Day three

I think I'm in more danger of industrial deafness in Matt's car than I am on the work site! Matt is a roughneck fitter who is staying at one of the pubs in town and who gives myself and another tradesman assistant, Mark, a ride out each day. Loud rock n roll does wonders first thing in the morning before hitting the site. 'Here's a little Sammy Hagar for ya mate', Matt yells over the din. 'Was he the dick head guy?' I ask. 'No mate, that was David Lee Roth. I f*cken love Van Halen'.

My workmates are great. There are some very rough men among them. All of them are larger than me and clearly used to the environment of working on the industrial site. Nudie magazines littler the crib shed and expletives are heard at constant intervals around the site. I'm taken back to my days working part-time in a butchery to fund my way through university. These guys are just as charming.

The crew is spooked early in the day when the alarm is raised about an accident on the site. A young boilermaker was using a powertool on one of the large components on the side of the machine when a bolt struck him in the head at super high speed, knocking him to the ground and stunning him. His helmet saved him. A few inches down and he have been dead in an instant. I imagined his hard-hard with an indent like a war-time solider with a bullet puncture in his head-gear. I chat to the guy in the crib shed later in the day before his wife comes to pick him up. He seems badly shaken up and I don't imagine he'll be back for a few days yet.

The incident makes me realise I've realy got to watch myself as i'm very new at this and prone to being a little unaware of my enironment.

Later in the day I learn some more about my new friend and guardian-angel of the work site, Rick. He's only 33 years old and already a father of five. It's a Saturday and he's missing out on seeing his oldest son play a soccer game. I dwelled on how we come from such different backgrounds. I often wonder what direction I may have take if I hadn't move to Canberra with my parents at age 13. I grew in Gladstone, an industrial town in Central Queensland. I may well have ended up doing this sort of work if I had stayed there. Rick even told me there's a job coming up back in Gladstone he said I could put me name down for...