STEEPLEJACKS AT WORK.

Hokitika Guardian, 21 February 1920, Page 4

STEEPLEJACKS AT WORK.

(London Daily Mail)

After four years of enforced idleness steeplejacks are at work again all over the country.

Recently the steeplejacks finished adding 35 feet to the chimney of the paint works by the river. There were two men, and for some days I watched them building, one laying bricks and tlie other hauling them up a few at a time and handing along the mortar. They say that the craft runs in families, descending from father to son, and that steeplejacks, like gipsies, are a race apart.

The chimney was a square one, and round it was a plank one foot wide, about six inches away from the wall of .the stack; and on one side, where the frail thread of ladder that led to safety and earth came up, there was an extra plank and an upright cross-piece, to which hung the hoist-wheel. It might have steadied the man to have put an arm round this while he was pulling on tiie rope, but he never did so, and pulled as if he were on the ground. When tuey “loaded up” below he looked over, with hands on hips, and I could see the sky-line between hid back and the chimney wall, showing that he did not lean back for support. * * * * * But now came the exciting part. The job was done, and the scaffold that had stood between those two men and certain death for a week must come down and leave them still there. [ Surrounding the chimney was twelveinch planking, resting on similar planking on edge on two sides of the stack, and held by two long bolts to the chimney, strengthened by a downward stay at each corner nailed to the mortar. One man stuck his knees into the ladder rung and leaned far out over nothingness. A few blows and the pin came out, and the stay swung in the wind. The man then took the other pin out and lowered the stay to the ground. No. 1 then unconcernedly walked along the plank and lowered the other three stays. There now remained the two planks where the ladder went up. Standing on the ladder he roped and lowered these. Now for the plank alon>- Uie side, from which his mate had handed him bricks and on which he now stood for the last time. But how was he to get back to the ladder, since the front planks had both gone, leaving on the ladder side only one plank, on its side, three inches wide? Thus I wondered as he stooped and tied the rope on to the plank under him. But lie Twas still unmoved. Rising to an upright position, and not deigning to do more than lay his hand on the brickwork, he coolly stretched his arm round the corner and placed his foot on the three-inch surface. My prism glass showed an inch of his boot sole projecting. His mate was busy with another rope, and did not look up. Farther and farther the arm went round with no extra haste or care, till it touched the ladder. Then feet followed, there was a pull, and the plank slid down.

No. 2 now produced a hooked wrench and unscrewed the bolts holding the last two pieces. How were the farther ones to' be reached? At this moment 1 was startled to see his mate swing out like a spider on his web. A second swing and his leg caught the outer side of the stack and brought him up against the beam. He calmly fastened a rope to it, apparently in advance of his mate, still busy unscrewing the last link between them and space, for he stopped, leaned over the wooden piece with folded arms, and lighted a cigarette to wait. Then the bolts slipped, and the plank swung’free. No. 2 came slowly down on his cobweb thread with the planks slung underneath him!