Scaffolders

Above: scaffolders at work above a London street. Apologies for the poor image. Three reasons account for the blurred picture: it was a murky day; I didn’t want to distract the scaffolders and cause an incident; I didn’t want to be arrested by the police for using a camera in London.

Scaffolders are a sub-category of construction workers, and form a distinct classification of working class culture. The trade is of great antiquity, and manuscript drawings from the middle ages show scaffolders at work on cathedrals, castles and other public buildings (and probably Stonehenge itself was erected with the help of scaffolders). The skills employed have hardly changed – metal tubes (formerly wood) are put together in upright and horizontal formations, scaffolding boards laid down, layer after layer constructed until the desired height is achieved and the whole linked by ladders.

There are approximately twenty thousand working scaffolders in the United Kingdom. Salaries for scaffolders are between £12k and £24k – far too low for the heavy lifting and poor conditions (dirty, cold, often unsafe) they have to endure. I don’t wish to make a political point, but I cannot help thinking of Members of Parliament complaining ad nauseum about how hard they work, how hard their employed family members work (on the public payroll), how much they deserve to get in pay and expenses and golden goodbyes.

Scaffolders have to be physically very fit and have considerable stamina and powers of endurance (they have a Spartan disregard for extremes of temperature). Despite an ostensibly gruff “gertcha” indifference to others, they are very responsible in their work – a necessity since the safety of others depends upon their skill. Social culture revolves around a network of pubs located throughout greater London.