!  You can’t assume that the workforce or members of the public are always: ‘rational, intelligent human beings who make risk assessments every single second of their waking lives and would not knowingly expose themselves or others to un-necessary risk or danger.’

In the right circumstances everyone is stupid, worst of all the clowns who don’t realise their own limitations.

Before the 20th century it was unusual for employers to have any liability for what happened to their employees.  If an untrained ill-equipped man was killed at work by a fundamentally dangerous process, that was his problem.  The public got fed up with slack-alice employers when boiler explosions, railway accidents, mine subsidence, factory chimneys falling on houses, and pollution impinged on folk wealthy enough to go to law and influence parliament.

The law was gradually changed to make employers responsible for sins of commission and omission.  Very often done by forcing them to insure against accidents, so that victims got paid something for their trouble.  During the 20th century repeated scandals caused more legislation to be added: it being noted by inquiries and inquests that most ‘accidents’ were nothing of the sort – they were avoidable. A catalogue of unwise short-cuts, negligence, cost-cutting, assumptions, poor training, wrong equipment, and working when tired, ill or under the influence.   Plus stupidity, like coal miners killing themselves and all their mates by smuggling cigarettes into a gassy colliery for a smoke, electricians choosing to work on live equipment, refusing to wear PPE on ‘human rights’ grounds, pilots crashing at air displays due to showing off, and nuclear workers falsifying records so they can watch TV during the night shift.

The system was and remains imperfect.   It’s impossible to prevent all accidents, and many employers treat H&S as an ar$e covering exercise by sending unqualified office workers armed with a clip-board out to do ‘checks.’  These unfortunates tend to see stuff that doesn’t matter, whilst things that matter go unnoticed.

H&S done properly is quite easy:

1. Before work is done identify all the risks and their consequences
2. Decide what can be done to eliminate or reduce risks.   Risks can be tolerated, but all risks have to be thought about.
3. No assumptions, and the risk assessment has to be written down, and – ideally – reviewed by an expert.   Could be anything from half a page of A4 to several volumes, and it has to be kept up-to-date.
4. Whatever recommendations are made are implemented on the job: typically training, PPE, equipment, process steps and dos and don’ts.
5. Risks have a named owner, who is responsible for keeping them up-to-date, and making sure the people who do the job are following it.

What often happens is that a bunch of over-confident know-alls fake the paperwork and do their own thing. This is fine and dandy until something goes wrong.   For example, a new worker was killed by a bog-roll making machine, because no-one told him that an  improvised inspection hatch was an illegal bodge, only to be approached with extreme care whilst the machine was running.   Rules broken, no risk assessment, and an assumption that everyone on the shop-floor knew it dangerous.   New man joined the team, and no-one told him…

In the UK life changing injuries and fatalities cost millions.  Not like the good old days, where mangled workers got nothing and survivors sold matches on street corners.   Not quite so bad for victims now the NHS picks up the medical bills and employers pay compensation, but the pain and disruption are best avoided by taking sensible precautions.

Easy to disparage H&S when accidents cost you nothing.  People change their minds rapidly when they are made responsible for H&S.

Dave

The Health & Safety Executive does come in for considerable criticism but much of that is unfair.

The worst excesses of power-without-knowledge (or sense) are from local managers, council officers etc; and I suspect a lot of it is driven by those inveterate money-grubbers, the insurance companies and civil-claims lawyers.

These have opposite ways to achieve the same end: wealth!

The insurers try collect as much money as possible, while hoping no-one will want paying. So they jack up the premiums and physical requirements, especially to repay settlements made to the policy-holders; but even with unblemished records they cannot understand, or do not care, if their greed and other pressures they impose kill off the organisations and events.

The solicitors’ and barristers’ interest is the reverse. To them, others’ accidents (perhaps not fatal ones) or misfortunes are welcome, as those earn money, handsomely, from both sides; win or lose, logically or illogically, justly or unjustly.

.

And cases can be against any logic or justice.

A friend who manages a building company, and the firm itself, were fined after an accident involving two scaffolders. The accident was entirely the men’s own fault (corner-cutting), and the manager was on holiday abroad at the time.

Wasn’t there also a case in our own field, a few years ago, of some idiot dog owner being recompensed by the insurers for high veterinary bills to treat her pet, after it was badly injured by chasing a miniature-railway train and running headlong into a gradient post? The incident was entirely the woman’s fault. The railway was on public land, she had failed to consider dogs’ low IQ and high instincts. She had also wilfully ignored signs ordering dogs be kept leashed. I don’t know if the Council took legal action for her flouting a clear by-law; it might have thought she’d suffered and learnt enough.

https://youtu.be/sZXb5uqUolM If you want to see a real H&S nightmare, just check out this short video from the turn of the century. Its only a few minutes long (courtesy of the BFI). Particularly check out the level of PPE on the chap standing on the rickety step ladder while they poor the steel!

Mike

On 30 November 2023 at 15:07 Chris Crew Said:

“Easy to disparage H&S when accidents cost you nothing.  People change their minds rapidly when they are made responsible for H&S.”

I don’t think that I disparaged H&S, I recognise the importance of adopting safe practice in all things. The point I was trying to make was that methods that had been used for years with no problems arising were suddenly being hi-jacked by some H&S ‘jobsworths’ who thought they could earn brownie points by identifying risks that were so insignificant as to hardly register with any ‘normal’ person who would be conducting an ongoing risk assessment as the less than two-minute job of drilling two 10mm holes in a floor progressed. e.g. Don’t put your fingers in the place where you are going drill! (although I wouldn’t be surprised if some ‘clown’ hasn’t written this down already along with don’t drink the acid in this battery).

I noticed a report in the paper this morning that the Hogwarts Express, and I assume other heritage rail tours, are now under threat because Those Who Must be Obeyed have decided that the coaching stock must be equipped with central locking doors. Notwithstanding William Huskisson at Rainhill, the fact that trains ran for over 150 years without centrally locked coaching stock, and the number people who managed to deliberately step out of a moving train could probably be counted on the fingers of no hands, seems to have escaped them. Likewise when the train was in a station, the reason passengers looked for which side of the carriage the platform was located before opening the door was because they were not mentally retarded chimpanzees with a death wish, but normal rational human beings who made a risk assessment before alighting. I do hope the exemption from this ruling can be extended for all heritage rail tours and also not be applied to heritage railways in general, otherwise there are going to be a lot of disappointed enthusiasts.

 

1960’s vinyl tiles are full of asbestos, you can safely drill holes in them through a blob of made up wet wall paper paste

Based on the Hogwarts thing why is it that pre 65 ish cars have not had to have seat belts retro-fitted? The rail carriages were made to the safety specs current at the time just as the cars were.

Health and safety is essential  this is true. It is the inept officers that cause problems where there are’t any.I had a job fitting an internal manhole in a domestic kitchen,I had an apprentice working with me when a woman asked to speak to me regarding H&S I was bemused by the request as there wasn’t a problem .She insisted that we wore high vis jackets and hard hats and stick a H&S information sheet to the glass in the kitchen door.I tried hard not to be rude or abusive but it was a close call.Needless to say her request was ignored .

Frank

back to the original question. i too have this book. while the photo is most likely staged the working practice is real. for those with this book have a close look at the picture on the next page. sorry i have no idea how to put it on here.

They do at least have dust-extractors – though of engineering or lung cleanliness I would not like to say which BAC thought the more important. At the time, dusts might not have been thought as dangerous as we now know them.

No eye-protection though.

I have encountered an odd slant on the latter. An acquaintance working on railway civil-engineering maintenance saw the necessity for most of the Rules and Procedures, both for the obvious general hazards and the specifics such as for working at heights (one of his specialities). However, one day it was decreed that everyone must wear goggles on the works site all day long even when not engaged in, or close to, activities hazardous to the eyes. He said the rule was rescinded after staff started having eye problems caused by such long-term wearing of the eye-protection!

”’

Looking again at the photo, I reckon ‘Im standing centre-left will have to have words with ’em nearest us. It may not have done those machined components any harm, but I’d still have thought an aircraft builder a bit less sloppy when it comes to how and where people stack them…

On 4 December 2023 at 09:07 An Other Said:

Chris Crew’s comment about the locking doors on the Hogwarts Express reminded me of watching trains in Romania. Very hot summers day, and trains passing at speed, mostly composed of second-hand carriages from Austria or Germany, all with the doors wedged open and two or three people sitting/standing in the doorway for the benefit of the cooler air – what H&S?

As far as I can find out, no-one has ever fallen out, but then, who knows?

Whether or not it’s best to lock train doors has a long history.  In the beginning there were many accidents due to people getting in and out of trains at inopportune moments, William Huskisson being a famous example.  His death was followed by many others, and the Victorians eventually locked everyone in.  This proved unsatisfactory when trains crashed and caught fire due to oil-lamps, killing trapped passengers by burning them.  Eventually, after I think, a particularly nasty incident in France, the British introduced the system whereby doors could always be opened from the outside, and this could also be done by passengers inside dropping the window and reaching out to turn the handle.  I remember it well.

Still too many accidents!  People would open the door on the wrong side and fall heavily on the adjacent track, and were often run over by another train before rescue.   And folk frequently jumped from slow moving trains before they had stopped and crashed into stuff on the platform like baggage trolleys or bystanders.   Another common accident was persons waiting on the platform being struck by open doors, the edge of which travelling at walking pace inflicted life changing injuries or worse.

Modern trains usually have central locking because passengers can’t be trusted.  You and I might be OK, but all the others are idiots!  In the event of a fire, there is usually an emergency release plus hammers that can be used to break the windows.  This system works quite well.

Early US railways were infamous for killing and injuring passengers.  Collisions were common, and horrific injuries were caused when the flat beds of carriages rode up and slid over each other.  This resulted in excellent knuckle couplers.  However, even though carriages where less likely to telescope through each other, they were often heated by a pair of red-hot cast-iron stoves at each end that broke loose in an impact and flew through the carriage, mangling anyone who got in the way, and scattering burning coals throughout.   Doors didn’t matter much because folk were trapped in splintered wooden wreckage. Root cause, much bad-practice in railway management and working practice.   There’s a lot that can be done to stop trains colliding, but it takes effort.

Done properly, risk management is a self-improvement process.  It’s not about setting inviolable rules.   We’re expected to think before doing anything, and mitigate risks.  And if anything goes wrong, we learn from it and change the rules.   Hiding behind rules and regulations is as bad as not bothering with them in the first place.  H&S is all about managing risk so stuff gets done.  Worth knowing that most accidents are due to thoughtless incompetence.

Dave