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Friday 7 December 2012

Overalls all over - Sepia Saturday

During my working days I wore overalls of various sorts and colours but not the bib and brace design depicted in Alan's prompt.


Bib and brace overalls were considered hazardous as there was a risk of protrusions getting caught on the shoulder straps. I was disappointed to find that I had no shots of me in green or orange overalls that fitted my form. In fact in the only shot I have of me I am not wearing overalls at all.

Statfjord B Topsides ready to sail away from Rosenberg Verft
You can see that the photographer had not focussed on me on 28 March1981 when the Statfjord B deck left Stavanger to be mated with the Gravity Base Stucture (GBS) legs.

I do have a shot of work going on showing a number of men in overalls watching a deck being lowered inside a leg of the GBS during construction and outfitting.

Statfjord B GBS - equipment deck being lowered. 
To give you some idea of scale, the inside diameter of the leg at this point was 23metres. The eventual height of each of the four legs was 175 metres. As a leg narrowed and became a conical shape higher up, decks had to be lowered in halves and  lifted over 100 metres before lowering could begin,

Had overalls not been free issue perhaps I would have had to visit a place like this.

Old Advertising Sign - York Rise, Bellgate Mews, NW5
If you strain your eyes a bit you will find it reads, I think: K&M Larn, Fancy Works, Overalls, Blouses etc.

I would be unlucky now if I visited a Coventry purveyor of overalls, footwear for working and walking.

Lynes Stores, Well Street, Coventry - 2009
Lynes Stores are a bit overshadowed by that huge office block. Lynes and the other building in the foreground have been demolished.

I even found a building in Belfast showing off blue overalls.

Mosaic - Transport House, Belfast - 2009
But back in 1939, Albert T Palmer was wearing 'bib & brace' while welding.

Welder making boilers for a ship
Combustion Engineering Co., Chattanooga, Tennessee

Now I've retired I guess it's time I burnt all my overalls just like Tara Oram



And for you go over to see all the others at sepia-saturday-155

Attributions
  • Old Advertising Sign - by Mike Quinn: CC BY-SA 2.0; ex geograph.org.uk; Geograph Project
  • Lynes Stores - by E Gammie: CC BY-SA 2.0; ex geograph.org.uk; Geograph Project
  • Transport House, Belfast - by Mike Quinn: CC BY-SA 2.0; ex geograph.org.uk; Geograph Project
  • Welder - Library of Congress

18 comments:

Wendy said...

I like the graphic ad in Belfast. Who knew overalls could be so artistic or inspire a song.

Lavender and Vanilla Friends of the Gardens said...

Bob, I can see you are wearing a safety helmet and at work are many
"orange" people. this must have been a huge project in the 80is. Interesting how the work clothing has changed. Salopettes as we called them I always identified with the american farmer. Australian farmers have not worn this sort of trousers with a bib. Overalls were, and are mainly worn by car mechanics.

Boobook said...

And I guess some workplaces banned cameras anyway.But then we used to think we had to 'dress up' for a photo.

Kat Mortensen said...

I love the way items used to be advertised on the sides of buildings. You don't see that anymore, do you?

Stavanger? Were you in Norway?

North County Film Club said...

You've found some excellent examples of side-of-building murals. But by far the best is the mosaic one in Belfast. What a difference between that one and this week's prompt!
Times sure do change.
Nancy

Kristin said...

My husband used to wear those orange coveralls when he worked for the Michigan Dept. of Transportation. The local prisoners also wore them. Strange.

Alan Burnett said...

I look forward to your collections each week Bob. It is always difficult to pick a favourite image out from one of your collections, but the one of Transport House in Belfast illustrates a stunning piece of art.

Bob Scotney said...

Kat - I worked in Stavanger for almost 10 years travelling home for a long weekend every 3 weeks or so. I travelled a lot on business in Norway and in Europe during that time.

Peter said...

I'll come back to read your post later but I want you to know that your blog has been mentioned in today's Ephemera World http://paper.li/gen_freak/1330099731?utm_source=subscription&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=paper_sub

Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy said...

That rig is HUGE!!!

As always, I enjoyed all of your pictures. That mosaic is really neat too.

Kathy M.

Nancy said...

Bob, this is just a brief comment on the size of the equipment you worked on/with. It positively dwarfs the men standing there. Amazing!

Jana Iverson Last said...

Great post! What was your job in relation to the rig you were standing in front of?

Mike Brubaker said...

You've got it all covered, Bob. Were the construction overalls color-coordinated like those worn by the minions of super-villains? Blue for computer geeks, yellow for grease monkeys, and red for expendables that James Bond takes out?

Bob Scotney said...

@Peter - Thanks for the Ephemera link; I wouldn't have seen it otherwise.

@Jana - Quality Assurance during the engineering and construction stages for the deck and GBS; compliation of the final documentation dossiers.

@Mike - like your thinking but the answer is much more mundane; different colours worn by different contractors probably.

Unknown said...

You can still find some of those old advertisements on the sides of buildings here in Maine. I guess they stopped doing that when they first designed billboards, right?

Peter said...

Since I was in air transport the oil industry was one of our favorites. Many a time big shipments and many charters. So I also visited Stavanger doing a market research there. So, next to The Hague, this is already the 2nd city where I might have met you, Bob.
On the old advertising sign I also see a mention of corsets. I don´t want to influence Alan (nor Kat) but maybe this is something for a future SS-theme...

Tattered and Lost said...

That mosaic is quite graphically stunning!

Bruno Laliberté said...

Fun journey this was, and judging by the comments, I see I am not the only one pleasantly surprised by that building in Belfast and its mosaic.

I support Peter's motion for female apparel, and boy!! would I have quite the number for you folks. I've had it on standby for a while now...
;)~
HUGZ