| Description | 140 pp, typescript and illustrations.
Detailed account about work as a mason.
DOB: Unknown
DOD: Unknown
His father was a mason, and so he soon joined his father's trade.
Came to London for work while his family stayed back and lived in a little country village.
Had received encouraging reference from his headmaster when leaving school; "sure to do well in whatever Trade or Profession he enters".
Tom would tell tales of when he worked on Hever Castle, then he used to talk about his brothers, cousins and families, who would all be working together until the job finished.
Jokes about haircuttings.
Unknown if he got married or had children.
Journeyed up to London and became an apprentice to a mason, in a Battersea Stone Yard.
When a boy started at the trade, he usually came straight from school at th age of fourteen, and after he had settled in, he was expected to attend evening classes, where he learnt some of the technical side, of which goemetry and setting out was an important part.
Apprentices would learn how to make out, and work, tricky jobs such as tracery, curved mouldings, domes, and winding stairs, where great accuracy and forethoght were needed, and where each stone had to fit into a complicated pattern.
Shop meeting came round at regular intervals, when politics would be discussed.
No hot meals were available in the yards, there were cooking implements. But by that time they would've been too tired to eat, suffering from exhaustion. The usual practice was to go to the small shops near at hand, where you could buy half a loaf of home-baked bread, one ounce of butter, one pennyworth of mustard pickle and a piece of cheese.
Pay day was Saturday, at twelve o'clock, was the most important time of the week.
Having tea with his work mates
Playing little games amongst work mates.
War
Handwritten/Typed Written:
Type-Written - 38,000 |