Paul Robertson discusses his first job which included balancing on gangways to empty out baskets of balloons.

Paul discusses his first job: "Any excuse to throw balloons out they used to do it. I think it was just their, something they had a niche of doing”

Stevenage Museum

Transcript:

Paul: Even had to climb up into the roof. A part of my job was aswell was blowing up balloons for the parties that were there. There were two big, great big baskets hanging from the ceiling. I used to winch them down, fill them up, winch them back up and in the electrician’s box two lumps of rope that you literally pulled like merry hell on these two bits of rope which bounced the balloons out of the baskets and they cascaded over the sides. That always didn’t work, so you had to climb into the roof, walk along the gangways, of course Health and Safety wasn’t what it is today, some of the gangways had hand-rails and some of them didn’t and you had to make your way in the dark to the tops of these baskets and yank at them and pull the balloons out. That’s how I started.

Interviewer: So at what point did the balloons come down?

Paul: Ah well, there was always lots of, well in them days, the early 70s, 69/70, 71 there was always lots of corporate function dos there and then of course you had the Christmas dos, New Year with the balloons, but lots and lots of corporate functions so they would have Christmas parties, things like that so our job was every night was Christmas night. So balloons came down there all the time. And if there was, we done them Labour parties, I remember them for the Labour party itself, so at the end of the night, cascaded with balloons. Any excuse to throw balloons out they used to do it. I think it was just their, something they had a niche of doing

Robertson 2016

 

This page was added on 16/03/2016.

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