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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1520274.jpg){kind=spacer} |
| Mosaic - Transport House, Belfast - 2009 |
But back in 1939, Albert T Palmer was wearing 'bib & brace' while welding.
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| 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:
I like the graphic ad in Belfast. Who knew overalls could be so artistic or inspire a song.
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.
And I guess some workplaces banned cameras anyway.But then we used to think we had to 'dress up' for a photo.
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?
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
My husband used to wear those orange coveralls when he worked for the Michigan Dept. of Transportation. The local prisoners also wore them. Strange.
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.
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.
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
That rig is HUGE!!!
As always, I enjoyed all of your pictures. That mosaic is really neat too.
Kathy M.
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!
Great post! What was your job in relation to the rig you were standing in front of?
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?
@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.
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?
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...
That mosaic is quite graphically stunning!
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
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